However, we’re living in a transient world, where people seldom stay at the same job for thirty or forty years. Your new recruits are coming into your firm with a mindset in which their expectation is to work for several companies over the course of their career.

In “the old days”, employees accumulated impressive stores of knowledge about the way things were done within the company. Particularly if they stuck around for decades and rose through the ranks, working at many different levels, eventually they might know how every job in the firm was done. These were the employees to whom employers would send their new hires to be mentored, confident that there were few questions the new employee could ask that the veteran employee couldn’t answer.

Good times.

But things have changed, and not just in how long people stay (or don’t stay) at one job. Technology has changed things, too. Now, many procedures change rapidly in order to keep up with the pace of related technology. So even the employees that do stick with you for years are forced to constantly relearn how to do commonplace tasks.

Meanwhile, you have to be able to rely on your team so you can focus on the bigger, strategic picture for your practice. How can you in such a fast-paced, ever-changing world?

Practice owners today must lean heavily on documented systems. If you don’t have a “how-to” manual on how to do things in your practice (or, more ideally, a series of manuals), I urge you to get that project started now. Have your employees start writing down what they do in their jobs, and compiling step-by-step instructions on how. As they document their regular procedures, direct them to imagine a brand-new employee walking into the firm and not knowing how to do anything. Their instructions should be clear and detailed enough so that a newbie can read them and hit the ground running.

Compiling a comprehensive set of manuals for your practice may take time, but don’t let that deter you from starting.

Also, don’t be tempted to think of this as unnecessary bureaucracy. Documenting systems for all the functions of your practice will make the process of delegating to your staff much smoother. As changes happen, you can simply adjust the systems you have in place to accommodate them. In our times, documented systems are crucial to your practice’s survival.

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We can easily apply this to our CPA practices.  After all, building a business relationship means we have to show our client that we’re looking after his or her interests.  It’s the kind of trust that can only be nurtured over time, and it requires taking an interest in our clients as human beings.  As Built to Last author Jim Collins says, “Don’t be interesting.  Be interested.”

Exactly.  Turn your attention outward.  Remember to look at your clients as individuals.  Learn about them.  Be curious.  Listen to them.  The more you understand what they like and dislike, the better able you’ll be to tailor your services to them.

For example, you may send a client a link to a particular news story that may interest him, or swipe an article from a magazine and pop it into an envelope for her.  It makes a client feel special when you obviously know what interests them, or when you recognize their personal achievements and family events.  It’s the personal touch that keeps clients wildly happy, and referring their friends and business associates to you.

Need more ideas on how to make your clients feel special?  Here are four easy ones:

• Use their name.  Simple, but powerful.
• Talk with them about non-business subjects.
• Tell them early about your new services.
• Respond promptly to their calls and e-mails.

Depending on your relationship with a client, you may even incorporate personal visits.  This isn’t something I do often, but some CPAs I’ve mentored have done this with great success.  Some clients may be more receptive to this than others.  Use your best judgment.

By the way, are you on Twitter?  So are we!  Please follow us.  We’ll gladly follow back.

Until next time,

Salim

A Well-Defined Market. More than a few CPA practices have made the error of trying to be all things to all people.  It makes it hard to establish a clear position in any market.  Have you defined your market clearly enough?

Labels Aren’t Descriptions. It’s not enough to merely have a label, like “Jim Smith, CPA”.  You need to focus on the benefit you offer the client.  For example, saving them tax dollars.  What benefit can you bring to your prospects? Have you worked it into your marketing message?

Are You Bragging? How many times have you read an ad for a CPA firm that says “We’re the largest CPA practice in Smithville!” Good for them.  But guess what?  Your prospect doesn’t care about you.  Think instead about what the client is looking for in a CPA, and use that.

Simplified Message. You want your marketing message to be easy to remember.  If you try to make it cover too many things, it will be less memorable and also less believable.  Instead, keep your message uncomplicated.

