This month Ryan Niedoba a 24 year old team member at Niedoba & Associates in NJ presented three webinars on behalf of Principa. He talked about his success in using some of our tools and resources, coupled with a huge dose of his own common sense and sheer talent, to turn a couple of businesses around.
Ryan attended one of our conferences as a 17 year old and was excited by the idea of CPAs providing business development services to their clients. It seemed to him to make all the sense in the world. A couple of years later he invested in his own business, applied the strategies he’d picked up from us and a few he invented himself and made a small fortune. He (and his father) came to the immediate realization that THIS STUFF ACTUALLY WORKS.
In a word, his presentation was sensational not only in relation to the way he delivered it but, perhaps most importantly, the message itself. He generously shared what he did, and the results achieved for a couple of businesses. One of these involved the transformation of a bankrupt business he personally paid $17,500 that he sold 12 months later for $193,000.
The other engagement Ryan described resulted in a profit turnaround he helped engineer for a client, also within a 12 month period, of $270,000 AFTER an engagement fee of $60,000! Ryan mentioned that they pitched for this job after seeing that one of their other clients had paid a “large international consulting firm” $120,000 for a profit improvement program. In the course of working with the client they discovered that the tools they used were essentially the same as those available to them through their Principa membership. If nothing else this, together with Ryan’s own personal experience, gave them confidence they could do just as good a job as their “international consulting firm rival.”
Ryan, somewhat humbly, made the point that is valid that the things he did for these businesses and others, is not rocket science. You have ability and if you are a member of the Principa Alliance, you have the resources you need to deliver this type of service to your clients.
On one of the webinars a question was asked “can you help an accounting practice gain new clients?” The simple answer would be yes but not by doing the same things you’re doing now. The key to picking up new clients is to offer a “new” value proposition and one form of that would be to offer the type of services Ryan is doing for his firm.
You need to give prospects a reason to engage you and if all you offer is the same stuff as the firm down the road why would anyone want to change? Firms that do that typically get some growth as people wander in from an occasional referral or notice a sign on the building or a listing in a phone directory but growth is modest at best, usually not very profitable and always for traditional low margin work. Importantly, it tends to stop once the practitioner gets “busy” because then the referrals stop as clients become increasinally disillusioned and !
We have recorded his presentation and if you did not participate or you’d like to take another look click here then scroll down the list to the webinar called Principa in Practice. I have asked Ryan if he would be willing to work with our members to help them with setting up a business advisory division in their firm. If you would like to explore this possibility please contact Jennifer Bommarito at jennifer.bommarito@principa.net and she can fill you in on the details.