Wednesday, June 19th, 2013
How About Some “Speed” Relationship-Building?
Annually, at the Association For Accounting Administration National MAP Conference, just before the opening reception with the vendors, they host a speed-networking session (immediately following the First Timers’ Session.
The session is open to anyone attending the conference and the members of the Board of Directors and more experienced participants take part, as well as, newer, less experienced people.
Here’s how it works:
One side of the table (in this case a very long table) sits permanently while the other side, after 5 minutes, moves to the next seat. They talk about “whatever” for five minutes and then the moderator shuts them down and has them move on.
Yesterday, I just observed and took these pictures. What is amazing is that people who don’t know each other simply can’t stop talking. It is difficult to get them to shut-up and move on because they are enjoying the conversations so much. As they continue, it seems they get louder and louder and it creates quite a buzz and a good time was had by all.
This morning I was thinking, why not try this inside your CPA firm? How well do your partners and managers really know ALL of the people working at the firm. Nothing is off-limits, the point is to talk about personal interests, what they are reading, what apps they use and on and on.
At first, people say…. oh, I don’t want to get involved in that sort of speed-networking thing…. once they try it, they love it.
Give it a try. Help your people get to know each other better. When people know each other better, they begin to trust each other more. It’s a start.
- "Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level."
Tuesday, June 18th, 2013
Four Steps To Obtain Client Referrals
One of the best ways for CPAs to obtain prospective clients is to have current clients recommend them.
Often, clients don’t think to do it and at times it seems rather awkward to bluntly ask them to refer you to others.
Here are four steps to take towards getting new leads.
- Identify your biggest segment (niche) of clients. It might be auto dealers, medical practices, dentists, excavating companies…. whatever.
- Solicit ideas from your partners and employees who serve this niche about the biggest issues and/or challenges the business owner faces in successfully growing or managing their business.
- Develop a brief, maybe 45-minute, webinar presentation that helps them solve their “big” issue.
- Invite them to the webinar and be sure to encourage them to forward the invitation to other business owners who may also be facing this issue.
When non-clients register, you have leads. If nothing else, you have a broader exposure to business owners in that niche.
Always keep in mind my favorite Tom Peters‘ phrase:
W T T M S W
Whoever Tries The Most Stuff Wins.
- "We have a strategic plan. It's called "doing things.""
Monday, June 17th, 2013
Invest In Success
This week the Association for Accounting Administration will host it’s annual National Practice Management Conference at the beautiful GM Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan.
If you are a CPA firm managing partner, you probably have a right-hand person who supervises the day-to-day business activities of your firm.
Perhaps YOU, the person reading this blog post are fulfilling that role inside a busy CPA firm.
If you are the managing partner think about the benefits you receive from your state CPA society and the benefits you receive from your memberships in the AICPA. If you are actually taking advantage of all the resources, the benefit list is probably quite extensive. To put it in a few words…. you keep current in order to offer the best possible services to your clients and you meet people (just like you) that offer support, ideas and motivation.
That is exactly what CPA firm administrators get from the Association For Accounting Administration. HR people belong, technology people belong, marketing people belong and managing partners belong. Why? Because of the benefits (keeping current and meeting others who act as resources).
I first attended the national conference in the mid-80s and have not missed a single national conference since simply because it is a phenomenal learning experience.
For example, this year you can hear bestselling author, Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie.
You will be able to learn from many of the best CPA practice management thought leaders in the areas of marketing, social media, human resources, lean principles, M&A, public speaking, change management and succession.
- Roman Kepczyk
- Randy Johnston
- Michelle Golden
- Guy Gage
- Dev Warren
- Sandra Wiley
- Dustin Hostetler
- Jennifer Wilson
- Peter Margaritis
- Joseph Tarasco
- Bill Reeb
- And yes…. Rita Keller. I will be providing a keynote on Friday morning on a critical topic for CPAs – succession planning.
Why do I tell you all this when the pre-conference sessions begin today and the main conference on Wednesday? So that if you are not attending this year, you can begin to plan for next year.
