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I suck donk at taxes. I take too long. It’s because I try to clean everything up and tie everything out. What the hell kind of upside-down world is this where other accountants condescend to me because I’m too much of a perfectionist? It’s like fat people turning on you because you like donuts.

I thought we were all supposed to be perfectionists. The kids who grew up to be CPAs were the ones who got beat up on the playground for correcting the cool kid. He’d say, “Nice Toughskins, lamewad.” And we’d be like, “They’re not Toughskins, they’re Wranglers, husky Wranglers.” And the next day he’d be like, “Nice bruise, loser.” And we’d say, “It’s a contusion, not a bruise.” Vicious cycle. You remember.

But I got into this profession because of my attention to detail and because I’m great with numbers. And I get it. My Zoloft-quality OCD-level attention to detail can be a liability. Because of it I am often the willing victim of “scope creep.” (I am never the willing victim of Cavity Creeps.) Scope creep is when you perform duties beyond those for which you were hired. You hire me for a tax return, and I not only prepare your tax return, I also clean up your entire QuickBooks file. Boom. Scope creep. Going above and beyond is great customer service. Unless you also try to charge your customer above and beyond the agreed-upon price. Then you’re just being a donk.

As a profession, we’re supposed to be great with numbers. That’s what we do. We’re the Incredible Hulk of business data, just instead of anger being the trigger for super strength, we’re consistently good with numbers and generally keep our emotions repressed. And just like Superman loses his super powers around Kryptonite and the Hulk (presumably) loses his strength when given nitrous oxide, there’s something that makes CPAs as stupid as a graduate of Devry University.

My daughter is a talker. Always has been. Never stops. And she’s smart. Great with people. But then we went to Disneyland and discovered her Kryptonite: Ariel’s Grotto, “Character Dining.” Throughout your meal, Disney princesses visit your table. It’s a magical place where little girls can feel like princesses and their Dads also feel like princesses. While waiting to be visited by Mulan, I asked her what question she wanted to ask. (I tried to get her to ask Mulan about the mistreatment of underage workers in China’s booming manufacturing sector. She decided to ask if she had a boyfriend.) But when Mulan came to our table, she turned my daughter stupid. Her eyes got as big as toilet seats, she got this cheek-cramping grin on her face, and she couldn’t say anything—not even ask any questions about underage workers or boyfriends. Between Mulan and Aurora (that’s Sleeping Beauty, dumbass) she snapped back. But every princess gave my genius offspring a Belleobotomy. Something eerily similar happens to us as CPAs.

About half way through my first tax season, I was told that the partners at my firm didn’t want to give me any tax work because I was too slow. Ridiculous! Right? Did you even pick up on what happened? Minimize the spreadsheet and focus! I was a salaried employee. I had surplus capacity. The firm had excess work. But they didn’t want to use me because I was slow. They would rather pay me to do nothing than pay me to do something in a less-than-optimally-efficient manner. That’s like firing up your 1972 AMC Gremlin and then leaving it idling in the driveway because you don’t want to be seen driving a 1972 AMC Gremlin.

The partners in my firm lost their super powers and were turned stupid by the billable hour. Billing by the hour is accountant Kryptonite. It makes an otherwise intelligent CPA firm partner as stupid as a monkey that knows sign language: the monkey thinks it’s pretty smart because it knows sign language, but it’s still just a @!&%ING MONKEY!

We are smarter than that. We created and perfected highly precise cost accounting methods, yet we refuse to use anything more sophisticated than hours-times-semi-arbitrary-rate for all of our internal calculations. As a profession, we need to pull our head out of our tax hole and abandon timesheets and billable hours. Yeah, billing by the hour is really simple. But beyond that, it sucks at every level. A better way exists. And even partners hate filling out their timesheets. Mostly because it sucks donk.

