{"id":137220,"date":"2025-01-07t13:20:57","date_gmt":"2025-01-07t18:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/?p=137220"},"modified":"2025-01-09t11:51:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09t16:51:50","slug":"the-evolution-of-accounting-insights-from-barry-melancons-historic-career-gear-up-for-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2025\/01\/07\/the-evolution-of-accounting-insights-from-barry-melancons-historic-career-gear-up-for-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"barry melancon: embrace the &#8216;golden age&#8217; | gear up for growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;clients don&#8217;t pay for technical excellence. they pay for actionable insights.&#8221;<\/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=\"the evolution of accounting: insights from barry melancon\u2019s historic career | gear up for growth\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1043075324?h=8c4451a756&amp;autoplay=1&amp;&amp;muted=1&amp;loop=1&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_selres_start\">?<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: center;\"><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">click to subscribe anywhere: <\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/apple-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">apple<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">,\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/youtube-podcasts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">google\/youtube<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">,\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/spotify\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" 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href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/audacy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">audacy<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">,\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/gaana\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">gaana (india)<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">,\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpa.click\/boomplay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">boomplay (africa)<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">, or\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"ac-designer-copy external\" href=\"https:\/\/cpatrendlines.podomatic.com\/rss2.xml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-ac-default-color=\"1\">rss<\/a><span class=\"ac-designer-copy\">.<\/span><\/h6>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; height: 205px; width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podomatic.com\/embed\/v2\/podcast\/5781641?episode_id=10851855&amp;theme=light\" width=\"100%\" height=\"205\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong><em>gear up for growth<a href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/tag\/gear-up-for-growth\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-134404\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/mitch-reno_-client-experience-advantage-goes-to-small-firms-_-gear-up-for-growth-low-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"140\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/strong><em><br \/>\nwith jean caragher<br \/>\nfor 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">in a landmark episode of the <em>gear up for growth<\/em> podcast, barry melancon, cpa, cgma, the longest-serving ceo in aicpa history, joined host jean caragher to share his invaluable insights on the evolution of the accounting profession. after 30 years at the helm of the aicpa, melancon stepped down at the end of 2024, leaving a profound legacy of innovation and transformation.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>gear up for growth<\/strong>\u00a0spotlights the best strategies for smart and efficient growth in today&#8217;s competitive landscape.\u00a0<strong>more<\/strong>\u00a0<a style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\" href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/tag\/gear-up-for-growth\/\">gear up for growth every friday here<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<strong>more<\/strong>\u00a0<a style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\" href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/tag\/capstone-conversations\/\">capstone conversations with jean caragher every monday<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<strong>more<\/strong>\u00a0<a style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\" href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/author\/jean-caragher\/\">jean caragher here<\/a>\u00a0| get her best-selling handbook,\u00a0<a style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\" href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/shop\/the-90-day-marketing-plan-for-cpa-firms\/\">the 90-day marketing plan for cpa firms, here<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<strong>more<\/strong>\u00a0<a style=\"background-color: #ffffff;\" href=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/category\/podcast,video\/\">卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 videos and podcasts here<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">reflecting on his appointment in 1995, melancon paints a vivid picture of a pre-digital world where cpa firms relied on print newsletters and direct mail for outreach. \u201cthere was no social media, no websites, no digital presence,\u201d he notes. the intervening decades have seen a seismic shift in how firms promote themselves, driven largely by the expansion of services and advancements in technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>melancon emphasizes the importance of moving beyond the traditional domains of accounting, auditing, and tax. \u201cthe notion of us thinking of ourselves as trusted business professionals, not just trusted accounting professionals, has been critical,\u201d he explains. this broader perspective allows firms to thrive in areas like client advisory services (cas) and technology-driven advisory roles.<\/p>\n<p>melancon\u2019s message is clear for smaller firms: embrace the trusted advisor role wholeheartedly. drawing from his own experience in a small firm, he recounts, \u201ci used to tell clients, \u2018i\u2019m not interested in doing your work unless you\u2019re willing to bring me into your strategic discussions.\u2019\u201d he believes this holistic approach is essential to navigating today\u2019s complex business environment and cementing long-term client relationships.