majchrzak: marketer-turned-ceo redesigns the modern cpa firm | gear up for growth

collaboration, transparency, and independence drive beachfleischman’s growth.

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on gear up for growth, hosted by capstone marketing president jean caragher, majchrzak pulls back the curtain on how his growth-minded, marketing-first lens is reshaping beachfleischman’s strategy, culture, and business model—and what other firms can steal from that playbook.

unlike most firm leaders who come up through audit or tax, majchrzak built his career in marketing—first at freed maxick in buffalo, then as cmo and later chief strategy officer at beachfleischman before becoming ceo.

that background shapes everything about how he leads.

he tells caragher that he never bought into the idea that marketing is just “promotion.”

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“if you go to college and you take marketing courses, they say there’s four ps: product, price, place, and promotion. i’m a believer that there’s actually seven ps in professional services when you add process, people, and the physical experience.”

that lens forces him to look at the firm holistically: business model, pricing, service design, delivery channels, technology, talent strategy, and the client experience are all part of “marketing and growth”—and he believes marketing leaders need to insist on a seat at those tables.

for growth leaders and firm marketers, it’s a blueprint for breaking out of the “brochure and events” box and into true firm strategy.

one of the hottest topics in the profession right now is private equity. majchrzak doesn’t dodge it.

beachfleischman has made what he calls a “declaration of independence”: the firm intends to remain locally owned and independent.

but he’s clear that independent cannot mean traditional.

“it can’t be ‘we want to remain the same as the old traditional accounting firm.’ that doesn’t work,” majchrzak says. “the modern firm, if we want to remain independent, has to do things differently. we have to challenge the status quo, change the business model and the revenue model, and be a legitimate alternative to private equity.”

he’s candidly skeptical about who really benefits from pe transactions. he notes that most of the visible advocates are senior leaders nearing retirement—not younger professionals writing articles and sitting on panels extolling the model’s virtues.

at the same time, he acknowledges that the pe wave has had a useful side effect: it’s lit a fire under firms like his to innovate faster and rethink their business model instead of coasting on a 100-year-old playbook.

majchrzak returns again and again to one word: collaboration.

beachfleischman has built its brand promise and tagline—“collaborate forward”—around the idea that the firm’s purpose is to be “the ultimate collaborator” with clients and with each other. that’s not just positioning; it drives concrete decisions:

• eliminating silos. the firm works intentionally in cross-functional teams, fighting “siloed thinking” and making collaboration a core part of its purpose.

• expanding beyond traditional services. to truly collaborate with clients, beachfleischman has layered on advisory offerings in areas like cybersecurity (via a strategic partnership), employer services and payroll (contempo hcm), and international staffing through its mexico-based outsourcing arm, quadra.

• creating internal mobility. as the firm has diversified, lateral moves have become part of how they keep talent engaged—allowing people to move between audit, tax, outsourced accounting, valuation, and other advisory service lines.

that culture is reinforced by something many firms don’t do: radical transparency around strategy.

majchrzak describes firm-wide summits where leadership shares the strategic plan with everyone—including how many goals were set, how many were met, and what’s still unfinished. team incentives are tied to pushing those plans forward.

when caragher asks about technology and ai, majchrzak doesn’t mince words: the traditional time-based model is increasingly out of step with reality.

“for a hundred years, the profession has been a time-based business model where time equals units of revenue,” says majchrzak. “what happens when processes and service delivery get automated? you don’t have the hours that you used to.”

he points out the absurdity of trying to “back into” the right fee by layering tech charges onto fewer and fewer hours as automation improves. instead, beachfleischman is working to decouple time from revenue and lean into value pricing—holding intentional conversations with clients about outcomes, not hours.

but he also calls out a hard truth: the profession largely wasted the time that technology freed up.

instead of using efficiencies to deepen relationships, advise better, and mentor staff, many firms simply told partners, “go get more work.”

