Season’s Bleatings: A Wish List for 2022

 

Like most people I hope that whatever happened in 2021 stays in 2021. If I get handed another facemask when entering a store or have someone tell me that I am standing too close to them, you may very well see that vignette re-enacted on an episode of “Cops.”

Nevertheless, as many of us prepare to croon an off-key version of “Auld Lange Syne” in a week or so, I have compiled my personalized wish list that if all is holy – or even if not – will come to fruition in the coming year – particularly as it relates to the CPA profession.

So, in the spirit of the season and knowing full well some of you might take a slight offense here goes:

1.     In the ensuing 12 months I do not want to hear another practitioner rationalize that their succession plan will work if they can just locate a young CPA who can take over the controls and steer the ship into the future. It is not going to happen. EVER. Fifty thousand firms around the country and most a lot bigger and with deeper pockets than yours have the same strategy. Want to take a chance? Play Powerball. Your odds are about as good and think of the payoff.

2.     I realize that many of you have worked hard to build up your practice but let’s wake up and face north when it comes to how much your firm is really worth and please don’t ask me to find a buyer willing to pay as high as 1.5. A figure like that has not been seen since NSYNC was at the top of the billboard charts or Member’s Only jackets were considered stylish.

3.    Far be it from me to prevent someone from working based on their date of birth but in the sometimes-harsh reality that is M&A absolutely no successor firm is going to allow someone well north of 65 to continue working full time for 5-10 years. Not gonna happen. So be realistic about your full-time working timeline. Ditto for an aging practitioner looking to merge in a firm with younger folks. Again, when many of you were in their early to mid-30s would you affiliate with someone 75? Didn’t think so.

4.    Working remotely is here to stay. Period. The traditional workflow has changed so change with it. Several practitioners I know declined to invest in the needed technology to accommodate off-premises staff and as a result they lost staff to more progressive firms. Gee who could have seen that coming.

 

But enough grousing for the moment. Here’s wishing everyone a happy and healthy holiday season and a great 2022. Keep telling yourself it has to get better.

The Winds of Change – Or Irrelevance!

 

During college I worked for a time at a Tex-Mex restaurant when in an effort to boost stagnant sales and customer counts, Joe, the manager gathered the entire staff one early Saturday morning and proceeded to draw the face of a clock on a piece of paper. The hands of the clock were squarely on 12. He held it up for a brief examination and then drew a third hand and positioned it five minutes past twelve.

“Most people think that change means having the clock hands go around until they again reach twelve,” he explained. “But even five minutes is change. We don’t have to reinvent ourselves completely, but we need to change – even if it’s slowly.”

In that most basic demonstration he managed to drive his point across and highlight the importance of change and more critically, adaption to change.

Of course, that was years before words and technologies like Internet, texting, email, and Smartphones became embedded in the American lexicon. But the strategic lesson remains the same about remaining relevant by adapting to change.

The landscape is sadly replete with examples of once-mighty stalwarts of business and industry who failed to change when it was necessary for survival. For example, Kodak once commanded a 90 percent global market share in film sales and film developing but failed to see the encroaching threat of digital photography, even though the company, incredibly, owned a patent on the technology but declined to take advantage of it. Reader’s Digest once boasted 16 million readers but missed the gargantuan opportunity with online publishing. Remember Blockbuster Video? The chain once had roughly 9,000 units but ignored the threat of encroaching competitors such as Netflix. Now exactly one unit remains in Oregon.

When it Comes to Service, There’s No Argument!

 

Years ago, the Miller Lite beer brand aired a long-running ad campaign which posed the endless argument about the product whether it was popular because of “Great Taste or Less Filling?” TV spots included a number of celebrities and professional athletes debating that question and one even highlighted a comical knock-down catfight between two supermodels who eventually wound-up tussling in a pool. 

Since I equate light beer in the same category as vegetarian cheese or non-fat anything, as a decidedly non-consumer it really didn’t matter to me why people bought it. But over the years I pondered answers to some equally difficult product questions particularly those pertaining to customer service.

To wit: If you were a customer in a restaurant, would you prefer great service or great food? Most people including myself would excuse mediocre cuisine in favor of good service. Somehow when service slows to a proverbial crawl or is non-existent, the food quality is shuffled to near irrelevance.

Case in point: I was once dining in a well-regarded and oft-written about Park Avenue establishment with a senior executive with a Southern-based restaurant chain. Throughout the meal we were basically ignored (okay to be fair Diana Ross was seated at the next table) and I actually had to go to the hostess stand to ask for the check. The next day I wrote a column about my experience for the 65K or so readers of my then publication and from what I understood, the no-nonsense owner handed out a slew of pink slips to the waitstaff and had the executive chef personally call me to apologize.

‘Tis the season to be jolly – and careful!

 

Last week I was on the receiving end of a personal record. And not one that I would brag to family and friends about.

To wit: 12 of the 15 calls I received over a two-day span were your basic spam – likely come-ons for auto warranty renewals or ads for replacement windows - and no less than seven emails were obviously textbook phishing expeditions. I sort of guessed when one email came my way via Banc of America, seeking to verify my login credentials. To top it off, the bank’s signature red and blue logo appeared as a blurry shade of black and white. Another one insisted that I had not collected on a $250 refund that was due (news to me!) and that they just required my Social Security number to verify that I was indeed the deserving party of this unexpected largesse.

That was about one step more sophisticated than those enticing multi-million-dollar “business opportunities” you receive courtesy of a generous entrepreneur from Nigeria.

But alas, with the joy and the family camaraderie the holiday season brings, it also brings an exponential increase in scams according to experts.