A Dispute That Could Lead To Divorcing Your Business Partner

The highest level at an Accounting firm, the Partner level, where the majority of invaluable experience and industry knowledge is kept safely locked away.  There may be multiple Partners fortunate enough to have a seat at this table, depending on the firm size, who are responsible for high level business development and constantly improving their firm. but in many cases each Partner may not see eye to eye.

Partners are relied upon by all staff in the firm to present and deliver on a growth strategy that optimizes the efforts of all staff, therefore maximizing the ROI for everyone.  Commonly, a Partnership is divided into one or more Partners who drive the most revenue and the others having a larger depth of Accounting knowledge in various areas to ensure a standard of excellence is kept.  So what's the problem?

I've seen Partnerships head South when one Partner(s) is driving revenue for the firm, spearheading the role of business development, sales, marketing and building up their ego along the way.  

Meanwhile, their counterpart(s) become increasingly frustrated at the low level of client work being "won" (saying yes to anything) where the firm would have been better off without.  Driving revenue can sometimes be counter productive, if attracting or accepting low level work that requires hours of heavy lifting instead of experience, causing pain throughout the organization as staff are overworked for little pay.

This stems from a missing capability to attract and win ideal clients, inevitably leading to a Partner dispute and quite often a divorce.

Sales & Marketing expertise are critical to avoid this, particularly at Partner level.  If you are a business development marksman, then every new client you bring into your Accounting practice should be a ideal fit and bring a smile to your Partners and employees, not a sigh!  

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