Tag Archive for: growth

Building a more Rewarding Practice Means Overcoming the Three Barriers to Specialization

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

For years, decades even, accountants have talked about specialization. Building a niche practice has been the subject of articles, conference agendas, podcasts, and discussion among practitioners since what seems like forever. But the discussion is coming to a head as firms continue to struggle with capacity and staying on top of all the changes affecting the profession. A combined strategy of focusing on specific types of clients along with transitioning clients that don’t fit (we call it right-sizing your client base) is the key to solving some of the profession’s greatest current challenges ensuring its future health.

There are three common barriers practitioners and firms must overcome to embrace the opportunities specialization affords. In this post we identify and offer strategies to overcome them.

Barrier 1: perception of boredom

There’s a paradigm accountants must unlearn which is when you specialize it means you only do the same thing over and over. One of the most frequent objections I hear from practitioners at every stage their careers is “I like the variety of (or the idea of) working with lots of different types of clients.” Or put another way “I would get bored only working with one type of client.” The implication is that when you choose to serve only a certain types of clients that every engagement will be the same.

The first step in overcoming this barrier is to acknowledge a fallacy that two businesses, even competitors or those in the same industry, can be the same. The fact is every client is different because you serve people. And people have different views, experiences, personalities, stories, priorities, communication styles and thousands of other attributes that make us unique. The challenges and opportunities they face may be similar, but your approach to solving the issues and your relationships will be different.

The second step to overcoming this barrier is shifting your mindset. What if instead of doing the same thing for every client, becoming a deeply experienced professional means more creative flex? When you start to see a client’s operating environment from different angles because you spend a LOT of time in that space your experience lends itself to more inventive and innovative solutions. Focusing on fewer clients also creates time for deep thinking vs being so bogged down with work that you focus primarily on tasks and keeping you head above water. What if all this enables you to solve more issues and offer more proactive ideas to your clients?

Saying no to the clients and projects that don’t fit frees you to say yes to more challenging, interesting and inspiring work. It creates opportunities to provide solutions to challenges your clients may never have thought you could solve.

In summary: focus is the key to a more diverse practice.

Barrier 2: anticipated negative effect on revenue

It feels counterintuitive that fewer clients leads to more revenue, and that carving off and transitioning a chunk of our practice will ultimately increase top-line revenue and bottom line profits. First, as we already discussed, freeing time and space to do more for our existing clients enables us to bill our clients more. Second, specializing creates an opportunity to market yourself and your firms in a way that makes you more relevant to those prospects that need you than other firms. As you increase your relevance you decrease (or possibly eliminate) your competitors—which means winning a higher percentage of engagements.

Not only that, when prospects recognize the lack of alternatives to your firm the balance of power in the proposal process shifts to you. Pricing is non-negotiable, without scope modifications. You don’t feel pressured to give away pieces of your service or knowledge in order to win the business. You can become more steadfast in your terms of service and timing. You can stop wasting time responding to RFPs that don’t make sense. The entire process becomes more straightforward, with less gamesmanship.

Think about how refreshing that would be. Not only do you win a higher percentage of engagements, you will win with higher fees, fewer write-offs and greater realization.

Simply put: specialization increases revenue and profitability.

Barrier 3: failing to define the specialty

There are two options when it comes to specializing: reactive specializing in which you see what others are doing and seize whatever segment is left or proactive specializing to make your own space. Often firms think about specialization in terms of industry, which has lots of advantages, but there are lots of ways to define it. Region or location can be a specialization if you’re very well connected and articulate the value your local roots and connections bring to clients. You can specialize in a service model, like remote/tech enabled. You could be the firm that only meets at the client’s site or that works with family-owned businesses.

Most people start to define their niche on the basis of where they are today. They look to where they have concentrations of clients or their existing skills. This can be a good approach if you have passion for serving those kinds of clients, but you should be be wary of being held captive to the opportunities you have already had. You may find greater joy and satisfaction from diving in to something completely new, as long as you have the patience to recognize that diversification like this is a longer-term strategy than expanding an existing area. There’s no right or wrong way to start—as long as you start. A lot of folks “dabble” in one area or another. Dabbling is the enemy of specialization and gets you nowhere.

