Marketing the Practitioner and the Firm (1992)

MARKETING THE PRACTITIONER AND THE FIRM Edward W. Wheatley, PhD, chairman of the Department of Marketing, School of Business, East Carolina University, 3414 General Classroom Building, Greenville, North Carolina 27858-4353, and a practice development consultant, discusses how CPA firms can address the need to market both the firm and its members. The environment of the public accounting profession is changing rapidly. National firms and prominent regional practices have disappeared or been realigned. Competition from both inside and outside the profession has intensified. The assumption that firm managers or a few talented rainmakers are solely responsible for producing new business is recognized as no longer valid. At the same time, there is a growing concern over the contribution a practice development investment will make to individual practitioners' billable time and income and healthy skepticism about whether institutional marketing programs will be able to produce direct, short-term, positive results for the individual CPA. For example, in a meeting with 12 partners of a large regional firm, the first 15 minutes could only be described as hostile. The 2 rounding partners had asked me to prepare a marketing program project proposal for the firm. Early in the presentation it was clear the majority of the partners did not support the project. Finally, one of the partners voiced the true concern: We are going to spend a lot of money marketing the firm. This money is going to come directly out of my partnership income. What will this expenditure do to help increase my billable time and that of my department and its professional staff?. DIFFERENT THEORIES OF PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT This emerging entrepreneurial focus is not unique to public accounting. For example, partners in a regional law firm focusing on commercial practice were more interested in how a practice development program would benefit each of them and their specialties than in how it would help the firm. Professional staff in a health care group practice voted to minimize emphasis on medical group marketing and spend more time and money marketing each practitioners specific professional services. These organizations rejected the classic theory of practice development and adopted parallel programs that focused on both the firms and the practitioners. The trickle-down approach assumes the firm is the key element in practice development success. If the market is made aware of the firm name, location and services, clients will seek out the firm, orders will be written, billable hours produced and revenues and profits increased. The benefits of the firm marketing program will accrue to all departments and staff. Exhibit 1, above, illustrates this approach. The entrepreneurial approach to practice development is the conceptual opposite of trickle down. It is based on the assumption a CPA firm exists only because of individual CPAs' successful efforts in developing business and providing client services. Firm revenues are generated one hour at a time by individual professionals. While important, the firm is primarily a holding company and an administrative service center--a collection of entrepreneurs essentially running their own practices under one organizational umbrella. Exhibit 2, below, offers an illustration of how this structure would work. THE PARALLEL APPROACH Which approach is best? A comprehensive practice development program should encompass both. Practice development should focus on both the firm and the individual practitioner. A simultaneous practitioner development program should be designed to focus on assisting firm members to market specific professional skills. As CPA firms' structures and alignments continue to shift, individual practitioners have valid concerns about the graduation to grave career security once seen as the profession's foundation. …