“they now have 300 relationships to stay on top of instead of 110 or 75. that’s what’s causing burnout,” he explains

his proposed fix is deceptively simple and profoundly uncomfortable: have fewer clients at a higher dollar amount, delivering more value. that shift, combined with tighter client selection and deeper advisory work—often niche and industry-based—is where he sees the healthiest future.

on talent, majchrzak aims higher than “we’re hiring.”

beachfleischman wants to be an employer of choice in the broader market, not just among cpa firms. their recognition as a best firm to work for and a top 200 firm lends credibility to that ambition.

how do they pursue it?

• brand and mission that attract, not just recruit;

• a culture that welcomes boomerang employees instead of blacklisting those who leave and later want to return;

• firm-wide visibility into strategy, so team members understand where the firm is going and how they can contribute; and

• an innovation center designed to respond quickly to emerging technologies and opportunities, rather than waiting for the next annual planning cycle.

taken together, it’s a picture of a firm trying to make itself the place ambitious professionals seek out—not the place they settle for.

when caragher asks majchrzak for one leadership lesson he wishes every firm leader understood, he doesn’t talk about kpis or m&a.

he talks about meaning.

“you have to do everything in your power to make sure that those professionals stay connected with their work and understand the impact they’re making at their clients,” majchrzak says.

to operationalize that, beachfleischman is rolling out a voice-of-the-customer program as part of a broader client experience strategy. they’re collecting client feedback from marketing through onboarding, service delivery, and loyalty—and then feeding that back to teams so people can see where they’re making a difference and where they need to adjust.

it’s not just about giving clients a great experience. it’s about giving staff a great experience of their own work, so they don’t lose sight of why it matters.

 other highlights:

1. majchrzak brings a marketer’s perspective to firm leadership, seeing the firm holistically through the “seven ps” of marketing: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical experience. 
2. he urges firm marketing leaders to move beyond promotion to influence strategy, pricing, service delivery, and firm growth. 
3. the firm has launched innovative services – cybersecurity partnerships, contempo hcm (employer services), and quadra (outsourcing in mexico) – focused on people and technology.  
4. majchrzak calls for moving away from time-based billing to value-based pricing as automation reduces hours in engagements. 
5. cpas must shift from managing hundreds of shallow client relationships to fewer, more meaningful, higher-value ones. 
6. deep industry expertise, combined with a substantial client experience and authentic brand, differentiates firms. 

more about eric majchrzak
eric majchrzak is ceo and a principal for beachfleischman. he is responsible for the firm’s strategic direction while meeting the mission, vision, and values. as chairman of the board, eric motivates and inspires team members to drive innovation and transformation so that the firm enhances its competitive advantage in providing value to clients. he also oversees the growth and success of beachfleischman’s subsidiaries, joint ventures, and partnerships.

transcript
(produced by automation. not edited for spelling or grammar.)

jean: hello, thank you for joining “gear up for growth” powered by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. i’m jean carragher, president of capstone marketing and your host. our guest today is eric majchrzak, ceo of beachfleischman. eric has been named one of the top 100 most influential people in accounting by “accounting today” multiple times, as well as being inducted into the association for accounting marketing hall of fame. eric, welcome to “gear up for growth.” 

eric: nice to be with you again, jean. thanks for having me on. 

jean: you’re very welcome. i always enjoy our conversations and just your way of thinking and processing ideas. in january, it will be four years since you were elected ceo of beachfleischman. you’re one of very few or perhaps the only ceo of a public accounting firm that came up through the marketing ranks. how has your marketing background shaped your leadership style? 

eric: oh, that’s a good question. i think i continue the philosophy i had when i was in marketing and growth and that i like to look at the firm holistically. as you know, the marketing mix is vast and it’s broad and it impacts every area of the firm. if you go to college and you take marketing courses, they say there’s four ps to the marketing mix: product, price, place, and promotion. i’m a believer that there’s actually seven ps to the marketing mix in professional services when you add on process, people, and the physical experience that clients have with the firm. when you think about that, it does mandate that you look at the firm holistically in your efforts holistically. so i’ve stuck to that over the years. 

jean: right. because i know i’ve heard and i’ve read about marketing as it relates to accounting or professional services that a lot of time is spent on the promotion part, but not in the other areas. so what i’m hearing is that for marketers listening, and then the firm leaders, we need to look at that whole big picture like you’re telling us. 

