In my time as an Accounting mentor, I’ve heard dozen of partners talk about what they think is the issue with their firm. What I’ve learned in my time is that while there are a bunch of issues partners may say are the problems, but the real problems can be harder to talk about.
Four Problems Most Partners Hate Talking About
Here are the problems that Partners don’t like talking about…
1. A partner centric process
This occurs when every job has a question that needs you to answer it. You’ll spend the day fielding questions and solving problems for the entire office, and find it all but impossible to focus on your own workload.
On top of that…
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the Partner is kept exceptionally busy… and becomes more so as the practice grows,
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the team do not ‘step up’ to take ownership, and
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practice growth stalls while a backlog of work waits to be cleared.
2. Hourly rates and Service Agreements
These are the traditional tools of compliance based firms, but they are holding up your transition to greater things. Partly this is because repeat business will come from clients because they trust you, instead of because they know what you can do for them. (So they don’t ask you for more.)
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Unless a Partner is involved in actively up-selling, sales growth doesn’t happen.
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The team doesn’t feel as though they are doing any of the fun stuff because the Partner does the projects so team mop up leftovers. The idea of additional sales is demotivating because this will just mean more work.
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For the practice as a whole, inefficiencies and complacency will fester over time. Without an emphasis on better systemisation and faster methods, team members will be doing their own thing. This contributes to a lack of consistency between team members and teams.
3. Hiring more Accountants to increase capacity
This doesn’t work because…
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the partner ends up with more people to manage
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the team have little or no opportunity for skill advancement, just more responsibility looking after more people.
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and the practice just becomes bigger and harder to manage, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more profitable.
4. Always saying ‘yes’ to new work and new clients…
Just because the work sounds like something you can do, and the client looks right and can pay, doesn’t mean you should say ‘yes’ to them.
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Partner may be happy because the practice is growing, but they are also becoming hectic
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the team just experiences more work on top of what they already have. Plus, new work requires more consultation with managers and partners, meaning more stoppages, more write-offs and lower productivity. All have a negative effect on individual motivation.
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As a whole, the practice experiences greater inconsistencies and inefficiencies, while growth stalls and profitability falls.
Learn all you need about Practice Growth in one workshop (July 2015)
The Practice Growth Formula Workshop is returning to Sydney in July 2015.
It’s a two day event for Accounting partners and principals to build the strategic skills required to successfully grow themselves, their teams and their firms.
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Remove yourself as the practice bottleneck…
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Master VAS so you never have to rely on hourly rates and service agreements again…
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Build strategic teams who do the heavy lifting for you, and
- Become (better) at getting higher value, repeat work from your existing client base.
Andrew Robertson | TwentySix Group