 

Greg was born in Akron, Ohio, in the shadow of the Firestone tire factory. He began to swim competitively when he was eight, swimming for the Mountlake Terrace Lemmings. He graduated in 1995 from the University of Washington with a math degree. He chose math for the ladies.  After serving ten-years as an 8th grade math teacher, he decided it was time for a career change, mainly because he “couldn’t stand those little bastards.” He began his accounting career with a local CPA firm in Orem, Utah, where he consistently failed the QuickBooks ProAdvisor advanced certification exam.  Greg currently works as the Controller for the Utah Valley Physicians Plaza. He lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife and two kids. He enjoys eating maple bars, drinking Diet Pepsi, and swearing.

“Do you run a small business? Do you have a pulse? If you answered yes to either of these, you may be the perfect client for us! We don’t even know your name, but we can definitely do whatever it is that you want us to do.”

While you may not have stooped to this level, most entrepreneurs are delighted to bring in new clients. It’s an exciting process because it means the business is growing and stands to make more money. The problem with this perspective (and we all intuitively know this) is that jumping into a relationship too fast can ruin its potential from the start.


What is Onboarding?
     “Creating an initial entry customer experience that sets you apart from other loser firms.”  Jason Blumer

 

If you were to search “onboarding” you’d see that most people use the term to talk about how a business plans to bring new hirees up to date with their internal processes. Here in THRIVEal, we’re applying that idea to bringing on new clients or customers. Typically these two types of onboarding look very different, but maybe we should examine those differences and innovate.
Jason’s 3 step process:

-note: I’ll list the client step and then the hiree equivalent (in parenthesis)

  1. Vetting the client (Interview)
    • Initial contact is made. It’s time to negotiate pricing and discover if the relationship will truly benefit both parties.
    • The owner or “closer” must conduct this step.
  2. Welcome to the family! (You’re hired!)
    • This is where enthusiasm and character should shine through.
    • Information is obtained but becoming a cold technician must be avoided.
    • A designated “Onboarder” is preferable for this role.
  3. Get to work (Get to work)
    • Work. Self explanatory.
    • The point of listing this is to note that the prior steps should minimize re-asking initial information.

Don’t reinvent the wheel
There are people already doing this! Meet Meilnda Guillemette, the onboarder for Blumer & Associates, CPAs. In a recent THRIVEal Community Call she shared one of the keys to implementing this process: we must avoid slipping into the role of a technician. As CPAs, most THRIVEal members THRIVE on counting beans and pushing calculator buttons (sorry to out you guys). More generally, entrepreneurs are predisposed to becoming technicians (source: Gerber, E-Myth). If we can resist these urges and focus on developing relationships with new clients, they will get a taste of what our firm is all about. Melinda called this “telling your firm’s story.” It has the power to become a significant differentiator for any business.

 

Jason also had some valuable insight on the call. He outlined something called the “Blumer Sucks Process.” It’s the way he formerly brought in new work and you may recognize it as the current process in your firm. It essentially skips past step 2 and jumps quickly into the 3rd “work” step. Once this happens the ball can start rolling very fast, causing a higher chance for data to be forgotten or lost. Jason suggests slowing down between step 1 and step 2 allowing for a more deliberate review of the coming situation. This will not only allow for better data collection, it can facilitate a new environment where trust is developed more naturally by both parties.

 

At Blackwell, CPA we’ve been brainstorming ideas like gathering clients for onboarding retreats or creating a gift bundle with books. Leave a comment for a discussion on further ways to push the idea further.

 

After graduating from Auburn University in 2009, John Blackwell returned to his hometown of Orlando, Florida to join his father Terry at Blackwell CPA. Terry founded the firm in 1986 and with the help of John, the father son team is focused on serving customers in innovative ways. John is also a member of the THRIVEal CPA Network.

We asked a few THRIVEal member firms to provide us some videos on why they do what they do.  Now we want you, our THRIVEal readers, to vote on which video should win a prize!

Prizes provided by Vend, Young Financial Advisors, and THRIVEal:

 

 

Joey Brannon’s Video

Magen Smith’s Video

Adrian Simmons’ Video

Now, vote above!

