three types of skills you need to become a partner

what is your firm doing to help staff develop these?

by marc rosenberg
how to bring in new partners

the old-school way of developing staff into partners was very simple:

staff are bountiful. those with the right stuff move up; we’ll move the others out and hire a new crop to replace them.
it’s up to the staff to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and make their mark. nobody showed us how to make partner. nobody held our hands.

more: six ways new partners differ from managers | sixteen duties of a partner | seventeen basic expectations of partners | the four essentials for every new partner | five people to keep out of partnership | nine ways to woo a prospective partner | tell potential partners what it takes
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it’s up to the staff to tell us that they want to be partners. unless and until they show us this ambition, we won’t talk to them about becoming a partner.
bringing in business can’t be taught. you’re either born with it or you’re not.
and while we are on the subject of business development, we all know from experience that marketing must be done nights and weekends. clients are too busy during the day. and we need the days to get our billable hours in. so a partner must commit to working long hours, including nights and weekends, and be willing to sacrifice his or her personal life for the firm.

not much of a clear or easy path in those days, was there?

thankfully, this major area of cpa firm management has improved dramatically over the years. as with all changes, there will always be firms that lag behind and stubbornly stick with old practices. but truly progressive firms get it and are proactive about developing a path to partnership for their staff.

skills staff need to make partner: in general

this list started with numerous discussions i had with cpa firm managing partners. i supplemented it with written surveys. the question i asked: “what does it take to be successful at a cpa firm?”

sharpen your interpersonal and communication skills, with both clients and firm personnel:

- speak clearly; learn how to get your point across succinctly, with focus and without fumbling.
- write articulate, coherent, concise emails.
- gain the clients’ confidence. work as much as possible in the field. that’s where you learn.
- learn the client’s business, not just their accounting systems.
- when clients are comfortable with you, they’ll call you instead of your supervisor.

be a self-starter; develop a reputation for reliability; someone who gets things done:

- take responsibility for the job from beginning to end. own your projects.
- before going to the supervisor for help, try to solve the problem yourself – but don’t spend excessive time on it.
- never, ever submit work for review if you know it needs further work or is wrong.

demonstrate that you are passionate about your job and your work. show enthusiasm.
ask lots of questions but show that you have given thought to them first. figure out what you can before taking up time.
know what you don’t know. avoid amassing hours and hours on a project when you don’t really understand what you’re doing.
make budgets and deadlines your friends. always know what the time budgets and deadlines are for your assignments. ask if you’re not told.
ask what the firm expects of you in terms of annual billable hours and realization.
be proactive in finding work with supervisors when you have unassigned blocks in your calendar. if on thursday or friday, you know you have little work for the following week, don’t wait until monday morning to ask around for work.
ask for performance feedback after every job; don’t wait until the supervisor gets around to it. don’t try to “escape” without getting the feedback or asking for feedback.
it’s ok to strive for work-life balance, but understand that meeting clients’ needs comes first.
be proficient with technology.
learn all the services your firm provides so you can spot additional opportunities for helping clients.
be self-confident. don’t hide from partners and managers. gain their confidence. partners and managers like to see young staff be assertive and comfortable making conversation with older adults.
oh, yes … master the technical requirements of your job. (this is really a given.)

now let’s build on these skills to transform this list into skills needed to make partner. add the following:

develop deep client relationships so that over time, the clients want to talk with you, not the partner.
be assigned a list of smaller clients that you are responsible for. not just the work, but engagement management (planning, billing, collection, work review, etc.), client relationships and cross-selling.
learn to become a great staff mentor, one who is skilled at helping younger staff learn and grow. partner candidates should be the kind of people whom staff want to work with.
continuously develop and refine business development skills and translate them into business origination.
be productive. achieve targeted levels of billable hour productivity at high levels of realization.
continue to build technical skills so that you reach the point where (a) you can do the work correctly, with minimal corrections needed by the reviewer and (b) you can perform highly complex projects, normally handled at the partner level, because the partners have confidence in you.

skills staff need to make partner: business development

our book cpa firm growth: keys to practice development is 217 pages of a to z material on what cpa firms and accounting firm personnel need to do to achieve revenue growth. here is our attempt to distill that tome into several paragraphs.

these business development skills are the skills and activities that firms want to see staff display continuously to consider them partner candidates. as stated earlier, cpa firm partners’ business development skills range dramatically, from the rainmaker to those who wouldn’t see a sales opportunity if it hit them in the nose. the extent to which these skills are required to become a partner is, of course, entirely up to each firm.

