Rita Keller, an award-winning and widely respected voice to CPA firm management, is uniquely positioned to help CPAs and their teams face rapid and significant change.
“I do not like to repeat successes, I like to go on to other things.” – Walt Disney
Interesting post by Bill Carlino of Transition Advisors last week about the value of the numerous conferences that are held each year targeted to those work in or with the CPA profession.
Already, and it is just mid-May, I have observed (via Twitter) numerous conferences and meetings focused on educating CPAs on many of the same, recurring topics I have listened to for years and years. In addition to the re-run experience, it is very expensive to attend these conferences. While CPA firm administrators, new to the profession, obtain huge educational value from their national practice management conference, many partners refuse to spend the money to send them.
“A difference of opinion is what makes horse racing and missionaries.” – Will Rogers
The Kentucky Derby is tomorrow. I love Churchill Downs. I have taken the behind the scenes tour with friends (the museum is awesome). I was also there during a CPAFMA conference event when a tornado hit. Roman Kepczyk and I saw it take the roof off a horse barn and then we headed for shelter! So exciting!
What would your name be if you were a racing horse?
Cheers to my friends in Louisville! Have a wonderful weekend.
Here’s my racing horse name – I kind of like Grande Rose!
You try to do the best with what you've got and ignore everything else. That's why horses get blinders in horse racing: You look at the horse next to you, and you lose a step.
I write about implementation often, it is one of my favorite, and sometimes frustrating, topics.
Summer conference season is upon us. You (a CPA firm leader), will go to a conference to gather new ideas and learn about current trends in the CPA profession. While at the conference, you begin to actually get excited about some of the ideas and begin to visualize how the ideas could work in your firm.
You gather more ideas, make numerous notes, meet some very interesting people and begin to really get a sense of renewal, optimism, and think: “We can do this at our firm!”
What happens when you return to your office? Many leaders immediately get BUSY with the day-to-day fire-fighting and soon the notes you took and the excitement you felt begin to fade. You think to yourself, “I’ll bring it up at our next partner/management meeting.”
Don’t allow yourself to become demotivated. Try some of these practical steps….. Wait! Don’t “try.” DO THESE THINGS:
Summarize your notes, identify the best and most critical ideas that your firm could use.
Meet with the key management leaders and explain the ideas verbally to them.
Send the summary to every parter and other internal management leaders and specifically ask them to read the summary. Let them know you will be talking to them individually about the points.
Give them one week and then begin making brief visits to each partner.
Share your excitement and stress the points that you believe are critical to the firm.
After this is done, ask that the points be put on the next partner meeting agenda and push for at least one or two to be approved.
Make an Action Plan (specific steps) that needs to happen and assign the steps to specific individuals.
Then take action! You can’t do it alone, enlist others to help you.
Have you got a problem? Do what you can where you are with what you've got.
You all have it but you might not love it. Yes, I am talking about professional liability insurance.
Many of you (my readers) are members of the CPA Firm Management Association and have met Stephen Vono of NAPLIA. He is the sponsor of the special night out event at the FMA annual National Practice Management Conference. Stephen was responsible for making applying for professional liability insurance easy for me and many others in the CPA profession.
Here’s some great information from Stephen and NAPLIA that was sent to the attendees of the conference in June this year. I think you can all benefit from this information.
NAPLIA’s Cyber and Data Security ebook was a popular takeaway from the conference. If you missed it, you can download a copy here or please send me a note and I’ll be glad to mail you a hard copy. It is intended to give you guidance when preparing to safeguard your firm against the exposure to loss of client information. I hope you find it useful.
I am sending out resources in response to the many questions I received on insurance programs that NAPLIA provides.
A Mobile Device Usage policy can help your firm manage and mitigate exposure to client data loss. In response to Matthew Harvey’s mention of a Mobile Device Usage Policy in his presentation“Minding the Candy Store”last Thursday, I am providing a sample of such a policy here
In keeping with the information security and cyber liability theme, I am offering other cyber liability risk management policies and best practices. Samples for your firm to use can be found below.
In addition, many questions were asked about Information Security and Cyber Liability Insurance. Please take a look at our website for additional information or call me at 508-656-1330 to get the conversation started on the important topic of minimizing your firm’s exposure to litigation around client information loss.
Please consider NAPLIA for your firm’s professional liability insurance and risk management needs!
How do you become a digital CPA? It would take a while to explain all the facets. You and your firm need to get there because there is so much opportunity with client accounting services.
Watch and listen to this short video about one firm’s journey and how they learned by attending the AICPA DigitalCPA conference.