Honorable mention:

Greg was born in Akron, Ohio, in the shadow of the Firestone tire factory. He began to swim competitively when he was eight, swimming for the Mountlake Terrace Lemmings. He graduated in 1995 from the University of Washington with a math degree. He chose math for the ladies.  After serving ten-years as an 8th grade math teacher, he decided it was time for a career change, mainly because he “couldn’t stand those little bastards.” He began his accounting career with a local CPA firm in Orem, Utah, where he consistently failed the QuickBooks ProAdvisor advanced certification exam.  Greg currently works as the Controller for the Utah Valley Physicians Plaza. He lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife and two kids. He enjoys eating maple bars, drinking Diet Pepsi, and swearing.

 

Seventeen seconds left in AUD. The last sentence of the second written communication task—the wording made sense, but it felt awkward. No time to think. Only time to react.

Back it up two hours…

I had to pee. I didn’t have to pee too bad, but it didn’t matter because when you’re taking the CPA exam, if you kind of have to pee, you can’t think about anything except the fact that you kind of have to pee.  Makes it harder to recall a member’s requirements under SSARS to various stakeholders when reviewed financial statements are restated. I made the call. I took a potty break, but the clock stops for no bladder. The awkwardly situated testing center in the University of Utah student union building was directly adjacent to the women’s room. The men’s room was at the other end of a quarter-mile long hallway. (You’re right. I’m sure it was materially less than a quarter mile. Can you turn off the accountant brain for a minute?) I was pissed. (It’s a pun. You’re welcome.) I had too much pride to run; speed walking seemed like the more dignified choice. No paper towels, only an air dryer that was as effective as an asthmatic trying to whisper your hands dry. And despite the two wet hand prints on my butt, my mental faculties were back. But two hours later, I would desperately miss the four-and-a-half minutes I spent “billing my time” (not a widely accepted euphemism—yet).

Back it up to my sophomore year in high school. I had a job (doing the books for my mom’s drug store) and a car (a ’79 Chevy S-10 short bed three-on-the-tree pickup), and I was an emerging Diet Coke addict. Now, firmly within the talons of this disgusting habit, I’m drinking upwards of three Super Big Gulps per day. Fighting my dependency has proved futile. From time to time, I would work my way down to Caffeine Free Diet Coke, but the serenity prayer is no match for the brown bubbly (another euphemism not widely accepted—ever). Without my performance-enhancing beverage, I had no chance of keeping up with my demanding study regimen, let alone the test itself. In addition, I wanted to stay far away from the debilitating caffeine withdrawal headaches. If I had to choose between a caffeine withdrawal headache and passing a kidney stone, I’d choose FAR. I had no choice but to “juice up” right before each section of the exam, and 52 ounces of Diet Coke isn’t going to stay put for three-and-a-half hours.

Jump back to the final seconds of AUD. I changed the last sentence, my final keystroke barely beating the timer. I left the testing center crushed, confident that I failed. But somehow I passed (which cemented the idea in my mind that the CPA Exam is designed to strip prospective CPAs of their self-confidence. The profession demands high integrity and low self-esteem). The experience was horrible, and I never wanted to repeat it.

While recounting my story of near failure and pee pee to a coworker, she joked, “You probably wished you had some Depend® Undergarments.” Hells, yes! Why didn’t I think of that during BEC?!?

My last section was REG, and I went in saddled up on my Target-brand Depend® knockoffs. I felt more confident than a former astronaut driving cross-country to kidnap her rival in a love triangle. I probably could have made it through REG with no potty breaks, but you don’t pull a gun unless you intend on firing it, and you don’t go to REG in adult diapers unless you intend on using them. It’s harder to pee your pants than you probably remember.

John Emmerling said, “Innovation is creativity with a job to do,” or in this case, it’s creativity that I did my business in.

 

For THRIVEal members, the video recounting this delicious tale can be found in the private online Yammer community used by THRIVEal.  There you will also find a picture of Greg in a diaper.  Are you a member?

As I see it, everything is up for disruption in our profession.  Everything.  Our precious time sheets, our practice management software, our paper, our ‘lip service’ to customer service and our hierarchical management structures.  In my eyes, everything is ripe to be blown up.  So let’s talk about the underlying foundation of our firms: our legal structure.

In my state (South Carolina), there are specific state statutes that a ‘professional’ corporation can organize under.  I assume these are similar to many other states.  These statutes state what a ‘professional’ corporation can and can not do.  It also says who can and can not own shares in this corporation.  As stated in our professional statutes:

SECTION 33-19-200. Issuance of shares.

