Webcasts and Upcoming Events

Upcoming Webcasts:

Our video CPE webcasts cover an extensive variety of content areas to enhance your CPA firm,

• Archives of previous events may be found here.
• Please join our mailing list to be notified when new registrations become available.

The 2018 CPE Webcast Series includes 20 Shows:

• • To register for an upcoming two-hour CPE webcast, click any **Register Now** link.
  • Online registration ends at midnight Eastern Time the day before each show.
  • Registration is $99 per webcast and $49 for up to four additional registrations of the SAME webcast.
  • An all access pass is available for $495 for registration for ALL 20 webcasts (the same cost as five webcasts a la carte).

Click any webcast title in the table below for details about the content of the webcast.

Title: Succession Planning 1: Moving Away from Eat What You Kill

Subject Area: Succession Planning

Description: This session is based on Dom’s and Bill’s two-book series published by the AICPA called Securing the Future: Building Your Firm’s Succession Plan and Securing the Future: Implementing Your Firm’s Succession Plan. These two books cover 15 areas that need to be addressed to create a robust succession plan that will ensure profitability, transition of ownership and long-term sustainability of your firm. This three-part series will cover all 15 topics, with this session covering four of those 15 areas. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, June 11, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Cleaning up your practice: run your firm like a business
• Developing and implementing your strategy and why so many firms fall short in this process
• Determining what business model you want to follow and the ramifications of the choice you make
• Setting the value of the buyout and conditions of earning retirement benefits in line with the business model and with sustainability

Title: Succession Planning 2: Developing Better, Faster, Stronger People Quicker

Subject Area: Succession Planning

Description: This session is based on Dom’s and Bill’s two-book series published by the AICPA called Securing the Future: Building Your Firm’s Succession Plan and Securing the Future: Implementing Your Firm’s Succession Plan. These two books cover 15 areas that need to be addressed to create a robust succession plan that will ensure profitability, transition of ownership and long-term sustainability of your firm. This three-part series will cover all 15 topics, with this session covering two of those 15 areas. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: June 25, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Building capacity for long‐term sustainability, building a firm on competency‐based positions, filling talent gaps throughout the firm, developing people more rapidly, and more
• Creating accountability throughout the firm and the important role compensation and performance incentives need to play for accountability to work

Title: Succession Planning 3: How to Handle Retiring Partners

Subject Area: Succession Planning

Description: This session is based on Dom’s and Bill’s two-book series published by the AICPA called Securing the Future: Building Your Firm’s Succession Plan and Securing the Future: Implementing Your Firm’s Succession Plan. These two books cover 15 areas that need to be addressed to create a robust succession plan that will ensure profitability, transition of ownership and long-term sustainability of your firm. This three-part series will cover all 15 topics, with this session covering the remaining 9 of those 15 areas. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, July 2, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Building your firm’s key positions around roles and responsibilities, including the managing partner
• Creating transparency in decision making by formalizing voting, addressing admission of new owners, and managing the equity distribution/redistribution processes
• Managing working relationships with retiring partners including client transition and reasonable roles post retirement
• Establishing other important processes, from maximum payout of retired partners, to dealing with death, partial or full disability, termination, and more

Title: Addressing Partner Conflict and Communication Issues

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: This session deals with foundational issues that constantly create added stress, impinge on partner unity, and generate unnecessary misunderstandings within the partner group. We will discuss how to manage conflict, the difference between aggressiveness and assertiveness, how to manage dysfunctional behaviors including bullying, how to conduct partner meetings in a way that eliminates confusion and rehashing the same topics over and over without resolution, tips that can instantly improve communications, and more.

Date: Monday, July 9, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• How to better leverage communication basics:
  • Why assertiveness is the proper technique to utilize when appropriate
  • Conflict in partner discussions is not something to avoid, but rather to harness
  • Consensus may be important to try to achieve, but consensus to the point of giving the “no” vote more power than the “yes” vote can quickly become dysfunctional
• Learning to better manage partner meetings to create clarity, fairness and unity

Title: Building a Better, Faster, and Stronger Bench – Part 1: Competencies, Expectations and Accountability

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: These four sessions will walk you through key elements to address in creating stronger people more quickly and effectively. The content is based on our work with CPA firms of all sizes throughout North America. With many CPA firms experiencing unprecedented opportunities for growth, the battle for talent has never been more challenging. At many firms, staffing issues are a major barrier to the successful transition of senior ownership and a significant constraint on the firm’s future leverage and profitability. But you can change that—learn how with these webcasts! Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, June 11, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Why your firm needs a competency framework
• How to use a competency framework to improve your people and your firm
• Setting expectations to develop your people and hold them accountable

Title: Building a Better, Faster, and Stronger Bench – Part 2: Developmental Managers, Direct Reports and Organizational Structure

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: These four sessions will walk you through key elements to address in creating stronger people more quickly and effectively. The content is based on our work with CPA firms of all sizes throughout North America. With many CPA firms experiencing unprecedented opportunities for growth, the battle for talent has never been more challenging. At many firms, staffing issues are a major barrier to the successful transition of senior ownership and a significant constraint on the firm’s future leverage and profitability. But you can change that—learn how with these webcasts! Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, June 25, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Why the most common reporting model short-changes your people
• Some managers are better at people development than others
• Creating the infrastructure you need to develop your people faster

Title: Building a Better, Faster, and Stronger Bench – Part 3: Creating Goals and Action Plans for Staff

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: These four sessions will walk you through key elements to address in creating stronger people more quickly and effectively. The content is based on our work with CPA firms of all sizes throughout North America. With many CPA firms experiencing unprecedented opportunities for growth, the battle for talent has never been more challenging. At many firms, staffing issues are a major barrier to the successful transition of senior ownership and a significant constraint on the firm’s future leverage and profitability. But you can change that—learn how with these webcasts! Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, July 2, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Why staff need some help creating goals and action plans
• How to begin the goal setting and planning process
• Monitoring implementation for successful outcomes

Title: Building a Better, Faster, and Stronger Bench – Part 4: Tying It All Together with a Compensation System

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: These four sessions will walk you through key elements to address in creating stronger people more quickly and effectively. The content is based on our work with CPA firms of all sizes throughout North America. With many CPA firms experiencing unprecedented opportunities for growth, the battle for talent has never been more challenging. At many firms, staffing issues are a major barrier to the successful transition of senior ownership and a significant constraint on the firm’s future leverage and profitability. But you can change that—learn how with these webcasts! Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts.

Date: Monday, July 9, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Why you haven’t achieved as much change as you’d hoped for
• Creating a compensation system that rewards the right behaviors
• Implementing and continually adapting your pay system as conditions change

Title: The Succession Management Landscape: 2016 PCPS Succession Institute Quadrennial Survey Results

Subject Area: Succession Planning

Description: This year, the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS) and Succession Institute (SI) conducted their quadrennial survey of its members/clients to determine current succession planning challenges and practices in the CPA profession. This webcast will cover a summary of the key findings from that survey. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, July 16, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Challenges of succession management
• Why firms are on course for even greater workload compression in the future
• What firms are doing that will improve their positioning for the seamless succession of their current leadership
• Key findings from the 2016 succession planning survey, including Solo practitioners, Sole proprietors, and Multi-owner firms

Title: Best Practices for Ownership Transition (based on 2016 PCPS Succession Institute Quadrennial Survey Results)