<\/p>\n<p>addressing the resistance among some practitioners to specialize, melancon stresses the importance of niche services. \u201cin an increasingly complicated world, it\u2019s tough to be everything to everyone,\u201d he says. specialization enhances profitability and aligns with broader industry trends, where firms are succeeding by delivering focused expertise.<\/p>\n<p>melancon also highlights the need for small firms to adapt to evolving client expectations and technology. \u201cyou can\u2019t let yourself fall behind as your clients grow and change,\u201d he advises, emphasizing the critical role of staying ahead in innovation.<\/p>\n<p>when asked about the most critical leadership qualities for cpas today, melancon points to strategic thinking and communication. \u201cclients don\u2019t pay you to explain technicalities; they pay you to make complex concepts understandable and actionable,\u201d he says. this skill, he believes, is what sets successful firms apart in a competitive marketplace.<\/p>\n<p>on the topic of private equity in accounting, melancon expresses optimism while maintaining a balanced perspective. \u201cnot all private equity ventures will succeed, but i believe our profession will influence and evolve these models,\u201d he remarks, noting the annuity-based nature of cpa services as a strong foundation for long-term value.<\/p>\n<p>as he transitions into retirement, melancon\u2019s passion for the profession remains unwavering. while he plans to explore global opportunities and advisory roles, he\u2019ll also embrace life\u2019s lighter moments\u2014including fulfilling a civic duty by reporting for jury duty in january.<\/p>\n<p>this episode serves as both a reflection on an extraordinary career and a roadmap for the future of accounting. melancon\u2019s advice and vision will undoubtedly resonate with firms striving to navigate the ever-changing landscape of the profession.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><strong>about barry c. melancon, cpa, cgma<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_137221\" class=\"thumbnail wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 201px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-137221\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-201x201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-201x201.jpg 201w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-300x300.jpg 300w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-100x100.jpg 100w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-24x24.jpg 24w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-48x48.jpg 48w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-96x96.jpg 96w, \/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/bm-headshot-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">melancon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>barry melancon retired dec. 31, 2024, as the president and ceo of the american institute of cpas, and ceo of the association of international certified professional accountants. melancon joined the aicpa as ceo in 1995. he was the longest-serving ceo in the organization\u2019s 133-year history. under melancon\u2019s leadership in 2011, the aicpa formed a joint venture with cima to elevate management accounting globally. melancon has led the association to release multiple integrated reports that share a holistic view of how the aicpa, cima, and association come together to create value in the short- and long-term. this complements his service as global chair of the board of the international integrated reporting council (iirc) prior to its merger with sasb to form the value reporting foundation (vrf). inside the vrf, he chaired the strategy committee and co-chaired a deal team to merge vrf into the ifrs foundation, which formed the basis for the formation of the international sustainability standards board (issb). during 2007-2008, melancon served on the u.s. department of the treasury advisory committee on the auditing profession. he has also testified for the profession before congress numerous times. his extensive experience also includes spearheading the development of a new cybersecurity assurance service in 2017, the professionalization of a cloud-based client accounting service in 2007, the next generation of leadership academies, the computerization of the us-cpa exam, the global cgma exam, and uniform licensure for cpas throughout the country. he also earned an mba in 1983 from nicholls state university and subsequently served as an adjunct professor of accounting at his alma mater for four years. he was also awarded his alma mater\u2019s first and only honorary doctorate of commerce in 2008.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>transcript<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>01:13<br \/>\nhello. thank you for joining. gear up for growth powered by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. i&#8217;m gene carragher, president of capstone marketing and your host. our special guest today is barry melancon, who has served as the president and ceo of the aicpa for 30 years. barry, i&#8217;m honored that you&#8217;re taking the time today to provide your perspective on the accounting profession and how it&#8217;s evolved over the tenure of your time at the aicpa, particularly as it relates to marketing, leadership and talent. and it&#8217;s not every day that i get to speak with the number one most influential person in accounting. welcome to gear up for growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>01:56<br \/>\nthank you, jean. it&#8217;s great to be with you and your in your in your primary audience of firms, you know, 100 and sort of under mostly. that&#8217;s sort of where i grew up. so i hopefully people will think that i represented that aspect of the profession effectively over these 30 years. and it&#8217;s a it&#8217;s a great honor to be with your listeners and with you today. all<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>02:19<br \/>\nalright, thank you, barry, so let&#8217;s start in 1995 so that&#8217;s the year that you joined the aicpa, right? and when it came to marketing, back then, we were just being introduced to the world wide web. email was just become popular. no social media, no websites, no digital practitioners are using print newsletters and print brochures, maybe some direct mail. when you think about how cpa firms promoted themselves then and now, what has had the greatest impact on firm growth?