Golden Practices

The Instigator

Howard Wolosky, former editor-in-chief of Practical Accountant and WebCPA columnist, has a moving post today  called "Auditors: Doing the Right Thing?" on his brand new blog (which I immediately added to my blogroll and I recommend you do the same!)

I love how Howard tells the story and makes us stop and take pause.

His blog is named Instigator which I believe reflects a side of Howard we shall see much more of...the provocative side. The particular post that I refer to discusses courage (and fear) in the context of auditors ability to improve and, shall we say, responsibility to help resolve, the failure of the current audit standards and procedures to accomplish part of their intended task--protecting shareholders by providing enough information about the financial position of the company audited. 

I'd love to see his challenge to the AICPA met. And welcome thoughts from auditors here or, of course, on Howard's blog.

Social Media: The Unavoidable Intersection of Your Business & Personal Life

For those among you who have managed thus far to maintain good, solid compartmentalization between your business and your personal lives, I offer a hearty “Congratulations!”

Seriously. Not an easy thing to do these days. In fact, for some of us, we couldn’t cleanly sort the people in our lives into the two buckets of "business" and "friends" if our lives depended on it.

But this “blur” of personal and professional isn’t really a new thing, at all, is it?

For years, we've become friends with clients and friends become clients. Co-workers become like family. Sometimes they literally become family. It's not uncommon that lawyers/doctors wed other lawyers/doctors, etc. (With the hours some people put in, where the heck else would they meet anyone?? )

But now it’s in your face and soon to be, if not yet, in your employment policies: dealing with social media applications and the work day.

Collecting all your contacts in one place is complicated, too. There is the clear challenge of deciding how much of your personal side to bare to whom.

You might whip out pictures of your kids to show a colleague at a conference, but do you really want them seeing photos of you in your swimsuit chasing your kid (not pretty is my point)?

For those who want to dip their toe in the pool of the life/work blend (or who are already waist deep) and wishing for a way to be more selective about who sees what, you will probably appreciate this excellent “how to” on Facebook privacy through using “groups” for sorting your friends and business contacts. Read 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know.

I’ll briefly touch on policies, too. Frankly, as much as companies have tried over the last decade to stifle employee access of third party email sites, interactive websites, etc, it’s simply impossible to restrict the entire internet. Why bother to lock out hotmail/yahoo when people have email and text on their smart phones??

That era is over.

And it’s dumb to block most websites, too. Disallowing Linked In, Facebook, Blogs and Twitter (yes, some firms lock down all of those) is cutting off your firm’s nose to spite its face. These are valuable marketing tools for those who wish to use them that way.

But more discouragingly for the leery employer, if you ban them, smart people who like a challenge (there tend to be quite a few of those in the professional knowledge firm arena) will spend their time finding a way to circumvent the ban.

C’mon, you were teenagers...you remember the thrill of stretching or breaking a rule just to see if you could pull it off!

So, don’t spend a lot of energy worrying about who is using what forum and instead, if issues arise at the individual level with regard to performance, then address problems one-on-one with that individual. Worry about people not getting their work done is the real issue behind the bans, anyway, right?

Today's reality is that there is little choice now but to trust the way people spend their “time” is appropriate, overall, and simply hold people accountable for the end result: either they are cutting the mustard with performance, or they aren’t.

Good luck and happy entry to this new era of life/work management.

*Hat tip to the incomparable Debra Helwig (excellent new blog: Service Minded) for pointing me to the the Facebook Privacy article and its 239 useful comments

Accounting Scholarship Opportunity from AccountingWEB

AccountingWEB, a news and resources website for members of the accounting profession, announced on Jan 28, the creation of a new scholarship.

Three $500 scholarships will be awarded to students who are declared accounting majors based on their winning submissions of a 500-word essay.The topic: Green Accounting Firms.

Essays will be judged on both style and content. Applications are being accepted through midnight EST March 31, 2009. Winners will be selected by May 1, 2009 and notified shortly thereafter.

