{"id":100532,"date":"2022-09-28t14:30:56","date_gmt":"2022-09-28t18:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/?p=100532"},"modified":"2023-01-30t12:45:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30t17:45:12","slug":"rick-thisthe-four-or-five-steps-to-moving-into-the-consulting-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/09\/28\/rick-thisthe-four-or-five-steps-to-moving-into-the-consulting-business\/","title":{"rendered":"o.d. lanier: stepping into advisory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>transformation talks: a leader at one of the fastest growing firms in the country describes transforming his career, pros and cons of building versus buying and the four (or five) steps to becoming a consulting firm.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 56.25% 0 0 0; position: relative;\"><iframe style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%;\" title=\"o.d. lanier: moving into consulting\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/735679240?h=d8f866a18c&amp;badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podomatic.com\/embed\/html5\/episode\/10372158?style=normal&amp;width=&amp;height=208\" width=\"100%\" height=\"208\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em><strong>transformation talks<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><em>with bill penczak<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/improvetheworld.net\/\">center for accounting transformation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-98636 alignright\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/screen-shot-2022-06-16-at-1.09.46-pm.png\" alt=\"center for accounting transformation\" width=\"190\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/screen-shot-2022-06-16-at-1.09.46-pm.png 409w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/screen-shot-2022-06-16-at-1.09.46-pm-300x313.png 300w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/screen-shot-2022-06-16-at-1.09.46-pm-24x24.png 24w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>how does an accounting expert journey from audit and big four to starting his own firm and becoming a consultant? odysseus (o.d.) lanier, a founding partner of one of the fastest growing firms in the country, describes his start, why he left &#8220;boring&#8221; auditing (but why it is critical experience), as well as what he sees as pros and cons in building a consulting firm versus buying a consulting firm.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>more on mcconnell jones:<\/strong> <a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2021\/08\/18\/five-global-cpa-leaders-four-survival-strategies\/\">five global cpa leaders: four survival strategies<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>more videos &amp; podcasts:\u00a0 <\/strong><a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/05\/05\/why-doing-nothing-is-not-an-option\/\">why doing nothing is not an option<\/a> |\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/04\/19\/disruptors-blake-oliver-liz-farr\/\">blake oliver: why tax work yearns to be free<\/a>|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/04\/08\/watch-martin-bissett-urges-accountants-to-go-commercial\/\">private equity explodes in u.k.<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/04\/04\/stop-accepting-the-status-quo\/\">brannon poe: the status quo must go<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0| \u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/28\/accounting-nerds-tap-into-your-secret-super-powers\/\">accounting nerds, unlock your super powers<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/19\/how-private-equity-changes-everything\/\">private equity vs. the cpa firm partnership<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/13\/how-fintech-billions-is-re-making-the-accounting-business\/\">the fintech flood: accounting will never be the same<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/09\/matt-wilkinson-think-small-to-think-big\/\">think small to think big with matt wilkinson<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/07\/your-sales-tax-compliance-headaches-are-only-just-beginning\/\">your sales tax headaches are only just beginning<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/03\/06\/the-disruptors-corey-schmidt-on-re-inventing-your-firm\/\">when financial statements go extinct with corey schmidt<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/02\/14\/geraldine-carter-can-she-save-accountants-from-themselves\/\">can geraldine carter save accountants from themselves?<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/01\/27\/disruptors-tyler-anderson\/\">\u00a0re-inventing accounting with tyler anderson<\/a>\u00a0| \u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2021\/11\/30\/turning-client-service-into-new-revenue\/\">turning client service into new revenue<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>subscribe to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 podcasts anywhere:<\/strong>\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/apple-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">apple<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/google-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">google<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/spotify\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/iheart-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iheart<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/deezer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">deezer,<\/a>\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/amazon-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">amazon music and audible<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/playerfm-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">player fm<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/audacy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">audacy<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/gaana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gaana (india)<\/a>, and\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/boomplay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">boomplay (africa)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cpatwpe.s3.amazonaws.com\/cpatrendlines\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/yellow_key_clip_art-e1375897299811-36p-hi-1-e1603911598474.jpg\" alt=\"goprocpa.com\" width=\"39\" height=\"16\" \/>\u00a0exclusively for pro members.