MFA Group - Your total solution for practice growth

TACS users enjoy this total peace of mind as they watch their accounting practice grow.

"If you think education's expensive - try ignorance. Of course, training should not be viewed as a cost, but an investment. The issue is not whether the expenditure is high, but how certain are the returns on this investment."

- David H. Maister, from chapter 12 - Success through skill building - From his Touchstone book, True Professionalism, (1997 ISBN # 0-684-84004-9).

What are people saying about TACS?

"Steve - Mike Crook asked me to introduce myself, I am Barbara Brown, Director of Marketing at Proctor, Crook & Crowder, CPAs and I wanted to let you know that Mike has asked me to read Towards Awesome Client Service, Modules One and Two and all the materials that he received from your seminar and to take responsibility for implementing them within our firm.

The material that you produce (TACS) is so good at promoting excellent client and prospect relationships that I am really enjoying my project. It's excellent stuff, Thank you so much."

- Barbara Brown, Director Of Marketing,
Proctor, Crook & Crowder, CPAs, Stuart, Florida, USA
http://www.pcc-cpa.com

From Branford, CT, USA...

We hired a strategic planner/business coach... He was helpful, but not nearly as much as we’ve gotten from TACS. And we’re only half way through Module 2!

MURPHY, SLOMAN & COMPANY, CPAs, LLC
420 EAST MAIN STREET, BUILDING 1, SUITE 11, BRANFORD, CT 06405
TEL: 203-481-3262, FAX: 203-483-6452, www.murphysloman.com

We are a two partner, nine staff member firm located in Guilford, CT (2 hours north of New York City). I am a committed believer in CANEI (Constant And Never Ending Improvement).

To that end I read every book, article, manual that I can get my hands on if it pertains to self-improvement, practice management improvement, and business success.

I’ve seen other programs before TACS (Such as Boot Camp, Sterling Management).

We even went so far as to hire a strategic planner/business coach who had no specific experience with accounting firms, but who convinced us, that it was not necessary for him to be an effective facilitator.

He was helpful, but not nearly as much as we’ve gotten from TACS. And we’re only half way through Module 2!

Steve has an intimate knowledge of public accounting, and he uses a common sense approach to solving the issues. So many times I’ve found myself reading and saying –how obvious! But the truth is, if it really were that obvious – we’d be doing it already! I can not quantify the changes yet, as the programs are so new for us, but check back with me, and I’ll be happy to let you know.

Camille R. Murphy, CPA
Founding Partner (1981)
Murphy, Sloman & Company, LLC

The Team at Murphy, Sloman & Company, LLC

If you believe that the perceived quality of the service you provide - in the eyes of your clients - and the professional growth and satisfaction of yourself, your partners and your staff has anything to do with the future growth and prosperity of your firm, then please read on...

Dear Public Accountant,

Choosing a Public Accounting firm is one of the most difficult decisions business owners face today.

They cannot take home a sample to see if they like our service.

They have no way of judging our skills and abilities prior to engaging us, and often depend heavily on the recommendations of friends in business, bankers and other referral sources when deciding which firm to use.

The choices facing the typical business client can often be overwhelming too.

The competition for a smaller number of prospective clients intensifies each month as more CPAs, CAs, CGAs and ACCAs around the world establish their own firms.

What then, can you do to totally differentiate yourself from the competition and give yourself that essential competitive edge?

Well, there are many good marketing tools which will help you to establish and grow your firm. Many of them we produce ourselves, through our other web sites, such as our award-winning consulting firm, MarketingForAccountants, but the one initiative that will make the biggest difference is by providing an awesome experience to your existing clients.

What is the point in continuously chasing new clients if existing clients are not super-satisfied with the service they receive and, as a result, the new clients brought in to the firm are simply replacing the ones leaving?

It's like trying to keep a bucket full of water when there's a gaping hole near the bottom.

We all believe that we provide our clients with great service, and most of us do. But the simple truth is, that if everyone provided a wonderful service experience to the client, then no clients would ever change firms.

Even those firms who do a wonderful job for their clients sometimes suffer from attrition. Maybe it was the fee offered by a competitor that tempted the client elsewhere. Maybe it was the service promise from the other firm that tempted them away. Or maybe it was simply because they didn't see the VALUE in what you did for them last year.

The skill that separates the thriving practice from the ordinary is this: those firms who implement a system to demonstrate everything that they have done for the client, the savings they have achieved for them and the value they have provided for the fees charged are the ones who will be simply miles ahead of the competition. These firms will keep clients much longer, provide more services to them and receive way more referrals from their clients.

It's much easier to increase your fees by 10% if you increase the value you offer your clients in return by 30%.

We are often not in a position to see the value proposition from the client's perspective until it's too late. The public accountant already has more than enough on his or her plate.

