{"id":90170,"date":"2021-10-26t12:00:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-26t16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/?p=90170"},"modified":"2022-12-22t00:42:35","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22t05:42:35","slug":"two-things-to-tell-potential-partners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2021\/10\/26\/two-things-to-tell-potential-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"six big mistakes in succession planning"},"content":{"rendered":"
and three reasons staffers don’t want “in.”<\/strong><\/p>\n by marc rosenberg<\/i> accounting firms worldwide are dealing with an enormously difficult challenge today \u2013 one that has topped every firm\u2019s list of critical issues since the turn of the century and will continue to be a high priority for years to come. the vast majority of firms struggle with it. failure to solve it causes hundreds of firms to merge out of existence every year.<\/p>\n more: <\/b>what a firm needs from its leaders<\/a> | what prospective partners should ask their firm<\/a> | what new partners should know about buyouts<\/a> | comp: what new partners don\u2019t know<\/a> | making partner: 15 steps to the buy-in<\/a> the \u201cit\u201d is, of course, succession planning, with difficulties rooted in a perfect storm of causes: <\/span> succession planning challenges are causing firms to scrutinize more than ever before their methodology for bringing in new partners. from developing staff into leaders and partners to revising financial models for new partner buy-ins and buyouts for retiring partners to transitioning clients to successor partners, these long-neglected and somewhat dysfunctional issues are increasingly being brought to the front burner.<\/p>\n compounding the challenge of bringing in new partners is the simple fact that few firms have recent<\/strong> experience in doing so. indeed, there are thousands of firms that have never made anyone<\/strong> a new partner. these firms are grasping at straws trying to figure out a coherent plan for bringing in new partners that is a win-win for both the existing partners and the new ones.<\/p>\n if any of the characterizations below sound familiar, you need to re-engineer your approach to bringing in new partners:<\/p>\n many of today\u2019s older partners have a tough time accepting that this attitude has shifted in the past 10 to 20 years. hard work, ambition and perseverance are still important. but today, it\u2019s also important to show young people the way by mentoring them and proactively<\/strong> helping them develop, all of which must begin years before a staff member is ready to be a partner.<\/p>\n no matter which thorny practice management issues i\u2019ve been called in to address over more than 20 years of consulting, one consistent observation keeps coming across loud and clear: cpa firm partners really<\/strong> love their jobs!<\/p>\n do partners come to work every morning grinning from ear to ear and shouting to all who will listen how happy they are? of course not. but when they sit back and think about how fortunate they are to be a partner in their firm, they feel very satisfied. opportunities to help clients abound. every day presents a new challenge \u2013 and cpas love solving problems. they enjoy the freedom and flexibility of being business owners. and they love making more money than they ever dreamed of. partners in local firms earn, on average, $300,000 to $800,000 a year.<\/p>\n if today\u2019s young people, from students pondering the selection of a college major to staff already working at cpa firms, realized how truly fantastic a job it is to be a partner in a cpa firm, our profession\u2019s succession planning challenge would be more easily solved.<\/p>\n you would think that partners would enthusiastically communicate their love of the game to their staff. but they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n you would think that staff would be dreaming of the day when they succeed in becoming partners. but they don\u2019t because their firm is probably not telling them what it means to be a partner and what it takes to become one.<\/p>\n it\u2019s positively maddening that cpa firms tend to be very secretive about two things that would excite young people to no end:<\/p>\n cpa partners make lots of money.<\/strong> a common belief among \u201colder\u201d partners is that money doesn\u2019t mean much to young people. this couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. throughout my consulting career of more than 20 years, survey after survey consistently shows that compensation is either #1 or #2 on the list of what\u2019s important to staff.<\/p>\n recent results of the annual rosenberg map survey show average compensation of local cpa firm partners to be $470,000. i\u2019m quite sure that the compensation of a cpa partner is higher than that of 95 percent of all other jobs.<\/p>\n given the importance of compensation to staff, and the fact that cpa firm partners make lots of money, you would think that partners would communicate this motivating fact loud and clear to staff. but they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n partners tend to feel that their compensation is confidential. or that it\u2019s nobody\u2019s business to know what they earn. perhaps they feel that telling the staff what partners earn, on average, would make them appear to be flaunting it \u2013 greedy, conceited, overly materialistic. but there are ways to communicate their lucrative compensation without making partners or staff uncomfortable.<\/p>\n what it takes to make partner.<\/strong> we have interviewed hundreds of cpa firm staff. we ask them these questions:<\/p>\n you would think firms would routinely have this conversation with their staff, especially those with partner potential. but they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n partners have a tendency to keep lots of things secret that should be open, formalized and stated in writing, including the firm\u2019s criteria for making partner. the main explanation we hear for not<\/strong> documenting such information in writing is concern that it could backfire. partners fear that staff will prematurely march into the managing partner\u2019s office waving this document, insisting that they\u2019ve fulfilled all the criteria for making partner and demanding a date when the coronation will take place.<\/p>\n so, many firms purposely don\u2019t formalize their criteria for partner. they reason that being less formal gives them more wiggle room to use their subjective judgment (or bias) in deciding who to make partner.<\/p>\n but this secrecy creates problems in leadership development. if talented staff don\u2019t know what it takes to become partner and have minimal conversations with partners on the subject, the firm\u2019s ability to retain great staff is hindered considerably.<\/p>\n what a disconnect! i constantly hear partners complain about today\u2019s young people. their common refrain: \u201cthese days staff don\u2019t want to be partner.\u201d my experience in interviewing and surveying hundreds of staff is that they may say<\/strong> they don\u2019t want to be a partner, but the real obstacle is that they simply don\u2019t know:<\/p>\n
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\nhow to bring in new partners: one of the hottest issues at cpa firms today<\/strong><\/p>\nundoing firms\u2019 archaic practices<\/h3>\n
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where leadership development starts<\/h3>\n
cpa firms are too secretive<\/h3>\n
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