why you must kill the old paradigms.
by marc rosenberg
the rosenberg practice management library
“as long as the roots are not severed, all is well. and all will be well in the garden.”
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that great line is from the 1979 movie “being there,” starring peter sellers as the simple-minded chance the gardener, whose unpretentious dialog is misinterpreted by titans of government and industry as being extraordinarily prescient.
but this line is a perfect way to begin talking about cpa firm marketing and growth. the “roots” of revenue growth are these:
- growth is change, and if your firm doesn’t change, it’s easier for other firms to take your clients. like most organizations, without growth and change, cpa firms become complacent, stagnate, are condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity and eventually wither away.
- as with so many business triumphs, growth starts with the right attitude and the willingness to do things that may be outside your comfort zone.
- understanding clients’ needs and providing great service are prerequisites to growing with them.
- firms with a marketing strategy that gets executed will outgrow those that shoot from the hip or stand around waiting for good things to happen.
- don’t be ordinary. don’t be like every other cpa firm. fall in love with different.
essential terms
practice development = marketing + business development (sales)
these terms are mercilessly and exasperatingly misused throughout the cpa profession. they are often mistakenly used interchangeably. understanding these terms is critical.
- practice development is the umbrella term for all things that firms do to increase revenue.
- marketing is all the things firms to do make selling easier. it includes promotion, advertising, market research, branding, creating name awareness and more.
- business development is selling: asking for and getting the order.
to paraphrase chance the gardener, if we embrace these basic truths about practice development, firm growth will be good, and all will be well at the firm.
the current landscape
today’s public accountant operates in a highly competitive environment that is increasingly entrepreneurial. there is little doubt your best clients are your competitor’s top prospects, and those competitors are actively trying to sow seeds of discontent among your most important relationships.
to survive this competitive cauldron, cpa firms must focus on achieving sustainable, profitable growth. only then can they resist the fee pressures applied by low-cost providers and the aggressive marketing of other cpa firms.
old paradigms die hard
the accounting business is a long-standing profession often characterized as conservative and resistant to change. many things are still done the same way they have always been done and firms have historically enjoyed a great deal of success adhering to this paradigm but the cpa industry is changing the paradigm. firms that choose to stay the same may eventually be left behind.
here are five cpa firm paradigms that have existed for a long time but no longer apply:
- technical competence trumps all other skills in order of importance. business comes in one’s technical expertise in performing work that satisfies clients.
- partnerships should operate like a collegial gentlemen’s club. the term “accountability” is a foreign word because partners feel they don’t need to be managed and can be relied upon to manage themselves.
- the nature of cpa firm work doesn’t lend itself to teamwork. oh, sure, there are some team aspects to operating a cpa firm. but the bulk of the work performed for clients is managed by an individual (almost always a partner) with the work completed by individuals. serving clients is not a team sport.
- leadership development consists of giving staff the opportunity to succeed, then waiting for them to prove themselves. you either have it or you don’t, and if you don’t you’re out.
- partners are all expected to be clones of one another. every partner needs to bring in business, have technical expertise, train and mentor staff, maintain great relationships with clients, achieve a certain level of billable hours, and so on.
take a hard look at these outdated paradigms. how does your firm stack up? if your firm hasn’t moved away from them yet, now would be a good time to start.
the skill and availability gap (sag)
while members of your firm may be technically excellent, the skills needed to be a great accountant are not necessarily the same skills needed to be an effective entrepreneur. great leaders recognize when they have a skill gap that hinders their performance, and they actively seek out ways to close the gap.
cpas are also constrained by time. if you consider how much of your time is consumed by billable work – working in the business – you quickly realize that there isn’t enough time to actually work on the business, doing the things necessary to achieve your goals.
here is a look at the skill gap:
now let’s look at the availability gap (we call this aq, availability quotient):
pretty scary, isn’t it? only 10.5 hours a week are available for critically important partner duties such as business development, staff mentoring and firm management. it would be hard to deny that the biggest obstacle to the effectiveness of a partner is time.
so the challenge is to deal with sag! great firms are made up of people with the discipline to maximize their aq hours and use them to do the things that are truly the highest and best use of their time – the things that allow firm and individual goals to be achieved.
how cpa firms benefit from revenue growth
permit us to make a fine point here: it would be difficult to challenge the notion that growth is a critical element to any firm’s success. as accountants, we get the math. but the key is to drill down and really understand in depth the ways your firm can really benefit from revenue growth. we wonder how many partners fully appreciate each of these benefits.
here they are:
- revenue growth provides job enrichment. let’s face it: there is the potential for a lot of repetition in the work of a cpa firm. new clients and new projects for clients provide diversity and excitement to all firm personnel, energizing the firm.
- cpa firms are top line-driven. relatively few costs are variable; even personnel salaries and other costs are mostly fixed. so if a firm has staff capacity, increases in revenue drop almost totally to the bottom line.
- show me the money. the natural result of increased revenue is that the firm makes more money. and of course, when the firm makes more money, the partners and staff make more money. increased compensation is a powerful motivator for firm personnel to focus on growth.
- a funny thing happens when firms are growing and making more money. the employees are happier! and in a happier workplace, it’s more fun to work, overall attitudes are healthier and people are more productive.
- growth clarifies the firm’s mission. nearly everyone agrees that bringing in business is a critical responsibility of partners, in many cases the most difficult for them. as legions of partners know, new clients aren’t dangling from trees ready to be plucked by whoever comes along. so focusing on business development needs to be a high priority.
- growth builds a critical mass. as growth and profits continue to rise, the firm builds a critical mass that enables sophistication in areas such as specializing, attracting larger clients, providing an edge in recruiting and launching more advanced firmwide marketing initiatives such as branding, promotion and hiring a marketing director.
- growth primes the pump. for decades, various pundits on growth have used the pump as a metaphor when talking about bringing in business. before a pump can work, it must be primed. once the pump is primed, the water flows freely, without much additional effort. starting and stopping marketing efforts is dangerous because when they are stopped, it takes a lot of time and effort to start them up again. but if the firm continually markets, even in good times, then the flow of new business becomes a continuous process.
- growth helps you avoid merging out of existence. the cpa firm industry has been in a merger frenzy since 2005 or so. baby boomers retiring in droves, a woefully short supply of qualified staff and ineffective succession planning are the catalysts sparking frenetic merger activity that shows no sign of abating. firms that grow continuously will be better positioned to resist being forced to merge out of existence to provide an exit strategy for the partners.
what clients want
earlier we said that bringing in business does not come easily for most accountants. but think about the advantages that cpas have (data from aicpa insights, 2015 independent research, 5/10/16):
- in terms of trust and integrity, business decision-makers rank cpas first among all financial and business professionals.
- business decision-makers’ satisfaction with their cpas is 93 percent.
- business decision-makers are more confident in work done by a cpa than by someone who is not a cpa.
- integrity and competence are the top two characteristics that decision-makers are looking for in their service providers.
to paraphrase a line from alec baldwin’s unforgettable cameo in the movie “glengarry glen ross,” “the opportunities are there, just waiting for you to pluck them off a tree.”
drilling down, here’s what clients want from their cpa:
- great attitude; cpa always acts like the client is important and never takes the client for granted.
- heavy face-to-face contact.
- proactive communication; they want their cpas to initiate contact instead of them always making the call.
- a diverse portfolio of services to improve their business.
- receive their financial products in person, not in the mail.
- prompt return of calls, emails, and texts; timely delivery of services.
- no fee surprises (even though clients rarely leave their cpa firm because of price).