Regardless of where you start, follow these steps:

  1. Choose a focus
  2. Articulate the expertise frequently, consistently among your target clients (both current and prospective)
  3. Continue to work to add the missing skills, capabilities and processes to support your positioning

Often accountants make the mistake of switching steps 2 and 3—feeling that they can’t start talking about their specialization until they know everything. Let’s unlearn the definition that “specialize” means you have to know all the answers. Instead re-frame the definition to mean being dedicated to and connected enough to help find all the answers. It’s the epitome of what it means to be an advisor to clients.

The takeaway: if you don’t decide, you won’t specialize.

If your professional goal is to do more for fewer clients, explore some level of specialization. Like most things, specialization is a continuous learning journey. Be ready to not have all the answers. However if you’re committed to finding them, limitless possibilities await.

Learning to Unlearn

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hold an Unlearning Summit to Find Your Way Forward

This is the time of year when many firms shift their focus from working IN their business (delivering services) to working ON their business (strategy and professional/business development) during a firm or partner retreat. It’s the perfect time for leaders to contemplate what they need to unlearn in order to move the firm forward. In the next three months, ask yourself and your leaders – what critical areas do we need to unlearn?

Learning is adding new skills or knowledge on top of what we already know. Learning is an adaptation or enhancement that doesn’t fundamentally change an existing model. Unlearning is stepping outside of the current model or paradigm to choose a different model, and then relearning under that model. People sometimes shy away from the idea of unlearning because they feel like they failed somehow or that they’ve been “doing it wrong”. But that isn’t the case. We unlearn not because we were wrong before, but because there is new information or thinking that drives a need for change. In every aspect of business there are models that have become outdated. Unlearning is critical to fundamental and lasting change because it not only addresses the ideas that hold us back it also helps to create space in our brain for the relearning that needs to occur.

As you plan your firm’s retreat or firmwide strategy session, consider an Unlearning Summit. The agenda of the Unlearning Summit goes something like this:

  1. Discuss the baseline of where the firm is today in the following buckets: physical locations/ presence, financial performance, specialization, people, and technology and client service.
  2. Ask each leader for his/her input on what they want the firm to look like three years—in terms of the buckets above. How big, in terms of revenue? How many locations? What areas of specialization? Etc.? You can gather this input via a survey ahead of time to encourage honest feedback. Compile a summary of the information along with outlying perspectives. This will give everyone insight into how aligned leaders are on the vision for the firm.
  3. Have participants rate where the firm is today on a scale of 1-10—with 10 being the ideal. Average the scores and then discuss how do you move from where you are today up to the next level (so if your firm is a 7 today, what will it take to become an 8 in the next year).
  4. Now, the fun part. Often this kind of exercise leads to the follow up discuss of what we need to add or change. Instead, pose this question: What do we need to unlearn to make it happen? What mindsets are getting in the way? What processes are working against the vision? What do we need to stop doing and replace with something else?
  5. Make a list of the items and prioritize using the following matrix:

 

 

 

 

 

You can then prioritize and decide which area to tackle first. Answer the following:

    • Who should lead the unlearning?
    • What specifically needs to be unlearned?
    • What (if anything) will replace the thing we are unlearning?
    • What’s in it for our people to unlearn and then re-learn in this area?
    • What will be our new measures of success?
    • What should be the timeline?

Institute an innovation committee to take the idea and explore ways to address the issue. Make this a multi-generational, multi-discipline group and give them the leeway to try some alternatives to existing models. Leaders too must champion the effort and learn to publicly support failure. Maybe you have to unlearn the mindset that being wrong is a negative. This can be hard for CPAs who make a career of accuracy. Henry Ford once said: “failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” We can all benefit from adopting that philosophy as a guiding principle.

