Get the Most Out of Your Client Meeting

woman listening to man across deskBONUS: A case study of what NOT to do.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” Ayn Rand

The reality is that the robots and AI are here, and they will eventually take over much if not all of the day-to-day work that is typically done by a human interacting with a computer. You may not like it, but you cannot avoid it. So utilize robots to make your life easier.

MORE: Why BOS Calls for Flat Rates | Four Steps for Controlling Source Documents | How to Use OneNote to Create a Firm Playbook | How to Develop Procedures for BOS | Top Tech Tools for Building Your New BOS Business | Choose Your Little Black Dress of Technology
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Prepare for Your Meeting

Do your homework before going out to the client’s office. If this is an existing client where you have been doing standard compliance work, review the data in their accounting program and make sure you are working with up-to-date information. If this is a new back office support prospect, ask to review their accounting data before going out to their offices. If they are not open to this, it may require an extra visit. The steps below assume you have either worked on the client’s accounting in some capacity, or you have had the opportunity to review the accounting files.
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Heather Smith: Try Not Growing Your Business

Heather Smith: We are the oxygen for the businesses around us.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Heather Smith has loved accounting since she was 14 and loves the flexibility the profession offers. Since the mid-2000s she has been one of the original cloud accounting nomads, with an accounting business that she says fits in a lovely Italian handbag.

MORE: Randy Crabtree: Follow These Three Rules to Keep Employees HappyErik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a MindshiftJennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone LovesMike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training PracticesHector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be FreePrivate Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go  | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt WilkinsonWhen Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey SchmidtCan Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves?Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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In 2022, the ANISE Consulting founder based in Brisbane, Australia, demonstrated that nomadic lifestyle by attending all three live Xerocon events: London, New Orleans and Sydney. Heather is a tireless advocate for her small business clients and a fan of technology to improve our lives, including staffing. READ MORE →

Public Accounting as a Business, 101

Two men at whiteboardKnow your profession.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

“Engaging your employees – involving them in the business – can drive revenue growth. An educated workforce can also make better decisions, work more efficiently and seize opportunities faster. Teaching your employees to be smart businesspeople can be a big investment, but it’s one that can have a significant return.” – Keith Lamb, Inc. magazine

MORE: Nuts and Bolts of Mentoring Staff | It Shouldn’t Take So Long to Make Partner | Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners
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Personnel in any organization, from widget manufacturers to hospitals to baseball teams to charities, work with more enthusiasm and commitment when they genuinely feel part of the organization. When people understand how they fit into the overall scheme and what their role is and grasp the essentials of how the organization operates, they produce higher quality work and are more energized. CPA firms are no exception to this rule.
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Why BOS Calls for Flat Rates

Timesheets are used, but for tracking productivity.

By Penny Breslin
It’s Not Just the Numbers

Let’s get to the big questions that confound professional service providers of all types in today’s tech environment:

  • How do I charge my client for these services?
  • How do I continue to get paid?
  • How do I charge hourly for processes that will be taking less and less time because of the application of technology?

MORE: Four Steps for Controlling Source Documents | Why You Need Standard Naming Conventions | How to Develop Internal Procedures | Workflow Tools Can Deepen Client Relationships | Going Viral: Today’s Top Marketing Strategies | Which Kind of Team Do You Have? | Meet the New BOS | Why AI Is Not the Enemy
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Fixed Pricing

Flat-rate billing is the logical choice for back office support (BOS) services. This fixed pricing is typically used for monthly recurring work. We can do this by knowing how long it takes to create any given transaction. There will be swings in time, but the idea is that the fixed monthly rate considers the busiest season or months for the business. That way, on less heavy months, you receive the same rate and it makes up for the times when the workload increases.
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16 Steps to Creating a Partnership Path

BONUSES: 12 questions to ask staff about the future. Advancing from staff to senior to manager.