Subject Area: Succession Planning

Description: This webcast will cover key initiatives that firms should understand to better prepare for the succession of their current set of owners. This session will take a deeper dive into the areas of greatest concern that Bill and Dom believe firms should address, including the most important steps firms must take now to ensure profitability, transition of ownership and long-term sustainability. Their recommendations are supported with highlights from the 2016 survey and their two-book series published by the AICPA called Securing the Future: Building Your Firm’s Succession Plan and Securing the Future: Implementing Your Firm’s Succession Plan. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, July 23, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Effects of various business models on succession initiatives
• Update on the valuation models found most commonly today and how they have changed over the past decade
• Trends and ramifications of partners wanting to accelerate or delay their retirement date
• Necessary policies and procedures to manage a still-working retired partner group

Title: Advanced Compensation Case Study (Moving From Eat What You Kill to Building a Village)

Subject Area: Practice Management

Description: This webcast is a must-see review of advanced partner compensation issues. Over the past two decades, there is no single topic more commonly raised than how to structure a compensation model that supports the achievement of a firm’s strategic plan. And once established, questions arise as to how shortfalls or overages in profits are allocated as well as adjusting base compensation for performance. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, August 6, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• How to establish a goal-based performance and compensation system for partners
• How to determine metrics and measure progress
• What steps should be taken to create greater accountability in your performance system
• What approach is recommended to allocate shortfalls or excess profits based on performance
• When compensation adjustments should occur and what factors to consider in making them

Title: Getting Real Traction for Your Leadership Development Investment

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: It has become very clear to firms that effective leadership requires more than just excellent technical skills. This has created a flood of manager through partner level leadership training programs, to help meet the need to truly develop sound managerial skills in key people. These training programs should help build critical soft skills such as emotional intelligence, conflict management, assertiveness, etc. But, are you getting your money’s worth? See below for more information:

Date: Monday, August 27, 2018, 12:30 – 2:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Content to look for in a good leadership program
• The learning process and the importance of an experiential approach
• Role of assessments and coaching
• What it takes from both the leadership program and inside your firm to assure your participants attain personal growth and positive change

Title: Introduction to the Eat What You Kill and Building a Village Models of Operations—New and Revised

Subject Area: Practice Management

Description: This webcast sets the stage for the two common CPA firm operation models. We take you through their strengths, weaknesses, and the typical obstacles and conflicts each create. Most firms are a hybrid of the two models, but in the end, while you can operate with a combination of both, we have found that firms are deeply rooted in one or the other. And whichever model you are rooted in will drive the future success of your firm. Often succession planning becomes the catalyst to change the firm’s model because the retirements of a few key people highlight the cracks in the firm’s current operating structure. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, July 16, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• How the Upside-Down Pyramid™ is the root of many firms’ profitability problems
• How the gap in book size between partners creates a chasm that over time makes it difficult to keep the firm together
• Why the phrase “the stronger the partner, the weaker the firm” is true of most firms
• Building a business model that supports partners managing double their book size in 5 years and triple the size in about 10 years
• Organizational models that best support succession

Title: Moving from an Eat What You Kill (EWYK) to a Building a Village (BAV) Model—New and Revised

Subject Area: Practice Management

Description: This webcast assumes the knowledge gained in the first webcast and focuses on the changes required to move from an EWYK to a BAV operating model, or to root the hybrid model in BAV instead of EWYK. The change sounds simple, but there are several steps required to support this transformation. We go through the process step-by-step and discuss decisions that need to be made along the way, even though some of those decisions may need to be revised as you travel further down this path. Our approach is proven to help the partner group gain the traction needed to make these changes stick. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, July 23, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• The natural process firms need to follow as they move from one model to the next
• The critical role governance plays in this transition
• Why retirement benefits typically have to be the first step if you want any changes to stick
• Why equity reallocation is a normal part of this evolution
• Establishing the roles and responsibilities of partners
• The role compensation plays in maintaining the new firm operating structure

