By Adam Klein
Two weeks before my panel at the AAM Summit, “The Evolving Importance of Relationships that Drive Growth in Today’s Accounting Firm,” I was at BDO’s Evolve conference watching their outgoing CEO, their global chairman and their incoming CEO on stage together. The conversation was all about technology, AI and the pace of change inside the firm. At the very end, the incoming CEO (also the youngest of the three) said something I haven’t stopped thinking about. He said: “I love all this stuff about AI. AI is going to help us. But let’s be clear: we have always been a relationship business. We will always be a relationship business. The technology is going to support us, but it’s never going to replace the importance of human relationship.” Hearing that from the person about to lead one of the largest firms in the world felt worth noting.
That comment was still with me when I took the stage at the AAM Summit and asked three of the profession’s sharpest growth leaders a direct question: what are the real barriers stopping accounting professionals from becoming proactive business advisors? The answers from Alice Lerman, CGO at Roth&Co., Felicia Mullison, CMO at Richey May, and Lesley Cawley, CMO at Cohen & Co. pointed to a common root cause. Most firms have never built a structured path for teaching relationship skills. Traditionally, they’ve relied on promotion and expectation instead.
A professional spends years building very deep technical expertise. They continue to be promoted within the firm. And then, often for the first time, they’re pointed at the market and expected to perform. That’s when they start to look like deer in the headlights. The more seasoned partners start asking why these rising younger professionals aren’t bringing new revenue to the firm. And the question that rarely gets asked is the most important one: what did the firm do to prepare this person?
Alice Lerman put her finger on the structural issue. Firms have historically waited until someone reaches partner before expecting them to develop relationships at all. What that means is that partners are immediately under pressure to hit their number, with no runway or on ramp. “Starting much younger, giving them as many different kinds of opportunities where there’s less pressure to have immediate ROI on that conversation, that puts them in a position where they have more and more chances to get good at this,” she said. Starting earlier in people’s careers is the part that tends to get talked about but that rarely gets designed into the career path.
Felicia Mullison came at it from a different direction. As a self-described introvert who built a career in marketing, she’s heard every version of “we’re just not wired for this” from accounting professionals. Her response: neither was she. She’s just had more training, and so at Richey May, she built an internal course called “Managing Chaos” that starts with fundamentals. How do you hold a conversation at a cocktail hour? How do you write a client email that actually communicates something instead of just pointing back to the last one? Small skills, practiced in low-pressure settings, before a client’s even in the room.
“When you take someone who’s not ready and put them in front of a client,” Mullison said, “the only thing that comes out of their mouth is exactly what they need to say and nothing more. And that prevents a relationship from deepening.”
Lesley Cawley framed the mindset behind it. Be a student of the firm, a student of the industry, a student of the client and a student of your network. Do those four things and you can hold a conversation with anyone. The capability develops through repetition, coaching and room to fail somewhere other than in front of a key account.
There’s a distinction I’ve come to feel strongly about, and it came up in the panel more than once. I often hear a lot of firms say their goal is to become trusted advisers, and I think that framing undersells what they already have. In my experience, accounting professionals are already trusted. Clients trust them with their most sensitive financial information. What most firms are still working toward is being a business adviser and that means being proactive, knowing a client’s industry well enough to anticipate what’s coming, and initiating conversations that aren’t driven singularly by providing deliverables the client has paid for.
For myself, a few actions stood out of the conversation that I think firm leaders can act on now:
- Start before partner: Give managers and senior associates opportunities to build the muscle before the revenue pressure is real. Local industry and networking groups, internal client team meetings and co-presentations are practical starting points.
- Build a training infrastructure: Templates, scripts and scenario-based rehearsals give people enough structure to get out of their own way. Mullison’s “Managing Chaos” course is one model worth borrowing.
- Normalize rehearsal: Everyone dislikes it (myself included). But do it anyway. The goal is to raise the floor of what professionals feel comfortable saying before they’re across the table from a client.
The profession has already shifted its definition of what a great advisor looks like. Today, that means a proactive business partner who understands a client’s industry, anticipates their needs, and helps them grow. When you think about all the disruption in the market and the way in which technical work is increasingly getting automated and offshored, what’s left is the relationship. So why are most firms still leaving that part to chance?
About the Author
Adam Klein is Head of Industry, Accounting & Advisory at Introhive, a leading relationship intelligence platform used by leading accounting firms. In addition to having served as Chief Growth Officer at Top 75 US firm, Bennett Thrasher, Adam has also held leadership roles at Top 25 US firm, Aprio and is known for his deep industry insights, relationships and ability to foster success in a complex and rapidly evolving market. Adam is also a notable champion for accounting and advisory firm growth as an active leader and speaker with the Association for Accounting Marketing (AAM), numerous industry groups and international associations and alliances.
