In today’s new episode of Grow Your Firm Podcast, we interview Robert Colburn, a Senior Outsourcing Consultant at CliftonLarsonAllen, on different ways accounting firms can build their own systematic client onboarding process while simultaneously growing their firm.

In this interview, Robert and I dive into:

• Two important steps in determining the ways to automate your client onboarding process
• Deciding on your role to your clients
• Steps to take when launching your very own onboarding process
• and much, much more!

 Click Below to Listen to the Interview:

Show Links: 
Robert Colburn’s LinkedIn Page
CliftonLarsonAllen

Key Summary

The client onboarding process can become a headache, quickly, especially when you do not already have systems in place or staff to help transition new clients to your firm. Some firms even shut off their onboarding process and stop sales completely, because they just cannot handle the work.

Instead of stunting the growth of your firm, in today’s Grow Your Firm Podcast, we sat down with Robert Colburn, a Senior Outsourcing Consultant at CliftonLarsonAllen. Robert has developed key strategies to building your own systematic client onboarding process that not only allows you to keep the sales funnel on but also builds trust with your new clients.

Let’s dive in.

Defining Your Onboarding Process

Some CPA firms have been making the choice to fine-tune their onboarding process and some have just simply ignored it whether or not they realize the importance.  What I am talking about is the importance of processes fulfillment in your client acquisition efforts.

Robert says there are two beginning steps you should take to automate your client onboarding process .

The first step is to know your business model and to focus on the services you provide to your clients.  

Set your levels and expectations of services.  Understand what you do really well as a business and know what you can refer elsewhere to your trusted sources.  Robert thinks it is really crucial to automate your client onboarding process early and to get your services up and running before you start to win clients.

The second step is finding out how you can use outside technical expertise, programs, or applications to help execute your onboarding strategy.  Examples of some of these services are

• Accounting programs like QuickBooks or AP Processing
• Tax applications or
• Client file sharing programs  

To automate your client onboarding process is really important because it communicates what your firm is about and what products and services you will provide to the client.  
Take the time to identify and diligence which technologies you believe will better implement your services and maintain your contact with clients real-time going forward in your business relationship.  Know what you want early on so that you experience no real interruptions to clients during the actual onboarding process

And appreciate that product vendors become extension of your brand and part of your positioning of your firm.  A lot of these outside vendors have dedicated support teams and staff that can work in tandem with you, your team, and your clients for product implementation, training and onboarding.  Form a good, working partnership with these vendors.   

Build those relationships not only with your client but also with the product teams so that you can trust the product with your clients going forward.  Gain trust in the application features, the interface, and its usability   

What is Your Role To Your Clients?

As a firm owner, think about what your business role to your client will be.  What is your business philosophy?  Do you desire to be an everything-to-everyone kind of shop or do you desire to specialize in your service capabilities and then outsource the rest.  Then you can think about appropriate steps in mapping out your process to give the best onboarding experience to your clients.  

If you are that jack-of-all-trades shop, then you can provide a more customizable and personalized onboarding experience for your client.  

Otherwise, decide to what extent you as the firm owner will handle interactions between your client and the vendor.  It is important to identify how you personalize this approach when you automate your client onboarding process .  Be upfront and honest with your clients about these relationships.  Are you their number one contact?  Do you prefer the establishing a back-end relationship or a front-end relationship with your vendors?  

Robert suggests that, for your tech-savy clients, choose a hybrid approach: You can answer some client questions and the vendor can directly answer any other questions.  For all others, choose to be the conduit between the vendors and clients.  But be careful warns Robert “you could hit your bottom line really hard when reaching out to the vendors frequently especially if they are charging a per-hour rate”.  A third consideration is to have a dedicated staff member in-house who is that go-to person for all things technical.

Phases of the Onboarding Launch
The way to automate your client onboarding process is broken down into two phases according to Robert.

1. The initial onboarding phase can take approximately 1 to 3 months to complete.  Review the process and adjust accordingly to make sure it will be working optimally for the client
2. The ongoing phase is continuous and is reviewed periodically for fine-tuning.  So in essence you are always onboarding your client.  In doing so, you are fostering a great, interactive relationship and strengthening rapport with your clients.   

Introducing a New Product or Service and Working with Your Teams

If you choose to introduce additional outside products or services, Robert suggests to set expectations ahead of time with your team members “so they don’t feel overwhelmed with a big shift.”   

The introduction could be drastic and delivered all-at-once allowing your team to be fully immersed in the information.  It will be entirely a new mindset.  Or it could be gradual, introducing one product or service at a time and not moving forward until the team gains comfort with these new initiatives.   

And the manner in which you decide to introduce new changes to your team all depends on how much they are involved in these services.  Some may feel nervous that their efforts will be replaced by technology, especially if you have a full accounting department already dedicated and involved.  Robert assures that these concerns are merely misconceptions since adding new services would create more opportunities to win additional business and to grow the firm.

The Importance of Remembering What Your Clients Value

While everyone may get excited about adopting new technology, what is most important at the end of the day to your clients are their end returns:  Cash flow analysis, profitability reports, and reduced expenses.  

