April 2012 Leadership Forum
Vol. 4 No. 4, April 2012
The Leadership Forum is a panel of the most prominent thought leaders in the profession. Each month we ask them to respond to a question dealing with CPA firm management and leadership.
This month's question is: On the premise that the $3 to $5 million firm must specialize to really prosper, what are the necessary steps to follow in order to select a niche(s)?
Consultants and Other Prominent Observers
| August Aquila | Aquila Global Advisor Group, LLC | www.aquilaadvisors.com [email protected] |
| ...to prosper in a niche the service provider needs to be more than a tax or audit professional. For example, if you are going to specialize in construction or real estate, it would help if the individual actually worked in those fields... More | ||
| William Carlino | Transition Advisors | www.transitionadvisors.com [email protected] |
| ...Then follow that by expanding your due diligence externally to your immediate geographic market to determine if there's a market need... More | ||
| Angie Grissom | The Rainmaker Consulting Group | www.therainmakeracademy.com [email protected] |
| Conducting a client breakdown analysis to show what industries and niches your clients are in and what percentages of the overall revenue are coming from what niche is a great first step... More | ||
| Bob Lewis | Visionary Marketing | www.thinkvisionary.com [email protected] |
| ...create a Marketing Team. A small group that consists of a senior professional to take the lead on prospect opportunities, a younger professional to be involved in the sales opportunity so they can get the training... More | ||
| Patrick Pruett | The Alliance of Professional Associations, Enterprise Network Worldwide and the Rainmaker Companies | http://enterprisenetworkworldwide.com [email protected] |
| It may seem counter intuitive that to grow your business you need to move from having an entire market to serve, as a generalist, to having a more concentrated or limited area of the market to serve as a specialized firm... More | ||
| Paul Rich | Rothstein, Kass and Company | www.rkco.com [email protected] |
| ...Most companies that have been able to create well-branded market niches typically evolved those as a byproduct of some concentration within their practice... More | ||
| Richard Rinehart | Grant Partners, LLC | [email protected] |
| ...Understand how players in your niche make a decision about their accounting firm. Are there other CPA firms in your market who have a strength in serving the niche?... More | ||
| Marc Rosenberg | The Rosenberg Associates | www.rosenbergassoc.com [email protected] |
| The niche needs a team; don't rely on one person to do it all. The firm must be willing to invest in staffing the team on the front end, even though there may not be enough business to keep everyone busy... More | ||
| Lisa Tierney | TIERNEY Coaching & Consulting | www.TIERNEYCoaching-Consulting.com [email protected] |
| ...I have found marketing to be much more effective when you take that niche (industry or service) and pare it down even more -- around an IDEAL CLIENT within that niche... More | ||
| Sandra Wiley | Boomer Consulting, Inc. | www.boomer.com [email protected] |
| Step 2: Identify the passions of the partners. Passion will lead to a great Niche... More | ||
| Jennifer Wilson | ConvergenceCoaching LLC | www.convergencecoaching.com [email protected] |
| ... Evaluate your local geography for thriving industries or areas of specialty service need... More | ||
Firm Leaders
| Richard A. Berkowitz | Berkowitz Dick Pollack and Brant | |
| ... Once you find a concentration, analyze the profitability of the concentration and the professionals who are working in the practice area... More | ||