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>02:57<br \/>\nwell, i think it&#8217;s two things, really. i think, i think it&#8217;s this expansion of services which i believe has been critical to the profession, the notion of us thinking of ourselves much broader, sort of the trusted business professional, not just the trusted accounting professional, which i have worked really, really, really hard at. and i think when we think about back then, you would have had accounting and auditing and tax, and yes, some firms would have had advisory certainly not smaller firms, to a large degree, but now with cast services and different advisory services and technology capabilities, i think, i think that&#8217;s that&#8217;s been a tremendous point, that sort of notion of our profession growing out of that, that sphere, if you will, to something, something much broader. i also think that the profession&#8217;s importance has changed dramatically. i think, i think the reality is the world has become significantly more complicated. i think the profession has actually done a way better job of evolving in that space than what some stereotypical communicators like to say about the profession. and i think that has allowed us to to service clients, or, however you want to describe it, to have business lines that are much different from from what it would have been. and it really has been, i think, the golden age of the profession, that the capabilities of the profession has expanded, the success, the profitability, the profession is doing extraordinarily, extraordinarily well. and i&#8217;ll sum it up by this to prove my point, i think in if you go back to the 1980s and you&#8217;d have gone into 100,000 person town, so that the people who are typically in your audience would understand 100,000 person town very well, and you&#8217;d have said, who are the movers and shakers in that town, the three professions that would have driven that would have been the civil engineers, the corporate lawyers and the doctors, if you&#8217;d have gone down main street, the people who would own the rental properties. the people who would have been, you know, the leaders in the sort of the community that would have been their background. today, it&#8217;s still the civil engineers because of public works, but today it&#8217;s the cpas and also the trial lawyers, not the corporate lawyers. and so i think that&#8217;s just a wonderful statement for the profession, not necessarily the trial lawyer point, but it&#8217;s a wonderful statement for the profession and its positioning. and the men and women in the profession have made that happen in all of the towns, not only in the us, but around the world. but it&#8217;s much more prevalent in the us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>05:37<br \/>\nnow we&#8217;ve heard the term trusted advisors for many years at this point. what do you think are some ways, effective ways that cp firms can position themselves as trusted advisors, rather than just service providers? do you do you find practitioners embracing that trusted advisor role, and do you think they&#8217;re really doing it?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>06:06<br \/>\ni definitely the practitioners. there are many, many, many embrace that firms are structured, the diversity of the service offerings of firms, even the even the personnel. so, you know, here&#8217;s how i would phrase that, i think there&#8217;s a reason why on main street usa, a cpa firm with advisory services is way more financially successful than an advisory services firm standalone. and the notion of the reputation of the profession accrues to that broader footprint even in a smaller firm. my background was smaller firm, and, you know, i, when i, when i started in, it was an under 10 person firm. i viewed what i wanted to do in that firm, and when i made partner in that firm as as to be the sort of people who who evolved that entrepreneur, right? we didn&#8217;t have big clients. we had entrepreneurial businesses. and i can remember when on my route to being partner, when we picked up, when i picked up clients and things of that nature, i used to say, i&#8217;m not actually interested in doing your work unless you&#8217;re interested in paying me to be part of some of the key discussions that you have at your business. so when you&#8217;re talking about strategy or loans or things of that nature, or business things, maybe it&#8217;s quarterly or whatever, but that&#8217;s what you need to think about me, because i&#8217;m going to bring a broader perspective into into that world, and that&#8217;s the epitome of that trusted advisor role, right? and so that you asked me about, and i think our profession has changed dramatically. i think technology has helped us have that certainly in cas services, we can share data differently, but but i think the reality is, is that the world has become incredibly complicated. and like, like, i like to say, is that the entrepreneurial clients of everybody listening to this, they know a heck of a lot about whatever business they&#8217;re in, the widgets they make or the widgets they sell, but everything else we ought to be the people who are their go to people from really thinking about what they need to be thinking about, from succession to banking relations to competition to marketing to technology capabilities and on and on and on. and i think the profession has done a pretty good job of that. and i think the growth in firms, in the sort of the spread of the footprint of firms, is paramount to that. now there&#8217;s still firms that just do accounting and auditing and tax, i get it, but for the most part, 44,000 firms in the world, gene and the vast in the country, i&#8217;m sorry, the vast majority of them are going to have that broader footprint in some form of fashion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>08:51<br \/>\nso what advice would you give to practitioners in small or mid sized firms looking to differentiate themselves? what&#8217;s the best way to do that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>09:04<br \/>\nwell, i think, i think not being bashful about it is the first, the first element, you know, people stereotype our profession, and i think that stereotype is, is certainly changed over time. and every, every group of people have stereotypes to some degree, but we&#8217;re not narrow. and i would do the things to really make it known to my clients of how broad based we are, as a professor of a firm, as a professional firm, and what we can bring to that table. and i think you got to have people partners who want to do that. and even in smaller firms, you have to run your business as a partnership in a way that is a bit different than you know, 30 years ago, people ran their firms, and so, as an example, even in a smaller partnership, you have to build the instrumentation of the firm, the function of