More details are available in the AccountingWEB Accounting Student Scholarship Rules.

Funding is provided by AccountingWEB with the goal of encouraging accounting as a major and a career choice. Participation is open to United States citizens attending colleges, universities, and professional schools of accounting in the United States.

Winners will be announced publicly on June 15, 2009.

IRC Section 7216: Impact on CPA Firm Marketing

There has been a lot of chatter about compliance with this new code released in July 2008, and put into effect January 1, 2009, and what it means for firms.

Directly reading the code, you'll find a lot of scary verbiage about restrictions to cross-marketing or cross-selling of services to tax clients.

This is to be "managed" via annually-required, signed, consent forms, from EACH client BEFORE their tax returns are delivered in order to be allowed to send said client information about ANYthing else your firm does. And you may only ask the client for their consent ONE time.

First thought, it's sounding a lot like crazy lawyer state bar restrictions on marketing and advertising. However, the intent is to protect taxpayer information including addresses.

Second thought, in keeping with tradition of most accounting regulatory language, this code is challenging, at best, to interpret. I've asked several tax professionals to give me their thoughts, and each professional has seen its implications differently.

(This explains my silence, to date, on this issue).

The accounting marketing community has been abuzz for the last few months about what the new regulations under Internal Revenue Code Section 7216 (26 CFR Part 301 Section 7216) will mean as they continue existing communication efforts with their clients such as print newsletter mailings, e-mail newsletters, and even seminar invitations for events that cover non-tax topics.

Fortunately, some vendor friends of the accounting industry like BizActions (a customizable e-mail news provider with awesome back-end click-through reporting) and PDI Global (long known for their high-quality print newsletters and planning guides, now offering some e-delivery too) have been sharing some insights on applicability of the code, especially as it pertains to the use of products like theirs.

Definitely look at this because, if you think you will use a mail house or a third‐party to distribute things like print or e‐mail newsletters, you may need to get the client’s consent first. Again, "first" means BEFORE you deliver their tax return to them. So you don't have much time.

LOOKING FOR INFORMATION AND RESOURCES?

I'm proud of my long-time trade association, Association for Accounting Marketing, for compiling this list of resources that partners and marketers can use as they embark on interpreting the code and deciding what approaches are best, for THEIR firms.

See AAM's IRC Section 7216 Information and Resource Page (marked Members Only, but access does not seem to be limited) and be sure to check out the AAM/PDI whitepaper found on that page as well as fellow blogger Rick Telberg's post on CPA Trendlines sharing sample consent forms released by the AICPA.

Happy implementing (ugh).

Appended: Also try the IRS Frequently Asked Questions about Section 7216

NY CPA, PFS Michael Goodman Comments on Economy

My friend Michael Goodman, CPA, PFS, president of Wealthstream Advisors in Manhattan, has created a fantastic set of short video clips discussing the current economic crisis.

Approximately a minute each, the videos cover:

• Stock Portfolio
• Small Businesses
• Why Care?
• Loans, and
• Retirement Savings.

Michael IS a client, however I had nothing to do with producing these clips...I just think they are really helpful...hope you agree.

Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Influential People List!

No, Michelle Golden is not one of the Top 100 people. (Not yet, anyway. Yeah, still working on that).

However, this blog got a kind mention on page 8 of Accounting Today's Sep 22-Oct 5 issue's "Top 100 Most Influential People" (in the accounting industry) supplement. A sidebar entitled "Surfing with the T100" says that Top 100 honorees were asked who they read on the web:

Among the more popular blogs mentioned were those of T100 members Rita Keller and Paul Caron and T100 alum David Maister, as well as the Golden Practices marketing blog the CPA Trendlines blog of former Accounting Today editor Rick Telberg, and Michael Ramos' The Eyeshade.