\u00a0<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-login.php?redirect_to=\/\/www.g005e.com\/2021\/02\/05\/22-predictions-for-2021\/\">log in here<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/goprocpa.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2022世界杯足球排名 today<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>why are cpas moving from tax and audit to get into consulting? lanier said the bottom line is that consulting is lower risk with a higher margin.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->&#8220;when you get into these areas where, given the cost of professional liability insurance, given the litigious nature of clients, you find that a real benefit is&#8211;number one&#8211; you get a chance to move into the non-attest work that is lower risk than the attest work is and&#8211;number two&#8211;the margins are higher,&#8221; lanier said.<\/p>\n<p>he added, &#8220;and number three, you get the opportunity to be able to participate in transformational activities for businesses and providing trusted advice to the ceos, to the cfos, chief operating officers and people in those businesses where they can see some value, rather than having to deal with compliance, typically.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>additionally, lanier addressed the difficulty some firm colleagues have in understanding all the services offered and knowing when to recommend them to existing clients.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_100537\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 201px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-100537 size-thumbnail\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-201x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-201x201.jpg 201w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-100x100.jpg 100w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-24x24.jpg 24w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-48x48.jpg 48w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-96x96.jpg 96w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier-150x150.jpg 150w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/od-lanier.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">lanier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;you have to be knowledgeable enough on the audit side and the tech side to understand when there is a potential opportunity that is outside of the services you&#8217;re delivering&#8211;audit services and tax services,&#8221; lanier explained. &#8220;and that&#8217;s where education comes in. and we find that, yeah, that&#8217;s not something that tax folks and auditors really want to spend a lot of time trying to learn, so it&#8217;s almost a forced situation that you have to force with your colleagues. and i think that and when you do that, there are some colleagues who are receptive and other colleagues who are not.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>more takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>while the typical sub-$20m firm has less than 15% of its revenue from consulting services, there are some \u201cgateway\u201d solutions that can easily transfer skills and experience from compliance to advisory services.<\/li>\n<li>creating or expanding your advisory service offerings provides another career path option for your audit and tax professionals, which might aid in your retention efforts.<\/li>\n<li>there are considerations of \u201cbuild vs. buy\u201d when it comes to expanding or creating an advisory service line.<\/li>\n<li>advisory services allow firms to create an even stronger bond with their clients, as they allow conversations about broader business issues and can increase the client\u2019s trust in the firm, which increases revenue opportunities with clients and client retention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>about odysseus (o.d.) lanier<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>odysseus (od) lanier is a founding partner of mcconnell jones and leader of the firm\u2019s consulting practice. he is also the leader of mjlm federal government contracting group. during his career that started at arthur anderson, lanier has advised clients in a variety of commercial industries and local, state and federal government agencies on business issues related to risk mitigation and management, process improvement, organizational change, and supplier diversity. mcconnell jones is one of the country\u2019s top three largest african-american-owned cpa firms and has been named one of the fastest growing firms in the country for the past two years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>transcript<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>00:30<br \/>\nhi, everybody. my name is bill penczak. i am the chief transformation officer for the center for accounting transformation, and also the host of transformation talks. today we are going to interview odysseus [o.d.] lanier, who&#8217;s the partner in charge of the consulting department of a fast-growing firm in houston called mcconnell jones. o.d., tell us a little