how does your firm define itself?
by kayleigh padar
from success to significance: the radical cpa guide
josh zweig is the co-founder of liveca llp, a canadian chartered accounting firm of about 40 people that is run remotely, without a traditional office building. it’s all virtual – a work anywhere business. three years ago, the entire business was just a sole proprietorship; now it is bringing in millions of dollars of revenue.
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the firm’s biggest challenge is recruitment. “for smaller firms that don’t have 20 college reps to go down to every school and recruit, it becomes increasingly hard to get word out that there is an alternative here for people,” zweig said.
to combat this, leadership has focused on creating an exciting workplace culture that involves team-building and bonding despite not seeing each other face to face every day.
“when we were talking about growing a firm, we said, ‘what if we had nice people who were also accountants who knew how to talk to clients?’” zweig said. “now, looking back, we have these people. i think one of the things i’m most proud of is cultivating an environment where those kinds of people can thrive.”
a major struggle for the firm is finding qualified people who fit well in the culture. to cultivate this environment, the team organizes different travel-based retreats throughout the year to encourage team bonding. for example, the team went “glamping” (glam camping), with a five-star chef and the opportunity to participate in lots of outdoor activities.
“you wake up in the morning, you have your coffee, you’re looking at the mountains, and you’re watching the team in their huddle, and everyone’s so passionate about this thing. for me, that’s a very proud moment of, ‘look what we’re building,’” zweig said. “our product is us, it’s people. we’re only as good as our people, only as good as our training, which, while we have processes, ultimately the wrong person is going to drive poor service.”
college students transition easily into the firm, but it is hard to find the exact people who fit best in the firm culture, especially when most early graduates are considering joining large, well-known firms. the culture at liveca llp also works well for accountants who would prefer to work occasionally remotely, as they travel.
one of zweig’s regrets is not planning, but rather waiting for things to go wrong before revising processes.
“if i look at where we made significant changes, it’s because we screwed up and we went, ‘okay, we need to learn from this screwup. what do we do?’ it’s not like we predicted many things. we’re getting into that now.”
he added: “if i could’ve done something different, it would’ve been correcting those processes before we expanded the team, which is always harder. what processes do we need to be that team of 80? perhaps, had we (done) that, we would’ve been in a different position now.”
as for building a firm, zweig believes that an accounting firm is like any other small business.
“if you want to build a business, then there must be a brand, there must be unity, there must be a philosophy, there must be a vision and there must be dna for change, like any other business,” zweig said.
the firm is an excellent example of envisioning new developments in the industry. the firm works in a virtual office space, experiments with different pricing strategies and views the traditional tax return in a different light.
“the way we look at a tax return is that it’s the product of planning throughout the year. if you want someone that you have a long-term relationship with that will plan with you as your life changes, that’s who we are. a big part of what we do and sell is that concept of a long-term relationship for a fixed price, with the deliverable being good tax planning throughout the year.”
different technology can produce tax returns, but the value for the customer is the human relationship that firms can build with clients. the value isn’t in the tax return itself because the everyday person can do that independently. the idea of the new firm is to sell the relationship that will eventually create the return.
new forms of pricing come along with the idea of selling a relationship. “the billable hour model doesn’t offer much in the way of a deliverable, whereas what a fixed price package represents is some kind of product, like if you rent a car for a day,” zweig said.
while these changes can be hard to implement, all business owners must be ready to make them – no matter what industry or niche they are serving.
“what traditional firms, i think, are missing, is defining themselves,” he said.