eric: right. and for marketing leaders at their firms, they need to break out of that box that accounting firm partners tend to put them in, which is you’re just here to do promotion of the firm. well, i mean, that’s great and you have to do that well. and i actually do recommend that you get good at that first and then you expand your reach into these other areas. but that takes a bit of education, a bit of patience. this is what you call that fight to have a seat at the table. right? so you have to get in front of the partner group to say, well, pricing is part of marketing and growth. i would like to be involved in the discussion that helps drive how we price our services, what the business model is of the firm, what is the revenue model? that is all the domain of a marketing and growth leader. and then beyond that, when you get into distribution channels or place, it’s the same thing. 

well, to me, that translates to m&a. where is the firm going to extend its brand and in what channels? is it going to be a physical office location in the next state over or are you going to develop a system for your service lines to be delivered virtually? well, then you can extend your brand anywhere you want to without that physical presence. but you have to have the processes, the platforms in place to do that. that should be driven in part by a marketing professional and maybe in concert with an it professional or a cio at your firm or an innovation leader. but you have to be part of that conversation. 

jean: now, you had an interesting lead up to ceo. so when you started at beachfleischman…well, maybe i’ll take it to maybe another step back. so you entered the accounting marketing profession with freed maxick, right? 

eric: correct. 

jean: in your beloved buffalo, new york. 

eric: yeah. go bills. 

jean: that’s right. yeah. go bills. and you made the move to arizona to be the chief marketing officer at beachfleischman. right? and then that led to your being named chief strategy officer. how much of those moves were from your personal drive versus other people recognizing your skills to fill those roles? 

eric: it was both. when i started at freed maxick in 2003, it was an exciting time. i mean, the internet was really just taking form back then. this is pre-social media. and there were a group of leaders there who allowed the marketing team to really embrace those tools and to experiment and to take risks. and by doing that, i feel back then, and this is over 20 years ago, that firm in many ways was way ahead of the curve in embracing those methods to bring new clients into the firm. and i want to say when i started in 2003, it wasn’t google that was the big player. it was yahoo. that just gives you an idea of what was focused on yahoo when i got there and search engine optimization and then google became a household name. and then, of course, social media came around. but i do remember a partner group there having discussions about, how do we feel about a marketing team that’s taking these risks? if you recall, when social media first came around, there were a lot of firms that were locking that down. they didn’t want that. and you were on the forefront of this, jean, because you were help fighting to open it up. 

jean: we didn’t want to waste time. don’t waste time at work. you got to bill those hours. 

eric: so just from the perspective of freed maxick, forward-thinking people allowing a marketing team to really embrace that to take some risks, and in the end it pays off. fast forward to beachfleischman. i think i came here in 2012. at that time, the firm was certainly committed to growth in a high-growth area of the country, arizona, and wanted to double down on growth and bring somebody in who could build a marketing function and a team from the ground up. and today our team is, i think, five people. and same thing, it took a belief in an idea, a commitment, and a willingness to let people shine and do their jobs. but it does take a team in so many ways. it takes resources. it takes a mindset. and beachfleischman had that in spades, for sure. 

jean: so beachfleischman is now one of the largest locally owned firms in the southwest. what strategic moves have been the most important in driving that growth? 

eric: good question. it’s probably multiple things. first and foremost, i would say it’s a commitment to the culture and nurturing a culture here that enables growth. and that works its way into every aspect of the firm. so it’s encouraged. we encourage our people to be involved in the community. we encourage them to be involved in their professional trades, their industry group trades. so you’re building this subject matter expert environment. it’s very collaborative. so we work in teams, for sure. we have fought really hard to eliminate siloed thinking in the firm. so for us, our purpose is about collaboration, the power of collaboration and what it can accomplish. that idea really enabled us to look at the firm as more than just a public accounting firm. if we’re going to collaborate with a client, ultimately, we have to do that in other areas beyond traditional public accounting. so audit tax, accounting, bookkeeping, that kind of thing, and get involved in other strategic and operational areas of a business. 

