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.

Personally, I think this maybe a very good time to find quality firms to add to your existing practice. You don’t ask, you don’t get.

Tom’s exceptional ability to communicate clear business solutions with humor, wit and razor-sharp insight is why he is in such high demand. Personally, Tom addresses over 100,000 men and women each year on high performance strategies for leadership, teamwork, change, and personal growth. His passion for raising more effective leaders is achieved by his unique gift to connect with the listener’s heart as well as their head.

Achieving long term results and exceeding client expectations have allowed him to serve leading companies in financial, health, technology, manufacturing, and service fields. Tom’s expertise is helping an organization define their vision, lead change more effectively, develop leaders and leadership teams and increase teamwork and communication skills.

As President of Tom Flick Communications and The Legacy Coaches, Inc, Tom understands that people, not programs, help organizations change and grow. Meeting the challenges of today’s business environment requires a committed workforce and providing actionable solutions that allow people to become peak performers both personally and professionally increases success and impacts the bottom line.

Tom began his speaking career while in the NFL correlating leadership qualities of an NFL quarterback to that of corporate executives. After retiring from the NFL, Tom continued to develop his leadership perspective and speaking style working with emerging companies and fortune 500 organizations across America. Mentored by leadership and change expert Dennis Goin and steeped in writings and processes of Harvard Professor John Kotter, Tom has garnered a reputation as an authority on leadership, leading change and team development working with organizations around the world.

Check out this video of Tom’s to get a good feel for what he’s all about.

In 2002, he was identified as one of the top 40 business thinkers in the world (BUSINESS MINDS, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.)

For twenty-five years he has advised firms in a broad spectrum of professions, covering all strategic and managerial issues, building a global practice that finds him spending about 40% of his time in North America, 30% in western Europe, and 30% in the rest of the world.

• His first book on professional businesses, Managing the Professional Service Firm, was published in 1993.
• It was followed in 1997 by True Professionalism.
• In 2000 he wrote The Trusted Advisor, with Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford.
• In 2001 he published Practice What You Preach.
• In 2002, he co-authored First Among Equals with Patrick McKenna.
• In January 2008, he self-published his latest book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker based on a series of articles written during the previous year.

His books are currently available in English, Arabic, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Chinese.

A native of Great Britain, David holds degrees from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics and a doctorate from the Harvard Business School.

He began his teaching career at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and then joined the Harvard Business School faculty, where he taught courses in managing service businesses from 1979 until 1985.

Maister lives in Boston with his wife and coach, Kathy. He is an avid collector of popular music, and owns more than 15,000 CD’s and a rapidly growing number of DVDs.

In March of 2005, he finally took his own advice, gave up smoking and lost 30 pounds.

King is the rare individual in today’s working world who has spent virtually his entire career with the same organization, starting as a salesman in 1980 when TaylorMade was a mere start-up and its lone product, the metalwood, was considered an oddity at worst and a fad at best. As the years passed and he advanced into sales and marketing management, then was elevated to president, and then CEO, TaylorMade-adidas Golf evolved from a three-employee start-up founded in an abandoned TV assembly plant in McHenry, Illinois to a tri-branded golf powerhouse with leading products in every category—drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, putters, balls, footwear, apparel and outerwear.

The 30 years he’s spent passionately immersed in his industry have given King an
incomparable understanding of his customers and his consumers. He has experienced
prosperous times, challenging times and every kind of time in between at TMaG, and
learned from them all. He’s toiled in the trenches as a salesman, balanced budgets and
motivated the masses as a member of middle-management. Yet his finest contribution has
been as CEO during the past decade, when he oversaw a steady surge in sales from $300
million to $1.2 billion despite a frequently challenging economy and a slow-growing industry.
King admits to owing a portion of his success to his passion for the game itself.

Currently a two-handicap, he took up golf in grammar school, and his understanding of all
facets of the sport have been instrumental to his ability to influence and gain the respect of
key industry members, including the myriad professional golfers who have chosen to play
and wear products by TaylorMade, adidas Golf and Ashworth.

King has earned many professional accolades and rubbed elbows with captains of
industry and celebrities of all types. He’s been honored as the golf industry’s Executive of
the Year, has been consistently named one of the ten most powerful people in golf, has
served as chairman of the National Golf Foundation and appeared on the television show
The Apprentice as a business role model. His gregarious nature, boundless energy, vast
business experience and wealth of golf-related anecdotes make him a tremendously
entertaining, educational and motivational speaker. He’s never failed to captivate his
audience (especially the golfers in the crowd) because he’s just as comfortable delivering a
compelling speech as he is running his company or teeing it up at Augusta National.

Gary is recognized in the accounting profession as the leading authority on technology and firm management. For the past ten years, he has been named by Accounting Today as one of the 100 most influential people in accounting. He consults and speaks around the globe on management and technology related topics including strategic and technology planning, compensation and developing a training/learning culture. He acts as a planning facilitator, provides coaching and serves on many advisory boards.

He serves on the Kansas Society of CPAs and on the accounting advisory board at Kansas State University. He is a member of The Advisory Board, a group of leading consultants to the accounting profession. He is the past chairman of the AICPA’s Information Technology Executive Committee and a former member of the AICPA Council. He has also served on the AICPA’s Academic and Career Development Executive Committee and the ACUTE Board of Directors.

Gary is the creator of and a facilitator for The Boomer Technology Circles”. Each circle is comprised of approximately 20 firms from unique geographic areas. The Circles meet three times per year and are connected through the Boomer Knowledge Network. These circles help the best firms get better!

Gary is the author of “Boomer’s Blueprint”, a regular column in Accounting Today and publishes the Boomer Bulletin”, a technology newsletter with worldwide circulation.

In addition to accounting firm and small business consulting, he has consulted with IBM, Microsoft, Intuit, CCH, and Thomson on the design and marketing of accounting related software.