Wow, I'm in great company. Thanks much to the Top 100 people who mentioned Golden Practices! I really appreciate it--and considering the amazing amount of material out there competing for your attention, I'm very honored that you read me, too.

Shout out to Shane Eloe, kind reader and fellow blogger (Number Insights) for calling my attention to the mention (I musta skipped past the text on page 8 in my wishful haste to see if "Golden" miraculously fell into it's alphabetical position between J. Russell George and Sen. Charles Grassley...on page 9).

And congrats to my friends and colleagues who made the list!

Don't Just Recruit Cool, BE Cool

Rita Keller brings up being "cool" if a firm is going to remain competitive. I agree and expand the point to emphasize it's a two-parter!

The first step is attracting great people. The second and more important part (and much more difficult one) is inspiring them to want to STAY so your firm has the talent AND attitude to continue to do great things for clients.

Rita's post, "Do you speak their language" talks about texting. Specifically, texting used in an accounting firm's recruiting ad. And, sure, it's a clever ad. I don't know the firm, but I hope they have the second part down-pat, too.

Just this month, I've been privvy (with great disapproval) to several firms' conversations about their policies on ipods, text messaging, and so forth. Basically, they say "don't" because "it interferes with productivity." 

Funny. How many of those staffers jammed to their favorite tunes through every homework assignment they've had while they earned their grades that qualified them to join the firm. (Take yourself back a few years...there was definitely a stereo, maybe even a favorite record or cassette, cranked up while I did MY studies. How about you?)

Maybe they're just trying to tune out the office chatter-box so they can get some work done! (Is there a no office chatter-box policy??)

And when I spoke in June at the AAM conference about blogs, a number of attendees said their firms' internet security won't let them access blogs from the office!

A number of firms also deny access to Linked In, Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites in order to "control timewasting." Blogs and social media tools facilitate some of the most effective marketing and networking going on these days. And firms are blocking them!!

This lockout occurs among roughly 25% of businesses, so it's not just accounting firms who are short-sighted. See David Meerman Scott for that figure on his excellent (and sad) post called "Facebook and YouTube blocked by paranoid corporations at their own peril."

A commenter on David's post says people take advantage and waste hours on the internet to which David wisely responds:

... it is a management issue, not a technology issue. If people mess around at work, it doesn't really matter if it is on Facebook, or chatting by the water cooler, or taking a three hour "shopping lunch". It's all the same - people not doing what they've been paid to do.

I would deal with the behavior. If required, fire the employee who is not working.

Amen.

At any rate, policies like these stink. Most contradict what firms are trying to claim they are: great places to work. These policies (attire, perfume, internet use, ipods...) are insulting because they treat every person on your team as the worst behaved child by making everyone "pay" for the sins of one or two who show poor judgment and ought to just receive a talking to, and maybe a boot, if the talk doesn't work.

I'm picking up Rita's post today because I want to reinforce, all the great "cool" recruiting in the world won't solve the talent crisis. The problem is people leaving once they came, they saw, and they experienced. A lot of firms DO have amazing and cool cultures. And those firms are not seeing the turnover like the ones who get uptight about ipods and blog-reading.

Treat all the people like grown-ups and if some don't choose to act like it, then deal with them individually! But stop punishing the masses or you won't have a mass...there are too many other places for them to go.

It's time to get with the program.

CFO Turbulence: More SOX Fallout

Saw this post yesterday at Guerilla Marketing for Consultants and it caught my eye. I'd mentioned The Changing Roles of CFOs back in March of 2006, but when I saw this story again, I couldn't help but think of the startling parallel with defections in public accounting firms, as well.

CFOs Are Restless

CFOs are jumping ship in record numbers. According to a study by Liberium Research, in 2006, more than 2,300 CFOs of public, North American companies bailed out. That's a 23 percent rise from 2005.

The churn at the top is accompanied by a drop in average CFO tenure to roughly 30 months, which is a 50 percent decline from five years ago.