bit about your background and tell us about your name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>00:54<br \/>\nyes, i am from huntsville, alabama. i went to alabama a&amp;m university in huntsville. i stayed home and went to school. i graduated from college in accounting and ended up going to work at arthur andersen. i spent about six years or so with arthur andersen and went out to the corporate world into the internal audit department then decided to start my own firm and transform myself into a consultant. so, given that was the way i looked at it, i decided that audit was not necessarily something that i wanted to spend a lot of time at, because i thought it was more black and white. i liked the gray area of consulting and the advisory area where you can provide advice and get trusted relationships with your clients. okay, so, we did that and hooked up with my partners, wayne mcconnell, thomas jones, and sharon murphy. and we move right along with mcconnell jones as to where we are right now. and i presently lead our management advisory and consulting practice, which basically has five business lines. but we have number one, a risk advisory, internal audit, co-sourcing and outsourcing business lines. we also do business process improvement, looking at operations and back office processes to see if we can improve those and add value for some of our clients. we do implementation assistance, which is basically on the public sector side in which we assist with grants management, administration and implementing recommendations that may have come up as a result of performance review. we also do information technology risk, which includes governance activities, includes special services like pen testing, penetration testing. also, services aligned with doing controls, access controls, sox, those activities. and then we also have a last line, which is our enterprise accounting solutions. and that&#8217;s where we come in and provide staff augmentation and business process outsourcing type of accounting and finance services for the back office. that&#8217;s who we are today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>03:11<br \/>\ntell us the story about your name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>03:15<br \/>\noh, yeah. well, my dad, my dad was in the korean war. and, you know, we went to back&#8230; in alabama, alabama had 14, historically black colleges. so the only way that african americans got educated back in alabama at that time was to go to one of the hbcus. and my dad went to the army, came back under the gi bill, and was taking&#8211;he was 23 years old&#8211;and he was taking greek mythology. and he had just read the odyssey. and it&#8217;s so funny, because my mom tells the story to me all the time, is that he was captivated by odysseus, who was the protagonist in the odyssey, the king of ithica and greece. and he told my mom that if we have a boy, my first son, we will name my first son odysseus. and my mom said, &#8220;uh, that boy won&#8217;t even be able to spell his name until he&#8217;s five or six years old.&#8221; he said, &#8220;no, i&#8217;m going to have a bred son.&#8221; and so there you have it, she capitulated and he ended up with the name odysseus. so that&#8217;s how i got the name, odysseus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>04:30<br \/>\nbut the shortcut is o.d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier<br \/>\n<\/strong>o.d. is the shortcut. o.d. is a derivative of the first name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak<\/strong><br \/>\nso you mentioned that you started your career on the audit side and the compliance side, and then quickly moved into the consulting part of it. do you think that if you hadn&#8217;t made that shift that you would still even be in public accounting right now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>04:44<br \/>\nnine point nine nine times&#8211;five nines&#8211;out of 10, i probably wouldn&#8217;t have been. i didn&#8217;t particularly care for audit. i thought it was boring. now, don&#8217;t get me wrong. i learned quite a bit, especially about the business side in doing the audits, but at the same time, i thought it was boring. it was more compliance-oriented. it was more structured, it didn&#8217;t allow a lot of creativity because you were dealing with the audit standards. and i wanted to be able to provide a little more than that to do to my clients and, and get a little bit more out of my profession. but then i was getting from the audit side, i can tell you right now, i left the first time and anderson, i left because i was kind of bored and went into the internal audit group at arco and general holmes. and that&#8217;s when i learned about operations and processes, more so than i did in the audit side. and so once i came back to amos and i came back with the intent of probably starting my own firm, again, getting some tax experience and some other type of experience to start my own firm. and once i started, i realized, you know what, i don&#8217;t like audit. i don&#8217;t like tax. but i love consultanting. so i transformed myself into a consultant. so no. that&#8217;s a long answer, but i would not have been.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>06:03<br \/>\nobviously, there&#8217;s been a lot of transformation in the industry where people are leaving the industry or leaving the accounting world to go into private industry or work for a public company or do something completely different. do you think enough young people even realize that there are other career paths that they could take into consulting out of audit or out of tax?