Title: Becoming a More Effective 21st Century Leader

Subject Area: People and Skills Development

Description: CPAs are known for being honest, hard-working, high integrity, detailed people with project implementation as one of our best attributes. Because of these characteristics and skills, CPAs are quickly elevated into leadership positions in whatever organizations they serve. The problem is that this leap is from a technical position to a people position requiring a whole new set of skills, including management, communication and persuasion skills, just to name a few. This webcast looks at the kind of skills and perspectives leadership/management requires if we want to be as effective in our people positions as we have been in our technical ones. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, August 6, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Why you as its leader are the first person that needs to evolve for your organization to get better, faster and stronger
• Common areas of misfocus for leaders/managers
• How and why to develop people faster
• Improving management skills to run your firm more profitably
• Tips for communicating clearly

Title: Common CPA Firm Management Mistakes

Subject Area: Practice Management

Description: CPAs are often so busy helping clients with their businesses that they fail to run their practice as effectively as they should. This webcast addresses some of the more commonly found problems in the management of smaller CPA firms. Partners can enhance their bottom-line profitability and the residual value they stand to realize upon exiting their firm by addressing these issues and making the changes the authors suggest in this webcast. See below for more information:

Date: Monday, August 27, 2018, 3:00 – 5:00 pm Eastern

Content:

• Mini-case studies of common situations and how they can be better managed
• Top mistakes that can damage your firm and your retirement
• Why you can’t procrastinate any longer—changes must be made now
• What to avoid or change in areas from accountability to billing, to collections, to developing people, and more
• Tips on planning and managing key changes

Title: Enhancing Your Trusted Business Advisor Role: What, Why and How—New and Revised

Subject Area: Most Trusted Business Advisor

Description: Based on our AICPA-published book, Becoming a Trusted Business Advisor, this three-part course series has been designed to help CPAs enhance their skills and their value proposition in their role as the Most Trusted Business Advisor (MTBA) to their clients. It reviews what the MTBA role entails and why all CPAs should be pursuing it aggressively. This training is not about how to become a salesperson. It is about how to help you better serve your clients by learning what really matters to them. We teach you how to work through this process quickly and efficiently in a way that adds the greatest value to the client while adding to your professional enjoyment and profitability. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts. See below for more information:

Date: Tuesday, October 16, 2018, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• What, why, how, and the difference between MTBA and consulting packages
• Our answers to typical objections to taking on the role of MTBA
• How and why you need to be able to switch hats, make it clear you are switching hats, from being an expert, to being an advisor
• How you can approach finding solutions your clients will support
• The use of the General Contractor Model to facilitate your MTBA roles

Title: Help Your Clients Identify, Prioritize and Quantify Challenges and Opportunities—New and Revised

Subject Area: Most Trusted Business Advisor

Description: Based on our AICPA-published book, Becoming a Trusted Business Advisor, this three-part course series has been designed to help CPAs enhance their skills and their value proposition in their role as the Most Trusted Business Advisor (MTBA) to their clients. It reviews what the MTBA role entails and why all CPAs should be pursuing it aggressively. This training is not about how to become a salesperson. It is about how to help you better serve your clients by learning what really matters to them. We teach you how to work through this process quickly and efficiently in a way that adds the greatest value to the client while adding to your professional enjoyment and profitability. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts. See below for more information:

Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2018, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Getting the client to open up the discussion beyond taxes and accounting
• How to be sure you and the client are on the same page
• Common questions advisors fear they will be asked that have simple positive responses
• Generating a sense of urgency that will motivate your client to ask YOU for the business
• Uncovering your client’s top priorities in less than 10 minutes
• Quantifying the value of your involvement, and more, including case study examples of techniques covered in the webcast

Title: Pricing, Engagement, and Meeting Facilitation Tips—New and Revised ***Register Now***

Subject Area: Most Trusted Business Advisor

Description: Based on our AICPA-published book, Becoming a Trusted Business Advisor, this three-part course series has been designed to help CPAs enhance their skills and their value proposition in their role as the Most Trusted Business Advisor (MTBA) to their clients. It reviews what the MTBA role entails and why all CPAs should be pursuing it aggressively. This training is not about how to become a salesperson. It is about how to help you better serve your clients by learning what really matters to them. We teach you how to work through this process quickly and efficiently in a way that adds the greatest value to the client while adding to your professional enjoyment and profitability. Each course stands alone and may be taken without viewing the other parts. See below for more information:

Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2018, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• How to approach pricing when performing advisory work
• Why you need to bill at a higher rate for advisory services
• Phasing and breaking projects down into manageable pieces
• Billing rates, project rates, value billing and retainers
• Sample pricing scenarios
• Meeting facilitation tips, to help generate more productive outcomes
• How to make sure progress continues after the meeting is over

Title: Mergers, Acquisitions, Purchases and Sales of Practices: A Current Overview ***Register Now***

Subject Area: Mergers and Acquisitions

Description: This session is based on Dom’s and Bill’s two-book succession management series published by the AICPA called Securing the Future: Building Your Firm’s Succession Plan and Securing the Future: Implementing Your Firm’s Succession Plan. This program has been designed to acquaint CPAs with the current trends and issues to consider, whether they wish to be on the buying/acquiring or selling/being acquired side of a transaction. This course does not present mergers as the end-all answer to firm problems. Rather, it provides an up-to-date, market-based analysis of what to consider as to reasons for or against a deal, and ways to create better odds for any deal to be mutually beneficial. See below for more information:

Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2018, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm Eastern

Content:

• Reasons to consider both for and against merging
• Common firm management and succession issues driving most mergers and acquisitions
• Compatibility factors between the firms to consider before saying “I do”
• Generational issues within each firm that can make a huge difference

Upcoming Speaking Engagements:

• November 28-29, 2018: Succession Institute Leadership Academy, Situational Leadership® workshop, Denver, CO
• December 5-6, 2018: CalCPA Leadership Institute, San Francisco, CA
• December 7, 2018: Utah Association of CPAs, Professional Update, Salt Lake City, UT
• January 7-8, 2019: Succession Institute Leadership Academy, Communication and Business Development workshop, Location TBD
• January 8-9, 2019: PrimeGlobal Leadership II Development Program, Workshop 5 on Strategy and Change Management, Orlando, FL
• January 13, 2019: Florida Institute of CPAs, AICPA Professional Update, Miami, FL
• January 15, 2019: CalCPA Leadership Institute, Sacramento, CA
• January 16-17, 2019: PrimeGlobal Leadership I Development Program, Workshop 3 on Best Practices in Firm Management, The Offices of Moore Colson, Atlanta, GA
• January 24, 2019: Ohio Society of CPAs, Columbus, OH
• May 8-10, 2019: Succession Institute Leadership Academy, Practice Management, People Development, Change and Speaking workshop, Location TBD
• June 5-6, 2019: PrimeGlobal Leadership I Development Program, Workshop 4 on Presentation Skills and Program Wrap-up, The Offices of Smith Schafer and Associates, Minneapolis, MN
• June 7, 2019: Oklahoma Society of CPAs, Tulsa, OK
• June 11-12, 2019: AICPA Engage, Las Vegas, NV
• June 13-14, 2019: Alabama Society of CPAs, Professional Update, AL
• June 10, 2019: Tennessee Society of CPAs, Asheville, NC
• June 19-20, 2019: PrimeGlobal Leadership II Development Program, Workshop 6 on Public Speaking and Presentations Mastered, Chicago, IL
• June 21-22, 2019: West Virginia Society of CPAs, Professional Update, White Sulphur Springs, WV
• June 28-30, 2019: Hawaii Society of CPAs, Professional Update, Honolulu, HI
• July 18, 2019: AICPA & CPA/SEA Interchange, Location TBA
• October 8-10, 2019, Leadership Academy for AICPA, Durham, NC
• October 23-24, 2019: PrimeGlobal Leadership II Development Program, Workshop 7, Reunion and Capstone Project Results Presentations, Location TBD