(a) A professional corporation may issue shares, fractional shares, and rights or options to purchase shares only to:

 individuals who are authorized by law in this or another state to render a professional service described in the corporation’s articles of incorporation.

 

I believe this is for the purpose of protecting the great citizens of our state.  Apparently, since you can only issue shares to ‘individuals who are authorized by law in this or another state to render a professional service,’ we are going to operate at a higher level of ethical behavior, all the while helping our clients feel warm and fuzzy.  That is BS!

The ‘protectionism’ that has built up around professional corporations used to be a good thing.  But now, it is holding our profession back from innovating and changing things.  I believe the team working in my firm is very important.  They form the culture, support our customers and drive the value to our customers.  When a legislative statute begins restricting whom I may put in leadership or ownership positions, I feel restricted, not protected.  The worst part is I feel like our customers have ultimately become the unnecessary casualties of these protections.  Let me explain.

It is well known that our profession is utterly and totally conservative.  In the past, this may have been necessary to ensure CPAs ‘do the right thing.’  I’m not sure why this was necessary, but let’s assume it was necessary.  Though these protections were in place, they still could not really ensure our clients were protected.  There are CPAs that still shafted their clients for their own gain (remember Arthur Andersen and Enron?).  So our customers are not really as protected as we want to believe they are.  They are not as safe as they think they are.  We can still stick it to our clients if we want to (as long as we have the right work papers, or back-dated signed forms on hand).

It seems it would be better for our customers if we were positioned as a Company, not a Firm

In this, I mean a Company to be an entity that totally answers to their customers first (and regulators second).  The CPA Company could be solely focused on bringing new value to their customers.  On the other hand, a Firm is an entity solely focused on filling workpapers out, obeying rules so they don’t get in trouble and answering to regulatory bodies first.  The clients are a distant second in a Firm.  At least, that is what I believe.  You can disagree if you want.  But I believe our ‘firms’ prove what I’m saying.  Younger staff in our firms know that we don’t really focus on our clients.  We go to crappy CPE just to meet the regulatory requirements of our licenses, limit what the staff can say on Facebook because we are scared we’ll get in trouble and dread the Peer Review.  And though Peer Review is a good idea, I feel like Client Review is a better tool to make me do the right thing.

 

But I don’t want to be such a downer.  The future of our great profession is brighter than it’s ever been!

How can we change?  Let’s blow some stuff up:

1.  Let’s reorganize our Firms to become Companies under general corporate statutes, not professional statutes.  My firm will become Blumer CPAs, Inc.  I’ll be the CEO and we’ll hire people (licensed or not) that care about our clients and want a share in the profit that we create.

2.  Let’s add a little risk to our companies.  Adding risk means we’ll be trying new things… something our customers desperately want us to do.  We’ll try new services, sacrifice in new ways for our customers and give new optional pricing models to our customers.

3.  Let’s cancel our Professional Liability insurance.  What will this do?  You will totally care about who you let work in your firm and who you serve in your firm if you have no insurance ‘protecting’ you.  Hopefully, you would become crazed about how and whom you serve (which is the point).  Take away ‘perceived’ means of protection and safety (because policies don’t really protect you anyway), and start delivering uncompromising value to the people who decide if you will have a job tomorrow or not (a.k.a., your customers). No, I probably won’t actually do this because my wife won’t let me.

4.  Let’s focus on positioning and marketing to the communities that are developing all around us.  Social media is not bad, and all of your work should eventually come from online referrals.  Market to the community.  That is where the world is congregating.  Let’s position ourselves there.

5.  Let’s slow down our processes.  Take your niche to scary deep levels, take only a few clients a month, ask everyone why they want to become a client and stop serving ‘everyone.’  I’ve tried saying ‘no new customers’ for a few months at a time just to see what would happen.  What does it do to our team, our growth and the perception from potential new customers?  I learned a lot about my resolve for growth and why my firm existed when I did that.

