Can New Business be a Bad Thing?

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

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

Many accountants are bracing for a surge of work from new tax and regulatory changes. But all that new work for CPAs may not be a good thing, according to one of the profession's most outspoken iconoclasts.

The expected flood of new business, says CPA Ron Baker, “will distract us from what's really important.”

“One of the lessons of the new normal has been a real focus on client service,” Baker says. By his own estimates, top CPA firms generate 25 percent to 40 percent of new business from sales to existing customers. But with the recession, firms are learning how to stretch that to 50 percent to 80 percent through drive and innovation.

“We're learning that we don't live in a vacuum when it comes to client service,” he says. “The client compares us to everyone else they deal with. And they're dealing with places like Zappos, Ritz-Carlton and Disney.”

In the same way that firms may become distracted from advancing in client service, Baker fears too that they may stall other innovations in delivering value and nurturing talent.

Too many accounting firms, he says, are stuck on the idea that they sell products or services. “But people don't buy products or services,” he says. “They buy solutions to problems. They buy new opportunities. They buy value.”

To illustrate the difference between the perspective of the customer and the merchant, Baker quotes cosmetics pioneer Charles Revson: “In our factory, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope.”

Customers, Baker says, aren't buying tax or regulatory compliance alone. They are seeking to build a stronger business for themselves and a better life for themselves.

For the complete article, read “Will You Be Ready for the Next Boom?”

From AICPA CPA Insider, September 27, 2010, www.CPA2biz.com.