How to Create a $1-Million-Per-Partner Firm

Source: Ric Payne's Blog 

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from a blog entry by Ric Payne.

In exactly seven days I travel to San Diego to deliver an 18-minute presentation on how to create a firm that yields a net profit per owner of at least $1 million. My first thought was how can I possibly explain in 18 minutes how firms are able to do this. I then realized that it is actually quite simple. My practice success mantra is client centric. It goes like this:

Choose to work with clients in respect of whom you are able to create significant value, people who recognize the contribution you make and are willing to share a fair proportion of that value with you.

Once you have identified the avatar that represents this type of client (which may be a narrow client target or a broad target) the services you need to offer will be self-evident, and this in turn will determine the skill sets you need to attract and retain. It will also determine who your competitors are and what your pricing options are. In short, it will define where you sit on the industry value curve. The most successful practices are run by people who know exactly where on that curve they reside.

So here is the amazing truth about how to create a $1 million firm. Pick your clients; pick where you want to be on the industry value curve and focus on that; pick your team; and understand what motivates talented knowledge workers by giving them autonomy, an opportunity for mastery, and an understanding of why your firm exists and the role they play in it. Then leverage the heck out of it.

What I'm proposing here has very little to do with the conventional wisdom of implementing so-called “best practice” – this, I suggest, is rubbish. I'd go so far as to say the pursuit of the “best practice” panacea is the reason most firms fall far short of their potential.

For the complete entry, read “KISS is the answer to creating a firm that yields at least $1 million for its owners.”

From Ric Payne's Blog, October 18, 2013, http://theconsultingaccountant.com.