…But Not Too Simple.  Simple is good, but you don’t want your message to be so short that you’re not really saying anything.  It has to be long enough to convey a specific, meaningful benefit.  Saying that “We’re here to solve all your problems” is way too general.  Tell them exactly what you have to offer.

The Right Media.  Even if your marketing message hits every other point just perfectly, you can still waste money and time by choosing the wrong media for that message.  Identify the best way to get your message to your target market.  Learn where your ideal client is spending his or her time, and find a way to place your message there.

Want to learn even more about marketing your CPA practice?  Check out my book The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy: 10 Secrets to Attract More Clients, Boost Profits and Live Your Ideal Lifestyle.

Until next time,

Salim

I talk to many CPAs who think just because they’re in a professional business, all of their marketing communications must be “formal”.  They think anything else would be perceived as un-business-like.  But nothing could be further from the truth.

If you subscribe to my Superstar CPA newsletter, no doubt you’ve read my critiques of real-life CPA marketing and advertising materials.  Have you noticed what most of the “before” pieces have in common?  The sales letters, the ads, the banners and business cards…all of them, dry and boring.

Your prospective clients are just like anyone else – they crave a little excitement in their lives.  Anything you can do to make your marketing more fun and interesting will attract their attention.

Start thinking about what you can do to brighten up your marketing materials.  To help get your imagination humming, here are three examples:

• Lumpy Mail. Do you send out direct mail marketing like a sales letter in an envelope?  Make the package lumpy.  Include something inside that creates bulk, because it’s more likely to get attention.  For example, you could tape an aspirin to the front of the envelope with the saying, “Is your tax bill giving you a headache?”  You can get really creative with the items you include inside a package – anything from a pen to a tennis ball.  The point is, you want to be sure your mail goes into the pile that will actually be read later, rather than into the “junk mail” pile or worse, directly into the trash.
• Spruce Up Your Digs. Make the experience of coming to your office more pleasant for your clients.  Freshen wall paint, install some new furniture, or build a coffee bar.
• Advertise Somewhere Different. Be creative with the places where you advertise.  Maybe it’s advertising in a non-business location, or hanging a banner in an unusual place.  With a little brainstorming, you can stretch your advertising dollars by getting great results for less money.

Identify some creative ways to promote your practice.  Invite team members to contribute their two cents.  Ask them to be looking around for ideas, and follow up a week or two later to pick their brains.  You never know where the next brilliant idea will come from.

Most people enjoy being helpful.  Most of us get a kick out of being able to share useful information with someone we know – especially when it’s connected to something that’s worked out well for us.  (Keep in mind, however, we’re just as quick to spread the word when a service provider has disappointed us!)

Your clients will want to help you because they see themselves as being in partnership with you.  Because they interact with your firm, they also see themselves as experts on your practice and what you have to offer.

So, one of the reasons referral marketing works so well is because your clients receive something from the giving process.  They’re sharing what’s worked for them and being helpful to others.  For many, that’s a powerful motivator.

Referrals are attractive to you, the CPA, because clients who are referred to you are your most cost-effective prospects.  Once you calculate the lifetime value of a new client, you’ll see that you’re spending pennies on the dollar to attract referrals from your current client base.

In addition, clients who are referred to you will often turn out to be your best clients.  They will already have an idea of what you do and the benefits of retaining your services.

Another benefit of getting referred clients is that they tend to be more loyal.  If someone has taken a friend’s advice through a referral, they are less likely to switch to a new provider, because they wouldn’t want to embarrass the friend.  Referral marketing is therefore the ultimate win-win solution for you and your clients.

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That means you need to build a quality team of people you can trust to deliver exceptional services to your clients and who will help you grow your practice.

However, there are six common missteps I see CPAs making again and again.  Do yourself and your practice a huge favor and avoid these:

1. Trying to do all the work.  You want to start building a high-performing team that you can trust to deliver high-quality services.  That will allow you to spend less time producing the work and more time building the practice.
2. Recruiting too fast.  Too often, we recruit employees to fill vacancies without really taking the necessary time to found out if they’re the right people.  The key point to consider is whether or not a candidate has the right attitude.
3. Failing to hold team meetings.  Many practices fail to take time for team meetings, or they organize them inconsistently and poorly.  A well-planned meeting is an important part of the process of developing people and building a team.
4. Firing too slowly.  It’s not easy to let someone go if they’re not fitting into their role.  But hanging on too long to the wrong employee affects the whole practice and can cause problems with clients.
5. Failing to reward excellent performance.  It’s easy to get into the habit of expecting people to do their jobs and neglecting to encourage them to do even better.  Take time to recognize and reward exceptional performance.
6. Thinking of employees as costs.  While employing a staff is a major cost for your practice, it’s important to think about how the staff member you employ may contribute to the growth of your firm.

There you have it, in a very powerful nutshell.  Be smart with your team and your team will do their best for you, helping your practice grow in record time.

Learn even more about growing and strengthening your practice! Check out my book The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy: 10 Secrets to Attract More Clients, Boost Profits and Live Your Ideal Lifestyle.

However, it’s also important to find the right balance between being too aggressive and too wishy-washy.  From inside this spectrum, CPAs trip and fall and learn to be better sales people.  Here are five of the most common mistakes CPAs make while perfecting their handle on sales.  Which ones sound familiar to you?:

1. Failing to Close the Sale. Often we may have pleasant meetings with prospective clients after which we let them walk away and “think about it”.  You need to have a process that focuses your prospect on making a decision and signing up right away.
2. Being Too Pushy. On one hand, we may rush people into making decisions.  On the other, we may avoid pressing them at all.  You need to have a system that leads a prospect to making a decision at the right time.
3. Getting Too Involved in the Details. The point of a sales meeting is to get the client signed up – not to start going through their issues.  It’s best to get them signed up and then handed over to the appropriate person in your firm.
4. Failing to Follow Up with Warm Prospects. Here’s a big mistake: Losing touch with prospects who’ve expressed an interest in your services in the past, but didn’t sign up because the time wasn’t right.  You need to have a way of keeping in touch with these people so that you can follow up when the time is right.
5. Failing to Follow Up with Past Clients. It’s too easy to assume that past clients left for negative reasons.  There are actually many reasons why someone may have worked with you for a limited time.  You need to go back to them and try and sign them up again.

Avoid these five mistakes, and you can’t help but grow your practice.

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You might be like a lot of practice owners I know, whose success crept up on them — and along the way, so did their overhead expenses. As business got better and better, maybe you started spending more freely on things that seemed so unaffordable in those tough start-up years. You operated for a long time with a tightened belt. As you began to prosper, you delighted in finally being able to put more money into your practice, trusting that it was an investment that would pay off in the long run.

Those investments could very well pay off. However, if your overhead is beginning to feel like a runaway train, it may be time to pull back.

One of the biggest overhead expenses for any small business is payroll. It can sap cash flow from a business faster than any other expense.

Is payroll your runaway train?

Take an honest look. Are you overstaffed? Along the path of growth, you may have hired too many people. Each one of those people costs you money. You’re subjected to registration and record-keeping requirements which can be expensive. You also have to pay unemployment taxes, withhold state and federal taxes (as well as Medicare and Social Security taxes), pay for workers’ compensation insurance, and remain in compliance with safety regulations to avoid injury to your workers.

If you fail to comply with all of the above employment requirements, you could face severe penalties, and maybe even be found personally liable.

Are your people properly trained? Too many employers assume their employees know how to do their jobs. Sometimes, their lack of skills or know-how might be handicapping your practice, and you won’t even know it. Spend time training each of your employees so that they understand their roles and how to perform at an optimal level.

Hire slowly, fire quickly. Don’t hold on to people who aren’t contributing to the success of your practice. When hiring, develop a screening process that includes having several employees interview a candidate. You’ll be more likely to get it right if you let your team members evaluate the potential co-worker.

Be clear about expectations and deadlines. Make sure each and every employee understands what’s expected of him or her, and agree on deadlines together. Follow up to ensure the employee has what they need to complete a task correctly and on time. Never just assume the work is getting done. Inspect results and offer constructive feedback.