I'm not trying to be new school and I'm not old school - I'm classic. There's a lot of new cars and there's a lot of old cars, but I'm just classic in doing what I do.
“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
Over the years, I have spoken to so many groups of CPAs and groups of people who work for them.
I have to admit that I am disappointed that so many people always want to sit in the back of the room. Is it because they want an easy escape route in case I am overly boring? Is it because they actually want a place to sit and surf on their mobile device? Is it because they know it all already?
Actually, I think it is one of those weird human nature things. Just like going to church, the back pews always fill-up before the front pews.
I urge my session attendees to always set up front when they are attending CPE sessions or other learning opportunity sessions. I have actually observed some of them taking my advice the next time they are in one of my sessions.
Why sit up front? I have always done this because I want to observe the speaker up close. I want to hear every word. I want to contemplate their body language. I want to have them look me in the eye. Afterwards, I always would introduce myself to the speaker, maybe ask a question and always thank them for sharing their thoughts.
Why do I do this? Because they will remember me. And maybe if I have a question when I return to the office, they will answer my email. Maybe the next time they see me they will remember my name and face. Maybe they will enjoy having a one-off conversation with me and just maybe they will ask my opinion on some topic.
Want to be known as an expert? Hang out and get to know other experts.
Build your personal brand, one opportunity at a time. Sit in the front.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Here’s a press release about next June’s ENGAGE conference. It is the familiar PractitionersTECH+ with much, much more. It should be a high priority for you to continually expand your knowledge. Here’s a great opportunity. Hope to see you there! Bring staff members with you.
AICPA ENGAGE to Feature Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary and Google Executive Abigail Posner
All-in-One Event in June 2017 is Designed for CPAs, Tax and Financial Planners, Attorneys, Marketers and Audit and Advisory Professionals
NEW YORK (Oct. 3, 2016) – With six conferences rolled into one, AICPA ENGAGE is a singular event for CPAs, financial planners, advisory professionals and the marketers who support them. Its programming is unique, too, with specialized keynotes and session panels for each conference and thought-provoking, high-level presentations from speakers designed to appeal to all attendees.
Kevin O’Leary, a pull-no-punches judge on ABC’s Shark Tank and the entrepreneur behind educational software firm The Learning Company and other high-growth businesses, who will discuss lessons learned in his career
Abigail Posner, head of strategic planning at Google’s think tank, the ZOO, who will talk about how to unleash our innate creativity in business for greater productivity and growth
“AICPA ENGAGE’s size and depth gives attendees incredible flexibility in creating the learning experience they want,” said Clar Rosso, the AICPA’s vice president of member learning and competency. “Whether it’s technical expertise, practice management tips, out-of-the-box leadership advice or unmatched networking opportunities, the event offers something for everyone in public accounting, tax or financial advisory services.”
The six conferences that constitute AICPA ENGAGE are the Advanced Estate Planning Conference, Advanced Personal Financial Planning Conference, National Advanced Accounting and Auditing Technical Symposium, Practitioners Symposium and Tech+ Conference, Tax Strategies for the High-Income Individual, and the Association for Accounting Marketing Annual Summit. Additional keynotes for each individual conference, as well as the full conference agenda, will be announced next month.
“The Association for Accounting Marketing is pleased to be part of AICPA ENGAGE as it gives our members access to sessions beyond our marketing and business development offerings, as well as introducing CPAs to what our association has to offer,” said Lauren Clemmer, executive director of the association. “Members appreciate the ability to attend a conference with other members of their firm, and ENGAGE has expanded that opportunity even further with the addition of the other conferences.”
AICPA ENGAGE will feature an expanded exhibit hall with hundreds of vendors, a separate, CPE-eligible track of sessions covering AICPA initiatives, and a state-of-the-art, on-site registration and CPE-tracking system.
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
I had the pleasure of meeting so many talented firm administrators, human resource professionals, and partners when I spoke at the June CPAFMA National Practice Management Conference in Baltimore.
What I most enjoy about these gatherings of “professionals managing accounting firms,” is the positive comments I hear about what the attendees would like to achieve when they return to their own CPA firm. I always advise not to try to accomplish too much right away. Just select one or two ideas and get busy implementing. Inside most firms, I find that if people try to implement several ideas, few if any of those worthwhile ideas actually get accomplished.
Here’s a great message from Jim Fahey, Past-Chair of CPAFMA about keeping the momentum going after you have returned to your office.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
You all have it but you might not love it. Yes, I am talking about professional liability insurance.