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>06:25<br \/>\nyou know, i don&#8217;t necessarily think that they realize that at this point. because here&#8217;s what you have to juxtapose: you have to juxtapose the big four against the traditional consulting firms like the mckinseys, the [not understood]s and those folks who required you to have mbas and all that to come in and be part of their teams. well, i don&#8217;t think that the big four pushes the notion that there are options if you don&#8217;t like within their firms, if you don&#8217;t particularly like the auditing side. so, if you don&#8217;t push that, and you&#8217;re constantly trying to drive the assurance side, but young people wouldn&#8217;t necessarily know that there&#8217;s this option out there to be able to go and transform yourself a new career. now, here&#8217;s the other thing that i think needs to be considered as well is, if the firm&#8217;s&#8211;whether they&#8217;re big four, top tier, top 10\u00a0 firms&#8211;whether they are welcoming enough on the consulting and advisory side of the practice, to allow people to cross-pollinate and move over. and that&#8217;s something that each individual firm has their own culture and how [that works].<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>07:46<br \/>\nand i think the one exception to that amongst the big four. so the largest cpa firm in the country&#8211;in the world&#8211;is deloitte, and more than half of their revenue comes from the consulting side, whereas most of the other big four firms, it&#8217;s more weighted towards the assurance side.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>07:59<br \/>\nexactly, exactly. and, you know, when we were coming up through the ranks, building our firm, we did quite a bit of work with deloitte, as a partner, a teaming partner with deloitte, and that was very obvious that they were tilting toward that consulting and advisory work, very obvious.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>08:20<br \/>\nso if you look at the data&#8211;i&#8217;d be looking at accounting today or inside public accounting&#8211;you look at most firms your size, and i think you told me earlier that you&#8217;re about about a $20 million firm this year in 2022.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>08:33<br \/>\nby 2020, 21, in that neighborhood&#8230; 150&#8230;140&#8230; 150 employees&#8230;we&#8217;ll probably top out at\u00a0 140 employees.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>08:41<br \/>\nso if you look at your peer group, say firms that are say between $15 million and $20 or $25 million or so,\u00a0 there, they have a small percentage&#8211;i think the number was like about 15% of their total revenue&#8211;comes from the consulting side. and what you shared with me is that at mcconnell jones, it&#8217;s it&#8217;s way disproportionate that that, you know, typically it&#8217;s audit, tax and maybe a little bit of consulting, but you&#8217;re very much the opposite of that. what benefit do you think that has provided the firm and then, as other firms who may be watching this or thinking, &#8220;i need to get into consulting,&#8221; what&#8217;s been the benefit of that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>09:19<br \/>\nwell, a benefit of that is to be able to move into areas that are lower risk and higher margin. that&#8217;s the benefit. so when you get into these areas where, given the cost of professional liability insurance, given the litigious nature of clients, you find that a real benefit is&#8211;number one&#8211; you get a chance to move into the non-attest work that is lower risk than the attest work is and&#8211;number two&#8211;the margins are higher. and number three, you get the opportunity to be able to participate in transformational activities for businesses and providing trusted advice to the ceos, to the cfos, chief operating officers and people in those businesses where they can see some value, rather than having to deal with compliance, typically. so that&#8217;s been the benefit for us in that particular area. plus, being a small firm like we are that has the ability of some companies, who wants to use smaller firms to do work to get a more personal nature, and has benefited us as well to be able to provide advisory services as a subset of some of the services that we provide on the audit side, as well. so that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s the benefit that i see going forward.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>10:44<br \/>\nso i was gonna ask this later on, but he brought it up. so, you know, there&#8217;s always the debate between the compliance side of the house with most firms and the consulting side of the house. you know, where i&#8217;m going to go with this, what this is about, yes, the trade-off of the annuity work that you have on the compliance side. and the fact that you have to go out and sell the work almost all the time, and repeat and duplicate your book of business year after year on the consulting side. how do you all reconcile that, because i think there&#8217;s a lot of trepidation on the part of managing partners and midsize firms to want to dip their toe into the whole consulting world for that very reason.