I have probably attended more practice management conferences than almost anyone working in the profession today. When I speak at practice management events, meetings and conferences – unlike most consultants who fly-in, speak, fly-out, I actually attend as many sessions as possible. The AAA National Practice Management Conference is absolutely the best Practice Management focused public accounting conferences there is.
Firm administrators – If your firm is blind to the value of investing in your success – YOU should invest in yourself. Bargain with the partners if you must, negotiate, pay part of the expenses yourself. You need to invest in your own success.
Watch for my tweets this week from the conference - @cpamanagement.
- "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do."
Saturday, June 15th, 2013
Lighten-Up, It’s The Weekend. Maybe CPAs Should Slow Jam Their Message.
The weekend, a time for something off-topic, humorous or even weird for the CPA Profession.
This video made news this week. Of course, my first thought was how could an accountant Slow Jam their message to clients and future clients.
Or maybe, the partners could slow jam a message to their team, something about how important they are to the firm and how the leaders want to provide a culture where they can build, enhance and rock their career in public accounting.
Lighten-up, it’s the weekend. Watch Jimmy Fallon and Governor Chris Christie slow jam the news.
- "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive."
Thursday, June 13th, 2013
AICPA PCPS 2013 Top Issues Survey
On Tuesday, the AICPA released the results of the 2013 CPA Firm Top Issues Survey.
I like the way they break it down by firm size:
- Sole practitioners
- Firms with 2-5 professionals
- Firms with 6-10 professionals
- Firms with 11-20 professionals
- Firms with 21 or more professionals
However, I actually don’t like the way they word it…. I believe everyone working inside a CPA firm is a professional. It is a professional services organization, so the firm administrator, marketing director, HR direction, technology team and admin team are all professionals to me.
I was not surprised to see that the competition for top talent is heating up again.
One surprising issue to me – at the top spot for large firms is Partner Unity & Accountability. I’m glad to see that firms are admitting it and hopefully dealing with it.
Sole Practitioners:
- Keeping up with changes and complexity of the tax laws
- Bringing in new clients
- Seasonality/workload compression
- Retention of current clients
- Cost and complexity of new federal and sate regulations
Firms with 2-5 Professionals:
- Keeping up with changes and complexity of the tax laws
- Succession planning
- Finding qualified staff (all levels)
- Bringing in new clients
- Seasonality/workload compression
Firms with 6-10 Professionals:
- Succession planning
- Finding qualified staff (all levels)
- Bringing in new clients
- Retaining qualified staff (all levels)
- Owner/partner accountability and unity
Firms with 11-20 Professionals:
- Bringing in new clients
- Finding qualified staff (all levels)
- Succession planning
- Retaining qualified staff (all levels)
- Retention of current clients.
Firms with more than 20 Professionals:
- Owner/partner accountability and unity
- Bringing in new clients
- Retaining qualified staff (all levels)
- Succession planning
- Finding qualified staff (all levels)
If you want to see a comparison of the 2013 findings with the 2011 findings (the last time the survey was conducted), you can find it here.
- "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."
Wednesday, June 12th, 2013
Thanks To Jim Metzler
Sitting in the Vegas airport, heading home this morning from the AICPA PractitionersTECH+ (plus AAM) Conference.
From all of the people I talked with, I think I can say “A good time was had by all.”
I have several pictures to add to my “Is that you with Rita?” Flickr page . Watch for those later this week.
Touching evening last night when the PCPS members showed their appreciation to Jim Metzler for all he has done for the profession. Metzler is retiring at the end of the year after 10 years with the AICPA and many years as a practitioner. Mark Koziel led us all in “We did it Jim’s Way.”
Best wishes, Jim. I know there will be new adventures ahead.
- "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."
Tuesday, June 11th, 2013
Sunday Was An HSD For Me
A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to hear Ron Baker speak on Pricing On Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value. It was thought-provoking, interesting and simply put, logical.
Baker taught me about High Satisfaction Days. HSDs are the days when something happens that makes you swell with a sense of accomplishment and think Life Is Good.
I am a big fan of Tom Peters and have been for years. What’s sad to me is that so many people I interact with now (much younger than me) have no clue who he is. Baby Boomers – you definitely know who he is. Years ago he co-authored In Search of Excellence – - often tagged as the best business book ever written. His blog is #9 among “The Top 150 Management and Leadership Blogs.