“It is important to remember the desired outcome.  It is important to remember not just the tools but the cohesive package.”

Understand the value of your services.  Are clients looking for this value?  When thinking about how to automate your client onboarding process with your clients, be sure to customize your clients’ needs during the first of the proposal meetings.  This analysis is called a Needs Analysis.  Identify those critical components.  

Leverage the knowledge from your vendors and customize it.  Use the spec lists, check lists, and other basic materials to edit accordingly.  Contextualize and integrate the information to help make it work for your clients going forward.  This way when the actual onboarding process occurs, it will be quick, painless, effortless, and a success. Good luck!

This week we’re excited to release our interview with Joni Johnson-Powe, the CEO of Taxnologi and iAccountOn where we dive into how to make the switch from employee to CPA Firm owner and the courage it takes to build your own practice.

This interview covers:

• Venturing out to your own practice
• The steps Joni took to grow her firm
• What school does not teach you about business
• Trusting your instincts
• Why remembing the small world we live in can help build your firm
• How to develop your business with courage

And much, much more
 Click Below to Listen to the Interview:

Show Links: 
Taxnologi
iAccountOn
Joni Johnson Powe’s LinkedIn Page

Have you made the switch from employee to CPA firm owner?

Leave a comment below telling us the hardest part of your transformation from being an employee to moving into entrepreneurship and owning your own CPA firm. We will choose one lucky commentor who will win 1 free month of Jetpack Workflow software to help build a growing practice.

To learn more, check out our free 14 day trial at JetpackWorkflow.com. 

Key Summary

Let’s face the facts. Statistics vary on the failure rate for startups, but it is generally estimated to be between 80 percent and 90 percent according to Forbes.

Add in the conservative nature of most accountants, trying to open up your own CPA Firm practice could sound a bit crazy to your coworkers. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s an impossible dream to try and accomplish. On today’s Grow Your Firm podcast, we interview Joni Johnson-Powe, an ex-Big 4 accountant who decided to venture our on her own and build two successful CPA firms, Taxnologi and iAccountOn.

However, it wasn’t all roses and sunshine for Joni to make the switch from employee to CPA firm owner. Let’s dive into a little bit of her background and what it took for Joni to leave the Big 4 world.

Leaving Public Accounting And Venturing Into Entrepreneurship

Prior to starting her own firms, Joni spent the earlier part of her career at Ernst & Young and KPMG. At the time she was motivated to work her way up to partner – or so she thought.

During Joni’s maternity leave in 2001, her father, a CPA who ran his small practice after spending 30 years with the IRS, passed away. Clients were calling, as it was busy tax season at the time, so Joni stepped up to help prepare tax returns in her office basement.

Looking back at the experience, she realized she found satisfaction in helping “real people”, as she describes, versus her large corporate clients. This was when Joni knew she could actually make the switch from employee to CPA firm owner and become successful.

As a result, in November 2003, Joni incorporated her father’s business in his name and began running his practice on her own.

Joni took advantage of an opportunity to take on a business client of hers at KPMG.

Working in a specialty technology consulting practice within KPMG, the firm was conflicted on a consulting project. The firm was already performing audit services for client. She approached KPMG Consulting offering to have the client contract independently with her. KPMG agreed, and Joni gained her first client.

Joni stayed in New York for a full year to work on this project before she was able to move back to Colorado. At that point, Joni started growing, adding a second client referred to her by KPMG Denver. Eventually, at one point, she grew the firm to six employees.

By then, Joni was a 32 year-old entrepreneur. She was running a full service, one-stop shop. Joni provided any service that her small business clients needed from just about anything from auditing to tax returns, to provisions, and bookkeeping.

How To Expand Your firm, One Step At A Time.

Joni was handling all aspects of her business including payroll, human resources, and client billings. She admits she was overwhelmed, and she needed help.

So Joni decided to scale the team.

Her first hire was a former senior-level colleague brought in to deliver the work. Her second hire was a part-time  professional and office manager who helped Joni with billing, contracts and engagement letters, and bookkeeping.

As her work expanded, Joni needed to fill in the gaps.

Her next hire was a junior level staffer who would support her senior colleague and her fourth hire was an entry-level associate who had six months of experience.

Joni desired to find someone at the manager level to join the practice. She interviewed various people and talked with others about creating a merger or partnership.

One local Denver firm explored the opportunity with her, but she concluded that their business directions were too divergent. Joni just could not find the right fit.

What You Are Not Taught In School

Through Joni’s business journey she had to learn many new things that were not taught or even discussed in college.
Some of these learning lessons included:

• How do you recruit?
• How do you find employees with the same client service understanding and experience?
• How do you handle training and onboarding?
• How do you motivate people?

