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How many employees have you fired? Not ones that quit, or disappeared; I mean FIRED? Quit tolerating it – both for you and for your other people! Big Mistake Tax Pros Make – Not firing employees that cause you grief/stress My last post of the Big Mistake series, I mentioned that not firing clients that cause you grief/stress is a HUGE mistake. The next biggest one is not firing employees that cause you grief or stress. Yes, we have been in a hiring shortage and finding good people is always a challenge … But, if you have someone working for you that is just not getting it, gives you poor quality work time after time, then you need to get rid of them. I ascribe to the philosophy, slow to hire and fast to fire. If they are not performing well, then they need to go. They are probably costing more time than they are saving you. It would even benefit you to use a service like Paro. While most of their professionals are not cheap, they are good and best of all, they are not your employees. You don’t have to deal with drama, whining, or benefits. Yes, if you are like most tax pros, you are kind hearted and a people person. Firing someone to you is a form of cruel and unusual punishment and it feels horrible. Having done it a few times, I am not going to disagree with that. But, you and they will be much better off in the end. If you have someone on a short leash, they are not doing you any good. In fact, you are probably holding them back. Maybe public accounting is not for them. I have seen some employees in a public accounting firm get fired and then go on to great careers at a company that was a better fit for them. Not only that, but them occupying the space is keeping you from looking for someone that may be a much better fit for your firm. So, seriously think about it if you have a low or underperforming employee. There are temporary alternatives if this leaves you short handed, but trust me, you will be better off in the long run. If you fire someone, let me know how it goes. How did you feel about it? What did you ultimately end up doing to replace them? Make it a great |
Big Mistakes Tax Pros Make – Answering your own phone
| The phone rings in your office. Who answers it? If the answer is you, you really should stop. Why? Well, there are multiple reasons.
1) It takes time to answer the phone 2) The person on the other end is a prospect kicking the tires, thereby wasting your time and asking you a bunch of freebie questions 3) The person on the other end is a client with the “got a minute” question, with the call being completed 45 minutes later (of which you probably don’t bill them for the time) 4) The annoying person on the phone is a sales guy you have been trying to ignore 5) It is a robocall or some telemarketer These are all time wasters. Your time is very valuable. If you don’t guard your time, who else it going to guard it for you. Remember, time is the one thing that when it is spent, you don’t get it back! How much would you say an hour of your time is worth? For most of you, it could range from $50/hr to $300+/hr. So, let’s do the math. My office phone rang 4 times today and 6 times yesterday. Three were existing clients (one had a scheduled appointment), two were prospects, two were robocalls, one was a salesperson I have been ignoring, one was a telemarketer, and one was a networking associate call for a scheduled appointment. The two calls that I took were an hour in total. If I were to have answered all 10 calls, that probably would have been about 2-3 hours worth of my time. One hour was the scheduled appointments. The other 8 calls would have wasted at least 1+ hour of my time, maybe more. I routinely earn about $250/hr (or more), although, please note I do not bill by the hour. That means that I would not get to bill that $250 for the wasted hour. Now this will go into another mistake, but couldn’t I have paid someone $10-20/hour to answer the phone, screen these calls and limit my time on the phone? The answer is YES! I do have staff that answer the phone. I only ever answer the phone if I am actually expecting a call. I generally don’t even answer the phone if I were the only person in the office. It goes to voicemail. If they don’t leave a message, then it wasn’t important. But what |
Big Mistakes Tax Pros Make – Not firing clients
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Life is too short to not work with people you like. Why do you put up with crappy clients? There is nothing to say that you HAVE to work with them. (Yes, even if they are your mother, but that makes family gatherings awkward). Please look at the questions below, and apply ALL of these questions to ALL of your clients. If you cannot say yes to 7 of the 9 (I could even argue that if they don’t meet all 9) questions below on each client, then they should not be your client. They are just not a good fit for you and would be a good fit for someone else. This is YOUR tax practice and YOU control it. Not your clients. Yes, you are in business to serve your clients, but you get to pick who you get to work with.
So, you really should do this exercise on all of your clients. It is time to clear out the dead weight. You work crazy, ungodly hours for what? Just to be stepped on, used and abused? Nonsense! It is time to take your life back. It starts by not dealing with crappy clients. Oh, and give your staff input on this. They will appreciate having the input and will be just as relieved that they no longer have to deal with this crappy client. I hope you find this email eye opening, empowering and potentially life changing. If you have any questions, comments or need someone to ask questions, please reply to this email. Have a great day! I received this comment from one tax pro recently and here is what she does.. “I agree 100% with you! I evaluate every October and clear out 10-15 clients that create stress and chaos. My other criteria is this: I have a bank of 10 file cabinets from Ikea. They are full of client binders. If there is a potential new client that |