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Succession Planning Grows Increasingly Crucial As Aging Baby Boomer Partners Contemplate Retirement
by Julie Lindy of Hudson Sawyer

As Baby Boomer leadership at the nation’s accounting firms ages and prepares for retirement over the next decade, succession issues loom over many accounting firms like an intimidating tidal wave. Almost 32% of firms responding to IPA’s 2004 benchmarking survey report that the average age of their partners is over 50, yet most of those
firms don’t have written succession plans.

Industry Standards and Benchmarks Provide A Framework for Comparison
by Martha Hess, Marketing Manager, Belfint, Lyons & Shuman, P.A.

In the world of accounting, even marketing and business development professionals must be able to deal with numbers. Specifically, successful marketers recognize that they must use statistics and quantitative numbers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programs...

Driving Rain: Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers In Your Firm
by Lisa Dickson, Bland, Garvey, Eads, Medlock + Deppe, P.C.

Disconnect between partners and the next generation; perceived and actual lack of commitment from younger professionals; anger and resentment; intergenerational leadership and rainmaking skills transfer disconnect...

How An Audit Partner Thinks
by Martha Hess, Marketing Manager, Belfint, Lyons & Shuman, P.A.

The book Men are from Mars Women are from Venus helped people understand the differences in the way men and women think and act. In much the same way, Russ Molinar’s presentation “How an Audit Partner Thinks,” sought to help accounting marketers understand how an audit partner’s background, personality and frame of reference play into his or her decision making process.

A Marketing Plan for the Local Firm
by Katie Tolin, Marketing Manager, Rea & Associates, Inc.

How does a marketing plan for a local firm differ from that of a regional or national firm?

It’s much simpler.

In Abram J. Serotta’s presentation to the Association for Accounting Marketing conference attendees in June 2004, he took attendees back to the basics of relationship marketing.

How to Get Action On Accountability
by Cheryl Smyers, Marketing Manager, Stambaugh Ness, PC

Accountability. As we all know, each firm struggles with the constant challenge of inspiring every member of an accounting firm to be responsible, or accountable, for the success of the firm. We all know everyone isn’t accountable for everything that happens or should happen. But the very best and the most prosperous firms make sure all members of the firm know what they are accountable for.

Recent events in the profession will continue to result in more and larger clients evaluating a potential change in their CPA firm over the next couple of years. Firms which invest in the expertise necessary to win significant opportunities have a once-in-a-lifetime ability to grow their revenue substantially.

Making marketing a part of a CPA firm may be a larger task than anticipated by many marketing directors. As a marketing professional, it’s easy to understand the importance and validity that a good marketing plan holds.

Your clients expect you to survey them periodically to evaluate your performance. This is a tremendous opportunity to get not only good information about your performance and their satisfaction, but also to determine how you can better serve them by meeting their needs with your firm’s service.

“Let me tell you how great we are.” Certainly as marketing professionals, we would never think of using this as our tagline or as our firm’s marketing message. Yet, according to Ross Fishman, Chief Exceleration Officer of Ross Fishman Marketing, Inc. and a recent presenter for the Wisconsin Chapter of AAM, that is exactly what many accounting and professional service firms are doing today.

If you want to catch a fish, you have to think like the fish. And if you want to snag the attention of a reporter or editor, you have to think and act like a journalist.

The family business niche is fruitful for regional and local CPA firms not eligible to practice before the SEC. The majority of family businesses are sole proprietorships or closely-held businesses entities operating as limited liability corporations (LLCs), limited liability partnerships (LLPs) or subchapter S corporations (S-corps).

CPAs have traditionally been a business owner's most trusted advisor. Because of that trust, CPAs in the past few decades have been able to expand beyond traditional accounting and tax services to deliver a range of consulting services. Final Four or not, today’s accounting firms—down to the sole practitioner—are still being asked to deliver solutions and advice that enable clients to remain competitive and profitable.

If you ask most CPA firms about their strategy to grow their audit, account and tax client base they’ll tell you the way to do that is through referrals and networking. It’s all about timing, right? You need to be the CPA firm companies think of when they’re ready to switch firms. It’s who you know. You have to be in the right place at the right time.

As the accounting marketing industry “matures,” more firms are turning to professional marketers for assistance with branding, cross selling, niche building, new business development, market research, and a myriad of other integrated strategies designed to help them become, and remain, profitable.

Accounting firms are turning to sophisticated vendors to provide them with valuable information on their clients for better management of relationships. In addition, they are starting to use information technology to house this information in a single location, and leverage that information to share with others in the firm. What really is relationship management?