leadership

8 times when hourly billing trumps value pricing

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and aand when it doesn’t.

by ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: i am trying to switching to value pricing and am having trouble getting completely away from time-based billing in certain situations.

response: value pricing is a great method and concept. i suggest reading, and thoroughly understanding ron baker’s “implementing value pricing: a radical business model for professional firms.” i like what he suggests, have used some of his techniques even before he started writing and speaking about them, and recommend it in many situations.

read more →

3 reasons why men don’t pick women protégées

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woman and man working with calculatorwhen leadership models are male, sometimes female candidates go unrecognized.

by ida o. abbott
sponsoring women: what men need to know

let’s assume a powerful man works with two junior colleagues, a man and a woman, who are both equally talented, motivated and superbly skilled performers. according to what we know from research and experience, that powerful man is more likely to sponsor the man than the woman.

more on sponsoring women for leadership: men advance 2 to 1 over women without sponsors | 18 ways sponsors can help their protegees | the 6 market advantages of women-led firms | beyond mentoring: why sponsoring women for leadership matters read more →

6 ways to know what you don’t know

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and aby ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: occasionally i get a new client in an area i am unfamiliar with. how do i find out what i do not know?

response: this happens to everyone and probably more often than we expect. thankfully we will continue to get new business and getting clients in areas we are unfamiliar with enables us to grow.

more practice doctor q&a: 10 do’s and don’ts for making small business clients happy | client’s difficult daughter balks at bill | 6 simple steps to impress a prospect | 10 (nearly) painless ways to keep up to date with technology | when a staffer stops listening | 10 ways to get new 1040 clients | making meetings more productive | tax return reviewer ticking and tying

here is what i suggest: read more →

check your relationship ratios for better business success

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by sandi smith leyva
the accountant’s accelerator

here’s a quick exercise: choose any person in your work life or personal life. now think back to last few interactions you had with that person. recall what was said and classify your list into two groups.

what interactions, comments and questions did you have with your chosen person that were negative? here are some examples of things that are in the “negative” group: read more →

what does being a partner mean?

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aquila how to engage partners in the firms future clip square cvrpartners persuade their people to join them on the journey and to play a part in building a better firm.

by robert j.  lees and 
august j. aquila
creating the effective partnership

just as the partners need to engage with the firm’s vision so do the firm’s people. but, like everyone, they actually engage with people not words. so, effective partners continually engage with their people, regardless of their level and role. they go out of their way to create a personal bond, sharing personal information and operating with honesty and integrity in all of their interactions.

creating the effective partnership: every partner’s first question: ‘what’s in it for me?’ | the 9 building blocks of a winning vision that the big four have discovered | the politics of an accounting firm partnership | nine rules to creating highly effective partnership teams | audacious vision and grand purpose prove essential to cpa success | are you creating a sustainable firm? | the debilitating effects of denial at accounting firms | the five psychological hurdles that cpa firms must confront today read more →

10 do’s and don’ts for making small business clients happy

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and aby ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: most of my clients are either tax returns or small business clients. the number of individual tax returns grows each year, but i seem to be standing still with business clients. for every new one i get, i lose one. otherwise, i have about a 6 or 7 percent turnover. is there anything i can do to keep them?

response: i think small business clients need extra hand-holding from us because they are really alone.

read more →

deciphering the current state of the cpa firm merger market

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by marc rosenberg
cpa firm mergers

with 80 percent of first-generation firms never turning over to a second generation of owners, it’s no wonder that merger mania continues unabated. each year sees increased merger activity over the one previous.

“merger mania” is particularly prevalent among the top 10 to 25 firms in the largest 75 markets in the u.s. and canada, partly due to the “new normal” – an economy that remains too sluggish to satisfy the ambitious growth targets of these top performers. but acquiring talent and niches is equally as important a reason for mergers to these larger firms, as is increased revenue.

sellers, however, remain hesitant.

read more →

18 ways sponsors can help their protegees

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and how to tell the difference between a mentor and a sponsor.

ida o. abbott, sponsoring women
abbott

by ida o. abbott
sponsoring women: what men need to know

the practice of mentorship is well known and well established in today’s workplace. a mentor is someone who helps a more junior person learn, develop and achieve her professional goals.

mentoring is the process by which the mentor and mentee work together to identify and help the mentee move toward those goals. but sponsorship is intended specifically to promote career advancement. read more →

client’s difficult daughter balks at bill

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and ado you talk to the dad?

by ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: i have a very good client who pays us to prepare his daughter’s tax return. the daughter was going through a divorce and asked us to assist her and her attorney and she said she would pay us herself, and we shouldn’t ask her father to pay us and she also asked us not to tell her father what was going on. we did a lot of work and because of what we did she got a much better settlement than if we did not help her. additionally a lot of what we did was rush on-demand work and some of it was quite difficult. also, she was not the most pleasant to deal with on many occasions. read more →

survey results: cpa firms accelerate growth

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the national map survey of cpa firm statistics -- the rosenberg survey
click for full report

the 2014 national map survey shows widening divide between large and small firms.

exclusive to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间
the national map survey of cpa firm statistics

marking the third consecutive year of quickening expansion since the recession, cpa firms are posting 6.7% revenue growth, according to the latest results from the national map survey of cpa firm statistics reported here exclusively by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间.

screen shot 2014-09-26 at 2.04.17 pm

“the national map survey of cpa firm statistics: the rosenberg survey” is well known and well respected within the national cpa industry, due to its solid reputation for accuracy, thoroughness and high participation rate. exactly 75% of the firms in this year’s survey participated in 2013. this allows for more accurate year-to-year data comparisons. all of these characteristics, plus the highly sought-after executive summary, make “the rosenberg survey” a must-read for any entrepreneurial-minded cpa firm. the survey captures data from participating firms of all revenue ranges, from solo practitioners to those with over $20 million in net fees. read more →

mirror, mirror on the wall

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11 weekly self-assessment questions for successful professionals.h

by august aquila
the effective partnership

when’s the last time you talked to your partners about the “mirror questions”? we all know that it’s easy to kid ourselves about how well we’re doing. but when we have to look ourselves in the mirror, well, it’s another story.

rather than giving the partners the questions they should answer, we suggested that they come up with their own self-assessment. specifically, we wanted them to devise questions they could ask themselves each week to evaluate how well they had performed. in the end, we came up with 11. read more →