the firm to trust. everybody else to build that capacity. the stereotype of firms historically is that larger firms got it to refer to other people, other functions in the in their own firm, whenever a client had a need to trust their partners. but smaller firms never really developed that trust the people down the hall, so to speak, and they will, well, there&#8217;s still examples of this. they&#8217;re more comfortable with the client go and get x work somewhere else than whether, instead of their inside their firm for fear that something&#8217;s going to get messed up and they lose the client. so you have to change that culture to understand the holistic aspect of what people expect from you and what clients expect from you and to have that trust, and that takes a different way of running a firm than might have been the case in the 70s and the 80s or even in the early 90s from that standpoint. and then i think, i think bringing the skill set, and not being bashful about the skill set, you have to bring that to the table. i think there&#8217;s just a world of experience that people have in different industries, even in small firms and and learning how to in some firms do this phenomenally, but some firms still struggle with it, learning how to package that to really help a firm understand that i i used to have this. you know this? this client. it was one of the first clients i picked up way back ancient history when i picked it up. and they were in the i grew up in south louisiana. they were in the in the they had a fleet of dump trucks and bulldozers, and that&#8217;s the type of work they did. and when i picked them up, i said, i didn&#8217;t want to, they were like, shocked when i said it. i said, i don&#8217;t want to do your work, unless you&#8217;re willing to pay me to come sit down with you once, once a quarter, and talk about your business. and, you know, they agreed, and we had a great client, you know, service relationship, but i made their business better because of that frame of reference that i brought. and so you got to find people in your firm that can do that and are really committed to do that, and then you gotta find a way to share that information inside the firm so that people can be as holistically informed about different things, particularly in small communities, as possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>12:12<br \/>\nyeah, in this way, i don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s possible to over communicate basically what you&#8217;re saying, because internally in a firm, you might think, yeah, i&#8217;m really sharing those information with my partners, and i&#8217;m mentoring some of the younger folks, and yet there still could be a lot more communication and information sharing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>12:29<br \/>\nthat is a true statement, but that&#8217;s a true statement in the big four firm too, by the way, i think it&#8217;s just a challenge of the world that we live in, so i think, but i do think that people who pay attention to that and are really intentional about that are going to have a more successful firm. i really do believe that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>12:47<br \/>\nnow i&#8217;ve also read that you feel that small practices would benefit from developing industry or niche specialization, which is near and dear to my heart, because i believe niche marketing is the most effective strategy that an accounting firm could implement. can you talk to us about that a bit?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>13:10<br \/>\nwell, i would say you said niche marketing, yes, but i would say niche service development is is the as the other side of that, because you can have all the niche marketing you want. if i&#8217;m not really as a firm delivering that niche capability in a different way, then i&#8217;m not going to hold on to that client. i think the world&#8217;s a complicated place, right, and so particularly in smaller firms. now, i mean, i know there&#8217;s listeners here that have 100 person firms, and maybe it&#8217;s not as applicable, but, i mean, i never worked a day in my life in a firm with greater than 20 people, and so it&#8217;s today is a really complicated, hard process to be expert in all these different areas and how you leverage and how you partner in that, and know where you can deliver the reality is. the reality is, and maybe i can paint the picture best this way, we have a record number of billion dollar or more firms. we have 13 right now, billion dollar or more firms, not counting the big four. so, so 17 counting the big four. okay, so that&#8217;s really big firms. a billion dollar firm is a big firm, but we also still have the same number of firms in the united states as the day i became ceo in 1995 which is about 44,000 firms. and you know, constantly there&#8217;s a churn new firms are being created, so proprietors and things of that nature. and i just think that you have to understand that it&#8217;s something called hourglass economics, right in any industry, in any industry, the middle gets squeezed. that is true in airlines, that&#8217;s true in house, in hospitality, that&#8217;s true in restaurants. it&#8217;s true in medicine. today, it&#8217;s true. it&#8217;s true in everything. and so if you&#8217;re in this. smaller firm component, and i would say below in that hourglass and that bottom part, you know, 70, $80 million firm below, and below it is sort of in that bottom and you have to be, i think niched. you have to be, because you don&#8217;t have the wherewithal and all of these different areas. you have to be expert, if you will, and comfortable in that expertise in those areas. there&#8217;s a reason why there&#8217;s not a lot of general practitioner doctors today, right? there&#8217;s a reason why that is harder in a small firm environment to really create the profitability and the success that&#8217;s necessary. the fact of the matter is, what&#8217;s happening in our profession is those firms in the middle are, in fact, that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re seeing private equity and all of these things, is they are, in fact, having that they don&#8217;t have the capacity to be all things to all of the, if you will, the industry lines that they&#8217;re touching. and they have to move up channel to work it. the analogy, i would say, is we probably all have our favorite italian restaurant in our community, right? and the reality is, it&#8217;s probably the fourth or fifth generation owned, and they&#8217;re making a lot of money, and you go there every friday night or saturday night or whatever. but the reality is, if they try