If you don't ask the right questions, you can't get the right answers.
by Rick Telberg
At Large
Questions are the lifeblood of consultative selling. By asking the right ones, savvy CPAs can discern operational and finance problems that their clients or their employers in business and industry are not aware of themselves and can step forward with solutions before the problems cause damage.
But what if CPAs asked themselves the same kinds of questions? Would they find that their businesses and finances are better or worse off than they suspect?
In a rare CPA self-assessment, we asked our readers to answer a list of client questions compiled in a program designed specifically for accountants by consultative selling authority Paul Dunn. Paul is well known for Results Accountant Systems and now providing services to CPAs with Shannon Vincent through a firm called The ReNew Group. We launched the study from the recent column "What You Don't Know Could Hurt You."
Our sample for the study includes more than half from small businesses with ten or fewer people; 32 percent from organizations of 11 to 50 or 51 to 100, with the remainder from larger organizations. Chief executives and managing or senior partners accounted for 74 percent of the responses.
The sad fact of the study: CPAs could definitely use some consulting services.
Surprisingly, only 28 percent of CPAs surveyed are very confident about the quality of the management information from their systems. About 51 percent reported being somewhat satisfied.
Among the more than 20 new consultative questions that the respondents devised for what CPAs should ask of themselves and their clients, here are some examples: "How happy is your staff with their jobs?" and "How happy are you with your staff?" Also, "How often do you talk with your clients?" and "In striving to create value for stakeholders, have you seriously considered obligations to create or preserve nonmonetary value to society?"
As might be expected, 73 percent are very confident about the completeness of their personal tax returns, and 74 percent said that they prepare and review their own financial statements somewhat or very frequently.
Financial planners take note: Only 16 percent of the CPAs surveyed are very confident about their own retirement planning, and just 18 percent give the highest grade to their personal investment plans.
On the management advisory services side, just 14 percent of the CPAs surveyed have carried out a financial modeling exercise with "what if" scenarios for their companies very recently. Some 23 percent have not done one at all. And 24 percent don't know or don't have an opinion on the topic.
And yet, CPAs are confident about what they do. Are they fooling themselves?
Asked to describe their confidence in their ability to clearly explain in 30 seconds or less what they do, 77 percent said "very" or "somewhat." About 76 percent are happy with how well their businesses have lived up to their expectations.
Questions are not only the lifeblood of consultative selling, but they are vital to successful business in general and to rewarding relationships.
CPAs are learning all they can about posing questions in a consultative manner to their clients and employers. But are they asking themselves the right questions often enough?
Of course, At Large readers had some questions they'd add to the short list we provided. Some of them may make you stop and think.
--- "Are you excited about going to work every morning?"-- a managing partner at a small CPA firm.
--- "Do you know what your clients expect of you?" -- a senior partner at a local firm.
--- "Do you run your business or does your business run you?" -- Robert D. Blumberg, managing partner, local firm, Cary, Ill.
--- How balanced is your life between family, work, and community?" -- C. Richard Sarle, chief executive of a large not-for-profit in Belle Mead, N.J.
--- "What business are you in?" -- managing partner of a local CPA firm.
--- "What wakes you up at 3 a.m.?" -- senior partner at a large CPA firm.
