Good Questions in Tough Times

It’s easy to get buried in the details of running a practice. Billable hours, productivity, utilization take up a lot of partner time and discussion. Many of us believe that even in a booming economy, such discussions won’t get firms where they want to be, but in a tight economy, it is even more important to ask useful questions and develop strategies to respond to changing circumstances.

At your next partner/leadership meeting, consider having a discussion based on the following questions:

Are we prepared to undercut bigger firms on price?
Can we afford to do that?
What’s the long-term result of such an act?
Do we have a plan for collections, which may go down?
What if our biggest client leaves our firm?
What if our biggest client goes bankrupt?
Are we doing anything different from our competitors? How do we know?
Are we doing anything for our clients that makes them willing to continue to pay our fees in this economic downturn?

These strategic questions can lay the groundwork for a truly valuable plan, which beats the heck out of simply taking a look at last year’s budget, adding a few more numbers, and calling it a plan. Of course, this means doing things a little differently than you did them last year, which is always tough for CPAs and lawyers. Given the road ahead, though, having a coherent, progressive, and practical strategy is more important than ever.