to open two or three, they&#8217;re going to have a tough time making it. they got to get to 100 to have the economies of scale to make it. and so i think it&#8217;s important to realize that if you&#8217;re in the bottom of that hourglass, that you have to rely on other professionals. you can&#8217;t be everything to everybody in today&#8217;s information overload or knowledge overload, and you can. i just think that that&#8217;s really important. and i think, i mean, i&#8217;m not saying there are, there are people who are exceptions in that space, but i think by and large, that&#8217;s a really important market strategy discussion that you have to have, even if you&#8217;re sole proprietor, into thinking about how you go into market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>16:54<br \/>\nso why do you think there is such resistance on the part of cpas to specialize. now we know firms that are doing an excellent job of it, but i believe there&#8217;s still quite a bit of resistance about the specialization, whether it&#8217;s their fearing they&#8217;re going to miss out on business that may not be their specialty, or whatever it is. do you have any thoughts about that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>17:21<br \/>\nyeah, i do. i&#8217;ve thought about that a lot. i think, i think the reality is, in small firms, there is a fear of income loss, quite frankly. and the reality is, is that that&#8217;s a hard economic move to make. it&#8217;s just like the debate that people say you should fire clients and and there&#8217;s way to, you know, a certain segment of clients, there&#8217;s a certain element in, particularly smaller firms, that that sort of marginal revenue is very important. and people make the connection and say, i&#8217;m going to work harder or longer or whatever, because this, you know, even this, is my most troubled client, yeah, but i still generate, you know, 5000 $10,000 of revenue. and maybe that&#8217;s the difference between the type of car i have or what school my kid goes to, or whatever. and, i mean, that&#8217;s real. what i just described is real. i get it. the reality is to evolve from that. there could be some pain in evolving from it, but ultimately you&#8217;re gonna have a better car and your kid&#8217;s going to go to a better college if you can figure out how to make that evolution where you can&#8217;t be everything to everybody and but it&#8217;s hard, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s very significantly hard to get across that. so i don&#8217;t criticize any anybody that says that&#8217;s hard or they don&#8217;t want to do it, but i do think if you step back and you say, i&#8217;m gonna, i&#8217;m gonna try to position my practice and my my work life and my family life in a different way, which i think different generations coming into practices are requiring us to do that more then i think that kind of thinking is is really, really important. and there are a lot of people who do practice management that talk about, you know, fire x percentage of your clients every year. i&#8217;m not sure about that, but i do think, i do think the notion of understanding the people, the clients that are time consumers, or maybe in areas that you&#8217;re not as comfortable, and you have to eat time to get comfortable in that, versus sort of where you can, you can leverage knowledge that you already have. i think that&#8217;s just basic good business in running and running a firm, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>19:29<br \/>\nyou know, i&#8217;ve done a workshop about firing clients more than several times, and when i asked them what challenges in their firing clients. well, the top reasons is that they are concerned about generating the new business to replace the clients that they&#8217;re fired. yeah, that, to me, emphasizes the point that marketing and business development need to have. and time, even though you&#8217;re like, this is such a cyclical industry, not as much as it was before, but your marketing and business development can&#8217;t start and stop. there&#8217;s there always needs to be at least something going on to keep that promotion going. oh,<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>20:15<br \/>\ni agree. but also the notion of how you treat your most successful clients, and the notion of what that revenue base should look like and what more you can do that you aren&#8217;t doing for them and you&#8217;re making yourself vulnerable to them going to a different type of firm is also part of that equation, and so you yes, if you fire a client because they consume a disproportionate amount of your energy or your stress or whatever, versus the revenue. i understand that&#8217;s hard, but the but the reality is what you also have to think about, what more can i do for those top 75% or 80% of my clients, that is going to be more rewarding and lead to more and better things along that way. now i acknowledge that that&#8217;s hard and as a theory versus the practical to that, and so my advice has always been just start small. i mean this notion that people you know you have to fire and a client and burn a bridge. maybe not. maybe there&#8217;s somebody else down the street that you can hand out that off to back to this notion of industry, sort of knowledge and things of that nature. so, i mean, there&#8217;s different ways to think about that strategically, that don&#8217;t burn that bridge, but actually change the sort of equation of what, of what you&#8217;re really doing inside your practice, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>21:42<br \/>\nabsolutely. barry, what leadership qualities do you believe are the most critical for cpas and public accounting these days?