Matter Over Mind

This week I was privileged to co-present a two-credit CPE session on succession planning and how to value an accounting firm at a local conference comprised of primarily small firm attendees.

Ours was just one of several programs kicking off simultaneously after the morning break and as conference-goers began searching for their intended sessions, one elderly gentleman pointed to his schedule card and asked if he was in the right room.

No, I told him, mine was a session on transition and succession planning.  Alas, he had signed up for an audit update class, but as he departed down the hallway he felt compelled to unleash one zinger,  “Oh sure, you’re going to tell me how to work for someone else.”

If there was ever an attendee at that conference who should have been required to sit through my presentation it was this man. Now I’m not much of a gambler, but I would be willing to wager a significant amount of money that this practitioner had absolutely no succession plan in place nor did he intend to draft one. So when the time comes to wind down, he will either be carried out involuntarily in a pine box or arrange some last minute merger under the least favorable conditions.

The irony of his opinion was that had he attended our session, he would have heard how we addressed each and every fear that impacts practitioners as they begin to plan for an external succession – and chief among them is the fallacy of transforming from a ground-up entrepreneur to a clock punching employee, subject to the workplace whims and intractable guidelines of a successor firm.

And often, nothing could have been father from the truth. Under a number of alternative deal structures we offer or can formulate, said CPA would be able to maintain his present income and lifestyle while being relieved of the daily headaches of such tasks as billing and administration.

But external succession being a far more emotional issue than a rational one, he was steadfast in his beliefs and truthfully, it would not have been cost-efficient to invest any time in attempting to change his mind.

Not too far down the road, he will wake up to the fact that he has far more yesterdays than tomorrows and he has let a lot of valuable planning time slip away.

And sadly, that you can bet on.