There are professional standards, filing deadlines, time and staff management issues, fee budgets and many more constraints that tend to distract us from the fact that a client is looking for value for money from us.

They don't care how many journal entries were necessary to make their financial statements comply with GAAP.

They don't care how much research went into crafting the tax strategies you used to complete their tax return.

They don't care unless we tell them, and tell them in such as way as to clearly demonstrate what this means to them in dollars, pounds or euros saved. Only then can they make a judgment call on value.

The tools to do this in a discrete, professional and client-centred manner, and more, are contained in TACS.

In a recent survey of business owners who had recently changed accounting firms, 4 of the top six reason given for making the change were:

Not having a real understanding of the client’s business. This was the biggest single reason, quoted again and again by business people who had recently changed auditors.
Availability. “He NEVER returns my phone calls.” “I had an URGENT problem and the best she could offer me was half an hour a week on Tuesday.” If people can’t get hold of you when they need you, they will go elsewhere for solutions to their problems.
Approachability. Where clients felt that they couldn’t approach their Accountant for help and advice, or where they felt “belittled” for asking “stupid” questions, or where the Accountant in question obviously didn’t have much time for them, then they would vote with their feet. People skills show their real value here!
Being passed down the “food-chain”. People want to deal with a Partner, and when the Partner gets too busy to deal with the “smaller cases”, and passes these clients down the line to younger, more junior people within the firm, the relationshipwith the client is put at risk.

(You might be interested to know that these were listed as #s 1, 2, 3 and 5 in order of importance, with price coming in a #6 and the death or retirement of the previous adviser as #4.)

By running a client-centred practice, a public accounting firm can retain their existing clients for far longer and provide additional services to them.

By providing an awesome service experience to these clients, they start to become 'cheerleaders' for your firm, always keen to pass referrals on to you. Before long, the client-centred practice sees real growth, both in average fee per client - by virtue of providing additional services to their clients - and by a steady growth in the number of new clients referred to them each year.

That is the main objective of 'Towards Awesome Client Service'.

Time and again, the common thread seen is to place too much emphasis on finding new clients, when the practitioner already sits on a huge resource of untapped work and untapped referrals - from their existing clients. I believe it is mostly due to our natural instincts. We were always hunters rather than farmers.

Sure, we need to attract additional clients to our firm, and we should have a system in place, with the tools to help us become successful, but the area that can make the biggest difference in the shortest time frame, is to provide a truly excellent service experience to our existing clients, make them aware of the additional services we could provide them and the benefits they could enjoy, and to encourage them to make more referrals to us during the course of the year.

When I was in practice, client service was one of the most important issues I learned.

Like most of us, I learned the hard way. I made my share of expensive client service mistakes, but I quickly learned from each of them. Each time I documented what I did wrong and what I should do different next time I face a similar situation. I tested the new approaches and new methods, designed spreadsheets to help me keep track and wrote materials and fine-tuned them to the point where I had a genuine system in place to help me succeed.

Over the years basic, fundamental issues repeatedly came to the fore, and so I collected, fine-tuned and developed each to form the basis of a complete client referral and up-selling system. I have decided to publish them as 'Towards Awesome Client Service' to offer you the opportunity to get a real jump-start on your competitors.It's intense, it requires commitment and perseverance from you, but it gets results.

If you are looking to truly differentiate your practice from your competitors, I urge you to explore TACS and the benefits it brings to you, your firm and your staff.

PS - Remember to join up today to take advantage of our special price.

If you embrace this challenge and implement the ideas in TACS, in time, your competition may well catch on.... but they will never catch up.

PPS - A quick comment about the use of the word 'awesome'. It has been pointed out to me - by someone in the know - that RAN ONE, or RAS (Results Accounting Systems) as they were formerly known, use this word a great deal in their material and, in fact, it is thought to be something of a worst kept 'secret' code-word for their materials.

I just wanted to clear the air here and clarify that this system is absolutely nothing to do with RAS or any of their associated or spin-off businesses.

I have never bought or used any of their materials and TACS is totally original and unique material. If you have any questions about this program, you can call me direct at 905-842-2284.

Delivered in four modules, one released each quarter, Module One was launched in October 2002 to huge critical acclaim, and Modules Two, Three and Four are now all available, together with our 'Guide to Implementing TACS' which comes free with module four.

It's a proven, effective, systematic formula for practice growth through Awesome Client Service, developed through years of research and practice, exclusively designed for the needs of the modern accounting practice.

Delivered in four modules complete with 'how-to' step by step instructions and guidance, with your own TACS e-coach and a members-only download centre where all our documentation can be downloaded in Word documents and Excel spreadsheets to help you succeed.

Our promise to TACS members:

Enjoy $30,000 Fee Growth next year, guaranteed,
or your money back.