The Great Client Search

As another tax season disappears in the distance there are always two things I can set my watch to.

The first is what has become an annual ritual for practitioners: Many vow never to trudge through another 1040 frenzy again. On average this strategy or pledge lasts at most, oh, about six months.

The second is that firm owners and partners now switch their focus from worrying about getting through filing season to how they’re going to grow their practice and entice new clients to sign on.

A generation ago, the critical but unenviable job of business development usually fell upon the already overworked shoulders of the firm’s managing partner. But there were usually two inherent problems with that. First, said managing partner more often than not had a book of business of their own to manage. Second, most of them were not highly skilled in sales or marketing – two critical skills needed to usher in organic growth.

It’s all in the Packaging

As you can imagine, we receive our fair share of objections with regard to reasons why some CPA firms who badly need to merge are hesitant to do so.

So, as a result, they procrastinate longer than a middle schooler who needs to get their parents’ signature on a failing report card.

One of the more frequent complaints is the fear that their clients, upon hearing of a merger, will decide to take their business elsewhere rather than confront the changes of the unknown.

My response to them is that the way to overcome client trepidation is to package it correctly. There are some subtle and other not so subtle strategies to allay client worries – chief among them is to have your new merger partner accompany you for an in-person visit to your top clients. This way they see the both of you together and can now envision the relationship and synergies going forward.

Another trick is to send your clients the merger announcement on YOUR stationary and not of the successor firm. Otherwise your clients may perceive it as a solicitation for another firm and file it under G – for garbage.

And if you’re predominately a tax-centric firm, you probably want to hold off announcing anything until you draw close to tax season. If you unveil an affiliation for example in June, then your existing clients have 6 months in which to make a yea or nay decision on whether to begin the search for a new firm.

Again, it’s a matter of packaging and timing. 

Finding the Next “Star” at Your Firm

Last week I delivered my first 2015 post-tax season CPE to one of the state societies on – well, you guessed it – succession planning.

Despite the fact that roughly three quarters of the attendees appeared shell shocked after yet another brutal tax season, it was a lively and interactive group who peppered me with questions with refreshing regularity.

When the subject of internal succession came up, one attendee asked me bluntly “How do you know if someone has the potential to one day lead your firm?”

I responded by telling him it’s a difficult question to answer because there are dozens of variables that go into it.

For example, sometimes it’s easy to spot a “star;” they have that “it” quality that you know will only get stronger as they are mentored and develop. 

Where are those surveys when you really want them?

Over the past week, between flying, rental cars, purchasing technology components and then remaining on hold for 30 minutes with tech support and even shopping for a new pair of jeans, I’ve been asked to complete no less than five customer surveys.

Depending on my mood of the moment, I would estimate my completion percentage at about 50 percent. Obviously, when I receive superior customer service or conversely, when my experience rivals the voyage of the Titanic, I would push that percentage somewhat higher.

Last week my travel experience to a large Midwestern city rivaled the latter. 

Thinking Differently

When he served as governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller forged a reputation for looking at problems differently than the norm.

One time a staffer approached him and explained that the reason one of Rockefeller’s pet infrastructure projects could not be approved was a lack of funding.

“The problem is money,” the disappointed colleague told the governor.

“No,” said Rockefeller. “Money is the solution. The problem is where to get it.”

Theories on how to approach problems and business differently are about in as short a supply as January icicles in Minneapolis.

Or the roughly 10,000 opinions on how to improve your golf backswing.

But I digress.

About two years ago, I read one of the more interesting books on business leadership  titled “Start With Why,” written by an Englishman named Simon Sinek which posits the theory that great leaders and innovators come to work each day inspired and examines the reasons why they do what they do and not the what they do.

And to think differently.

It’s still about attracting clients

Each year, I teach roughly 25-30 hours of CPE, both at live events and online.

Bear with me, as this is not an advertorial for my presentation services as impressive as they are if I say so myself in all immodesty, so you can stop rolling your eyes.

No, today’s missive is about the top challenges that firms are currently facing and likely will be well into the future.

In virtually all my presentations, I have one PowerPoint slide emblazoned with the bold headline “What’s keeping CPAs awake at night?”

It showcases the results of a number of surveys which state that far and away a firm’s No. 1 challenge is that of attracting new clients. For those who follow the profession closely, this may not exactly come as breaking news.

Taking Inventory

For lack of a better term the span between February 15 and April 15 is when most of us at our company go into a sort of involuntary hibernation.

That two-month window is when we get a lot of the tedious administrative work done – such as updating our records in Salesforce, preparing lists of potential merger candidates and generously spreading our bylines around various accounting centric publications.

Any calls or visits to firms during that period are usually to the much larger practices, where the managing partners don’t have a stack of 1040s on their desk the height of a double-pastrami on rye at New York’s famed Carnegie Deli. As I’ve mentioned previously in this space our calls are usually treated like a boiler room stock broker pitching a minimum investment of $5,000. And that’s the way our good clients treat us. Decorum and public decency prevent me from describing a typical cold-call conversation.