6.  Let’s outsource those services that are not based upon knowledge, like preparing tax returns, payroll tax returns and ‘write-up’ work.  Ask yourself, ‘would my client pay me for this service if they didn’t have to?’  If not, then get it out of your new CPA company.  Be radically addicted to selling knowledge, not transactions.  Eventually, the customer will take it away from you anyway or take it to another CPA company that knows they sell knowledge.

7.  Let’s stop billing our services in 6 minute increments and look at the bigger picture that we sell knowledge, and that our customers want to buy knowledge.  They pay you to do a tax return only because they have to.  That is a sucky positioning statement, and you better fix it before the customers find out!

I have blown so many things up in my firm it’s not funny.  It’s been painful, but the knowledge gained from my attempts to manage and implement risk for higher profits has made us better.  We serve better, are better positioned to serve only those we want to serve and make more money.

Our future is bright, but I feel we must begin blowing stuff up, look through the dust and mine for the good stuff that remains.  What will be left after you blow up the old stuff?  You may find some diamonds.

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XCM Solutions, Inc. (a robust workflow product we use in our firm) conducted a research project last year to identify the differentiating factors between high and low performing firms.  Some of the findings are amazing and support the things THRIVEal firms have been doing all along.  We’ll check them out over the next 7 posts.  Click the image to the left to download a copy of the full report.

 

Habit #1: High Performers Embrace Change

One difference between high performing and low performing firms is that they embrace change.  They are not only early adopters, but they find change to be a positive part of their lives.  These firms actually encourage innovation and put their team members in a place where they can truly innovate and embrace change without the fear of failure.

Failures will happen.  They are part of life.  Will they make you stronger as a firm or paralyze you with fear?

 

 

 

I love this video I found on Mailchimp!  The video is about jeans.  One of the most simple things in life that we wear everyday.  The owners of Raleigh Denim are disrupting how they make and sell jeans.  It’s a fascinating video about artisans – they call themselves “jean smiths”.  People who hand craft one jean at a time for the care of their customer.

Makes me think about the CPA profession, and our opportunity to become artisans for our customers.  I believe we can become more than just mass producers of tax documents, payroll transactions and paper producers.  But to do that, we have to slow down.  We have to slow down our growth and slow down who comes into our firms.  No more growth for growth sake.  We have to become problem solvers and we do that one customer at a time.  When we slow down, we will be able to serve one customer at a time, and hand craft numbers one customer at a time.

We can become number smiths.

 

Check it:

 

What is ROWE?  Check it here.

Have you heard of ROWE?  It stands for Results-Only Work Environment, and it is solely focused on results at your workplace, not outside influencers (like time clocks, physical location requirements for work and dress codes).

And when I say results only, I mean results only.  Nothing else matters in a ROWE.  For the stodgy, technically focused profession of accounting, this seems scary.  “This kind of freedom leads to anarchy,” some partners might say.  But the opposite is actually true.

Without knowing it, our firm implemented ROWE a while back with the following two statements made to the team at our firm:

1.  I trust you,

2.  Do whatever you want.

That’s it.  No ifs, ands or buts.  Our team is SOOOO good at what they do, all you need to do is set the expectations, describe what results look like and then get out of the way.  Truly, nothing else matters.

Through out the history of work, we’ve been trained to believe that outward motivators (carrots and sticks) are what make people do what they do.  But we have been confused as to what truly motivates people (see a great TED Talk video on this from Daniel Pink).  People are not motivated by what you think they are motivated by.  The right people (which are the only people that should work at your firm) do the right thing when given the freedom to flourish and thrive in their environments.  It’s intrinsic to their nature.

Cali and Jody of CultureRx (the creators of ROWE) wrote a blog post on how implementing corporate culture changes, such as a ROWE, leads to Innovation.  Which ones has your firm implemented?

Hiearchy is horizontal – management has authority over resources and strategy, but no power over people’s time.

Leadership serves – there is no ‘command and control’ leadership styles in an innovative work culture. Leaders coach, mentor and encourage their teams.

Time is powerless – a traditional work week does not exist in these environments, and time spent at work does not equate to success.

Orientation is organizational – employees can work on different projects within the same company, free to cross the organizational boundaries of the enterprise.