Consultants who can help their clients ease the CFO transition process, whether the CFO is coming or going, will likely find a receptive audience. And keep close tabs on your CFO relationships. Your former client may be facing new challenges in a new position.

This isn't fresh data, having been reported in 2006 and picked up liberally at the time on sites like CFO.com. When I poked around just now, I found this article on TreasuryandRisk.com who further reported that in the first quarter of 2007, defections slowed down, however:

Despite the slowdown, notes Liberum, the overall level of turnover among CFOs remains high.

While the disenchantment in the years following passage of Sarbanes-Oxley and other government regulatory burdens is well known, Liberum also attributes the continuing high numbers in turnover to growing competition, both domestically and internationally, and increasing complexity of business.

“We attribute much of the rise in CFO turnover to the burdensome aspects of Sarbanes-Oxley,” says Richard Jancovitz, senior vice president and director of research at Liberum Research. “The regulatory aspects of the job made it more difficult for them to take a strategic approach and emphasized the bean counter aspect of the role, especially at some of the midsize and smaller companies. But now I believe that the pendulum is swinging back so that CFOs are able once again to take a more strategic approach.”

Still, an entrepreneurial strain among CFOs has been driving some to hedge funds and private equity groups, where there is almost no regulation and lots of opportunities to turn strategies into profits.

Hmmmm, sounds like a big ol' case of boredom to me. Seems a desire for "interesting work" isn't just for Gen X and Gen Y, is it?

It amazes me how some CPA firms hail SOX as the best thing that ever happened to the profession. And others, including my colleagues at VeraSage Institute, are confident it is a death knell. Where do you stand?

Male/Female Partner Ratios

Interesting results in the new Accountancy Age Top 50 firm listing (UK):

On average women make up only 9.7% of partners within a firm and the number of female qualifieds has dropped year on year by two percentage points.

Interesting facts and perhaps the latter is a conseqence of the former? Or, perhaps not, suggests the only female managing partner in the Top 50, Linda Richardson of Morley and Scott:

I think it’s a matter of choice, when it comes down to it. It isn’t necessarily a matter of discrimination against a woman, it’s more of a choice that a woman makes in her life.

While UK average women ownership is roughly 9.7%, Mercer & Hole shows the highest woman-owned ratio at 24%. Kudos, then, to Mercer & Hole for being the sort of place where women WANT to stay on and become partners!

In the US, according to a 2006 study that included some 2600 participants, "Women now account for 19% of all firm partners, up from 12% a decade ago." The study credited quality of life initiatives as being responsible for this increase.

The study is known as 'A Decade of Changes in the Accounting Profession: Workforce Trends and Human Capital Practices' and was conducted under the aegis of the AICPA's Work/Life and Women's Initiatives Executive Committee.

This accounting/women study was referenced in comparison to the legal profession when an article hit the front page of the NY Times in March 2006 that caused a huge stir: "Up The Down Staircase: Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?" 

Phyllis Weiss Haserot, of Practice Development Counsel, wrote "Up the Up Staircase: Follow the Lead of CPA Firms." She notes that the AICPA study shows: "A gender gap in the desire for partnership exists; 65% of male and 41% of female senior managers expressed a desired for partnership." This certainly corroborates the comments of Linda Richardson--but there's still a big gap between 9.7-19% who are partners and the 40% that aspire to be...

Phyllis also cites the study in that "Women are choosing smaller firms where their advancement is more pronounced" which makes sense.

Similarly, the Accountancy Age study comments stated that the smaller firms had significantly bolstered ethic minority partners ratios which the Big 4 dragged down. That the 10 largest firms only show only an 11.8% female partner ratio is definitely disappointing.

Getting to the heart of the matter, back in 2004, my friend Wendy Werner wrote an article "Where Have the Women Attorneys Gone." Wendy, like Phyllis in her article, is much more interested in fixing the disparity than in pointing it out. Both articles are very constructive.

