Why don't you ever see a lion hunting a mouse? A lion is more than capable of catching a mouse, but is it worth the effort? A mouse doesn't provide nearly enough calories for a lion's appetite, so it's just not a good use of their time. They need to hunt larger animals, like antelope, to survive.
The same thing goes for your practice. At the end of each workday, ask yourself, did you hunt mice or antelopes? Did you spend your time on significant initiatives that will move your firm forward — or did you keep focusing on the low-hanging fruit that's easy to reach, but won't have a big impact on your firm's growth or reputation?
Now is the time of year when many firms are regrouping from the busy season and working on their big-picture goals. When accounting firm leaders tell me what they're working on, I ask them: "Is that going to move the needle?"
The problem with mice is they're so tempting to catch. But mice are fast, and it takes just as much energy to track down a sneaky mouse as it does a swift antelope. And the payoff for catching a mouse is significantly less when you're starving. The same goes for your business. It takes just as much energy to catch a high-value client as a low-value client. Sometimes a low-value client takes even more effort to reel in because your systems and processes need to be adjusted for their success.
When you and your team get together to throw ideas onto the whiteboard for taking your business to the next level, you'll end up with many potential initiatives for the next three to 12 months. Great start. But which of those ideas will deliver the biggest impact on your firm's growth and its ability to deliver client value?
It may take some time to whittle down the list, but you'll have to make tough decisions and select up to three initiatives. If your team tries to pursue more than three game-changing ideas at any given time, you'll get spread too thin, and chances are none of the ideas will come to fruition.
You could break down this exercise into two separate brain dumps: one for driving firm growth (operations, teams, etc.) and one for driving client value. Whichever ones you decide to pursue, make sure that no mice are on the list.
Next steps
Determine where you think the industry is going and how you will be best positioned to succeed from a firm growth and client service standpoint. Take the top three ideas from each bucket (firm growth and client service). Those six ideas are your antelopes. Focus intently on those six and eliminate all the rest (for now). Those are just distractions. You can always revisit them in 90 days.
For more on focusing your efforts on the highest yielding activities, see my article "
Again, you'll need 100% buy-in from your team to bring these six ideas to fruition. Remind anyone whose idea didn't make the final cut to bring their ideas to the table at the next quarterly meeting. Chances are those ideas will make more sense in the future, but pursuing them now could be very dangerous and lead to starvation for your firm.
Why is it so hard for CPAs to prioritize?
Our profession is obsessed with details. From their earliest days as accounting students, CPAs have been taught the ledger must always equal zero-point zero. Every tiny detail matters. But that's different from how it works when planning for the future growth of your firm. Details will matter eventually, but at this stage, you have to zoom out and use the wide-angle lens to see the entire savannah. That's the only way to find the antelopes to chase.
What is your firm doing to jumpstart growth and provide higher-value services to your clients? I'd