the best source of new business and increased revenue is the firm’s current clients. partner-potentials need to thoroughly understand all firm services and continuously evaluate which of their clients could benefit from additional services. partner candidates should meet frequently with clients to ask for the business.

here is a critical mindset that every member of the firm should have: identifying additional services to provide clients, often called cross-selling, is a way that cpas are proactive in helping clients. they do this because they know from experiences with other clients that these additional services will make companies more profitable and successful. cross-selling should never be confused with selling services to clients that they don’t want or need, an activity that is unethical.

the best source of new business and increased revenue is with the firm’s current clients, part ii. it would be great if they came to you for the expanded services, and you would be ecstatic if they made unsolicited referrals to you. some do. most do not. they need to be asked. if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
this includes being active in the community and developing the fine art of small talk so you can work the room at networking events. partner candidates should participate regularly in networking activities, not only for business development purposes, but for polishing their skills as networkers.
business development requires planning. don’t expect to call a client or prospect today to set up a time to meet with them today. if you always eat lunch alone or with co-workers, you aren’t trying hard enough to bring in business. a review of a partner candidate’s calendar should show a regular stream of meetings scheduled in advance with busy clients and prospects.
partner potentials must understand that business development is a contact sport. the more times at bat, the more hits. having two prospect meetings a month and landing one is a .500 batting average, great in baseball but a prescription for failure in business development. it’s much better to have 10 prospect meetings a month and land three of them. bad news is a lower batting average of .300. good news is getting three new clients instead of one.
in business development activities, specialization beats the scattergun approach to selling every time. specialization makes selling easier because clients and prospects prefer buying from experts. with specialization, prospects often call you instead of the other way around. and when you sell a service in which you have specialized expertise, you can charge a premium price and the client will gladly pay it. have you developed specialized expertise in one or more fields? if so do you use it in your business development activities?
differentiate yourself. when you introduce yourself to a prospect, develop a style and approach that shows how you are different from and more special than other cpa firms.
seek training in business development. selling is not a genetic trait. it’s a skill that can be learned. training does work. but like most forms of training, it won’t be effective unless (a) the training is done continuously, as opposed to a one-shot deal, and (b) the knowledge learned is practiced on real clients and prospects. partner candidates should demonstrate this commitment to business development training.
learn from the pros. partner candidates should be accompanying partners on their meetings with prospects.
a goal that is not in writing is merely a wish. be formal about it. create written goals for your business development activities. as much as possible, these goals should include the number of business development meetings you will convene and specific names of prospects.
be active in complementary marketing activities such as giving speeches, writing articles and blog posts, participating in seminars and keeping up on social media. focus on the ones that are most appealing to you.

i recently heard the managing partner of $50 million hogan taylor talk about what his firm does to develop staff as business-getters. randy nail took over the reins of ht in 2009 shortly after the merger of two equal $10 million firms and has presided over the firm’s phenomenal growth. this is what ht does:

partners and staff work in teams.
partners take staff on sales calls. nail feels too much business development is often done alone.
staff are trained in having conversations.
staff are sent to multiyear external leadership development organizations.
the hogan taylor university stresses soft skills from day 1.
the company holds lots of lunch-and-learns.

skills staff need to make partner: being a good boss

the cpa profession has made considerable progress over the decades in the way partners treat staff. in the dark days, cpa firms treated staff as if they were a dime a dozen, disrespectfully, with a sweatshop mentality. the philosophy was up or out. the word “mentor” was not in the cpa’s dictionary.

but for years now, many cpa firms have adopted the credo that “our staff are just as important as our clients.” firms need to do a lot more work on walking this talk, but it’s heartening that they at least aspire to this dual focus.

i have read many articles and studies on what’s most important to employees. the most compelling finding: the #1 reason why employees – anyone in any business, not just cpa firm staff – leave their company is a poor relationship with their boss. at cpa firms, the bosses are the collective group of people, mostly the partners and managers, who supervise staff.

a good boss is both of the following:

a nice person. caring. respectful. approachable. polite. courteous. professional. fun to be with. but while it’s fantastic for bosses to be nice, it’s not enough. not even close.
someone who helps staff learn and grow. a good boss increases the staff’s knowledge, experience and skills, stretching their abilities while inspiring them. says al kutchins, managing partner of chicago-based krd: “it is the responsibility of young partners to bring up the next generation of partners behind them.”

people who firms consider for promotion to partner should consistently exhibit the following to be good bosses: