Busy Season Take Two
Many firms will be gearing up for the final push of the year this month, when all of those December year ends come due for filing, creating another ‘busy season’ within the office. It is at times like these when many practitioners are reminded of a few inadequacies within their own rank and file – maybe their team’s bench strength could be improved somewhat – or maybe their clients aren’t as good as they would ideally like.
Either way, whether the areas that could be improved upon lays within your own team, or the clients you serve, this coming Fall, may practitioners will be looking to make some changes.
They say that ‘preparation is nine tenths of a good job’ – well, now is the time to do whatever preparation you feel might be due for next year.
The fall is the ideal time for bringing on new talent. In theory you should have time to spend with them and your ‘on-boarding’ process should enable them to familiarize themselves with their new surroundings, teammates, processes and clients without the furious panic that tax season or June 30th filing deadlines often bring with them.
Instead, Partners should be able to spend ‘quality time’ with new hires, staff should be able to devote some time to helping to integrate the new faces into the team, and recruiters should be able to find new talent for you without fear of delays in accepting offers, or a change of heart, that sometimes arise during tax season.
So, what does the ‘typical practitioner’, if such a thing exists, start looking at during the push towards 30th June filing deadline to determine what is required to strengthen the team’s performance going forward? Based on 30+ years experience in the field, here are some of my own observations. Some of them may ring true with you…
Staff Issues
- Same mistakes made over and over – few things are more frustrating for Partners when they review a file only to find that the staff member who reviewed or prepared it has made the same mistakes on this file as they made on the last one, and the one before that, and the one before that…
This is often a sign that the individual concerned is either not paying attention, doesn’t care too much for the quality of their work, or just isn’t cut out for public accounting. If, after attempts to remedy these problems are not successful, the only remaining thing to do is to put them (and yourself) out of their misery and replace them.
- Unacceptable amounts of unrecoverable time – many of the firms that I work with seek to achieve write-ups, not write-downs! However, there will inevitably be the occasional team member whose work rate or efficiency is below par. Maybe they haven’t had the importance of production efficiency properly explained to them. Maybe the way they are recording their time does not properly reflect what they are doing on a day to day (or hour by hour) basis. Maybe your time codes do not allow the flexibility to accurately record what people are doing in the office, but let’s be serious – most of you reading these columns have got all that stuff pretty well handled.
That being the case, we have to look at each team member’s productivity and assess their value to the firm and your clients. If they have some other highly valued skills and attributes then we need to take a balanced view of their contribution to the success (or otherwise!) of the firm. In the absence of any redeeming features or skill sets, then it may be the time to review their career prospects with the firm and make some changes this Fall.
- Flat-Liners – this is the name I give to those team members who are doing pretty much the same job today at the firm as they were doing three years ago, five years ago or even ten years ago. Now, I acknowledge that there is a role for ‘career technicians’ in most firms, but I am not thinking of those people here.
The public accounting profession is dynamic. The needs of our clients change from year to year. We need people who are going to grow as professionals and become more useful to our clients as time goes by.
The ability to learn and apply new skills is one of the attributes I look for when recruiting staff for my clients. If I don’t see a natural progression, the acceptance of more responsibility and the development of new skills, both technical skills and ‘soft skills’, then I am usually a little weary of the ‘talent’ the candidate claims to possess.
When more pressure is placed upon you – the practitioner – to add value to your clients’ businesses as a part of your enduring client/advisor relationship, you need people who can take the initiative and come up with ideas and suggestions as to how your clients can make improvements, no matter how small.
Client Issues
- Same crappy records this year – despite your best efforts to coach the client, they still bring in the plastic bag full of accounting records that, frankly, are not up to standard. This is indicative that your client owns a job, not a business. Clients like this will always grumble about your fees and pay you late, as they see no value in what you do for them.
These clients are the first that should be lined up against the wall and fired!
- Rude to your team members – this was a deal breaker for me. If I had a client that was rude or abusive to my staff, they had to go, no matter how big their fee was. Life is too short and there are many great new clients that you haven’t met yet just waiting to hear from you!
You’ll never have the time to get to meet these potentially great new clients if you’re too busy dealing with ‘D’ type clients, and frankly, you don’t deserve to meet them if you don’t get rid of your problematic clients first!
- No plans for growth – similar to flat-liner team members, there are such things as flat-liner clients. If your clients do not grow, how can your firm?
Your most promising team members (and potential future partners or successors) should be looking to work with clients that create a ‘buzz’. These are the clients who have ambitious plans for growth, will need many additional services from you in the years ahead, and will make a very nice contribution to your own firm’s bottom line, based on the value you can help them to gain from working with you.
If your clients are going nowhere, guess where they will take you?
- Clients who do not value your contribution – maybe it’s your fault if your clients do not see the value you bring to the table. I can help you with that, but what nobody can help you with is if your clients don’t want to develop that ‘trusted advisor’ relationship and come to you only for the year-end financial statements, and only because they HAVE to!
This is where a ‘client selection process’ is important. Resist the temptation to say yes to every inquiry, just because it means more fee income. Some clients are not worth the billings they generate because of the stress they cause you, and most of these problems will come from clients who simply see you as a bean-counter for hire, rather than as someone who can add value to their business.
I could go on, but space restrictions mean I should end here. With this year’s 30th June filing deadline, when you meet each client, try to test them out and ask them what their plans are for their business for the next few years. How do they plan to exit the business? If they plan to sell the business, what would they like to get for it, and what do they think the business is worth right now?
Simple questions like these should get some very interesting, and fee-generating conversations going with your clients. Every meeting with a client should be seen as an opportunity to add value to their business. How are you going to go about that?
© 2003-2011,
Steve McIntyre-Smith. All Rights Reserved. |
