Accounting Office Management & Administration Report

In this post-recession environment, CPA firms are rapidly re-evaluating their criteria for hires at all levels. One of the most important changes in recruiting is happening at the senior levels. Because business development, marketing and client relationship skills are essential for anyone seeking a senior-level position in today’s CPA firms, CPA firms recognize that the criteria for senior positions and partners have changed. “There was a time when clients would come and knock on your door but that doesn’t happen anymore,” says Michael Stallone, managing partner of Eisner & Lubin LLP, a 70-employee firm with offices in New York and New Jersey. “The focus is moving more and more towards business development and building up bottom line quickly.”

The value of many CPA firms took a hit during the downturn, postponing the retirement plans of many of your peers. Now that the economy is improving, values are rebounding and succession planning is becoming an increasing concern.

Has your firm developed extraordinary talent over the years? I am guessing the answer is, “no.” If the answer were “yes,” I don’t think we would be hearing so much about succession. Firm owners have been discussing succession planning, retreats focused on succession plans, and presentations about succession planning for several years now with little real success.

I’d first like to thank all of the readers of AOMAR for your feedback after the last edition. It’s invaluable for me to understand what issues are keeping you up at night and what we can do at IOMA to help.

CPA Firm leaders and administrators often have conflicting duties: (1) manage the firm’s operations as cost efficiently as possible, while (2) diligently securing all of the firm’s most confidential records.

After an interview, how long does it take you to circle back to each of the candidates? If it’s more than 48 hours, you could be putting your firm’s brand at risk.

What’s unique about your firm’s offerings or expertise? Most firm leaders have trouble answering that question, or at least have difficulty communicating that into marketing language. “It’s rare to see [marketing] done well, especially by small firms,” says Clare McDermott, a principal in SoloPortfolio, a marketing company that focuses on professional services firms. “Few firms truly differentiate themselves as experts in a specific area. Most of the marketing I see done by small to mid-sized professional service firms only help them to further blend into the crowd.” Case in point: Try Googling “CPA firm” along with the words “trust,” “integrity,” and “high value” and you’ll get 27.4 million, 7.3 million, and 1.4 million hits, respectively. While each of those concepts is important to winning and retaining long-term client relationships, simply writing those words in a mission statement or tag line won’t distinguish your firm from your competitors.