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>11:21<br \/>\nwell, what you have to do is, when you go out and look for your people that you bring into your organization, you have to have a good mix of people who are extroverts, and who can sell work. and you have to have a mix of people who can generate the deliverables and execute on the work, because you have to have a robust pipeline of potential business that goes on in that business development function all throughout the year. okay? so, when you look at it from that standpoint, it&#8217;s about how you structure your consulting department. if you have a consulting department full of deliverers, okay, it&#8217;s much more difficult and much more stressful, to try to replace work and replenish work every year. but if you have folks who have a combination of business development skills, client relations and management skills, so they can get what we call the pull-through work, that allows you to be on-site, working in a consulting capacity, and you can see how you can expand the work, you know, people who are thinking that way, ladies and guys who are thinking about how we can improve and the system works. that&#8217;s one thing, and then you weight that, you have to balance it. and you continue to go after work consistently year after year, week after week, month after month. now, here&#8217;s the other thing, though, what is happening now is that, depending on the service lines you choose to place within your consulting practice, there are multi-year, annuitized opportunities, especially in the enterprise accounting solutions area, and especially in the internal audit, call sourcing support. because if you get someone in that particular area that needs to have supplemental resources to help them implement their audit plans from year to year, you typically keep those clients from year to year. okay? so it&#8217;s a mixed bag and it takes a lot of strategic thought up front and then laying out the execution plan to be able to continue. but don&#8217;t get me wrong, don&#8217;t get me wrong, since we&#8217;re talking about it. there&#8217;s a lot of stress that comes with it. because you have to get into the rhythm of having everyone on your team start thinking about how you would grow the practice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>13:53<br \/>\nyeah, because if you read a lot of the literature, in a lot of different publications about the industry, we&#8217;ve been saying for years, even the aicpa said this a couple of years ago, that the audit of the future is going to be all automated. and that need is not going to be the same as it is today, where you don&#8217;t need the clown car of professionals who show up on monday morning to go work on the audit. there&#8217;ll be automated, and rather, so strategically, firms are saying, &#8220;well, we need to get into more consulting.&#8221; and clearly you guys have done that. so what is the kind of gateway from a firm that is primarily focused on compliance audit and tax and, let&#8217;s say for argument&#8217;s sake, that they&#8217;re equally balanced half and half because that&#8217;s that&#8217;s pretty much the model for midsize firms. what&#8217;s the easiest&#8230; what would you recommend to be the easiest stepping into point to start into a consulting practice? you mentioned enterprise accounting services, which are similar to but different from client accounting services. what would you recommend to somebody?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>14:57<br \/>\ni think one of the first ways that you can start to make that transition is to look at the internal audit, co-sourcing side, and then try to focus on operations. looking at operations, it&#8217;s one thing to understand the financial side associated with the attest work, but you want to get behind the numbers, behind the processes, understand how that works. you typically end up in an internal audit capacity. now there&#8217;s a learning curve to do that. however, that&#8217;s one element. but a secondary element is to take some risks, you have to take the risk of going out and hiring individuals who have consulting expertise, and decide on whether or not you&#8217;re going to make the investment in those folks to be able to have a runway to grow that business. okay, that&#8217;s the best way to me, that&#8217;s the best way to get into it. because, quite frankly, once i transformed myself into a consultant, when we got into growth mode, we began to look for people who had experience on the consulting side, and i gotta tell you, we spent a lot of cash into the investment side of this, too, we might go six months without revenue, but we had to program that into into our strategy, and our cash flow, because you have to have the people to demonstrate to your potential clients, that you can provide the value and do the work. so that&#8217;s, that, to me, is the best way to do it. okay, is to number one, to recap, number one, slide in&#8211;i&#8217;m using a slang term&#8211;slide in through the internal audit group and get some internal audit experience. but number two, make the investment in the leadership that knows how to pull all this together and sell the work with the potential clients.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>17:01<br \/>\nokay, so, so the notion of buying versus building. so if a firm is sitting there trying to think i&#8217;m gonna get into, let&#8217;s say, internal audit, and they&#8217;ve got a spectrum of different choices that they could make from hiring a luminary, somebody who&#8217;s got good experience, like you just described, or buying another firm, or trying to build it on their own and moving maybe moving somebody who&#8217;s good on internal controls from the audit department that had a internal audit practice, what are some of the pros and cons of the build versus the buying approach?