Tax season puts all CPA firms to the test. It requires that your people, procedures, technology, and client services are all working at their optimal levels. This imperative—the need for optimal performance—makes tax season the right time to consider what your succession needs and conditions look like.
As you think about succession at this crucial time of year, the answers to the following questions will be very helpful to your assessment:
Do your targeted internal successors perform entrepreneurially?
Do the firm’s clients have the right confidence in your targeted internal successors, and are you willing to verify the confidence level?
Are your targeted candidates for successors strong advocates for more technology?
Do your targeted candidates for successors act as a team to solve issues, and do they encourage and support each other?
Do you have an operations team that works well with your intended successors, and are they performing with a firm-first approach?
Are you succeeding at raising the bar on your billings in conjunction with reducing crunch time anxiety?
Are you keeping a log of what improvements would make your firm a better business?
CPA firms are businesses. The more that owners treat their firm as businesses, the more value they will build, and the stronger the interest will be for targeted successors to become owners.
Set the bar high for succession. If succession is viable internally, the people must be strong and highly motivated. Alternatively, if succession needs to come externally, any potential acquirer will need to know what your firm needs to be a better business. Even though it’s busy, tax season is the right time to assess and ask these questions. When you do, you’ll find that the answers will speak for themselves.
Commentaires