Try employment alternatives. If you need help in your firm, consider using a temporary employee from a staffing firm, or hire an independent contractor. You’ll avoid the costs associated with bringing someone onboard as an employee.

When you reduce your payroll expenses, you’ll be making a huge impact on your overall overhead. Lower expenses mean an instant boost to your company’s bottom line.

Learn even more about growing and strengthening your practice! Check out my book The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy: 10 Secrets to Attract More Clients, Boost Profits and Live Your Ideal Lifestyle.

Best wishes,

Salim

In fact, many CPA practice owners avoid conducting performance reviews, because they feel uneasy addressing an underperforming employee.

That doesn’t have to be you. Here are six tips to transform your performance review process into a positive experience for all:

1. No blindsiding. Make sure your employee knows exactly when to expect his or her performance review. In my firm, I conduct reviews annually, typically on the anniversary of the employee’s hire date. Make a schedule and do everything in your power to stick to it. Give the employee a chance to prepare.

2. Don’t scold; be a coach. Assume an empathetic attitude, and remember this employee is not your misbehaving child. This is an adult who depends on their job for their livelihood. Being aggressive or overly critical will put them on the defensive and derail the whole process.

3. Lead with vision. Start by explaining your vision and goals for the firm. Make sure the employee understand how they play a role in that vision.

4. Balance good and bad. Sure, this employee may be having some challenges, but look for and verbally acknowledge his successes and accomplishments. When discussing the negative, focus on the employee’s work and results, rather than making it personal.

5. End on a positive note. Don’t wrap up the review on a negative point. Once you’ve discussed any challenges, return to positive areas. The goal is to motivate the person to continue improving her performance. Let them know they still have your trust and confidence.

6. Have a game plan. Clearly document any problems and establish action steps with the employee. Make sure they clearly understand what’s expected of them going forward.

You’ll know your performance review was a success when the employee leaves the meeting feeling excited about his or her job. Strive for that outcome from the start.

Are you on Twitter?  So are we!  Please follow us.  We’ll gladly follow back.

Why did I go to all that effort?

Because it was a good opportunity to be in touch with my clients in a meaningful way. And the response I got from the clients was overwhelming. Here’s one of the e-mails I found in my in-box when I returned to work:

By the way, I got a card from KENYA! Now, that was nice! Handwritten and everything… Please tell Salim how thoughtful that was. He is and always has been such a nice person to work with. Him and his crew!

I often remind owners of growing CPA practices of the importance of staying in regular contact with their clients. In my experience, staying in touch is critical to a firm’s success – and yet, so many practice owners neglect it.

When I do speaking engagements with CPA firm owners, I often conduct an informal survey – I’ll ask how often they get in touch with their clients.

The common response? 2-5 times per year.

In my opinion, that is way too little.

Ideally, I like to be in touch with my clients 18 – 20 times per year – and that’s not including face-to-face business.

You might be thinking, But Salim, 18-20 times per year? That sounds like nagging!

Nagging? Not when you see what it really looks like. Here’s how all those points-of-contact with my clients break down over one year:

Receiving monthly newsletter – 12 contacts

Birthday card or gift – 1 contact

(Note: I advise practice owners to spend up to 5% of their revenues on gifts to customers.)

Card on the anniversary of our business relationship – 1 contact

Thanksgiving card – 1 contact

Thank you postcard – 1 contact

Personal visit to business – 1 contact

Personal phone calls – 2 contacts

That’s 19 right there. 19 contacts without seeming to be nagging.

Keeping in touch with your clients is important. It keeps your firm top-of-mind.

And be sure to inject variety into your program of frequent contact. Use every type of media available – direct mail, fax, e-mail, phone, personal visits. Whatever you do, keep it interesting.

Learn even more about growing and strengthening your practice! Check out my book The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy: 10 Secrets to Attract More Clients, Boost Profits and Live Your Ideal Lifestyle.

Best wishes,

Salim