The Packer Sweep for CPA firms

More years ago than I want to remember, I was walking with my family near the famed St. Patrick’s Cathedral in in New York when my father pointed to a short, gray-haired man with horn-rimmed glasses in a black pea coat nervously puffing on a cigarette. His stride had a strange gait almost like his legs were not long enough to reach the ground and my father said admiringly, “Look, there’s Vince Lombardi.”

For those not old enough to remember, Vincent Thomas Lombardi was a legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, where in nine seasons he turned around a long-struggling franchise to the point where the club captured five National Football League championships and two Super Bowls. His impact on the game was so great, that his surname is emblazoned on the trophy presented to the annual winner of the Super Bowl.

He made no secret of his coaching success or the team’s playbook. Both were predicated on perfect execution of the basics.

His primary threat was the vaunted Packer sweep, a running play around end where if everyone completed their respective assignments the way he drew it upon the blackboard, it would work anytime, anywhere and under any conditions. A former NFL coach remembers attending a seminar where Lombardi spent EIGHT hours diagramming that one play.

A generation later, a focus on basics is often overlooked – somewhat understandably - amidst rapidly evolving technologies and changing demographics. Many professional services firms – CPA practices being no exception – tend to ignore the focus on the execution of services that got them to where they were in the first place. Their website might list as many as 15 client services, but how many of those actually have a partner in charge? As a result, many commit the cardinal sin of customer or client service – that of overpromising and under-delivering.

I once attended a management performance conference and one of the session leaders sort of boiled today’s lesson down; “It’s infinitely better for your business and your clients to do two or three things excellently, rather than 10 things mediocre.”

So, with 2014 still in its infancy, it may be time to diagram on the board what your firm does well and conversely, weigh the value of continuing to offer services that may not necessarily be in your wheelhouse.

Sticking to the basics may not be glamorous, but then again, the results speak for themselves. Come to think of it, had he gone in another direction, Lombardi would have probably run a heck of an accounting firm as well.