so part of our expansion, the reason why we’re doing it is purpose driven. it’s to collaborate, to be the ultimate collaborator with clients. and it’s pushing us into that advisory space. so a big part of our growth has been because we’ve been layering on and adding on advisory services to our menu of solutions over the years, whether it be joint ventures, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, mergers. so it’s a combination of that and organic growth that has enabled us to expand. 

jean: right. now, it’s as if i gave you the questions in advance, and we both know that i didn’t, because my next question is about those non-traditional services. where do you see the best opportunities in that area for growth? 

eric: well, certainly things that touch technology and people. and that’s been our focus at least early on when we’ve expanded our advisory services. and we have a cybersecurity practice here, and that is a strategic partnership with an independent third party. we have an employer services company that we launched called contempo hcm. it’s got payroll at the core, but it does a lot of other things and it’s focused on, obviously, the talent and people. we have an outsourcing arm in mexico called quadra where we have sourced our talent from. ideally, down the road, we would like to maybe provide that service to clients so that they can tap into the top talent in mexico as well. i think everything right now is touching people and technology. you can’t escape it. that’s been our initial focus. 

jean: and folks, what eric is talking about is relevant to whatever firm size you are operating in. when you’re talking about community involvement and networking and niching and all those things, that’s relevant to any size firm. wouldn’t you agree, eric? 

eric: yeah. i mean, whether you’re a solo practitioner or a firm that has 5 partners or 10 partners or 50 partners, you’re still seen as that most trusted advisor. you’re limiting yourself to be that trusted advisor if you’re just really narrowly focused on one aspect of that business. so in our case, we’re really trying to be the ultimate integrated services, professional services provider, business services beyond public accounting. but public accounting is always going to be at the core of what we do. it’s literally the center of the wheel. 

jean: and earlier you mentioned about beachfleischman’s culture. how do you balance maintaining that culture along with your desire for growth, for the firm to become larger? 

eric: good question. well, i think by the nature of expanding into these other areas, it does provide a bit more flexibility for people to do lateral shifts within the firm. i mean, we’ve had people go from the audit department to our outsourced accounting and advisory services or our tax department to somewhere else, tax to audit or to our valuation group, financial forensics and valuation. it does create a bit more stickiness for the employees to grow and nurture a career. i mean, after all, none of us started in one place and just stuck with it. it just seems like those days are gone. my father did. he was an engineer at general motors. he had one job and it lasted 40 years. those days are gone, right? 

jean: they’re gone. 

eric: and so just by providing some of these opportunities, not just opportunities for clients, opportunities for our people. and just that growth culture i think creates a bit of excitement. people can feel that they’re part of something that’s dynamic, that’s growing, that’s healthy. and so that’s what we’re setting out to do. 

jean: right. so i don’t believe that beachfleischman has entered the private equity arena yet. what are your thoughts about private equity versus remaining independent? we’re hearing a lot about that these days. 

eric: well, we have made a declaration of independence. so beachfleischman, and we’ve told this to all of our staff, we want to remain independent. but it can’t be we want to remain the same as the old traditional accounting firm. that doesn’t work. i think that’s what got the profession in trouble in the first place that allowed private equity to come in. not enough innovation, not enough change management, not enough risk taking, just doing the same thing over and over again, doubling down on a 100-year-old business model. that’s what the profession did for decades and decades and decades. so the modern firm, if we want to remain independent, has to do things differently. we have to challenge the status quo. we have to change the business model, the revenue model. we have to do things differently to be a legitimate alternative to private equity. and we think that there is room in the market for large, locally owned, independently-held firms as a counter to what’s happening with private equity. 

we’re playing the long game here. we’re not just looking five years ahead or seven years ahead. we’re playing this infinite game, the long game. and to me, that’s what really motivates people is they want to have that opportunity to have an impact on the direction of their firm and not just one generation, but the next tier of leaders and the next tier of leaders after that. they all want their chance at bat. and so we want to tap into that. and i feel like there is momentum for now these independent and local firms who are doing things a bit differently to really thrive and be a legitimate alternative to what’s happening in there. when i think about private equity, for firms like ours, i think it’s a good thing. it’s made a positive impact on our firm because in some ways it’s motivated us more to do things differently. 

