As I take inventory of my client meetings lately, one topic clearly rises to the top: “How can we best fuel growth?” Clearly, some firms have figured out the formula… All you need to do is look at the 2012 Accounting Today Top 100 list and find those firms posting 8, 9, 10 or more percent revenue growth over prior year. From my experience, they are not relying solely on one strategy to be able to put those numbers on the board. In fact, they are employing many strategies and tactics at the same time to achieve those numbers.

To see how a firm might build a growth engine to accomplish 10 percent growth, consider the chart below. Our firm today is a hypothetical $20M firm with 150 total people. The challenge is to grow 10 percent in one year. See below for how each element of the engine contributes to growth.

Growth Engine Components – $20M Firm with a 10 percent Growth Goal

This chart shows us that, in fact, one single type of marketing or sales effort cannot possibly drive significant growth for a firm of this size. The contribution from each component may be higher if the initiative is wildly successful, and could be zero if the effort flops.

And remember, this doesn’t begin to account for clients who leave your firm – creating the need for even stronger numbers.

The bottom line? Many firms today simply do not have enough “irons in the fire” to put significant numbers on the board. So, if you are wondering where your growth will come from this year, consider what our hypothetical firm is using to hit their growth numbers. Then, build your own plan, chart it out, and add it up to see if you have enough components working together to achieve your goal.

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Art Kuesel, director of practice growth and marketing consulting services for Koltin Consulting Group, helps CPA firms across the country hone and maximize their growth plans, build effective marketing and sales efforts, coach partners and managers to greater success and add revenue to the top line. Koltin Consulting serves CPA, law and financial advisory firms with strategic growth, M&A services, executive recruiting and management consulting services. Contact him at akuesel@koltin.com.
Join Art and other CPA firm growth experts at our Winning CLIENTS is Everything Conference on October 18-19, 2012.

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I am certain the most other large firms in the country and seeing the same trend.  Unfortunately the lack of planning by these small firms is evident.  Almost like an awakening.  However, we are not interested in being their “White Knight” unless they provide us a realistic value/proposition.  The value/proposition has to include great and sustainable clients,  sustainable talent and perhaps some niche that we would welcome.  If it’s simply a place for them to sell their old clients and retire—no interest here.

Be opportunistic, be cautious and be wary.

Paul McCartney turns 70 this June. Twenty years ago, when he was fifty, his manager suggested that 50 was a good age to retire, saying, “You really don’t want to go beyond 50. It’s going to get embarrassing.”

Brian Hiatt reports in the March 2012 issue of Rolling Stone:

McCartney has no plans to stop touring or recording, He says, “You get the argument, ‘Make way for the young kids,’ and you think, ‘F*%# that, let them make way for themselves. If they’re better than me, they’ll beat me.’”

McCartney’s right; the date on your birth certificate shouldn’t determine how long you get to keep contributing.

And that’s the rub. McCartney is still contributing. And he works in a fiercely competitive industry. When Sir Paul runs out of hits—and fans’ nostalgia for them—he’ll have to stop, because no one will come see him, or buy his stuff.

But that’s not how it works for you and me. We toil in organizations where some of our elders hang out—sucking up resources and biding their time—well past their expiration date. They hide behind a smokescreen of success that veils the hollowness of their contributions.

And that’s not about to change. Boomers are running scared. They haven’t saved nearly enough to retire, and their confidence in their investments is low. Plus, many of them LOVE to work. Life at the top is pretty good, thank you very much.

So, here’s the deal, next-gen. DO NOT WAIT FOR BOOMERS TO MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. That’s not the way the world works; power never moves out of the way. Xers and Millennials, you’re going to have to take the reins yourself. You’re going to have to be better than the Boomers you want to replace. You have to out-hustle them. Out-wit them. Out-innovate them.

You have to make a way for yourself; don’t expect Boomers to do it for you.

Avoid avoidance. Introverts instinctively react to a whirlwind of sessions and mixers by thinking of reasons not to attend at least a few. Overcome this impulse by planning a full schedule ahead of time—with a formalized itinerary, attendance will feel less optional, and excuses will sound less convincing.

Use the buddy system. It’s easier to face crowded spaces when you coordinate attendance with people you already know. For example, arrange to meet one person for a cocktail the night before the conference begins, one person for breakfast the next morning, and another person in the lobby of a major presentation prior to its start.

Work the room one person at a time. Don’t be overwhelmed by the crowd—stay in your comfort zone with a one-on-one strategy. Find someone who seems to be standing on her own, introduce yourself, and ask a few questions that spark quality conversation. Then do it again. And again.

The Po!nt: You might not be an extrovert, but with the right approach you can get just as much value from a conference.

Is your firm all bundled up for America’s economic winter? Use this winter to refocus your energy for the next rebirth

Still feeling shaky about the economy? Not sure whether to pull the trigger on that massive technology investment or acquire that Chicago office? Your instincts are good: America is in a period of economic winter, and we haven’t bottomed out yet.

And all of this was predicted.