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>17:36<br \/>\nwell, i think the build approach takes longer. okay? the build approach is a longer way. the buy approach is almost instant gratification. what i view is a hybrid model. i think there should be if you&#8217;re really going to get to make a commitment to do this, you look at the hybrid model, there is an element, a percentage that you devote to building. but there&#8217;s also a percentage that you devote to going out, finding the attractive, attractive firms that would fit your firm profile, and the services you&#8217;re trying to offer. now, the pros and cons of building is that it takes a lot of attention. it takes a lot of resources, it takes a lot of training, to be able to build up that practice from an organic and inorganic basis. but that&#8217;s a con. but the pro is if you do build it that way, from within your organization, you have the individuals who understand the elements of brick by brick, how to build brick by brick, how to deal with delivery, how to do the business development, how to do the client relations management, you have those, you start building that capability within your organization. now, here are the pros of acquisition. well, that&#8217;s where the profession is going right now: consolidations, mergers, acquisitions&#8230;and you have to go out, and you can go out, and if you have the capital, and the cash flow to be able to do that, you go out, you get an intact consulting operation. you bolt it onto yours and bring it into your organization, and you keep running. but the cons of that end up being cultural fit, the ability to have a group of folks who are aligned with your service delivery methods and your productivity methods and how you would actually execute your projects, the integration of systems, those are all the all of all the cons, but the pros outweigh the cons because whenever you do that you&#8217;re going to have those issues anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>19:53<br \/>\nalthough i would add one potential con is the sticker shock that some managing partners might have of the multiple that typically comes from a consulting purchase, a consulting firm purchase versus a cpa firm purchase. i mean, the multiples are so much different.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>20:13<br \/>\nthey are different because the ebitda is different. because as you well know, you know, when you look at the traditional auditing services&#8211;now tax is a little bit different because you can get better margins in tax, okay? but if you look at the traditional auditing services, it&#8217;s commoditized. it&#8217;s moved to the point where it&#8217;s almost commoditized. so the margins are thinner, which is why the big boys end up migrating toward the advisory services. so when you look at those margins in advisory services, even though you have to regenerate your work, it generates a lot of ebitda. and yes, you know, these multiples are based on ebitda. so you&#8217;re right, the price multiple is, is a concern, would be a concern for some of the managing partners on purchase.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>20:58<br \/>\nso i&#8217;ve talked to other managing partners that have said midsize firms, and they&#8217;ve always said, you know, if we do start a consulting practice, we want it will it&#8217;ll allow us to move upmarket. so if you&#8217;re a middle-market firm, typically you&#8217;re going to work with middle-market companies, right? that will be manufacturing for a company, a retail, whatever. and has that been the case? have you all been able to move upmarket as a result of having a consulting practice besides just a compliance practice?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>21:27<br \/>\nwell, let me throw this in. and, and i&#8217;m gonna, i&#8217;m gonna say this because it&#8217;s the truth. it&#8217;s real. it&#8217;s real. we&#8217;re a minority-owned firm. and we have been nibbling at the base of the market. we have been nibbling at the base of the market to gain market entree. now that we&#8217;ve gained market on trade and gained some skills, having a consulting practice has definitely allowed us to move upmarket. because now, instead of having to penetrate a captive market of midsize companies that are typically there for the whole landscape of consulting firms that are not minority-owned, we now skip that market. we skip that market. and we&#8217;re now in the publicly-traded firm market, we and when you get there, as you know, bill, we talked about whales all the time, you&#8217;re dealing with whales, but you&#8217;re dealing with whales, with a commitment to firms like ours, who have the expertise, and just happened to be able to satisfy some of their diversity and inclusion initiatives that they have. and so you have to have the expertise first. so, we&#8217;ve been able to move upmarket, because of the type of services that we provide. when you look at that those five, those five service lines, that was intentional. that was intentional because that&#8217;s what the corporations buy, as well as the public sector buys.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>22:55<br \/>\nso the other conversation that i&#8217;ve heard over the years is, if we have consulting services, we&#8217;ll also be able to sell them to our existing client base. and i&#8217;ve personally, i&#8217;ve always thought that was a noble thought. but i&#8217;ve never seen it really, really put into action. because, again, if you&#8217;re offering these more sophisticated services, like, internal audit, for example, if you&#8217;ve got a $30 million manufacturing client, they might need some, but they&#8217;re not going to go through a whole engagement of internal audit, as a public company might be or a billion dollar company might be. so you think that you think that&#8217;s a fallacy that you can sell to your current clients?