to me, the jury is still out. i still think that private equity, even though the message is it’s good for younger people, i’m not seeing the younger people come out and tout the private equity model. it’s the senior leaders of the firm who get the most benefit, financial benefit, who are maybe at or near retirement, who are still the ones doing all the talking. so i’m a little suspect of how good it is for the younger people when i’m not seeing the younger people sit on panel discussions. i’m not seeing them to the extent you’d think there would be penning articles in “accounting today” or writing blog posts. it’s still wrapped up in that upper tier of consultants, advisors, and senior leaders at firms. and until the day that young people really come to us as leaders and say, “we want to do something different,” okay, then let’s have a conversation. but for right now, you know, our our intent and our long-term game is to remain independent. 

jean: right. you know, because i have received feedback from more than several managing partners on this topic, and they’re telling me that not accepting private equity has become an advantage for them in the marketplace because prospects are calling them and asking if they’re going to be accepting private equity. and if the answer is yes, that prospect is not interested in working with that firm. and people also…you’re right, we don’t hear a lot of these younger people, you know, proclaiming, you know, how fantastic it is because they’re worried. and like with any transaction, you know, with a merger or whatever, you know you’re going to lose people. but i’m hearing firms are now losing people because they don’t want to operate in the more corporate type of environment that pe demands of them. 

eric: yeah, i mean, you know, i don’t want to take it away from firms that are doing it. if it’s right for them, it’s right for them. it’s just not right for us. so it really does depend on what the firm is setting out to do. and in our case, again, we have a group of leaders and young leaders who are really eager to lead and to get involved. and you know, i hear a lot of things about the partnership model being dead and to some extent, okay, if you’re looking at the traditional way of doing things, yeah, i think there’s a point there. but whether you have partner-owner constituents that you have to work with every day within your firm, the partners of your firm, right, or the tech bros at a private equity firm, you still have people to answer to. you still have people to be accountable to. and so i don’t care if it’s private equity-backed or if it’s in your firm, you still have to practice the idea of selling ideas, delivering on what you say you’re going to deliver. right? it’s still the same. it’s just a different constituent group. so i still think you have to put in the hard work. whether you’re owned by a private equity firm or you’re locally owned, you’re doing a lot of the same things. 

jean: yeah, see, that’s an interesting way to look at that because you’re right, no matter what, leadership is accountable to somebody. 

eric: somebody. 

jean: right. or a group of people. right. nobody gets away with it. 

eric: no, no, no. 

jean: so we know what a huge topic talent is these days, right, in public accounting. and i’m not aware of any firm having all the people that they need to service their clients. so what is beachfleischman doing about this talent crunch? what’s working for you in attracting and keeping the best people? 

eric: it definitely ties back to the culture aspect of what we’re doing. and at a high level, we want to be an employer of choice. we want to be that company in the market that people want to work for. and not just in public accounting. i mean, i’m talking about an employer of choice in the marketplace as a whole. and so when you create that excitement around a brand and around a mission or a purpose, people want to work for you. so we’ve been working really hard at that to get the word out about our firm. we’ve had, like any firm, some employees will leave and try something else. and a lot of them end up coming back. and that’s something we’re proud of too. i know a lot of firms won’t let people come back, which i never understood that. but we’ve done that in many cases. 

and so we try to do that. we try to be very transparent with where we’re headed. like saying something like we’re committed to remaining independent, we share our strategic plan with the entire firm. we involve the firm in the creation of that plan so that people feel they have a stake in the success of it. there should be no surprises here because of the transparency. that does create…you know, i’m held accountable for being transparent, more transparent. so that’s something that we have to continue to work on. 

jean: right. it amazes me that even today, there is leadership in firms that don’t share information like that with their people. and you’re right, i mean, i believe…and i don’t think it’s a generational thing. i think all team members want to know, like, where are we headed? what’s the plan for the firm and how does that impact me? and what is my role going forward to help the firm achieve whatever that overall goal is? and by keeping it secret, i think it just gets a lot of talk around the water cooler going of sharing untruths or being concerned over something that doesn’t exist. 

