Blog Archives
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Stop Complaining and Start Acting
By Sandra Wiley, COO, Boomer Consulting - Tuesday June 26, 2012
I travel often in my career and right now I am sitting in the Chicago O'Hare airport and am listening to two people grump about their jobs. Actually, I am a little amazed that they are being so loud about their feelings. My guess is they feel safe that no one knows them so they can “spill” their feelings without fear of repercussion. So far, they have discussed how their supervisor is not listening to them, not training them appropriately and not telling them what she really wants them to accomplish. In their opinion, it is a lack of setting priorities, no good training program and no clear expectations. A few things occurred to me: Stop complaining and start acting – if you are not getting what you want in your career, the... -
The Key to Accountability: Commitment
By Sandra Wiley, COO, Boomer Consulting - Friday June 15, 2012In a recent exchange with a partner group, we were discussing how to hold ourselves accountable for goals that were being set by each individual - outside of their compensation model. The word that leapt into my mind was commitment. The word commit comes from the Latin word committere, which means to connect, entrust. As leaders in the firm, we make commitments every day to our clients, our partners and our staff. It might be a good practice to think deeply about what those commitments are and ensure that you are not making them too lightly. Each commitment is important and defines what and who is important to you. The demonstration of commitments is a reflection of your character and ultimately says more about you in action than in the... -
How Deductible is Las Vegas? (Business vs. Pleasure)
By Isaac M. O'Bannon, Editor - Thursday June 14, 2012
Kelly Phillips Erb (a widely-published tax attorney known on Twitter as @taxgirl ), shares some of her experience from this week's AICPA Tech+ conference in Las Vegas (mostly CPAs ), which also included the Association for Accounting Marketing 's conference. --- www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2012/06/13/what-happens-in-vegas-traveling-for-business --- I had the chance to meet Kelly on the first pre-night of the conference (Sunday, June 10), and shared some conversation and camaraderie over some kind of blue beverage provided by host Jody Padar ( @jodypadarcpa ) and sponsor Freshbooks ( @freshbooks ) and their Bean Counter Ambassador, Kasey Bayne . Kelly's post today on Forbes.com explains it all quite well: This was... -
Hold Yourself Accountable
By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP; CIO, Boomer Consulting - Wednesday June 13, 2012Accountability should be a key component of your firm’s internal operations and culture. It’s a pretty simple concept – do what you say you’ll do! The difficult part is maintaining the discipline to hold yourself and your peers accountable for what they said they would do. However, if your firm can achieve a high-level of accountability, it will make a huge impact on results and remove any surprises when you look back at what you’ve accomplished at the year-end. Think It – Write It – Share It The primary reason a lot of our goals fall to the wayside is that we often stop at the first step – Think It. We come up with what we want to accomplish and then we don’t write it down or share it with anyone. This keeps... -
Blog: The Coming Tech Crash
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Wednesday June 13, 2012Every 10 years or so, the technology markets crash. Not dip, or slump. Crash, as in a company like FaceBook sucking in untold billions of investor dollars only to spiral downward. Taking other tech stocks, and the markets in general, with it. Every 10 years, the US economy hits a slump that may be caused by this tech crash. Or perhaps it is that the tech stocks – often bereft of business models or common sense – are the early casualties of the downturn. But in 1982, people who worked in “traditional” tech companies were thrown out of work as the markets re-tooled to meet the rise of the new-fangled “personal computer.” In 1992, while Word Perfect was busy dying in the word processing market and Windows 1.0 was beginning to... -
Results CRM and Citrix Sharefile Announce Integration – The Innovation Continues…
By M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP; Executive Editor - Friday June 1, 2012As vendors continue to work together to integrate applications, it offers accounting professionals more choices as they develop their internal systems. The latest integration between Results CRM and Sharefile is a good example of the innovation taking place in the profession. Integration of Results and the Sharefile service enables users to send, receive, sync, and share large files anytime and from anywhere—and all within a highly secure space. It offers users an effective cloud-based document management solution in addition to existing Results document management options. Results users can scan, upload, and attach documents to any Results CRM contact, activity, sales opportunity, or project and then attach documents from within... -
Creating Work-Life Balance Within The Firm
By Sandra Wiley, COO, Boomer Consulting - Wednesday May 30, 2012In your firm today, an increasing number of staff members – from the partner level to the administrative staff - are experiencing burnout, low productivity, dissatisfaction and stress related illnesses…due in large part to a lack of balance between their work and personal lives. It is time for your firm to look at how they can create greater balance between work and personal lives of the number one asset in your firm – its people. This is not an easy issue to address, since what looks like balance to one person may differ for another because individuals have different goals, values and definitions of success. A good place to begin to understand the issue of work and life balance is with a common definition: Having a sense that... -
The FaceBook IPO - The Bleeding Edge Blog
By Dave McClure, Contributing Writer/Columnist - Wednesday May 23, 2012
All in all, I was pretty unimpressed by the FaceBook IPO last Friday (NASDAQ: FB). Biggest tech IPO ever? Wait a year and see whether it holds up as well as Google. Lots of millionaires and billionaires? We'll see if they still are when they are permitted to cash out. In truth, the IPO was a lot less interesting than the two major side shows that went with it. The first of these is the story that Eduardo Saverin, a minor partner in the firm who has announced he will give up his US citizenship in order to save $600 million in taxes. The outrage his correct reading of the tax code is coming mostly from members of Congress, those who created this bloated, loophole-laden laws they now profess to lament. He should have contributed to their... -
Does Your Firm Have a Technology Committee?
By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP; CIO, Boomer Consulting - Tuesday May 22, 2012Does your firm have a formal technology committee to chart the I.T. strategy for your firm? Is it a balanced group with representation from all functional areas of the firm? If you answered yes to both of these questions, then I commend you and encourage you to continue reading as you’ll probably learn a few things to help you improve. If not, I would encourage you to start building out your committee today. This post will outline some general guidelines to consider when building out your committee, the importance of a balanced membership and why you should consider having an outsider sit on your committee. Firm Projects NOT I.T. Projects The technology committee, if built correctly, can be a valuable asset in building the firm’s... -
Collaboration and Leadership
By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP; CIO, Boomer Consulting - Friday May 11, 2012Collaboration and leadership. These two concepts are critical to the success of your firm and when you have both working in tandem you accelerate your firm’s results, profitability and growth. Yes, we need strong leaders at the top of the organization but strong leaders recognize they can’t drive success on their own. They build a strong leadership team around them and leverage members’ unique abilities by collaborating with them every step of the way. Below are four strategies your firm can take to build focused, cross-functional teams to improve collaboration and leadership. Build Your Synergistic Team The greatest leaders surround themselves with tremendous talent on their leadership team. The most successful firms include...