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>21:54<br \/>\nwell, i&#8217;m going to go to the to the skills of communication and the skills of strategic thinking, and you know, i think, you know, we could put some other adjectives on those, on those types of things, but, you know, i think the days of the profession being a tax and accounting, that&#8217;s not where the profitability really comes. yes, that&#8217;s part of it, that is, don&#8217;t read, misread what i said. that is a critical part of it. there&#8217;s a reason why a small consulting firm on main street usa, versus a small cpa firm that also does consulting or advisory that the firm, the cpa firm component, does better almost always. they do better, and they do better because they have that trusted relationship, and all of those things, which starts from accounting and auditing, tax, from the from the primary notion of it. but i do think it&#8217;s much harder in today&#8217;s technological world, and where ai is going particularly to be just that. and i think, i think for the most part, our way, way too many people in our profession undersell their knowledge, particularly about certain things in a community of certain things in a industry, vertical, and, and, and they under, i don&#8217;t want to say undersell that sounds like marketing, but under value, or they let their clients undervalue that particular process. you know, i would i go back to, i wouldn&#8217;t take on a client that that didn&#8217;t want to pay me for something more than their accounting and auditing and tax work, because i can bring that to that client. and again, i worked in a firm that was under 20 people, and so a long time ago, admittedly, but the world continues to change in that space and technology is going to continue to evolve some of those core services of accounting and auditing and tax and in that and that notion of tax strategies and that notion of business acumen is really going to be critical, and to be able to communicate that to clients is critically computed. clients pay you not to for you to explain something in a technical way. they pay you to explain something that is technical in a very easy to understand and make decision, make, make decisions on the basis of way and that business acumen, i think we&#8217;re great at that as a profession and small firm people have seen so much, are super added. they&#8217;re better than the people in the big firms added to a large degree. and i think leveraging that to a different way from a pure business sense, i think, is where sort of sets the sort of the culture apart in a small firm that&#8217;s killing themselves to to be successful, versus one that&#8217;s really more strategically doing that right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>24:41<br \/>\nwell, in the example you gave about yourself, you were brave or confident by telling potential clients how you wanted to work with them in that advisory capacity. so. so is it that some cpas need more confidence in their ability? because, let&#8217;s face it, i mean, cpas are very smart people, right? and they&#8217;re they&#8217;re the number one as far as like advising business and knowing how a business runs and what you could bring to the table is very high. so maybe we need a confidence boost.<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>25:22<br \/>\ni think, you know, that&#8217;s funny, because confidence, for some sounds like ego, but, you know, i don&#8217;t think it is that. i do think that probably everyone listening to this program knows probably more about running their, you know, their largest of, their best of, their top 50% of their clients businesses than their client, than the client does themselves. and so, you know, my belief on that is you&#8217;re whatever business your client is in. you start off with the notion that, okay, mr. and mrs. entrepreneur, you know about making the widgets that you do, or selling the widgets that you do, or providing the service, whatever that is that you do, but everything else about your business, from lending to even human resources to technology capabilities to risk management to, you know, succession planning to dealing with your family, if it&#8217;s even it&#8217;s a family owned business, and, you know, employing people in your family or not, to your presence in the community, you probably know more about that than an entrepreneur, right? and so i don&#8217;t think you have to be bashful about that. it may really be true. you may actually know more about that, that business, actually, you actually may. that&#8217;s probably not the way to start off the conversation, but it is true that you may know that. i mean, there were a lot of, i mean, again, going back in long time, when i was in a small firm, i was very confident that i knew more about a good chunk of the client&#8217;s business. you know, i grew up in the oil field south louisiana, and there were things that obviously people knew about, you know, drilling oil wells and all of those types of things that i didn&#8217;t but i knew about their quality and their inventory management and their market positioning, probably better than they did. but, i mean, i didn&#8217;t lead with that, but i led with the notion that you know you you know this better than anybody else, so you focus on that, and i&#8217;m going to help you in all these other areas, and we&#8217;re going to build a relationship, and you&#8217;re going to become more successful because of that. and if you don&#8217;t think you&#8217;re more successful because of it, then you&#8217;ll find someone else, but i&#8217;m pretty confident i&#8217;m going to help you to become more successful in that. and that is, i think, i think that&#8217;s where the trusted advisor role is. i think that&#8217;s where the knowledge is, and the world is awfully complicated. and again, the entrepreneur knows what they&#8217;re doing in their business, but they don&#8217;t really have time to be as knowledgeable as you are in a firm where you&#8217;re seeing that in 10, 2050, 100 1000 clients in sort of peripheral industry areas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>28:17<br \/>\nwhat are your thoughts about mergers and acquisitions as a growth strategy. does it concern you? sometimes the impact that might be having on people and culture<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>28:30<br \/>\nactually doesn&#8217;t concern me. i think, i think firms have to grow. i think have to and there&#8217;s different ways to grow. you can grow organically. you can grow through mergers and acquisitions, creating efficiencies by the spread of cost in a different, you know, in a different way, you can get into new markets or new geographies along those lines. you can have a greater internet presence. you can serve people in a more distant way. all of those things revolve around growth, the reality that back to the business acumen we were just talking about, i don&#8217;t think you would ever advise a client just be satisfied and just sitting where you are and not think about how you&#8217;re going to grow and become more profitable in whatever industry niche you you mr. or mrs. client are in. and so the same holds for for firms. the reality is, in our profession, we have more larger firms today, we have an effect a new big eight or so. it might be 12 that&#8217;s growing at the top end of the of the size spectrum. the reality is, every industry is an hourglass shape, as i mentioned, and the that there&#8217;s place for niched services in the bottom of an hourglass. but you have to, it&#8217;s tough to be in the middle. and if you get in