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>23:38<br \/>\nwell, depends on it goes right back to what you just said. it depends on who your current clients are, and how your current clients recognize the value of incremental advisory services. okay. see, everyone understands every client that big market understands, i have to have my financial statements attested to, because of my banks, and because of some of the loans i&#8217;m doing the bonds and that sort of thing. everyone doesn&#8217;t necessarily hold true to the opinion that i need to spend premiums for consulting services to improve my business. so to me, it is based on the client that you have, if you and so it&#8217;s a kind of a roundabout answer to a nuance&#8211;there&#8217;s a nuance here&#8211;you have to have the leadership. it has to be sophisticated enough to understand the value of built-on advisory services, if you&#8217;re trying to sell, if you&#8217;re the auditor, assuming you don&#8217;t have any independence issues. and then you have that, those folks in the middle market will use you. but here&#8217;s what the upper tier knows&#8211;when you talk about the whole tier and going upmarket&#8211;they know that when you get into a public company space, that billion dollar space, they understand that some of the competitiveness in the market is tied to how efficient they are, how effective they are, what their processes are, what kind of technology they use, how they leverage their technology, they understand that, and they&#8217;ll pay for that in additional services that you can sell to them. so that question, that&#8217;s really nuanced. that&#8217;s a nuanced question that you asked.\u00a0 because it&#8217;s not one size fits all. it&#8217;s not one attitude fits all when it comes down to going out and selling. because when you&#8217;re spending money like that, if you&#8217;re looking at those, the leadership, and the boards are looking at profitability. they&#8217;re looking at what they&#8217;re spending their money on, and what kind of value they perceive to be getting, from what they&#8217;re spending their money on. so that&#8217;s a different discussion, to be frank with you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>25:54<br \/>\nso within the dynamics of cpa firms, i&#8217;ve had conversations on the side with some people or in the consulting or advisory practices. and they will tell you or tell them, they have told me that a lot of times, they feel like the audit people and the tax people don&#8217;t necessarily understand what they do, and are reticent to even bring up one of the services with their current clients, because they&#8217;re not going to be able to explain not gonna be able to answer every all the questions that the clients going to have with that. do you think that&#8217;s a common occurrence where audit and tax people who may not understand all the nuances of say internal audit or enterprise accounting services, or some of the other management consulting work that you all do? do you think that&#8217;s there&#8217;s like an internal education requirement that the compliance folks need to understand better? what consulting does?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>26:52<br \/>\nabsolutely, i will venture to say that you just hit the proverbial nail squarely on the head. because most, most audit folks and most tax folks don&#8217;t really understand what we do on the consulting side. so what you have to do internal to your firm, is continuously educate them about what you do and what value you provide, if you&#8217;re going to try to have them entertain selling those services to clients. now, here&#8217;s what we do. what we try to do is get them to bring us in and throw it across the transom and allow us to explain what we can do. but there&#8217;s a piece here that is real important. you have to be knowledgeable enough on the audit side and the tech side to understand when there is a potential opportunity that is outside of the services you&#8217;re delivering&#8211;audit services and tax services. and that&#8217;s where the education comes in. and we find that, yeah, that&#8217;s not something that tax folks and auditors really want to spend a lot of time trying to learn. okay, so it&#8217;s almost a, it&#8217;s almost a forced situation that you have to force with your colleagues. and i think that and when you do that, there are some colleagues who are receptive and other colleagues who are not. and you&#8230; i mean, you hit the nail on the head.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>28:33<br \/>\ni&#8217;ve seen for larger firms do this where they&#8217;ll do lunch and learns on yeah, here&#8217;s what we do in this department. and even for the consulting people, here&#8217;s what we do in the tax group or here&#8217;s what we do in the specialty tax area. just because one, it&#8217;s good to know. so you can help your clients but then to&#8230;one of the subtle pieces to it is understanding that if i&#8217;m a, you know, i&#8217;m a senior staff person, i&#8217;ve got other career opportunities within the firm that oh, this sounds interesting, that we do forensic accounting, that sounds like something i could get my hands around, or into management, consulting, or whatever else. so i think that&#8217;s one thing. and then another thing that i saw once that i thought was pretty smart, was a firm printed a book, a booklet that was&#8230;we called it the trigger book. and so you mentioned knowing when to bring in the consulting folks. so the trigger book was, here&#8217;s what we do, and kind of the list of services, but here are the triggers that you should look and listen for or look for that if you&#8217;ve got this going on. and this going on and this going on, then it&#8217;s probably a good candidate for this service. and, and that firm used it internally but also use it for referral sources. and it was really, really a good educational tool that got the firm better connected, and also, in this case, help them with their referral sources.