Results are king (no one is entitled) – status or position mean nothing, while results are everything, and the only thing.

Does this scare you? Are you a control freak? In the near future, I’ll have some videos of our team (if I can find them) tell you what ROWE has meant to them.  See ya.

The sixth and final part of our Accountancy Revolution definition found on the first post was summarized this way:

“…paperless productions of varied financial reporting.”

Here is the full Accountancy Revolution again:

Rapid technological means of data creation and production are allowing the former manual manipulation of raw accounting data to disappear, forcing the profession of accountancy to be redefined towards enhancing and developing internal business processes which will ultimately become digital conduits of paperless productions of varied financial reporting.

The underlying implications of this final part of the Accountancy Revolution are huge.  It’s all about the accountancy’s move to a paperless environment in everything they do.  I mean… EVERYTHING.  As a profession, there is such strategy in a ‘No Paper’ belief.  Paper is the enemy to fast processes, faster digital manipulation and faster financial analysis.  If we want our customers to see the benefit of timely financial analysis, then we must remove paper from their lives.

This is an uphill battle, as you well know.  You still use paper don’t you?  I do too.  And I know it is slowing me down.  But we don’t really have all the means necessary to eliminate it from our businesses, and our lives.  We need intelligent systems, software and people to gives us vehicles to a ‘no paper’ world.  Some do exist…

Bill.com, with a tagline of “Chase Dreams, Not Paper,” is the premier business process product that is allowing us as a profession to eliminate paper from our lives.  In fact, Rene Lacerte, the CEO of Bill.com, said recently of the THRIVEal organization:

“Managing a company’s processes and digital interactions in the cloud is a strategic advantage for any company, and we’re totally pumped to support the THRIVEal community as they take small businesses into the cloud!”

And Bill.com is one of the sponsors of THRIVEal’s Firm of the Future Symposium, with Ron Baker and Ed Kless, coming to Greenville, SC October 28 through 29, 2011.  Are you coming?  All of the innovators will be there.  Rene rocks, and the THRIVEal organization knows it.  Not because he is a big bad CEO, but because his company is building software with the purpose of eliminating something that is a burden to our world: paper.  It totally sucks, and you must target it’s elimination with a laser focus.  You don’t think this is a big deal, because we all operate in a world full of paper.  But I’ve seen the light!  I’ve tasted a little bit of a world with no paper, and it is better!  I’m calling you into the light!

As a warning, as with any innovation, eliminating paper will NOT be easy, it will NOT come naturally and you will HAVE to convince your customers of it’s importance.  Crap, you have to convince yourself first.  So get to convincing, dang it, and start seeing the opportunities before you.  A world of ‘no paper’ opens up so many other strategic ways to help our customers that you won’t even see until you eliminate the burden of paper.

Now that I’ve preached the opportunity of ‘no paper’ I need to move on to the second part of this mantra: “…of varied financial reporting.”  Open up your minds and consider what you can give your customers besides a sheet full of numbers.  Don’t you know that most of our small business customers can’t read a sheet full of paper?  Can’t you give them something else?  I’m not even sure what the members of THRIVEal will create, but can it be something other than a sheet full of numbers?  Yes.

Remember, your customers don’t know to ask for anything other than a sheet full of numbers.  Give them some pretty graphs, some seriously condensed numbers or some narratives.  Whatever you do, your financial reporting can now be varied and meet the needs of the customer.  And since paper is not a hindrance to the delivery of these documents, you can potentially use the smart cloud systems we all use to deliver this data.  We use an accounting system called Xero and it allows for some cool layouts within the financial reporting center of the software that greatly summarize all of the financial data. We show what the customer needs to see, and summarize everything else so they don’t look at it.  And it just happens automatically!  As we help the customer manage their ‘digital conduits’ of financial data, the reporting on the back end can just happen automatically.  That will leave more time for us to innovate, dream and consider what our customers really need from our new profession.

I’m excited to be a part of this changing profession!  As a whole, we still lag behind in major ways, but there is a movement towards the innovations that will make our profession better; and better meet the needs of our awesome customers.  Are you with me?

 

 

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