Working with someone outside the firm in an unlearning endeavor can be really valuable. You can hire a consultant or ask a leader from another CPA firms in your network/association. You can even ask a client with which you have a deep relationship to facilitate the discussion. Outsiders can challenge the status quo, know what questions to ask and have no personal stake in the existing model.

Areas that May Warrant Unlearning

Here are a few examples of areas in which unlearning exploration may be important (note: don’t limit your thinking to only these areas…they are just to get you started):

  1. Performance evaluation systems: In recent years lots of firms have made efforts to update their systems using technology and even more frequent, real-time feedback vs the old way of doing annual evaluations. Firms learned a new process, timeline and software. Fundamentally, though, they didn’t change their performance evaluation system. They changed how they evaluate. In some instances firms need to unlearn an evaluation system that is based on an outdated view of what is important – letting go of emphasis on technical aspects in favor of more social or communication aspects of their people’s work. For meaningful change to occur the firm may have unlearn what it means to work for the firm – and maybe even unlearn what accounting is – to embrace a new definition.
  2. Advisory: The old model of advice is to answer clients’ questions or to do what they needed when they call. It’s predicated on the practitioner having all the answers. Accountants need to unlearn this model of advisory that entails telling clients what to do (or doing it for them) in favor of a new definition which is bringing ideas to clients before they ask and collaborating with them to make them successful, even if it means the CPA isn’t the one with all the answers. In the future it’s likely there will be more unlearning fundamental to what accounting is and who accountants are.
  3. Client service: As we look back on sheltering in place and social distancing firms are beginning to unlearn the definition of client service. Previously most CPAs thought about client service as all the activities outlined in the engagement letter. But as we all have come to value relationships more. We’re using new tools to communicate. Some firms are unlearning their pragmatic definition of service. They are relearning a definition which includes a more holistic approach to checking on clients’ needs. Practitioners are asking more questions about how clients are getting along mentally: is the client and the client’s family physically well, how else the practitioner can help the client be successful. The profession is unlearning the transactional model of client service in favor of a more relationship-oriented model.
  4. DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). Many firms are taking a hard look at what biases and hiring processes they need to “unlearn” to take an important step forward in DEI. Beyond simply crafting a statement, they are doing the work to identify how to make meaningful systemic changes.
  5. Remote work. Almost every firm embraced some level of remote work in the past year-and-a-half. There is a significant difference between those that learned how to have employees work from home, and those that have unlearned a definition of “work” that limits where and how it can be done. Probably the most striking difference is a shift from managing processes of work to managing outcomes from work. Firms that manage to outcomes will create tremendous growth opportunities for the people they attract. The value they deliver and the levels of client loyalty the firm achieves will surpass levels of those that did not unlearn the old mindset.

Some of the things your firm needs to unlearn to move forward may be even more difficult because they are less well defined and less linear. They feel uncomfortable because they challenge people to re-think what they have always been taught or what they believe. The profession has spent decades learning and refining the current systems. But the landscape has changed and it’s time to unlearn some of those ideas that may now keep the profession from moving forward. This year use your firm retreat to evaluate what you should unlearn. Don’t try to tackle all the unlearning at once. In the next three months instead of focusing on what you need to add or learn in your firm, identify what must be unlearned in order to make space for relearning.

Understanding and Owning Client Experience (CX)

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by
Read more

Securing Client Loyalty in Uncertain Times

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has created a lot of uncertainty. In addition to our daily routines being thrown into disorder, the accounting profession is uniquely affected in so many ways. Deadlines are shifting. Rules are changing. Even that which seemed straightforward is open to interpretation (like payroll costs!). There is comfort and security in routine, and now that has been disrupted. But, now is a perfect opportunity to strengthen client relationships and secure their loyalty. After taking care of your employees and mobilizing for their safety and well-being, your next focus should be clients. Here are some practical actions to take sooner, rather than later.

