Technical Skills Are Not Enough

Source: Inside Public Accounting

The following includes excerpts, reprinted with permission, from an IPA article "Internal Training Programs That Provide Results: Firm Leaders Share Their Secrets To Success."

If there’s one thing most MPs agree on these days it’s that sharp technical skills aren’t enough anymore.

Hill, Barth & King of Boardman, Ohio, is rolling out a program that teaches so-called “soft skills,” dressing for success, etiquette, sales and marketing, making client presentations, mentoring, a “rainmaker academy” and “five-star” client service.

Firm leaders recognize that the staff members with the best technical skills are not necessarily the best communicators. “You need to be so much more than just an accountant. You need to be a seller of yourself and a seller of the firm, and some people just don’t have those skills. They have to be taught.”

Rea & Associates of New Philadelphia, Ohio, provides training in the typical tax and accounting issues but also writing skills, listening strategies, discussion of client survey results and the firm’s growth initiative.

ReaNextGen started as a client program to help children take over their family’s business, but was adapted as a tool to aid succession planning at the firm. The program includes training on ‘how to think like an owner,’ and ‘how to delegate effectively’.”

Johnson Lambert & Co. of Raleigh, N.C., lists suggested activities for associates participating in the Career Development Program—recruiting, (serve on a campus advisory board, staff a career fair); marketing (write a proposal, attend a trade show), leadership (give a speech, participate in a panel discussion); and personal development and professional activities (earn a certification, participate in an AICPA committee).

Mentoring—Mentors are in place to help associates find activities to help them earn their CDP hours, which should amount to 100 per year for associates and 160 for managers.

For the complete article, click here. http://www.plattgroupllc.com/jun08training.pdf

Also see the following article, "Closing the Soft Skills Gap," from the July 2008 issue of Practical Accountant.

From Inside Public Accounting, June 2008, p. 5, The Platt Consulting Group (www.plattgroupllc.com). Subscription $389 per year; back issues—nonsubscribers $50. 317-733-1920.

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