they will look to you for an example.
by martin bissett
business development on a budget
if you are a partner in your firm, you may already have asked yourself the all-important question: how can i successfully retire and have someone else take over the firm?
more: five ways to show commitment | comfort vs. complacency | how are you showing your commitment? | five questions about your network | seven things that good advisors skip | internal communication can’t be overlooked | the seven levels of communication management | make firm culture work for you
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
the partner who has a satisfactory answer to that question is the one who is committed not only to developing business and building the firm on a regular basis, but also to developing and preparing the next generation of professionals in the firm.
if you’ve accepted the fact that there are challenges to building the practice, you must realize that those upcoming professionals face the same challenges. they need to build the same skillsets as you do, and possibly to an even higher level.
as your client base ages and those businesses are sold or simply wound down, the practice will constantly need new business, new clients to work with. over the years, it will increasingly be that next generation – typically your current managers and senior managers – who will need to take responsibility for achieving that growth.
take a good hard look at yourself and your partners in the area of proactive business development. have you all overcome the discomfort with the process, and are you actually following it to bring in new business? because if you’re not, what kind of example does that set for your new young professionals? they are going to ask themselves why they should bother. they will wonder why they should be held accountable for performance in this area if the partners are not.
if this situation is allowed to continue, the firm will not develop after you retire because no one will have the necessary skillset, or impetus, to build it further.
you must first lead by example. then you must bring on the next generation by training them and giving them opportunities to develop their relationship-building skills.
in the short term, this will provide multiple centers of income, because it will no longer be only the partners who are winning new work. and in the long term, you will have a new generation of professionals with the skills and the inclination to take over then grow the firm even further after you are enjoying your comfortable retirement.
unfortunately, this is not happening to the extent it should, certainly in mid-size accounting firms. so i strongly recommend you contribute to your firm’s future by
- first becoming comfortable with the process of proactively winning new work, and
- then developing your up-and-coming young professionals to be comfortable in taking over when you are no longer there.
business development tasks
- purposely assign the smallest opportunities in your pipeline to your next-generation professionals. these should be opportunities which, if not won, will not represent a large loss for the firm. list them.
- provide staff with accounting-centric professional sales training, and allow them to use these opportunities to build their confidence and skills so that they are ready for the larger opportunities with higher stakes – and higher potential returns. what’s your first step?
- schedule specific, non-interruptible time in your diary to identify high-potential next-generation professionals and create a plan to develop them in the process of proactively winning new business. name the people.