A Lifeline in Uncharted Waters

Your clients are your firm’s lifeline and will continue to be through the months ahead. And in many ways you are theirs as well.  When there is uncertainty people will turn to people they know for help as opposed to seeking out new relationships. They will count on those they trust most – like you.  So if you haven’t already been checking in on your clients’ well-being it’s time to start. Do not put it off until you think the economic picture is clearer or the “unknowns” become certain (which is likely to take a very long time). Instead call, or better yet video-conference, with your clients to see how they are faring. Ask how their families, friends and coworkers are doing. Be prepared for them to vent if needed—and let them.

If you create a stronger dialogue with your clients, you’ll be in a better position to offer relevant help and support as they navigate their way through the uncharted waters ahead. And the more they appreciate your support; the more loyal they’ll be to you. They may even recommend other clients to you who are not having the same experience.

Here are some other ways to support clients in the weeks and months ahead:

  1. Talk with them – your clients probably won’t know the full impact of the pandemic yet, but they probably will have a sense of the immediate repercussions and/or opportunities. Find out what these are. How can you help? Even if you don’t have the expertise to help, can you connect them with a resource? Can you provide information that will help them access the help they need elsewhere?
  2. Focus on certainty in the short-term – the world is still turning and people will still need certain products and services. Some of your client may be offering these products and services – so help them understand how the current environment affects their demand. There are also some opportunities to help clients navigate government relief packages in the short term. Finally, help your clients think differently about their business and be a resource to them as they pivot. For example, are there decisions clients can make now to enable them to move forward down a certain path (maybe without all the information, but with enough) vs taking a “wait and see” approach for everything?
  3. Support their longer-term scenario and contingency planning – your clients will want to reduce risk as much as possible and having a course of action for various scenarios helps. It’s likely there are many ways your firm can help: re-forecasting, cash management, financial statement preparation and other CAS and advisory services will be at the forefront ways you can help. The CARES act also offers opportunities for specialty services such as cost segregation, nexus consulting and planning, SALT and R&D credits which may also be useful to your clients based on their situation. During the last recession there was an increased demand for insolvency and bankruptcy consulting. It will be important to find ways to involve less experienced staff as much as possible so think about what you can delegate to your team members.
  4. Continue to stay on top of the issues which will affect them – these could be state-based, industry, organizational or even personal issues. Be alert to how the latest developments may impact on them and offer timely, relevant advice or support when it’s needed. The more you understand about your clients, the more relevant issues you’ll spot. Make everyone on your team part of the effort by encouraging knowledge share internally and defining a process for how/when/where it occurs. Better yet, let your younger staff define and communicate the process!
  5. Be accessible – if it’s difficult to get hold of you and your team, clients may lose some faith in you. Although you may not have all the answers to their questions, being available and listening to them is important. Especially if your people are working in an environment (remote) which is different from the norm, it’s critical to make sure clients know how to reach their primary contact(s). A word of warning, this does not mean you must offer 24/7 access. As your people adjust to working from home it’s tempting to blur the boundary between home time and work time. Allow your people to set their “office hours”— those times in which they commit to taking calls. Establish and communicate (or reiterate) to clients and your employees your firm’s responsiveness policy. Your people are stressed and worried enough so don’t pile on by making them feel like they are constantly on call.
  6. Do what you say you’ll do, when you said you’d do it – accountability is one of the pillars of trust. Now more than ever clients want to be able to count on something…and that something is you. Minimize client turnover by ensuring you continue delivering a high-quality service they have come to know from you. This is the time to ask your clients what they need from the relationship (not the services they need, but attributes of the service like accessibility, being proactive, candidness, etc.). If your definition of what you think they need and their definition of what they thing they need are not the same they may be disappointed with their experience and seek an alternative.
  7. Think about alternative payment terms – If your firm has practiced some kind of prepayment strategy for services your firm is likely in a better cash situation than firms that have not. However, before clients start asking for fee reductions, identify the “A” clients you want to invest in so you know which clients you should be willing to make fee concessions for if the issue comes up. Be ready with a plan to talk with these clients so you are not taken by surprise if they ask. You don’t want to discount the fees of a “D” client in bad times and perpetuate the pain going forward. So as difficult as it may seem when you are managing cash flow, be willing to let some of those clients go.

