How a Successful Start-Up Invents New Ways of Doing Business

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

Excerpts from this article by Rick Telberg are reprinted with permission from the AICPA.

Thirty-year-old ex-Army intelligence officer Brian Wendroff wants to break the mold for accounting firms.

His four-year-old CPA firm, Arlington, Virginia-based Wendroff & Associates, is modeled more on the strengths of a technology company than on a traditional professional services firm.

Here are five examples of the firm's leading-edge strategies:

1. Flexible and supportive human resources policies. The firm's telework policy, for example, helps support a healthy work-life balance and attract and retain the best talent for the money.
2. Web- and cloud-based business solutions. The firm is a pioneer in QuickBooks Online and sits on an Intuit advisory board. Its CRM system, Highrise, is all SaaS. And it manages many firm processes through Google Docs.
3. Aggressive experimentation with social media. Twitter (it has more than 13,000 followers) yielded five new clients in the last year, billing about $14,000 annually.
4. Ruthless dedication to changing with client criticism. The firm sends out a client satisfaction survey twice a year, using the super-simple Net Promoter Score and following up with a memo to clients about its plans to improve.
5. "Sow-before-you-reap" marketing. The firm offers free "Ask-a-CPA" Webinars on basic accounting or tax tips for clients and non-clients alike. It also organizes CEO peer-to-peer groups for business owners with at least $2 million in annual turnover. The meetings are invitation-only, highly structured, single-topic and followed by a memo that reads more like a Harvard Business School case study than meeting minutes.

When Brian first started the firm, he admits his fees were set too low and he was attracting the wrong clients. Today, fees are set to cover overhead and salaries, plus enough to plow back into the business. And the firm is now getting the right kind of clients -- the kinds who want more than just bookkeeping or tax prep, but want and need strategic services. The proof? Wendroff says, "Nearly every company we worked with last year grew through the recession."

For the complete article, click here and read "Top Secrets of a CPA Start-Up" in the March 8, 2010, issue.

From AICPA CPA Insider, March 8, 2010, www.CPA2biz.com.