eric: right. when you share like that, it does create a bit of pressure on management to get things done sooner rather than later because people are holding you accountable at that point. right? and accountants can be impatient. so the more you share, the more accountable you have to be to making sure you get that implemented. when you don’t share, it’s just, you know, people get surprised. 

jean: right. or even doesn’t it lead to people wondering, like, what is that person doing? right? i mean, i remember from my internal marketing days, plenty of partners would see that i was very busy. but if you asked people, like, what exactly is she doing? that would be on me for not communicating what my role was and what that involved. so if you’re keeping those secrets, it’s almost as if you are letting yourself get off the hook easier or maybe not try as hard to accomplish that goal because nobody really knows about it. 

eric: yeah. with our strategic plan, we’ll do management summits mid-year and then typically about every other year, we’ll do a firm summit where we bring everybody in and we’ll do updates on our plan to the extent where we’ll say, “our plan had 40 goals, we accomplished 32 of them. here’s what we didn’t accomplish or here’s what we did,” down to that level of transparency. and i have typically found that on any given year, we’ll accomplish 70%, 75% of what we said we were setting out to do. that’s been pretty consistent over the years. but yeah, it’s kind of exciting when you roll that stuff out and you get people involved. 

and like i said, there should be no surprises here because we’re starting to take…like, our industry vertical practices, they all have growth plans. they’re starting to morph into more mini-strategic plans for each of those industry verticals. and when those teams get together, they’re all working on that plan. and their goals are in many ways tied to incentives or compensation on moving that plan forward. so when we roll out a new plan, nobody should be surprised. it should all sound pretty familiar. they had a stake in creating the plan, a stake in executing the plan. so it’s a very familiar process. 

jean: right. right. and for anybody watching or listening, and if you don’t have a strategic plan, now’s the time to give that some more serious thought. well, we could have a whole other episode talking about a strategic plan, but it’s the roadmap. it’s helping you figure out where’s the firm going? how are you going to do it? who’s responsible for doing what, by when? and then the big piece, the accountability piece that eric has just been talking to us about. so important. 

eric: the profession is changing so quickly and every day something new is coming out. but to have a plan in place, it’s really just a framework, but you have to build in the ability to be nimble and to make decisions or to change course. and so this year we launched an innovation center within beachfleischman to really handle a lot of the stuff, the emerging opportunities and technology, because putting it in a plan a year or two in advance, okay, it keeps you focused on the big picture, but you still need that function within the firm that can deal with these emerging issues in quick fashion. 

jean: right. so we’ve talked a little bit about technology and ai and automation. how are these items impacting or changing the accounting profession and the way cpas do business? 

eric: sure. well for a hundred years, the profession has been a time-based business model where time equals units of revenue. so whether it’s in increments of an hour or six-minute increments. well, what happens when processes and service delivery gets automated? you don’t have the hours that you used to. so there’s a huge drive for us to get off that hours equals revenue business model and to do things differently other than how long it takes you. because how long it takes you has nothing to do with the value of the engagement. so we’re really learning to price engagements based on value, having a collaborative discussion with the client instead of charging them how long it took you. 

because in theory, if you just take a tax engagement for a midsize business, over the course of five years, those hours can keep dwindling and dwindling, getting shorter and shorter because of efficiencies you’ve gained with process. maybe you’ve got an automated aspect of the job, new technology platforms, you name it. so there’s less hours in wip. and then what you’re doing is you’re trying to back in a number with technology charges on top of that to get that engagement to be priced where you think it should be. and you’re playing this game. so we want to avoid that. we want to be more future-friendly, and maybe time is still a consideration in terms of workflow, but it should be decoupled from revenue. 

jean: right. and doesn’t that allow more time for cpas to be more advisory because they’re not doing all the checking the box, rote-type activities? it gives them more time to actually focus on the client situation or whatever they’re trying to accomplish and how could the firm help the clients achieve that. 