I have to say that the really depressing news was in Wendy's article where she referenced:

The ABA Commission on Women also found that men earn twenty percent higher salaries than women, and are twice as likely to obtain a partnership than women with similar qualifications.

Hmmmm. Well, money isn't everything. Nowadays, time (as in non-working time) is a currency.

I say this is where smaller firms will win out. Smaller firms are simply more flexible. And this is a huge advantage for them that will play out in the next decade or so as we see talent flocking to the most flexible organizations. It's not just a generational thing, or a gender thing. It's what all of us want.

And it's what many people need as we tend to aging parents and raise children in a more dangerous society than the one in which we were raised. And we can do it so easily now with technology.

Recruiting Magnets: Firms of the Future

There's so much more to this story than the recruiting angle. This story is about the future of professional service firms.

But now that I have your attention let me tell you about Brendon Harrex, a senior fellow of VeraSage Institute. He's another innovator turning the professional firm business model upside down!

Brendon, at the age of 31, became the first Chief Value Officer (ever) in his 100-person accounting firm. This means HE was solely in charge of ALL pricing. Read more about this in Ron Baker's post Who's In Charge of Value in Your Firm? where he describes Brendon's role:

If you worked at Ward Wilson, a four-office, ten-partner, one-hundred team member firm in Invercargill, New Zealand, your answer would be Brendon Harrex, who was recently appointed Chief Value Officer, responsible for creating and capturing value across the entire firm. Brendon, at age 31, is the youngest partner in the firm, and is an amazing visionary, bringing leadership not only to his firm, but our entire profession.

Then, at age 33, Brendon was elected chairman of Ward Wilson--the firm had amazing vision. But it also had aging partners who, apparently, were more concerned with their retirement than with the posterity of the profession (my words, not Brendon's!).

Ward Wilson sold to a consolidator. Brendon's window of opportunity opened and he bought out one of WW's offices, the one he led before becoming Chairman. Below is the e-mail he shared with Ron Baker and me about this.

His brilliant ad (pictured, click to enlarge) says:

"If you have get up and go and know you should have got up and left before now, consider the Harrex Group."

Now Brendon has a WAITING LIST of future employees who WANT to come work for him. Read on, the emphasis is mine:

It's Official. Demand Outweighs Supply.

Some call this news story "good" but I call it unfortunate. Well, maybe the publicity is good...

Accounting made #1 on a list (in Am City Bizjournals) of most desired grads. It's official, accounting is hurting more than every other sector when it comes to needing qualified, interested people.

Demand officially outweighs supply. Dare I say the future we've worried about is here.

Bizjournals are reporting:

The number of new college grads hired by the service sector is expected to increase by 19.8 percent this year, based on National Association of Colleges and Employers' [NACE--a human-resources organization] findings.

Hot employment fields for grads

Employers are on the lookout this year for graduates holding the following bachelor's degrees, according to the NACE survey. They are listed in order of anticipated demand:

1. Accounting

2. Business administration and management

3. Computer science

4. Electrical engineering

5. Mechanical engineering

6. Information sciences and systems

7. Marketing and marketing management

8. Computer engineering

9. Civil engineering

10. Economics and finance

So, what can we do to make this profession more attractive? (to those in it as well as those thinking about it...)

We have people fleeing public accounting almost as fast as law (new lawyer defections are approx 85% in the first 5 years)--yet the law school pipelines are generating plenty more--not so with accountants.

And in accounting, we have people with 8, 9, 10 or more years of experience with ZERO desire to ever be owners in their firms.

Is it time to look at and try new ownership models? 
(Some of us think the traditional partnership model is broken.)

Explore a new "practice" equation, perhaps?
(My friend Ron Baker, author of Firm of the Future, explains the New and the Old Practice Equations, in this National Law Journal interview transcript.)

What will it take to open firms' eyes to the fact that it is time to do something other than let this become the next generation's problem. Let's work on improving the posterity of this profession!