the middle, then you got to continue to grow. and it&#8217;s just true that italian restaurant that&#8217;s five generations owned, if they try to open two or three restaurants, they&#8217;re probably going to struggle. if they get to a bigger number, they&#8217;re probably going to be successful. and it&#8217;s the same. thing with firms, you can just be very, very, very narrowly niched, and you&#8217;re going to have certain limitations on what you do, but you better be thinking about what, in my opinion, what that niche is, and not try to be everything to everybody. and then if you have a wider swath of things that you want to do, you gotta have growth to support that. and i think growth is not a bad word, and growth is not something that every business doesn&#8217;t deal with. and frankly, if you&#8217;re sitting down with a client, you&#8217;re probably talking to them about growth in some form or fashion, or certainly growth and growth, growth margin, at least, even if it&#8217;s not top line, top line growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>30:40<br \/>\nabsolutely, because growth impacts, you know, your ability to recruit people and retain people, and so many other areas you know, in running a firm private equity, is this a positive for the profession, a negative somewhere in between, or do? we can&#8217;t tell yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>31:00<br \/>\nso, so let me, let me say that i have always been, for my entire career, a proponent of different models in the profession. i have never been one that said it could only be, you know, partnerships. i mean, i crap. i mean llcs and llps, where they were the, you know, some of the evolution, sort of the llc sort of a hybrid of a partnership, right? when i was the ceo in louisiana, after having left public practice, we passed the first llc bill. we called it the small business flexibility act. it applied to everybody, but it applied to cpa firms as well. and we called it that because that would sell really well in the legislature, right? small business flexibility sells really well in the legislature. and so i believe the profession is way stronger when people are experimenting with different structures and different approaches. not all of them work. in fact, people ask me, what&#8217;s the end result of private equity acquisition in firms? and i give them, i give them three pieces to that answer. number one, some will not be successful. and you know what, if you everything that the profession does is got to be successful, then we&#8217;re not pushing hard enough. secondly, some the notion of flips in private equity, where you gotta be flip, flip, flip, flip, i don&#8217;t think that that&#8217;s going to work. all right, ralph, and so you&#8217;re going to see larger firms that are private equity owned. they&#8217;re going to sell off pieces parts of their firms. they&#8217;re going to sell off divisions, and still, instead of selling, you know, their whole firms. and then, and then, thirdly, i actually think our profession is going to change private equity. i think the image of private equity buying into our profession is this flip notion. but i think people buying into the profession or buying pieces of firms, and not buying 100 percents of firms, but buying pieces of firms, they have already learned a lot about profession. first off, one of the things they&#8217;ve learned is how annuity based tax work is. they&#8217;ve always thought of accounting and auditing as annuity based, but they didn&#8217;t really go when they first went into it. give the same credence to how annuity based tax work is, including corporate tax work, and they&#8217;re putting a different value proposition on that, because it is annuity based. and guess what? because of accounting and auditing and tax the advisory work is pretty annuity based as well. and so when you when you create a business model that is as annuity based as cpa firms are compare and contrast, for instance, to law firms, which are not nearly as annuity based. when you create that this different value propositions in that particular process. i personally think you will see some of these big funds that are buying billion dollar firms, or pieces of billion dollar firms. i think they&#8217;re going to evolve because of our profession, and they&#8217;re going to evolve to be way more buy and hold than just flip. and i&#8217;ve told them to this. and when i when i probably talked to almost every private equity group that&#8217;s bought into cpa firms. and when i say this probably the first 15 or 20 minutes of the conversation, they&#8217;re very skeptical of what i just said by the end of the conversation. there this sort of in one of those, well, you may be right about that. and in the economics bear, i think my possession out, first off, we have an excess supply private equity over demand. secondly, cpa firms are largely annuity based businesses, and so the flip doesn&#8217;t necessarily work as well. there will be flips, but i&#8217;m not sure about the second and third flip is what i&#8217;m saying. and thirdly, in private equity, traditionally, when they get to be when whatever industry, private equity is buying into buying up, they get to a point of being large, really large and and the exit becomes more of either an acquisition by a big, giant player in that space, or. going public. and yes, we have a company that&#8217;s public c biz in our space, but i don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s going to get replicated a whole lot, to be perfectly honest. and i don&#8217;t, i don&#8217;t think the larger firms, even, you know, at some point, certainly not the big four, but even that next tier of 13 or so, 11 or so billion dollar firms today, that number is going to grow. there&#8217;s going to be a limit to how much they buy in different geographies and things of that nature. and so i think the return to private equity investors is going to be really solvable. to say we got a business here that has got loyal clients, that is in a is in a world that&#8217;s highly complicated today, and it&#8217;s going to get more complicated because of ai and this annuity business can actually in pension fund or or a family office, whatever, can produce a very consistent rate of return, and you can continue to provide the capital that&#8217;s necessary for this private equity enterprise, this firm that has a private equity investment, to be successful, but so. but i think to just be clear, jane and i think it&#8217;s important for your listeners to understand, i think if we gathered again today, 10 just like today, 10 years from now, i think something like 90% of the firms of america are