12 Ways to Get a Mid-Year Boost

By Lauren Prosser

Manager, Sageworks Inc. Advisory Services Group

Believe it or not, we’re nearing the halfway point of 2012. If you’re holding a mid-year partner retreat or starting to update your strategic plans, now’s a good time to step back and evaluate the best way to take a step forward. Below are 12 key things you can do during the back half of 2012 to position your firm for success in 2013 and beyond. 

 1. Build From Within

• Identify and communicate your firm’s unique value proposition.  Get younger-generation firm members engaged and invested in it to help ensure that a consistent message is sent beyond the walls of your office. 

2. Cultivate Your Clients

• Do you have a system in place for measuring your firm’s CCA (Cost of Client Acquisition) and LTV (Lifetime Value (of a client)? – These are two critical metrics that you firm should be measuring and monitoring.

• Develop new clients at a higher level of service by demonstrating the value of your industry insights and targeted, relevant service offerings.

3. Create a Forward-Looking Focus

• From mechanics to meaning. Don’t let minutiae of the day-to-day get in the way of the big picture. Do firm members at all levels see how their roles directly impact client relationships and firm success?

• As Vince Lombardi once said, “Success demands singleness of purpose.”

4. Provide Client-Centric Foresight

• Add value to client relationships by providing insight and foresight, not just hindsight. 

• Transition from a historically focused, compliance-based service model to become a partner in the future success of your client’s business.  Begin by dialoguing with your clients to identify their specific financial goals for this year and beyond.  

5. Encourage Employees

• Go beyond just communicating firm strategy and vision to employees – solicit their input and insights.  

• Cultivate a culture where firm members at all levels are committed to and invested in firm values and firm success.    

• Ensure firm members see how their contributions tie into final results. 

6. Become a Trusted Advisor

• Strategic guidance can greatly enhance client relationships, which in turn will strengthen retention and drive profitability.

• Value is in the eye of the beholder – Do you know what is most important to your clients? Initiate a Discovery Process to identify these key items.  

• Listen to learn.  To quote Lou Holtz, “I never learn anything talking.  I only learn things when I ask questions.”

7.  Generate Referrals

• According to a recent survey, only 16% of clients say they would be “highly likely” to recommend their CPA firm.  What is your firm doing to ensure your clients are your biggest fans?

• What system of recognition and reward do you have in place to acknowledge and incentivize your top referral sources? 

8.  Remember: De-Commoditization = Differentiation 

• Eliminate boundaries to understanding and uncovering client service needs.

• Develop cross-selling tactics to transition compliance-only clients into consulting clients.

• Be the link. Do you have a system in place for translating your client’s financial statements into management tools?

9.  Create a Standard for Success 

• Build a standardized consulting framework which allows you to transfer certain processes between engagements while also enabling you to identify individual client needs and opportunities.

• Leverage integrated service teams to maximize resources – this will allow clients to benefit from your firm’s full spectrum of expertise and experience.

 10.  Create Clarity

• Through improved means of gathering and interpreting business intelligence.

• Through improved quality and consistency of information.

• Through improved channels and means of communication.

11.  Maximize Your Message

• Does your service model communicate value and benefit to the client? Does your marketing approach reiterate this?

• Start by focusing on the tangibles.  Eliminate information on the periphery that may cloud your message.

• Contextualize. Place in context three messages you’re conveying to your business clients. How do the numbers you’re reviewing with your client impact what’s important to them – their financial goals, their personal goals, or what keeps them up at night?

12.  Become a Solution-Provider, Not Just a Service-Provider

• Focus on becoming a solution provider, not just a service provider – clients don’t buy services, they buy solutions to problems.

• Cultivate a firm culture that rewards staff at all levels for uncovering and communicating opportunities for better serving clients.

• Commit to developing a process-focused, not just project-focused or product-focused firm.