3 Positive Ways to Impact Your Firm

In a heavy conversation the other day with a friend who is also in the consulting profession, we reflected on how lawyers and accountants, through their associations, continuing education, and even with their consultants, have belabored much of the same 'stuff' for more than 20 years.

They (you...we...) worry about, ponder, and hear recommendations about, the same 'ol issues and concerns--yet they still go unresolved. These are things like recruiting, retention, cross-selling, profitability, succession, new business development, etc.

Look at the topics of most conferences, seminars, and roundtables and you'll see the same subjects over and over and over. Year after year.

So, we wondered...

• are firms going to session after session on the same topic in hopes of hearing a recommendation that is "easier" or less painful?
• is it that most firm leaders don't want resolution enough to actually take action? (ah, maybe retirement isn't that far away...and it will be the next generation's problem to solve...)
• how much is just plain overwhelm?
• or, maybe, could it be that the problems discussed are symptoms and not the real illness?

We also agreed there are some big problems that don't get talked about much. They are pooh-poohed or  swept under the rug and avoided all together.

My friend asked, "What do you think could most positively impact firms in the next 10-20 years?"

Not an easy question (and my crystal ball is in the shop) but after thinking awhile, I offered these three things:

1. Morale
2. Forethought and Reflection
3. Differentiation

Though they look small, they are not.

MORALE has dramatic impact on customer service and longevity not to mention its benefit for personnel.

Job enjoyment, magnetizing the firm to attract more and better talent, and energy toward learning and excelling--the desire for people to go out of their way to impress each other--are all tremendous results of great morale.

Much of the delegation problem is trust and training based. Great morale creates the behaviors that increase trust. Don't underestimate this as a core goal for your firm and better!

Accountants Round Up

Today is a very special day!

My associate, Sue (over there in the picture), and I are really excited to "unveil" our new blog: Accountants Round Up (pun intended!) that is aggregated accounting industry news. Shortcut URL is accountantsroundup.com.

Here's the powerquote about why we've created this:

"Accountants Round Up is created to introduce more accountants to the blogosphere. Skeptics by nature, they’ve been slower to understand and utilize this technology than many other industries, including law. While this is probably a result of information overload, we aim to show them how much more quickly and easily they can stay abreast of news for their own industry," explains Michelle Golden, president and CEO of Golden Marketing, Inc.

"Our hope is to also demonstrate just how useful RSS technology is for professionals who want to stay attuned to the industry news of the clients whom they are privileged to serve—specialized knowledge being a core element of high level service."

We won't claim originality, though. We were clearly inspired by the wonderful job Nancy Stinson does over at the Stark County Law Library blog providing similar information for the legal profession. If I have no other blog reading time in my day, I am sure to skim Nancy's aggregated news to be sure I'm catching the best posts of the day. The Stark County Law Library blog has been going strong for many years.

Maybe one day, Accountants Round Up will be that same sort of "can't miss it" resource for CPAs and Chartered Accountants, too.

Hope you like the new blog. We're pretty excited about it. Sue manages it and does a really great job. She posts a few items a day. There's about 2 months' worth of content out there now, so please go check it out! And if you like it, it's available by RSS feed or email through FeedBlitz.

Happy reading!

(See our press release on the launch: Download accountants_round_up_launch_pr.pdf )

Seeking US-Based Non-Partner CPAs (or Future CPAs)

My friend and respected fellow consultant, Steve Erickson, is doing some excellent work on the recruiting and retention problems currently plaguing the accounting profession.

He is conducting important research--the results of which he will share with others who care about the future of the profession and want to do something to improve it!

If you are a CPA or a CPA candidate (non-partner) working in a public accounting practice in the US, please take this very quick and anonymous survey. Or, if you know of any, please forward this to them!

Note from Steve Erickson:

This survey has been designed to gain a better understanding of how staff feels about our profession. My intent is to get the broadest possible participation over the next 5 months with the hope that thousands of people will respond so the results will be truly meaningful.

