Sweet justice has finally arrived for supporters of mark-to-market accounting. According to the Financial Crisis Advisory Group, MTM may have actually understated some of the losses suffered by banks and “did not contribute to the pro-cyclical nature of the economic system.”
The Group also stated that public flogging of accounting rule wonks for the purposes of shameless political grandstanding doesn’t really help matters, “We have become increasingly concerned about the excessive pressure placed on the two boards to make rapid, piecemeal, uncoordinated and prescribed changes to standards, outside of their normal due process procedures”.
Our money is on the pols BTFO for as long as banks want them to and as inconvenient changes are proposed, which will likely be soon, the public beatings will continue.
Politicians Accused of Meddling in Bank Rules [Floyd Norris]
Accounting is semi-officially exonerated from causing crisis [FT Alphaville]
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The CPA’s 12-Step Program For Winning New Business
Avi Dan is President & CEO of Avidan Strategies, a New York based consultancy specialized in advising professional service companies on marketing and business development. Mr. Dan was previously a board member with two leading advertising agencies and managed another.
CPAs have made great strides in the art and science of sales and marketing in recent years but the profession still has a long way to go in adopting robust business development practice. Many firms barely weathered the storm of 2009, but a celebration may be premature. 2010 is likely to be as tough, and perhaps even tougher as clients cut back on expenses. Smart firms are reviewing their marketing plans and planning ways to generate new business in a weak economy.
That is the first step – make sure that you have an effective and comprehensive plan, including cost projections, strategies and person responsible for each. Here is a twelve point checklist for an effective sales plan:
• Cultivating business from current clients is the low hanging fruit. They are already pre-disposed toward you. Just ask them for more business.
• Even resumptions from formerly-lost clients should be considered especially if the loss was not performance relation but for objective reasons, such as a merger.
• Emphasize cross-selling in your firm by getting all senior team members involved in the sales effort and make sure that client/industry knowledge is shared effectively.
• Public speaking on specific topics related to your target prospects. Good old-fashioned word of mouth is still the best new client leads. “Cascade” the speeches into white papers and articles to expand their impact.
• Simply asking clients for referrals of specific types of prospects/assignments among their friends and professional collegues.
• Qualify prospects before investing time with them. Be selective about setting up an appointment on the initial contact and determine valuation of prospect relationship to assess if they are worth pursuing.
• Consider replacing less profitable, time consuming, and unappreciative clients with clients that are a better fit with your objectives as a firm.
• Conduct a “gap analysis” and focus on specific targeted niches: high quality, profitable prospects, and develop a case as to why your experience and expertise is relevant.
• Focus on growth industry with good long-term potential of growth.
• Use relationships with spheres of influence: referrals by attorneys and bankers who reach across companies.
• Use the right people for marketing and prospecting. Not every one is comfortable selling.
• Focus relentlessly on relationship building: aggressive involvement in trade associations and the community; conduct seminars for clients and prospects; cultivate the press including the prospect’s trade press.
To be really successful, you must sell your services. You must generate leads and convert them into paying clients. And the recent Great Recession calls for a significant rethinking of sales and marketing strategies.
While the market for professional services continues to grow, so does the number of firms and individuals competing for that business. In other words, to really succeed means to differentiate yourself from others.
GC Weekend: Fill Has Broken the Mold
Round 3 has come and gone for the Radio Station billboard and it’s nothing but more disappointment.
After two straight rounds of +2, Fill is in the clubhouse at +6, after shooting +4 today. Obviously, he has not bounced back as many Klynveldians had hoped he would.
With this latest performance, we’re thinking that Fill has all but solidified his slot in the upcoming current RIF. This simply means that he’ll have to continue to slum it for the likes of Barclays, ExxonMobil, and Rolex.
This latest poor performance forced us to get a little creative with the rating system.
Check out our latest 9 box, after the jump
As you can see, we decided that it was appropriate to modify the traditional 9 box for this special occasion. It’s no longer at NI9 for Fill, he has his own special box: the Fill NI9. This rating will now represent the most disappointing performances for Radio Station employees.
Check in with us tomorrow Monday to get the final round Fill coverage.
It’s Hard Convincing People to Use Lame Internal Social Networking Sites
We’ve covered the whole social networking thing on a couple of different occasions, including the new kid on the block, HubStreet, which will allow you to keep yourselves isolated from the bottom feeders in your professional social scene (at least virtually).
A reader who was a former Green-dotter informed us about that firm’s attempt to develop an internal social network known as Dstreet. This was clearly a priority within the Firm, according to our source:
More, after the jump
When I was wrapping up my sentence there, they were trying to get everyone to join up to their internal social networking site – Dstreet. As if that is what we wanted to do after working there 12 hours. After I got my third email asking me to update my profile for my promotion to manager (I hadn’t even set up a page yet and already I have to update it!), I set up a joke profile complete with picture of myself with huge 80s hair…I told people about it at my going away party and no one had seen it (it had been posted for 2 months)…complete waste of time!!
Apparently the Big 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse are hell bent on trying to re-invent the Facebook-wheel because to our knowledge, all the firms have some form of an internal social networking site it sounds like they all suck.
At the very least, we would suggest that status updates be allowed so that all your connections can get real time updates on how close you are to quitting for the umpteenth time.
If your firm is failing miserably at developing an internal social network or has developed anything else that seems to be of little use, let us know in the comments.