Don’t Wait Until After Tax Season! Last week a friend of mine asked me how my book was coming along because I had previously shared with him that one of my goals for the year was to write one.  I started by explaining that I hadn’t made much progress because I have been busy trying ...

In Chapter 22 of Darren Root’s, The E-Myth Accountant: Why Most Accounting Practices Don’t Work and What to Do About It entitled “Managing Choices, Not Time,” Darren explores the idea of how precious your time really is and the fact that how you choose to spend it will determine whether or not you can lead your firm ...

One of the best pieces of speaking advice that I’ve ever heard came from a World Champion speaker and speaking coach named Craig Valentine. Craig tells his coaching clients to resist the temptation to begin their speeches with what he terms “unpleasant pleasantries.”  Many people will start their speeches by saying things like “Good morning, ...

In May 2011, Consumer Reports ranked Southwest Airlines as the “Top Airline in Customer Service.” Southwest is consistently recognized as a leader in this area, so when I started to conduct research for a recent presentation on Delivering Exceptional Client Service, I looked to the book “NUTS!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe For Business And Personal ...

When we teach sessions on leadership development, we introduce our participants to a list of leadership attributes that represent the characteristics most cited as being desirable in a leader.  We frequently ask our audiences to look at our Leadership Attributes list to see if there is anything on it that they don’t like and don’t ...

Now that busy season has come to a close, you are probably gearing up to attend at least one conference between now and next busy season. Conferences are amazing – you have a buffet of learning and networking opportunities and access to a myriad of ideas to implement when you get back to the office. ...

A few weeks ago James Malinchak, a speaker, consultant and coach posted the following status update on his Facebook page: "You can't go forward if you keep looking back! What do you think???" Some people agreed with that statement, saying that if you have time to look in the rear-view mirror, someone is surely gaining ...

One of the biggest objections that we hear from CPA firm leaders around the country is that social media can be a big time-waster.  People are concerned that by embracing social media as part of their firm’s strategy, they will be encouraging their team members to spend too much time on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, ...

Author Patrick Lencioni created a fictional leader named Kathryn who takes on the challenge of turning around the performance of a technology company in his New York Times Bestselling book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  The fourth dysfunction is “Avoidance of Accountability.”  In explaining this particular dysfunction, Kathryn points out that it is easy ...

Client satisfaction surveys are important to provide you the information that you need to retain your valued clients, address questions and concerns clients may have before they turn into major problems, and identify possible opportunities to provide additional services.  Sadly, many firms do not conduct surveys. So, if the planning, construction and implementation of the ...