The results should be available in January 2007 and will be posted on my website. Or, if you prefer, I will e-mail them to you. To receive the results by e-mail, please send an email to me with the subject line "Send 2006 Staff Survey Results."

I know many of us are currently working on the development of programs and approaches that will allow us to better recruit and retain quality people. These results will be shared with all that have this intent and interest to include the AICPA, State Societies, Associations, individual firms and consultants.

Please forward this e-mail to anyone you know that may be interested and encourage everyone to participate. It should just take a few minutes to complete. I sincerely appreciate your help with this most important endeavor.

Thank you!

Deadline for participation is December 31, 2006.

Take the Survey

Then spread the word!

And the Winner Is...

Anita C Goetz of Deming, Malone Livesay & Ostroff in Louisville Kentucky has won a free registration to the 2006 National Practice Summit to be held by the Virginia Society of CPAs.

And, Ben Martin tells me the Virginia Society has made this terrific offer:

Anyone registering from the Golden Practices blog is eligible for a 25% discount. If a firm pays for two people at the full price, the firm can send a third person for free. Just call (800) 341-8189 to take advantage of this offer.

So CONGRATULATIONS to Ms. Goetz and thanks to all who participated! Enjoy the conference!

BBD Takes Home an AAM-MAA for Website

We are ecstatic that our client just brought home an Association for Accounting Marketing Marketing Achievement Award (AAM-MAA).  (Please forgive the shameless self-promotion element of this news.)

Briggs Bunting & Dougherty's site won first place in the category of websites for firms under $15 million in revenues.

We love the site for its clean and crisp look and navigation and Erin McClafferty, the firm's marketing and recruiting director, did a fantastic job with the content (we just project managed and designed).

But perhaps the most amazing aspect of this site is that it went from concept to launch in only 60 days. With most firms averaging 9-18 months to complete their site, this is a very impressive timeline. Erin made it possible through her decisiveness and trusting her instincts.

Congratulations BBD, we are proud to be associated with your recognition! There was some pretty tough competition...

See all 2006 AAM-MAA winners.

Advice for Professionals Considering a Blog

A lot of CPAs and lawyers ask me if they should blog. Why do their competitors blog? Is blogging a silly trend they can ignore until it goes away?

Not so oddly (for people familiar with strategic marketers), my advice is seldom the same from one firm, or one person, to the next. But here are some basic considerations...

For professionals who want "off the hook" where blogging is concerned, here's a list of who should NOT blog:

1. Blogging is not for the professional wanting to be "uninvolved" with his or her marketplace.
2. It is not for the person who doesn't stay informed on at least one particular area of practice (be it a specialty or industry)
3. It's not for someone who's uncomfortable stating a distinct opinion or offering analytical perspective
4. It's not for a professional who only writes in "technical-eze"
5. Blogging is not for someone who won't spend an hour or two a week (at minimum) working on posts.

Blogs do accomplish some things that no other current method of marketing or communications can.

1. A blog gives readers insight into the author's personality and demeanor
2. They can demonstrate actual expertise whereas websites usually claim it but fail to substantiate it
3. They help people and show others what is good about your profession and why you add value
4. Good blogs show young professionals that your firm is "with it" (bad ones, just like bad websites, show potential hires that you're NOT with it)
5. Blogs can lead to publicity, interviews and writing/speaking opportunities for you and your firm
6. They open the door for conversations and relationships with other bloggers, colleagues, and prospects who already know you somewhat through your blog and decide they WANT to know more!

If you are still thinking about blogging, there is some great advice on Seth Godin's blog where he shares over 50 tips on building blog traffic. Some of his tips are contradictory demonstrating that different strategies work for different bloggers for different reasons. My favorite tips are:

• Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
• Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
• Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
• Announce news.
• Do email interviews with the well-known.
• Point to useful but little-known resources.
• Don't promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader's attention.
• Don't be boring.
• Write stuff that people want to read and share.