By Marc Rosenberg
How to Bring in New Partners

“I think nothing is more important than what a firm does to create partners. I mean from Day 1 of someone’s career. Or maybe when a person is identified as a star. It’s critical what the firm does to nurture that person so that they become a partner someday.” – Harry Steindler, partner, MichaelSilver (Chicago)

MORE: Nine Ways to Measure Staff Performance on the Path to Partner | Three Types of Skills You Need to Become a Partner | Seventeen Basic Expectations of Partners | Nine Ways to Woo a Prospective Partner
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Here is what the best firms do to create a path to partnership. These practices are not ranked strictly, but items at the top of the list are more common and effective than those toward the bottom. However, all the items are important.
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How Do You Value Your Most Important Asset?

Yes, your employees.

By Steven E. Sacks
The NEW Fundamentals

Skills, abilities and experience are the elements recruiters use to assess candidates who come before them. But what is interesting is despite a skill set playing  a dominant role in the value that an employee brings to the organization, it may not be recognized as such. This is not a new concept. I came across research conducted in 1918 by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center.

MORE STEVE SACKS: How to Build a Winning Proposal | Six Ways to Fix Your Firm Agreement | The Great Resignation or a Reshuffling? | Listen to Learn | Build the Framework to a Solution with Five Answers | Try for Success, Not a Win
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The study discovered that almost 95% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills (better referred to as life skills ) and people skills, while  only 5% of job success comes from technical skills and knowledge — hard skills.

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Aynsley Damery: Adding Value Is the Only Way to Stay in Business

Rethink the 80:20 rule, because the 80% are likely stealing from you.

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Aynsley Damery wants accountants to think more deeply about their work. The CEO for Clarity said we need to think about what clients want and deliver it to them, but as simple as that sounds, the problem is he doesn’t “think many accountants truly understand what their clients are looking for.” Clients who have started their own businesses are looking for a combination of “money, time and freedom.” However, Damery said, we’re selling them dashboards, KPIs and cash flow forecasting without explaining why that’s important and what that’s going to do for them. “Clients are looking for an advisor who’s going to listen to me, understand my hopes, my fears, my vision, what the challenges are, and be able to be there to support me,” Damery said.

MORE: Erik Solbakken: Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More | Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a MindshiftJennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone LovesMike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training PracticesHector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be FreePrivate Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go  | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt WilkinsonWhen Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey SchmidtCan Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves?Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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“Our clients don’t understand numbers, yet we give them plans with the numbers, and … it doesn’t help,” he said. Instead, Damery said CPAs need to help them understand what they need to do “to make a difference and move their business forward. And that’s not about giving them the answers. That’s about asking the right questions.”

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Yes, You Can Work Less and Make More

Erik Solbakken: Build the firm of your dreams.

 

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), and Boomplay (Africa).

 

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr for CPA Trendlines

Q: Why did the accountant cross the road?

A: Because they did it last year.

Erik Solbakken, a.k.a. “The Heavy Metal CPA,” is on a mission to free accountants from an oppressive business model. Solbakken spent 18 years working his way up to be a partner in a firm in Canada, but when the partnership fell apart, he was liberated to create a new kind of firm, where he and his staff never worked overtime and he made more money. Today, he acts as the guide he wishes he’d had when he started out, empowering accountants to create firms they love working in.

MORE: Donny Shimamoto: Future Firm Growth Requires a MindshiftJennifer Wilson: Empower Young Workers to Build the Firm Everyone LovesMike Whitmire: Re-Think Your Hiring and Training PracticesHector Garcia: Success Strategies of a Quickbooks YouTube Superstar | Blake Oliver: Why Tax Work Yearns To Be FreePrivate Equity Explodes in U.K. | Brannon Poe: The Status Quo Must Go  | Accounting Nerds, Unlock Your Super Powers  | Disruptor: Jason Statts Shakes Up the Status Quo | Think Small to Think Big with Matt WilkinsonWhen Financial Statements Go Extinct with Corey SchmidtCan Geraldine Carter Save Accountants from Themselves?Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

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How do you get away from the commoditization trap? Simple, deliver to the client the transformation that they want for themselves.

Solbakken said the profession has brainwashed us into believing three lies:

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