America goes through four distinct seasons, or “turnings.” Like climatic seasons, America’s turnings are knowable and predictable. William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote about them in their 1997 book, “The Fourth Turning.”

Here’s how the four seasons have shaped America. Perhaps you’ll see some of your firm’s history here:

Spring (the first turning) started after World War II. Everyone felt terrific, GIs were getting a college education, the economy was booming and the middle class was expanding. Hope was in the air. Traditionalists (b. 1925-1944) were newlyweds and young adults, and Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1964) were just being born. It was a time of euphoria.

Summer (the second turning) was in full swing by the “Summer of Love.” An air of anti-authoritarianism set in, and Boomers – America’s next generation of youth – played this role well: They marched. They sat in. They radicalized. Traditionalists felt a huge “generation gap” between themselves and Boomers. During that summer, Gen Xers (b. 1961-1981) were just kids.

Autumn (the third turning), American institutions and ideals started to show signs of decay: widening inequality, gas lines, Watergate, the Iran-Contra Scandal, the farm crisis, spiking divorce rates. Traditionalists were starting to retire. Boomers were taking over, Gen Xers were joining the workforce, and Millennials (b. 1982-2001) were just being born.

Winter (the fourth turning) blew in with the 2008 financial crisis and is expected to follow a historical pattern: an initial spark (Wall Street’s collapse) will set off a chain reaction of further emergencies related to debt, civic decay and global disorder. Winter is expected to hit its apex in 2020, making way for spring around 2025. In winter, Boomers will enter elderhood, Gen Xers will assume leadership, and Millennials will become America’s next-generation workforce.

What will smart CPA firms do during winter?

• Return to the core values your firm was founded on. When people face winter’s uncertainty, they get uneasy. With C-Span playing in your lobbies, everyone walking through reception is reminded of the world’s lack of predictability. To keep people grounded and focused, remind and reinforce your firm’s core values – and stick to them. Strong values give people comfort and a shared direction.

• Work to earn a good reputation with clients as well as your community. In winter, people turn to those they can trust. Firms with strong values employ professionals with high integrity, people who keep their word, professionals with good manners and cultural decency. In winter, make sure your employees are meeting more with clients and in the community.

• Build stronger, more efficient teams. Strauss and Howe advise, “In the Fourth Turning, the rewards will grow for people with a reputation for accepting authority and working well in teams. Stress less about what sets you apart as an individual [which was the norm during summer and autumn], and more about what you have in common with others.” The time for big egos and narcissistic self-promotion has passed. Winter requires strong teams that can work together without friction to achieve remarkable results.

• Get lean. Winter is going to last a while, and to survive, smart teams will root out waste wherever it exists. Duplication or rework that might have been standard during fatter times are heavy burdens in winter. Use lean processes, effective dashboards and best-in-class practices to track and eliminate waste.

• Trade in visions of market domination for consistent, year-after-year performance. Jim Collins’ new book, “Great By Choice,” reinforces this point: Firms that consistently achieve goals (even modest goals) season-after-season outperform those who wager big bets. Winter is no time to sell off all your clothes in exchange for a turn at the roulette wheel. Winter rewards the patient, persistent plodders who achieve consistent, measurable gains.

To the untrained eye, winter looks bleak. Actually, winter is a time of great potency, when living systems hibernate to re-gather their energy for the next cycle of birth and growth, which comes in the spring.

Firms that accept winter and the four turnings as natural cycles of America’s history will be better prepared to adjust their behaviors and get in flow with their natural, predictable order.

Why is Winning Is Everything different?  Why should you attend?

I know we all deal with how to differentiate our CPA firms from our competitors, to me, this has always been one of the most difficult challenges in my career.  We all know that there is a big difference, but how do you demonstrate it?  Nobody says their client service is “just ok” and nobody says that they are “pretty good” in tax.  We all make the same statements and hope that we can somehow make the difference apparent.

I think the same is true for the CPA Firm Management Conference business.  There are several out there and the choices seem to be growing exponentially over the past few years.  I have been a student of these conferences for over 20 years, and have been to just about every flavor.  However, there was always something missing, I was always looking for something more, something different to help me push my practice to the next level.

So this is exactly why you should attend Winning Is Everything—it is designed to be different.  The biggest difference is the perspective of looking out at the business world as examples of how we can improve our practices rather than an internal look from industry consultants and managing partners.  For example, this year one of our keynote speakers is Mark King, the CEO of TaylorMade-adidas.  Mark took a fledgling golf company and turned it into the industry leader in a very short period of time with some groundbreaking technology and design changes.  A few years back we had Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, famous for the book (and now the Oscar-contending movie) “Money Ball”.  This perspective was, perhaps, a new way for us to evaluate talent in our firms.  [Read more history of the conference.]

There is a lot to be learned from outside our profession, it just takes an open mind. We are focused on bringing in experts and minds that have successfully solved many of the problems that our firms are facing today.  Hopefully when you consider where to spend your dollars in practice management conferences you will notice that there is difference in the Winning Is Everything Conference.