Blog Archives
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Debt Ceiling to a Lower Credit Rating ... Is it Time for Accounting Doom & Gloom?
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday August 8, 2011Boy is it getting hot in here! Yes, I live in Dallas where we are on our 36th or 37th straight day of 100+ temperatures, but it's also hot as Hades based on some of the recent news, including this new story on CPA Trendlines about how the accounting sector just lost 3,600 jobs following four months of gains. Argh! This is so frustrating. Add to that the fact that Congress finally agreed to a band-aided debt ceiling solution only to discover that Standard & Poor lowered the U.S. credit rating. I ask, then, when is enough going to be enough? When are we going be through with the bad news? I'll bet some accounting practitioners are thinking that now is the time to cut back, either in terms of staffing, spending or something else. This is... -
Client Service Should be a CPA Firm's Top Priority
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Tuesday July 5, 2011Anyone who reads my posts on CPATechViews or my own blog, AbsoluteCytron.com, is probably tired of one of my recurring themes. I know I am ... I am as tired of writing about it as John Irving is of writing about passing open windows! However, there's still room for growth, so I am once again on my soapbox about CPA firm client service. I was watching CBS Sunday Morning on July 2; the cover story was about customer service call centers, and while it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek summation of how companies need to pay more attention to customer service, it nonetheless struck a chord with me in how the same concepts apply to CPA firms. It's not entirely hopeless! Sure, there are many, many firms that get this right, beginning with the... -
How to Meet the "Right" People at the Next Accounting Conference
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday June 6, 2011When you go to accounting conferences, whether they are national or state conferences, or even meetings in your local area, how do you go about meeting the "right" people? Now I don't mean "right" in terms of discriminating one person from another; what I really mean is meeting the kind of people who can offer you the most benefits in terms of referrals, business and anything else that adds to your productivity and grows your practice or business. I'm attending the AICPA's TECH+/Practitioners Symposium next week and always look to this conference as a way to meet accountants and technology experts who can add to my own business, either by sourcing authors for articles or gaining knowledge for future projects. I'm also seeing many... -
The Devil is in the Details, so Pay Attention!
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Tuesday May 3, 2011Just last weekend, I was reminded about the importance of details. I went to see a new documentary about the career of Bill Cunningham. If you don't know who he is, don't fret; I didn't either until I did a little research to find out more about him. Cunningham is a fashion photographer who has a had a very long career capturing images of fashion in New York and Paris. He currently works for The New York Times and is featured almost weekly on Sunday with his photo spread, "On the Street." While I was watching the movie, Bill inspired me to tell you about his level of "detail" and how that can apply to the accounting profession. You see, Bill is not a typical fashion photographer. He does not shoot fashion like most other photographers... -
Is the Next PR Opportunity on Your Radar?
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday April 4, 2011"Radar" is a very interesting thing. When something or someone is on your "radar," you are much more likely to encounter that something or someone in your daily life. For example, if you begin to think more about a certain topic in accounting, it's quite likely you'll see this topic right before your eyes. This kind of thinking sort of raises our visibility. I think the same concept holds true for public relations. If a firm adjusts its radar to think more about public relations' opportunities - and I mean the ENTIRE firm - then it's highly likely that the firm will not only more easily find opportunities to tell its story, but the opportunities will actually find them. Recently, I made a new friend, Andrew Poulos, an enrolled agent who... -
Eight Tips to Help You Write for the Web
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday March 7, 2011Writing for the Web is WAY different than writing a newsletter article, speech, e-mail and just about everything else - except for a blog, which is also based on brevity. I think most of us get carried away when it comes to writing for our web pages and other online forums. I recently ran across a great article - "Nine Tips to Help You Write for the Web;" the source is the Wildfire Tech PR blog. I whittled these down to eight tips and added my own spin on most of these: Keep it Short. We're all busy, so unless what you've got to say is insanely gripping, say it and then stop. Don't ramble. Make your Last Point First. In school, we were taught to carefully set out your arguments first, and then make an informed conclusion. Online, the... -
Where Will You Be in 10 Years? Intuit's 2020 Report Predicts the Future
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday February 7, 2011CPAs and accountants are always asking me about their future. Perhaps they think my nickname is "Swami Cytron." While I do not read tea leaves or fortunes, I did come across a new credible resource that speaks to life 10 years in our future: Intuit's 2020 Report. In fact, Intuit just posted a story on this on their new ProLine News site. Intuit’s Accounting Professionals Division got together with Emergent Research to conduct a series of meetings with members of the profession to identify trends that will affect us over the next 10 years. I was fortunate to attend one of these sessions in December 2010 when a gathering of accounting journalists and bloggers met in Plano, Texas, to give their thoughts about the report's findings. Since... -
Speaking Out Against Cloud Computing Creates a Buzz
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Monday January 10, 2011I've never been under any impression that I'm a hard-core investigative journalist. At the end of the day, I like my stories to be compelling, certainly, but not necessarily controversial unless the situation or circumstances demand it. When I conduct an interview, I always say, "I'm not going to want to know anything that is proprietary." This puts the person completely at ease to know his or her private info won't be strewn on just any Internet site. Just recently, I learned a valuable lesson that I think has less to do with sensationalism and more to do with speaking one's mind. I was astounded by the buzz over one of my recent stories on AS411.com, a profile of David Beck. David, a CPA.CITP, is a partner with Beck & Company in... -
My Wish List for 2011 (or, a Marketer's Dream)
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Wednesday December 8, 2010As I get older, I think time, indeed, DOES go faster. It seems that 2010 sped along with the same ferocity as a freight train. Now that it is the end of the year, it's time to write my wish list for the holidays - subtitled, "A Marketer's Dream." Here's what I wish for in 2011: Every managing partner of every accounting firm would thank his or her staff for a job well done. A simple "thank you" goes a long way to motivate and inspire. Marketing budgets would top 15% of firm revenue - hey, this is a "wish" list, after all, right? Firms would spend more time on "strategy" and less time on "execution." Marketing and PR directors/managers would understand that a press release does not have to be issued for just any matter, without... -
Should CPA Firms Advertise?
By Scott Cytron, ABC; President, Cytron and Co. - Thursday August 12, 2010There are a few questions I get from CPA firm partners and staff that rarely change, no matter the size of the firm, where it is located or what kinds of services it offers. “How do I recruit clients?” “Is social media worth the effort?” “Should I pay for advertising?” Let’s address the advertising question. Just to be clear, I’m addressing this question to CPA firms, not software or service providers. My gut feel is that unless a firm is advertising all the time in local publications, ads that run only periodically or infrequently probably won’t produce any viable leads. Conversely, firms that advertise weekly in local business publications, for example, can expect results, but the cost may be too prohibitive for some...
