Make no mistake, despite the naysayers, there is always going to be plenty to keep accountants in public practice busy. The sky is not going to fall. Sure the landscape will change, but be excited not fearful.
There will always be another issue to advise small business clients on and yet another matter to contend with to keep your practice in front of the pack.
At the moment it’s Cloud and the Accountants exemption. Next year there will be another heir apparent to the throne.
The hardest part for you as an accountant is staying on top of it all.
I don’t think you can any more.
Let me explain why.
Recently while attending Xerocon 2015 in Melbourne, I witnessed what accountants are now faced with. Every man and his dog has an add on, promising to transform this and that. Now some of these are great, don’t get me wrong but as just one sub set of what an accountant now needs to master, you pretty quickly get the feeling that being on top of it all, the “jack of all trades” is a near impossible feat.
In fact the problem I often see is that accountants are just too smart for their own good.
What I mean by this is that as the key adviser, often accountants see managing clients outside of their own hands as a leakage, a weird sense of letting the client down.
There are some accountants who manage the process well, and their clients succeed as a result. If that is you, congratulations and feel free to share some of your guidance as a comment below.
For the rest of you, Listen In. There is a professional obligation to service your client, your duty of care. BIG problem. You take it on as YOUR obligation, so you then believe that you or your delegated team members are the only ones that can handle it. I believe the competitive environment has driven this.
We have Real Estate Agents with Mortgage Divisions.
Financial Planners with Accounting Divisions.
and Accountants with Financial Planning Divisions
This umbrella approach, popular in the early to mid 90’s, attempted to hoard services. In doing so accountants became generalists. “Yeah sure, we can do that”….typically on top of the 50 other things you had to know or do.
Your quality gets watered down, or, you become overworked and those spinning plates start to fall. I am sure that if you are a “service hoarder” this has happened to you more than once. There needs to become a greater level of collaboration among peers. Of course you can do it…but should you?
Don’t want to do Individual Tax Returns? Don’t!. Align with a specialist.
Want to concentrate on High level Tax advice? Do it? Become the go to specialist.
You see, we have all been conditioned that to be a good accountant means being knowledgeable about it all. I don’t think you can any more.
Lawyers specialise.
So do medical practitioners.
Accountants by large are generalists.
Don’t believe me? Then ask yourself, What makes a good accountant?
Now you have that list, how many of those things can you honestly say, you have completely covered and are capitalising on 100%.
When I was in practice I had a saying “We could cook fish and chips, but it doesn’t mean we are going to do it.” Work out what you do well, and align yourself with good people to do the rest.
Business Advisory is the latest of the holy grail quests for accountants. Its the bright and shiny work, the work you wish you could be doing.
But the reality is, it is a specialised area. One which needs just as much focus and resource as any other division of your business.
This is where the GP Accountant falls down. You see, you are so focussed on all the other areas you need to be across, that doing advisory work, which of course you can do, just never happens.
Advisory success needs focus, action and continued development. In fact, great advisory can take on such broad issues, that even the advisory guys can’t be generalists and need to know when to call in the A team.
One of the reasons I designed SuperFirm, our advisory joint venture platform for accountants, was because I saw too many accountants unable to consistently devote the focus and energy required to get results. By using our coaches in a collaborative way, we are helping practices overcome that issue and achieve advisory success.
So start to think about your firm as a business. Get the right people doing the right things. Don’t be afraid to concentrate on your niche, and seriously, let the rest go.
Let’s stop being mediocre generalists and become SuperStar Specialists.