My addition to Seth's list: Remember, it's always about what matters to the AUDIENCE!

Under-delegation Hurts Retention, Profitability and Marketing

Professionals understand delegation is beneficial, yet few are compelled to do enough of it. Let's see if some of the thoughts below help create more movement toward delegation behaviors.

In my previous post entitled "The Profitability Problem" I touched on several factors that deserve much deeper discussion. Leverage aka "delegation" is one.

In a comment to that post, David Maister suggested that I skated over the topic of delegation (or leverage)--that I "gave up" and suggested firms just won't get better at this. And he is right, it deserves deeper discussion. I promptly sketched out some thoughts right then and there, but I didn't finish constructing the post until I saw David's post today (which I cite below).

My thoughts fall into 3 major categories:

1. delegation & profitability
2. delegation & marketing, and
3. delegation & personnel retention

How Many Non-Professionals in Your Firm?

An interesting post on the Professional Marketing Blog talks about how, in law firms, there are the lawyers and then there is "everybody else."

I disagree with Larry Bodine, though, who says:

No other profession makes this derogatory distinction. Accounting firms don't have "non-accountants" -- they call them "team members." Same goes for consulting, architectural and engineering firms.

I find that in CPA firms, there is what may be an even more derogatory distinction. Some firms do actually use the term "team members" which was significantly popularized by the good folks of Results Accountants' Systems in their famous Bootcamps.

But many CPA firms refer to their accountants as "professionals" and openly refer to everyone else as "non-professionals."

Pretty unfortunate to that the CPAs are, apparently, the only professionals in those offices...

If your firm is still one of those that uses the "non-professionals" label, please replace it with something (like "non-accountant"?) that appropriately credits everyone in your professional service firm as a "professional" of one sort or another.

Marketing Salaries Reflecting ROI

An eyebrow raising post today on Larry Bodine's blog posits that the salaries of law firm marketers are dwarfing firm administrators' salaries.

Bodine cites two surveys that indicate median administrator salaries are in the $70-80K range and he references numerous legal marketing job ads offering $100K+ (and some in the over $400K range). The median salaries aren't quite that high, but if you visit his other site's job openings you will, indeed, find many jobs for senior marketers and even writers, editors, and knowledge managers in the over $80K range.

Bodine says:

This is GREAT news for the marketers, because it means they've worked their way out of the "overhead" category in law firms.  The marketers are able to say, "If you invest $5 with my plan, you'll get $20 back.  I can prove return on investment." 

About different roles earning different pay, I'm reminded of a wonderful bit of advice shared awhile back by Julie Lindy, editor of INSIDE Public Accounting, on the Assoc. of Accounting Marketing discussion list. She said:

Nobody is paid what they are worth. They are paid what their *jobs* are worth. As human beings, an NFL player is not worth more than a 5th grade teacher, but in our culture, the NFL player's job is valued more, so therefore, he is paid more....You can't take salary personally: It's all about what the job is worth to the person writing the checks.

I agree entirely with Ms. Lindy.

Beside the law firm administrators discussed in Bodine's post, there's another group paying close attention to the legal marketers' escalating salaries...CPA firm marketers.

I cannot help but wonder what most accounting marketers must be thinking when they see the salaries their legal counterparts are earning. The median salaries remain significantly lower (at least $20K behind) in the accounting industry. Actually, I have a pretty good idea of what accounting marketers are thinking.

Something to the effect of: "Can it be that much harder to work with lawyers?"

Uh, well, yes and no. Totally depends on the firm, the culture, and the support marketing, in general, has within the firm. Overall, lawyers aren't that much different from CPAs. In some ways they are more open about what they think and, ultimately, more open-minded about trying new things. In other ways, they are far more trying because they challenge everything (and for fun, I think!).

So...are the disparities in salary reasonable?