Late last year, we were honored to have a seat on stage at Thomson Reuters’ Synergy conference.
We had the opportunity to share what we were doing as a firm to help our clients be successful so that other firms could learn and be inspired. What stands out most as I reflect on that opportunity are two secrets I believe every entrepreneur needs to know.
Build the best team.
Very few businesses are scaled alone. As a business owner, your business is your baby. When you start, you feel as if you are the only one who can do everything that needs to be done. As clients increase, so does your workload. Pretty soon, you find yourself ‘doing’ business.
The only way to go from ‘doing’ business to ‘growing’ your business is to build your team. Surround yourself with smart people and communicate your vision for the company with them.
This can be the hardest thing for a business owner to do…relinquish control. Trust others to do the job as well as you can. Or, as our Practice Manager says, “get out of your own way.”
Once you build a team of people who are great at their roles and who are genuinely empowered to make decisions- and mistakes- a miraculous thing happens….
You find out that you aren’t always the smartest person in the room, and your business grows.
At Harper & Company CPAs Plus, our team is our secret sauce. Every single one of them is a thought leader with a different type of expertise. They understand their important role in the whole vision, and they are passionate about overdelivering valuable service to our clients.
Building a great team doesn’t happen overnight. It takes communication, culture, a commitment to processes, and leadership. If I had one nugget of wisdom to impart on any business owner looking to scale, your team is mission critical.
Pivot and evolve.
Client needs change over time. For example, in our business today, clients need more from their CPA than a tax return in most cases. They need a partner who can move beyond the numbers and help them tap into their greatness.
When I first started my business, it was common to meet with clients once a year for taxes. If we resisted the opportunity to evolve with our clients, we wouldn’t have experienced the growth that we have. We wouldn’t have been invited to sit on stage and share best practices to help other firms have a bigger impact on their clients’ success. In our own shift to meet the evolving needs of our clients, we discovered opportunity to help clients enjoy their entrepreneurial journeys.
Every business is faced with hurdles and opportunities. I like to say that business owners must lead right into and through the face of change. Even more important for an entrepreneur is to pivot early. Know when to shift your business to align with your vision and your customers’ needs. If your gut, your team, and your clients are giving you signals that a change needs to be made, you cannot ignore it. It will not go away, and it will cost you more money in the long run to ignore a change that needs to be made.
Most people don’t just want to do business. They want to build something. At Harper & Co CPAs Plus, we help entrepreneurs make the transition from the hamster wheel to building a business.
We’d love to help you go from paying the bills to enjoying entrepreneurial freedom. Call us today for a complimentary consultation at (614) 456-7222.