Joni suggests starting the onboarding process for new hires in the very beginning.
Here are a few things to remember about the hiring process:

• You must communicate the vision of your firm
• Expectations need to be discussed and agreed upon
• Please remember not to assume everyone knows the firm you are trying to create

Joni’s vision for her firm is to provide high quality service to her clients. She built a culture that fosters growth, and she provides client service opportunities for staff.
Joni realized that sometimes her team might not view the world or not approach client service the same way. Everyone’s experience is different.

Her business goal is to keep the clients happy. She strives for everyone on her team to have buy-in to the vision and to be committed to delivering quality service to the clients.

Frequent and clear communication about the business vision is important to Joni and clearly defined within her firm.

The Importance Of Hosting Weekly Staff Meetings

As Joni’s firm began to expand, she quickly had to learn how to become a true “manager” at all levels. Throughout this learning process, Joni decided to start hosting weekly staff meetings to get everyone on the same page, each week.

Here are the 4 must haves within her weekly staff meetings:

1. Be transparent.
2. Talk about issues, projects, work, and opportunities as a group.
3. Share expectations.
4. Make sure that the staff and management team on the same page

When hiring employees from the Big 4 firms, usually they undergo a career transition into a small shop. It is a mindset shift.
In large firms, expectations are set in terms of the project, other work, and deadlines. Now work involves seeing the full business picture when providing client services.

“Everybody wanted a deliverable yesterday” says Joni. “We have a budget, we have a timeline, and we have to deliver high quality, accurate work. Diligence matters. We don’t want to have the client lose faith [or] they can go anywhere else.“

When hiring new members of the team, Joni says to trust your instincts.

• Try to be as part of the interview process – Share the vision for the company
• Find out about them: Communication skills and motivation factors
• Everyone has different experiences, traits, and capabilities.
• Find someone you connect with – Listen to your intuition

“As a small firm – we are different and there is a reason why I started the firm. What I wanted to accomplish is to differentiate,” says Joni.

When interviewing candidates, tell the story of the firm so to attract the right team that connects with the story, urges Joni

The Importance Of Industry Networking

Part of finding great talent is through networking. Connect early on, build a strong ecosystem, help one another, and stay in touch.
Stay connected with high quality, knowledgeable people who would be fine additions to the firm perhaps in the future. Joni believes that the best connections last a lifetime in your career.

“Take advantage of the time to get to know people. Really take advantage of firm activities, community service. Really engage and be part of your firm. Those relationships will come back to you most definitely”

Have you made the switch from employee to CPA firm owner?

Leave a comment below telling us the hardest part of your transformation from being an employee to moving into entrepreneurship and owning your own CPA firm. We will choose one lucky commentor who will win 1 free month of Jetpack Workflow software to help build a growing practice.

To learn more, check out our free 14 day trial at JetpackWorkflow.com. 

How To Keep Up With The Changing Accounting Industry
Joni started Taxnologi to leverage her best skill set–the technology side–to provide high quality technology service for clients.

While she still provides her services on a smaller scale to the start-ups in town, she is positioning Taxnologi to provide complementary technology services.

Her focus is to introduce to her small business clients the best systems and infrastructure necessary to run their businesses. Joni helps with system set up, software, automation, structure, accounting, and sales and property tax services.

Business Development Done Right

This time around, Joni is more selective with the clients she takes. In the past, she wanted to grow, so she took every client. She learned over the years that it is difficult to try to be everything to everyone due to resource constraints, time constraints, and caliber of expertise.

“Be bold” when developing the business.

Joni reached out to CPA firms, stressing her value as an alliance partner. Providing tangential, specialized, and integrative technology services to their CPA clients would provide a beneficial relationships for both sides. She is the primary partner for certain integrations.

The CPA firms handle research and counseling on services. At Taxnoloi Joni would translate the matrixes and decisions made with clients into software set up that works accurately and efficiently. According to Joni, the relationship is a win-win especially for smaller and medium firms that do not have these capabilities.

With business development, Joni says, “If you don’t ask you don’t know”. Meet prospective partners and clients, set up a call, and determine if the relationship makes sense.

Joni calls it business maturity. Before she was intimidated by being pro-active. However, she learned that people are happy when they are contacted and get to learn what is new or ”what’s going on”. “People are similar. They try to provide great service [and] they want to meet quality people who provide great service.”

Business development is a skillset according to Joni. It is part sales, part relationship building. Put yourself out there – connect with people she urges.

She found that taking a chance can sometimes pay off. “You get told no a lot of times but you just keep going…Like public speaking – after you do it a few times – it’s not so bad.

[It is] good to give people the opportunity to develop skills”, Joni says.

Joni shares that she used to be so shy but everyone can learn to overcome shyness.

“It takes experiences to build up confidence and to realize people are interested to hear what you have to say. You can make the switch from employee to CPA firm owner. Just get pushed out there. It’s going to be ok. ”

Have you made the switch from employee to CPA firm owner?

Leave a comment below telling us the hardest part of your transformation from being an employee to moving into entrepreneurship and owning your own CPA firm. We will choose one lucky commentor who will win 1 free month of Jetpack Workflow software to help build a growing practice.

To learn more, check out our free 14 day trial at JetpackWorkflow.com.