We recommend when a client asks about reduced fees, first explore changes in scope that can impact the total fee. For example:

  • Will a review be okay for a year or two vs. an audit?
  • Can we do a collateral only audit vs. a full scope engagement?
  • Can we arrange a term payment plan for the fees to make it easier?

Most importantly, be willing to talk with clients about fees. Don’t hesitate, or act angry that they asked or assume the client wants a reduction. Empathize. Strategize. If you have to invest in a client, make sure they know it is a temporary situation and you are willing to do it because they are an important client of the firm and you want to help.

Doubling down on client loyalty will help steady your firm during this time of transition and enable you to deliver the kind of value that ensures clients for life.

Three Key Elements to Cross-Serving Your Clients

/0 Comments/in , /by

At the risk of sounding harsh I’m going to lay an honest truth out for you: your clients and prospects, don’t want your services. As matter of fact, they couldn’t care less about your services. While that may be disheartening to professionals who are not only passionate about what they do but also eager to create opportunities to grow, it is in fact the truth. An audit isn’t and never will be at the top of any executive’s wish list. They aren’t seeking new methods of accounting because they find it interesting.

Clients and prospects are, however, desperate for solutions to their pressing business challenges. They stay awake at night thinking about them—contemplating their next move, lamenting over opportunities they’re not sure how to seize, fretting over their changing competitive landscapes, wondering how they will finance their expansion.

These are your clients’ and your prospects’ needs. And therein lies a disconnect for many firms looking to increase client loyalty and attract new clients.

Professionals think about what they do for clients in terms of services. They bring ideas to clients in the form of services they can provide to help clients. In fact, many professionals talk about “being proactive” as a differentiator in the way they serve clients, and they define proactively serving clients as bringing them new service ideas. Even if these services are based on the client’s situation, or what in your professional opinion you know the client should be focused on, until you are able to connect that service to a business need with which the decision maker identifies it’s a service, but not a solution to anything.

Rather than cross-selling, maybe we should think of this as cross-serving. Here’s what cross serving looks like:

  1. Understanding what your client cares about

In order to understand what clients care about we need to ask questions. Cultivate a curiosity to learn whatever you can about your clients. Think about, and even write down, the questions you would like to ask. Construct those questions as open-ended – meaning questions that require more than a one-word response. Don’t limit your questions to the engagement, or area you care about. Instead ask question that encourage them to share what’s on their mind: “What accomplishments made you most proud this year?” “How did you feel about your year?” “What are your goals for this coming year?” These don’t need to be limited to financial or even professional areas. Let you clients just talk. And do not jump into trying to solve the first thing you hear. The first priority is just to understand what’s important to your clients.

  1. Articulating how what you do connects to those things your clients care about

This opens professionals to a whole world of creative possibilities for helping clients. Conversations with clients about how you apply your experience and expertise to help them address their business challenges, perhaps in ways they haven’t considered, helps deepen the relationship, builds trust and supports the firm’s topline growth.

If I’m your client, and you come to me with a service – that’s your agenda. When you come to me with a solution – that’s my agenda. Truly client-driven firms build processes and tools to interact with clients, and to bring up ideas based on their professional experience and expertise. What does cross solving look like?

  1. Remembering to help capitalize on opportunities – not just identify problems

CPAs are really good at identifying problems – material weaknesses, errors, etc. – and get pretty excited about helping clients solve them. And in your profession this is critical and something your clients count on. However, I encourage you to actively pursue the idea of opportunistic thinking. Most entrepreneurs, owners and business leaders are motivated by opportunities vs threats. Solving “problems” tends to appeal to folks who are motivated by threats. And yes, some of your clients fall into that category. But to be a true advisor for clients you need to pay attention to finding creative opportunities to strive for in addition to issues to solve.

Cross-serving clients not only fosters greater loyalty and topline growth, it’s a more full-filling and rewarding way to practice your profession. Win-win, don’t you think? To learn skills, tools and processes to tap into this opportunity, take a look at our professional development courses, or contact us today at info@thewhetstonegroup.com to find out about our coaching services and how we can help you.