eric: so in theory, yes, that’s what should have happened, but it didn’t happen in the profession. and i’m saying the collective we, meaning the profession. all we did is when we gained these efficiencies is we just said, go out and get more work, go out and get more work. so if you look at the average partner at a firm, what they were yielding, let’s say 20 years ago, they had far fewer clients than they have now. they have double, triple, quadruple the clients than they did 20 years ago because they can do much more in less time. but instead of stepping back and being a better advisor for those clients, all we did is we just put more on the top of the funnel. and i think that’s what’s causing the burnout. it’s not that people are working more hours than they ever have. in fact, you could argue they were working more hours back then. it’s that they now have 300 relationships to stay on top of instead of 110 or 100 or 75 or whatever the number was 20 years ago. 

and i have data that that backs that up at our firm because i’ve done some analysis on it. people can yield so much more, like the volume of client relationships now, just through technology than they ever could. but are we really stepping back and being a better advisor or are we really taking that spare time that we gained in mentoring our people to be better leaders? i’m not sure the profession has done that. but we’re trying to fight that and do things a little bit differently. but great point. yeah, in theory, that’s what should have happened. 

jean: so what needs to happen for cpas to make that change? 

eric: have fewer clients at a higher dollar amount delivering more value. 

jean: but then that has to be part of the culture of the firm, right? i mean, that has to be something that’s accepted and encouraged. 

eric: yeah, have to be more intentional with the clients you are onboarding. they should fit more of that collaborative model. a client that does want to work with you that’s not afraid to have multiple services that you’re providing. that would be the ideal situation. that will make you a better advisor when you are impacting other areas of that business beyond just finance and accounting. and that’s why firms are trying to push into advisory to keep clients more sticky, to sell that advisory work at a premium. and i think that’s a good thing. i think that’s healthy. 

jean: and i think this is the perfect spot to make the pitch for nicheing. so being able to be an advisor to a segment of the market, a particular industry. they can go deep… 

eric: go deep. 

jean: exactly. they can go deeper by going to market by industry niche. 

eric: yeah. and when you go deeper and you become that subject matter expert or that industry expert, that yields a premium. you’re not commoditized at that point. now, you can argue that many firms say that they’re niched. and i think that’s a spectrum. but i do feel the ultimate differentiator is not just your industry expertise. it’s the experience that those clients have at your firm and it’s your brand. that’s the only true differentiator. 

jean: right. and you’ve probably heard eric say the word collaborate many times over the course of this past half hour or so. and that is your brand. right? 

eric: it is. 

jean: actually, i mean, you use that word and collaboration is the brand of beachfleischman. so, you know, you’re living the brand, eric. 

eric: our tagline is, “collaborate forward.” 

jean: there you go. there you go. so, right. and i’m happy to see that more firms are focusing on their brands and understand that it is an important part of their business. and it’s not just, let’s get a pretty logo that we could put on our website. it’s really what the firm is and how the people are. that makes me very happy. yep. okay. so one more question. what one leadership lesson have you learned that you wish every managing partner or firm leader could hear? 

eric: i feel that when you’re a practitioner, an accountant, an advisor, that you have to do everything in your power to make sure that those professionals stay connected with their work and understand the impact they’re making at their clients. and i think firms get into trouble when that becomes hard to see. when you have people grinding it out and they don’t know why they’re grinding it out or if it even matters. and so you’re always trying to find ways to find that impact at the client and celebrate those successes. 

so one of the things we did at our firm this year is we’re rolling out a voice of customer program. it’s part of our client experience program. but we’re really trying to get feedback from clients during the continuum of service delivery from marketing message to onboarding to service delivery to satisfaction and loyalty and get feedback from them along the way, and then take that feedback and share it with your team. what do we need to do? do we need to make adjustments? where has this client been the happiest? what do they value the most? so that is in part not just to give the client a great experience, but to give our people the ultimate experience when they’re delivering the services so that they stay connected to their work. and i think that’s the most important thing. find ways to keep your people connected to the work that they do for their clients. 

jean: well, that’s a perfect point for us to end on today. i’ve been speaking with eric majchrzak, ceo at beachfleischman. eric, thank you as always for sharing your insights with us today. 

posted on november 21, 2025