“They Were Not Happy!”
By Adam Radzik
Consultant to Professional Firms

The following is a true story.

Once upon a time, there was a manufacturing company in Queens, New York, that was unhappy with the service that it was receiving from its accounting firm. There were three complaints.

First, the accounting firm estimated that its annual fee would be $19,000, but when the final bill arrived, the fee was always between $85,000 to $90,000. This outraged the client as it happened year after year.

Second, the client was not at all happy with the staff that the accounting firm sent to crunch their numbers. They huddled together like frightened introverts and never spoke to the client except to respond to every question they were asked with, “I don’t know. How would I know? I am new at the firm.” The client concluded that the staff were unprofessional, probably incompetent, and that they reflected badly upon their firm.

Third, the client believed that the accounting firm was not helping the company through a very difficult financial period. The accounting firm was only providing historical data; it was not contributing at all in terms of problem solving, diagnosing the client’s problems or sharing what other clients were doing to deal with the business downturn. The client viewed its accountants as overly expensive bean counters and was ready for a change.

Methodically, the company’s directors asked their bank, their business comrades and members of their trade association whom they would recommend to be their new accounting firm. Preparation was put into the questions that were to be asked, and three well-known and well-respected accounting firms that had experience dealing with midsize companies were chosen to be interviewed .

The president of the company and the controller conducted the interviews over a two-week period, during which two of the firms were called back for second-round interviews and additional questions.

After all the interviews were concluded, there was a board meeting. The other members of the board turned to the president and asked, “Well, which one of the accounting firms did you like best?” He hesitated for a moment and said, “None of them.” The board members looked at him with surprise. “You know, I listened to each one of them. I asked them a lot of questions, particularly about the issues that concern us with our current accounting firm, and I want you to know, gentlemen, that I didn’t see any real difference between our existing accounting firm and the three of them. None of them impressed me. None of them gave me an answer that made me think, ‘We have to hire these people.’ I was very disappointed, and I must say that my recommendation to this board is that we should keep our lousy existing accounting firm because we have not been able to find anything better.”

Not one of these three accounting firms presented a better impression than an accounting firm that was viewed as overcharging on its fees, having inferior staff and being worthless in a time of financial difficulty. Their words were the wrong words. Their ideas were the wrong ideas. Their approaches were the wrong approaches.

Moral of the story: When you go to see a new prospect, prepare, prepare and then prepare some more. Unless you can put the right words on the table, you will not get hired.

Comedy Corner

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.

If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

My son is now an entrepreneur. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job.