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>29:51<br \/>\nnow there&#8217;s one thing that you forgot to mention that you have to factor into this when you start talking about consulting services. you&#8217;ve got to deal with the independence issue and the appearance of independence. okay? right. so, there are times when you can&#8217;t provide some of the consulting services because it would impair both the substance and the form of independence, so that has to factor in as well, if you&#8217;re doing the audit work for a particular company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>30:26<br \/>\nokay, so, about 30 years ago, david meister coined the phrase trusted advisor, and a lot of firms use that, and i think they tend to overuse it. do you think it&#8217;s easier for a consulting partner to become that trusted advisor than a compliance partner? not that i&#8217;m picking sides.<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>30:47<br \/>\nthat&#8217;s a good question. bill. i think that they both&#8230;i&#8217;m going to answer it this way. i think they both can be trusted advisors. because guess what? you have to trust the audit partner, to make sure that what he&#8217;s looking at and how he&#8217;s testing and what opinion he&#8217;s rendering is based on exactly what he&#8217;s seen, exactly what evidence he&#8217;s tested. now, with the consulting partners, it&#8217;s a little bit different. because the consulting partners are giving you ideas. they&#8217;re giving you ideas, number one, they&#8217;re giving you&#8211;potentially&#8211;techniques to be more efficient, or giving you techniques to be more efficient where you could possibly make more money, and drive more profit to the bottom line, how you can structure your organization. so, yes, there&#8217;s a great bit of advice that comes in because you&#8217;re having discussions about day-to-day operations and processes that are different than just the numbers. okay, so that trust is a little bit different kind of trust, when you can sit down and talk about the things that are going on in the back room with your leadership team, and how folks are looking at this process or how they&#8217;re executing a process associated with governance. so those are the things that engender a lot of trust with folks. okay?<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>32:22<br \/>\ni had a consulting partner who once told me&#8211;i love this quote&#8211;he said, &#8220;you know, i&#8217;m not recording history like they do on their the side of the house. i&#8217;m helping create it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>32:31<br \/>\nexactly. right. exactly. right. exactly. right. exactly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>32:36<br \/>\nany final thoughts, though, so for a firm that is considering transforming into a greater percentage of their revenue in the future coming from consulting, what two or three pieces of advice would you offer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>odysseus (o.d.) lanier\u00a0 <\/strong>32:50<br \/>\ni would say, number one, do your research. number one, research the markets that you think you have the expertise to be able to provide consulting services in. number two, pay attention to the type of resources that you&#8217;re going to need to be able to penetrate those markets. number three, assess whether you have those resources in-house, or whether you&#8217;re going to have to go out and acquire those resources. and, number four, lay out a strategic model, the business plan that you need and the profitability and the investments that you&#8217;re going to need. assess investments first, and you&#8217;re going to have to generate x amount of profitability. and then you make that decision in that manner. okay? and look at your client mix. also, that&#8217;s also a part of it. you have to look at your client mix and see if your client mix will support you moving into that area, initially, or your target client list would support you being able to move into that area. and the last point i&#8217;ll get is this. you make sure that you&#8217;re moving into this area, it&#8217;s you&#8217;ve got some folks at the top and down at the management level, that can sell, sell, sell, sell. nobody wants to hear that, okay? but consulting is about sell, sell, sell, sell, and sell and show that it in your sales pitch, or in your marketing and business development pitch, show that you can provide value. and if you can provide value, those are things that i would take a look at in terms of whether or not i&#8217;m going to make a decision to move into or bring on a consulting practice and really ramp up the activities associated with trying to secure that business line. great. thank you. i<\/p>\n<p><strong>bill penczak\u00a0 <\/strong>34:46<br \/>\ngreat. thank you. i really appreciate your time, o.d. it&#8217;s been great talking to you. and i look forward to other upcoming podcasts just like this on other topics on future transformation talks.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>transformation talks: <\/strong>lessons from a leader at one of the fastest growing firms in the country.<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2022\/09\/28\/rick-thisthe-four-or-five-steps-to-moving-into-the-consulting-business\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-102666\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/o.d.-lanier_-moving-into-consulting-low.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>with bill penczak<br \/>\ncenter for accounting transformation<\/em><\/p>\n<h6>subscribe to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 podcasts anywhere:\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/apple-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">apple<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/google-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">google<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/spotify\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"external\" 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