as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. your vision is a journey to some place in the future. it’s not where you are today. it may even take generations to get there. it becomes even more compelling when it’s somewhere your people want to go.
while it’s the ultimate destination that people engage with, the journey there is also important. if the end point is exciting and has benefits that your people share, they will be more engaged in the journey. and, when partners are engaged with the firm’s future, they perform better.
maybe it’s time for more firms to consider a republic instead of a so-called democracy. the larger firms in the country are surely run more like a republic than a democracy. smaller firms would be well advised to change their governance to mirror the larger firms. but let’s start with the dictatorial form of governance – commonly found, sometimes wildly successful, but only to a point.
with busy season just around the corner, it’s a good time now to tweak your firm’s financials and partner performance.
start by reviewing your billing rates, billing and collection policies, type of work partners are doing, how you reward performers and your leadership.
just as the partners need to engage with the firm’s vision so do the firm’s people. but, like everyone, they actually engage with people not words. so, effective partners continually engage with their people, regardless of their level and role. they go out of their way to create a personal bond, sharing personal information and operating with honesty and integrity in all of their interactions.
one of the great truisms is that you can’t be a leader if you don’t have followers and effective partners create strong relationships with their people. they are accessible and have highly tuned antennae that enable them to know where their people “are” and how and when to act to ensure they remain committed to the firm.
every book you read on leadership will tell you certain things you need to do to become a good leader. however, you can do these things and still not be someone who people want to follow.
why? leadership is all about trust. if you cannot trust me, then you will not follow me or believe in me.
here is my short checklist for the things good leaders need to do:
1. always tell the truth. this is the basis of trust. just remember the story of george washington and the cherry tree – “i cannot tell a lie.” leadership is not about politics, it’s about clear and honest communication with your partners, employees, clients and referral sources. leave the double talk to the politicians who populate the sunday morning tv talk shows. read more →
if your partners are putting up a fight to keep clients who should be let go, take a look at your compensation system. it’s not just about billable hours.
here are 16 tweaks to your firm’s compensation system. while the list is not exhaustive, it does provide criteria that firms can consider beyond revenue. read more →
all you need to do is think of any services, professional or commercial, that you have purchased over the last few years. would you pay a premium rate to a bonsai gardener just to trim a regular tree or shrub? most likely not, since there would be many a gardener available to do this simple task. however, the price of an open heart surgery would not matter, if the operation would save your life.
when pricing your services you need to carefully analyze the three key factors
demand,
competition and
costs.
for example, it’s hard to get a premium price for a basic 1040 return because there are thousands of competitors offering the same service as very competitive prices. however, if you are offering litigation services for high net worth divorce cases, then you need to look at the unique characteristics of your services, what is potentially at risk for your clients and the firm’s overall marketing and pricing strategies.
to find out how marketing oriented your firm’s pricing strategy really is, just complete the following brief pricing strategy questionnaire. there are no incorrect answers. the purpose of the survey is to give you a snapshot of where you are today. you goal, then, is to lay out a plan to get you where you want to be tomorrow. read more →
congratulations! after years of planning and months of tough negotiations, you’ve finally closed the deal on merger of your cpa firm.
you might be thinking the most difficult work is behind you. think again! you now have to move your eye from the financial to the human side of the merger.
your work in this area has just begun and may last for 12 months or more. the so-called soft side of doing a merger is just as important, if not more important, than the financial side. just like with an iceberg you don’t know what lies beneath the surface. just ask the captain of the unsinkable titanic. don’t let this same danger destroy your practice
in order to make sure your merger has a better than average chance of succeeding, here are 24 key items to be addressed: read more →
accountability, according to the merriam-webster online dictionary, is “the obligation or responsibility to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” let’s explore what this definition means.
first, there is an obligation. an obligation is a promise to do something. if a company has a financial obligation and fails to meet it, it may go into bankruptcy. if individuals fail to meet their obligations they also fall into a state of bankruptcy – i.e., failure.
with the scale of the challenges firms are facing, no firm we know can afford not to identify and develop a group of partners with the ability to successfully take on the role of managing partner in the future. read more →
by robert j. lees, august j. aquila and derek klyhn
a significant application of judgment exhibited by successful managing partners is in their decision to stay close to their own and the firm’s key client relationships.
we defined “close” in the research as not doing fee-earning work but being more than the review partner. “close” was having serious conversations with key clients about their issues, about what was going on in their markets and being the “go to” person when informed comment was required by external agencies.
every book you read on leadership will tell you certain things you need to do to become a good leader. however, you can do these things and still not be someone who people want to follow.
but every firm can have a culture of excellence, of striving to be the best at everything they do and of reinventing themselves as the markets for both clients and people change.
