What if there was something you could do that elevates the quality of your life now, helps build a stronger team, lets you develop clarity about your practice, and increases the value of your firm when you’re ready to sell?
Unplugging completely from your firm and taking regular vacations will do that.
From my years as an accounting firm broker, four main metrics have the most impact on the price of a firm: top line revenue, cash flow to owner, number of staff, and the number of days the owner takes off. This last metric is often overlooked but has an impact on the other three.
A firm is more valuable when it doesn’t revolve around the owner. I’ve observed this over and over with CPAs who have built high-performing and highly profitable firms. The most successful and happiest practice owners take a significant amount of time off. They can leave their office for weeks at a time, never checking their email or responding to texts from their team, confident that their team will be able to handle just about any crisis that comes up.
How to take an unplugged vacation
Unplugging from your firm for an extended vacation might sound like an unaffordable luxury, particularly for accountants whose normal mode is working all the time. And when a firm revolves around one person, stepping away can feel nearly impossible. But by following a few step-by-step instructions, you can set yourself up for a much-needed break.
- Block out your vacation. The first step is to simply block out your vacation time well in advance. It may take up to a year to prepare your firm — and yourself — for an extended absence, so start planning early. Besides planning the timing of your vacation, think carefully about how long you want to be out of the office. A good minimum length is eight days because it usually takes about three days to stop thinking about work. Then you have five days to completely unwind and relax.
- Work on your mindset. The other crucial early step is to lose the guilt about leaving your firm behind. What you are doing will help your firm. You are your firm’s most valuable asset. By refreshing yourself, you’re giving your firm an immediate upgrade.
- Use the “three buckets” to delegate. You’ll never be able to unplug from your firm if you’re deep in the weeds of the work. I like to teach firm owners the "three buckets" technique to help them with delegating work. The first bucket is “Things you want to keep.” These are the types of work that you want to keep doing for the foreseeable future. The next bucket is “Work you want to give up one day.” These are the tasks that you don’t like doing, but maybe you don’t have anyone in your office yet who can do them. The last bucket is for “Things you can delegate right now.” Don’t be afraid to start small here, especially if you’re used to doing all the work. The key is to start small and let go. Delegating work also means you need to pick the right team members so you can be confident in handing work over to them.
- Establish boundaries with your clients. One thing I’ve observed over and over is that the owners of high-performing firms have great boundaries around their time off. Firm owners need to manage client expectations, or those clients will dictate how you work. If clients have the expectation that they can reach you anytime, you will not be able to unplug from your work.
The calendar for unplugging
Unplugging successfully requires planning. In unplugging from my own business, and in working with firm owners, I’ve developed a calendar that makes the process smoother.
- Four weeks ahead: Alert key clients and staff. You can’t just vanish, so you need to let people know you’ll be out of the office and unavailable. I do this either when I’m on the phone with them or in an email. I tell people where I’m going, the dates I’ll be gone, and give them the name and contact info for the person who will be taking over while I’m gone. I also give some clients a gentle reminder about outstanding items we need from them so we can get that work done before I leave. A hard boundary like a vacation can help accelerate work coming in, and sometimes generates new projects that weren’t even on your radar.
- One week ahead: Meet with your team. Make sure everyone is clear about expectations and what they need to focus on while you’re gone. Delegate work so that you have less on your plate when you come back.
- A few days ahead: Confirm details. Circle back with another meeting to make sure no details get dropped. If you have a good team, they’ll step up and discover they can do more than they thought possible.
- Day of departure: Unplug from the office. Change your voicemail message and set an autoresponder on your email. Leave your laptop and tablet behind. I leave my work cell phone at home and take only a personal cell phone for maps or other travel-related apps. One person in the office has a phone number where I can be reached, and they have instructions to only send me good news.
The benefits of unplugged vacations
An unplugged vacation is one of the most profitable practices I’ve seen accountants implement. The benefits go far beyond getting a break from work and a change of scenery.
- Conquer burnout. Accountants tend to work insane hours, and the resulting burnout can lead many CPAs and accounting and tax pros to simply walk away from their careers or their firms. It’s amazing how much unplugging from your work for an extended period can help. I’ve worked with owners who were ready to sell their high-performing accounting firms, but who, after taking an unplugged vacation, returned energized with a new vision and new excitement.
- Gain clarity about your firm. Taking time off can let you see opportunities for growth that are hard to see when you’re deep in the weeds of the work. I always have at least one aha moment on every trip. Many of the accountants I work with come back with clarity on the work or clients they need to let go of, and the areas they enjoy and want to focus on. When you return, you see clearly which staff stepped up and which ones didn’t. You can identify the future leaders who deserve extra attention and the deadweight that simply needs to be released.
- Retain and recruit the best people. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, offering your people a chance to unplug from what has been a never-ending busy season can help them stay on board. It can also be a powerful recruiting tool, especially for those hard-to-fill manager-level positions, where candidates may have been working practically nonstop for years.
- Increase the value of your firm. As an accounting firm broker, this is a benefit I see constantly when I work with buyers and sellers. Unplugging regularly from your firm forces you to build a business that runs autonomously. Fewer owner hours makes it more appealing to today’s younger buyers, who don’t want to work as many hours as their predecessors.
These are just a few of the more common benefits I’ve seen when firm owners take unplugged vacations. Reconnecting with family and building great memories, as well as exploring new interests and new areas are all priceless. This is one practice that brings great joy to your life and helps you grow a more profitable and valuable firm.