probably going to be partnership like structures, and not private equity structures. i think, i don&#8217;t think that makes that a dinosaur. i think it just means that there are places and and firms in different places, different growth factors and in in different technology, investments in different geographic footprints that different models have to be able to support that. now, if i was in a under 10 first person firm today, one of the things that i would be cautious of is, you know, or am i doing enough to remain relevant when my clientele, my clients continue to grow. am i? i can&#8217;t let myself fall behind in that space, because if i am not technologically as a student or innovative or on the front lines as my small business clients, as they have to continue to grow, then a gap gets created and and generally what happens in firms from a generational perspective, founding partners are there, and they grow old with their clients, and next generation sees it differently, and the problem becomes where the c the older cpas grow old with their clients. their clients move to a next generation, maybe it&#8217;s kids, or maybe it&#8217;s someplace else, and they see the firm out of touch with that, and that&#8217;s where a small firm runs into some trouble from that standpoint. so i think you got to be really strategic in thinking about some of those relationships. i don&#8217;t think private equity in the profession is a problem. not all of them will be successful. i think it will change the lot in some things in the profession. but as i said, it doesn&#8217;t mean everybody in the profession is going to be private equity owned, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>38:10<br \/>\nabsolutely. so. barry, i&#8217;ve got one last question to ask you your bonus question. how are you going to celebrate your retirement from the aicpa?<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>38:23<br \/>\nwell, that&#8217;s almost an unfair question, so let me try to answer it in a couple of quick points here. look, you know, i&#8217;m sure people disagree with me in things of that nature, i have a passion for small firms, have a passion for the profession, and i i&#8217;m not that passion isn&#8217;t going to go away with me retiring from the from the aicpa. we targeted this retirement date seven years ago. we did it right as a forest succession and things of that nature. but i have a passion for this profession, not only here in the us globally. i think our profession is unbelievably critical to how the world&#8217;s going to evolve. and i think the trusted aspect of the men and women in our profession is unbelievably critical to how business communities evolve. we got to remain competent, and we got to evolve it. so i&#8217;m going to continue to be involved in the profession in different ways, things that i think make a difference, not at maybe as much of an operational level as the aicpa. and i&#8217;m going to, i&#8217;m going to do some things globally, because i have a great global footprint. and i think we are the most local, the most national and the most global of all professions and even small firms clients have global needs today, and so i think global is very, very important in our profession. obviously, main street usa is very important as well. and a lot of companies that service the profession are talking to me. and so i&#8217;m going to pick some opportunities there, but, but then the funny part, and i&#8217;ll just sort of the irony of this, is. so in may, i announced my retirement at aicpa council meeting. i travel a lot. i travel 200 days a year. my mail caught up with me the thursday before that week, and i had been out of the country and all over the country, and there was a summons for jury duty in it for me that started in the midst of our aicpa council meeting, when i was announcing my retirement. and, you know, it was too late to get out of it. i had to make a decision. i wrote them emails and all this stuff, and i said, you know what, i&#8217;m just not going to show up. i&#8217;ve got to be at the aicpa council meeting. and it&#8217;s, you know, all of this stuff is scheduled for me to announce my retirement. and, and the county was nice enough. they finally, on the monday that i was supposed to report. they emailed me back and and said, okay, but give us a date that, because we&#8217;re going to summon you for jury duty in this date. so i gave them the second week in january, which is right after i leave this role, and i&#8217;m going to be showing up for jury duty in the second week of january, because i made that commitment because of the conflict before. so there you go. that&#8217;s my civic duty side.<\/p>\n<p><strong>jean caragher\u00a0 <\/strong>41:03<br \/>\nwhat a way to celebrate is that true duty? oh, my goodness, i&#8217;ve got my but i won&#8217;t bore everybody without that today. but we&#8217;ve been with barry melancon, outgoing president and ceo of the aicpa. thank you, barry, and thank you for your leadership and your contributions to the profession, and we get to look for more contributions to the profession in different ways.<\/p>\n<p><strong>barry melancon\u00a0 <\/strong>41:31<br \/>\nthank you. it&#8217;s great to be with you and to all the listeners. i wish you the best of luck, and the profession is great. and you, you just, just keep understanding how important we are as a profession, and you&#8217;re going to be super, super successful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>while it lasts.<\/strong><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-137223\" src=\"\/\/www.g005e.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/the-evolution-of-accounting_-insights-from-barry-melancons-historic-career-_-gear-up-for-growth-low-1.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"141\" \/><br \/>\n<strong><em>gear up for growth<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>with jean caragher<br \/>\nfor 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1334,"featured_media":137223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"0","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"129943,131604,130782,129856,133468,135087","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1362,4742,2254,5,2734,3002,2764],"tags":[4645,4810,4859,4439,4560],"class_list":["post-137220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-video","category-gear-up-for-growth","category-growth","category-outlook","category-podcast","category-special","category-video","tag-aicpa","tag-barry-melancon","tag-cima","tag-gear-up-for-growth","tag-jean-caragher"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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