I often use quotes from Peters in my presentations and I always urge my clients and friends to follow his blog and read The Little Big Things, his most recent book.
So…. the point of this rambling – the thing that made me have an HSD….. on Sunday Tom Peters replied to one of my tweets. I’ve been pretty much on a high ever since. I captured a picture with my iPhone, of course. Are you working to create more HSDs inside your accounting firm?
- "Tom Peters is the most provocative and engaging (as well as annoying and threatening) management guru running loose in America today."
Monday, June 10th, 2013
Implement Like Hell
At the AICPA PSTech and AAM conferences, here in Las Vegas, I see hundreds of CPAs, technology masters and marketing professionals taking it all in. The offerings are amazingly extensive. There are speakers galore and the ideas shared by the participants themselves are eye-opening and enlightening.
In reality, as I work with all of these types of professionals inside accounting firms, the major problem is not that they don’t know what to do. And, during my presentations I certainly don’t divulge anything in the rocket science category. I simply strive to remind them of what they already know. Their major problem is implementation.
Jack Welch says it so well:
“In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. Pick a general direction and implement like hell.”
- "Any fool can know. The point is to understand."
Saturday, June 8th, 2013
Lighten-Up, It’s The Weekend – What’s Behind The Green Door?
Nothing helps lighten me up better than music. I love music of all types (classical to blue grass) and from different eras. I’m fairly familiar with songs from the decades you can hear on satellite radio. My parents loved the 40s music, my brother bought almost every 45 debuted in the 50s. I am a baby boomer so the 60s are especially familiar to me.
My friend, Jennifer Wilson of Convergence Coaching, had a great post on the CPA Insider site titled, A dozen public accounting ideas that don’t work anymore. It’s a great article and I’ll touch on that more in one of my posts next week.
With her ending paragraph she quotes Helen Keller, “When one door closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Wilson asks the question, “Are you and your firm’s leaders so busy looking at the old door that’s closing that you’re allowing your competitors to slip through the new door ahead of you?
This made me think of a 50s song that my brother used to play – Green Door.
Lyrics:
Midnight one more night without sleepin’ – watchin’ til the morning comes creepin’ – green door what’s that secret you’re keepin’?
There’s an old piano and they play it hot behind the green door. Don’t know what they’re doin’ but they laugh a lot behind the green door. Wish they’d let me in so I could find out what’s behind the green door.
Knocked once, tried to tell ‘em I’ve been there. Door slammed, hospitality’s thin there. Wonder just what’s goin’ on in there.
Will that NEW door that Wilson references turn into a Green Door for your firm? Will you be shut-out of all the interesting, fun, progressive, enlightening things the cool firms are doing behind the Green Door?
- "Where's your will to be weird?"
Friday, June 7th, 2013
Another Important Issue – Safety
If you are managing a CPA firm, you now have another issue that demands your attention: How do we deal with safety in the workplace?
In years gone by, we thought of workplace safety as something for industrial complexes and for those workers involved in manufacturing a product. Of course we thought it also applied to dangerous roles like policemen and firemen.
Studies now tell us that safety is an issue when parents select a high school for their student. It out ranks quality of education.
I remember well my first incident of workplace safety in an accounting firm. It was September 11, 2001. Some employees took it in stride, of course with interest and concern. However, some of our employees were visibly more upset and we offered the option for them to go home immediately.
Since then, in the CPA profession, we have actually had a case of a disgruntled former employee walking into a firm and shooting people, killing them.
Yes, it is a changing world.
This new frontier demands an executive response aimed at making our employees feel secure. There is a good article on the HBR blog network, Leading People in an Anxious World, recommends:
- Recognize that we have widely different thresholds beyond which we begin to feel unsafe.
- Try to design policies so that employees feel empowered to make some decisions themselves.
- Analyze situations carefully in terms of potential costs, liabilities and benefits.
- Most importantly, we must understand that this is a different world where we constantly face challenges related to safety.
Real the full article here.
- "In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed."
Is That You With Rita?
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