There are a million ways to grow an accounting firm — you just have to find the one that fits your firm best.
That's one of the key lessons from members of Accounting Today's 2024 list of the
Regardless of their individual paths, they did all share a key element: intentionality. Growth was a stated goal for all of them, and they all pursued it despite the challenges involved.
"It's dreaming that you can become bigger," explained Lance Brant, managing partner of Capstone CPAs, in Bend, Oregon. "It's a commitment to setting goals and to setting the desire to grow bigger, and then also not giving up. There are so many challenges that happen during your life — family, people leaving, human resources — but just don't give up. Keep your attitude positive and go for it."
For New York City-based EisnerAmper, a key element of their high growth rate was overcoming a longstanding prejudice in accounting.
"Accountants generally are shy to sell; they think it's a dirty word," said Jay Weinstein, the firm's vice chairman for growth. "We changed that narrative 10 years ago; we did that through acknowledgement in people's reviews and their promotions; we did it with compensation, so we have several different comp plans that are just directed toward growth."
The firm is also zealous about adding new services (often through acquisition) and selling more services to their current clients.
"We broke that barrier of being protective of that relationship, and we always recognize that, if somebody refers somebody else in, then the person who's referring in gets credit, and the person who's landing it gets credit," said Weinstein. "And this is a little bit of secret sauce, but frankly, the whole team gets credit. We can have 20 people on the team — if you do a good job and the client wants more, we're going to give you some recognition around that."
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Cross-selling to your current client roster isn't the only path to growth, though: Glendale, California-based Vasquez & Co. has a strong focus on building prospects through marketing.
"We intentionally are doing more in-person marketing relationships and attending events," explained audit partner Tonette Santillan. "Once you establish a relationship with a client and potential clients, it's a lot easier to serve, sell or cross-sell."
"Aside from the in-person, we actually intensify our drip marketing campaigns, and we're starting to slowly incorporate the AI in terms of coming up with marketing drip campaigns," she continued. "So whenever we attend events, our marketing department can send a mass email to all the attendees that we spoke to during the event, just to establish the relationship. It's really helpful … it's very efficient in terms of us being able to touch base with those people."
A stronger marketing pipeline isn't Vasquez & Co.'s main route to extraordinary growth, however.
"The primary driver is basically the use of our outsourcing arm in the Philippines," said Santillan. "We have expanded the use of our resources here, not just to help out our own clients at Vasquez here in Los Angeles, but also, since we are part of the Alliance Network of RSM, we're able to share the resources.
Vaquez's approximately 350 team members in the Philippines are currently serving about 25 firms in the network, in addition to its own clients.
Capacity questions
The value of those offshore team members highlights how crucial it is for growing firms to find solutions to the disconnect between their growing amount of client work and the declining number of accountants available to do that work.
At Vancouver, Washington-based Opsahl Dawson, the answer was, at first glance, simple: Hire more people.
"We had to build capacity," said CEO Aaron Dawson. "You can't grow if you can't get the work done. So we focused on building capacity, and how do you grow capacity in a CPA firm? You hire great people."
Half a dozen years ago, the firm launched a strong hiring program; in addition, it has since set up a "very well-thought-out" intern program, and it welcomed remote workers long before COVID forced many firms to do so. That has lead to it hiring between 70 and 80 people a year, which helped it build the capacity to start merging in local practitioners, at a rate of one a year.
"That added quite a bit to our book," Dawson said.
Finding and keep talent is a key consideration for Philadelphia-based Your Part-Time Controller.
"It's about offering an outstanding employee value proposition, and being able to draw in staff even though there's an accounting shortage," said CEO Jennifer Alleva. "Our staff tell us that they're drawn by our strong culture, and working with a purpose, and also the extreme flexibility that we offer as a firm."
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As important as talent is, though, Alleva credited most of YPTC's extraordinary growth to specialization.
"I think it's really about having a unique client service delivery model that's different from anyone else on the Top 100," she said. "We serve only nonprofit organizations, and we help them with everything financial management, and also strategic management. We stick to our knitting, to just doing that — helping nonprofits with their financial management, and we've been doing that for 30 years."
Nonprofits have unique needs, and a strong appetite for financial management services — and COVID only exacerbated that hunger, with the firm's clients facing declining donations and the struggles of complying with the Paycheck Protection Program and other relief programs.
Matching up top talent with its clients has proven particularly effective for Pleasanton, California-based Sensiba, according to partner-in-charge of tax Monic Ramirez: "The things that have really made us successful … we've been able to mirror or marry up our clients' needs with really passionate leaders in key areas, making sure that those leaders are equipped with the talent that they need, and also training opportunities and things that bring them into the passionate role that they really see in the future, and serving these clients better."
Finally, growth for Atlanta-based Aprio relies on the firm's strong culture, which is driven by its "31 Fundamentals" — a collection of imperatives that include "Be kind" and "Speak straight," but also a commitment to entrepreneurship and client service.
"The 31 fundamentals drive our entire culture, and that culture, it brings people that want to be part of that toward us," said Michael Maksymiw, executive director of the Aprio Firm Alliance. "Whether it's people, whether it's firms, whether it's rainmakers — they're attracted to somebody that lives out a culture in everything they do every day, because we have 31 fundamentals, and we talk about them all the time in all of our meetings. It's not just writing on a wall."
All of these different paths to growth point to a larger secret: Growth doesn't simply happen, and just wanting it isn't enough. Firms need to plan for it, to make the hard decisions, and to be ready to make sometimes-painful changes.
"It has to be intentional growth," said Dawson of Opsahl Dawson. "You have to focus on all the levers that are needed, and you have to accept change. If you want to grow but you're not going to change, you're not going to get anywhere."
