Claiming to provide excellent service doesn’t differentiate your firm – too many firms make this claim without taking the proactive approach that goes beyond traditional service delivery to ensure a client experience that “wows.” Let’s explore strategies to understand client needs, build strong relationships, and exceed client expectations. Learn to drive long-term loyalty and success by enhancing communication, anticipating client expectations, and differentiating your firm through a client-centric approach that focuses on exceptional client experiences from start to finish.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Everyone agrees they’re important, but few organizations conduct great performance evaluations. How do you give useful, honest feedback on performance that helps people grow their skills and develop their strengths? What’s the best way to connect evaluations to firm expectations and employee needs? Let’s explore effective methods for assessing partner performance, providing constructive feedback, and aligning individual contributions with firm goals. Learn to use partner evaluations as a tool for professional development and enhancing overall firm performance.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Growth for growth’s sake too often results in chasing clients who are not a good fit, taking on niches with no leverage, and burning out your firm’s talent. So how can you promote healthy growth? Let’s explore strategies for strategic growth, finding and courting the right client, investing time, talent and resources in the right development opportunities, and ensuring your top talent has the work they want and need to stay motivated and excited about their career.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Most firms want to develop a pipeline of strong leaders – but too often it’s more a wish than a plan.   So how do you turn a leaky pipeline into a leadership factory?  What can you do to create a process that consistently identifies and nurtures future leaders, providing exciting career paths that make it hard for top talent to contemplate leaving?  Join us as we discuss strategies to transform your firm into a leadership development powerhouse.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Overwhelmed by constant decision-making, leaders can make rushed, poorly planned responses – or suffer from analysis paralysis and fail to make timely choices.  In either case, the decisions made may be less than ideal.  So how do you help leaders avoid burnout and frustration when faced with numerous high-stakes questions? Let’s discuss strategies to streamline processes, delegate the right decisions, and help leaders weigh options and quickly determine ideal outcomes. Discover how to make better choices while preserving energy and focus.

Target Audience: Firm Leaders

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Being led with parity is like running a race where everyone ties for last. Are your rising stars recognized and developed to their full potential or are you locked into a system that stifles ambition, discourages risk-taking and creativity, and ensures everyone moves in lockstep?  Parity does little more than help ensure your best people will go someplace else to receive the opportunities you failed to give them.  Let’s discuss creating a culture that treats everyone fairly while rewarding superstars. 

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track / Team Leaders

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Unanticipated crises can disrupt even the strongest firms.  No one can anticipate when a data breach, power outage, pandemic, or other black swan event may test your firm’s resilience, but proactively analyzing and improving your firm’s readiness may shorten or even eliminate negative impacts. So how do you stress test your organization, identify vulnerabilities, and develop contingency plans for worst-case scenarios?  Let’s discuss how to equip your firm with the resilience to navigate the unexpected.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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You can’t beat harmony, especially among the firm’s owners, right?  Actually, no – if achieving that peace comes at the expense of openly and honestly discussing and resolving important issues.  Avoiding conflict can hinder progress, communication, accountability, and innovation. Let’s discuss how to build trust to foster productive conflict, encourage diverse perspectives, encourage everyone to contribute to discussions, debate to reach the best solutions, and resolve disagreements constructively. Learn how to leverage conflict to drive better decisions and stronger collaboration.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Do your meetings, website, and presentations focus on firm stats, credentials, client service, and experience – just like every other firm?  If you allow clients to view your services as a commodity, they will likely choose a firm based on fees alone.  So how can you differentiate your marketing approach to focus on what matters most to your clients, connect on a deeper level, and create long-lasting and meaningful client relationships?  Let’s discuss how to identify impactful differentiators and communicate this to the world. 

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Are you maximizing the benefits of your firm’s specialties?  With lots of firm growth now coming from non-traditional areas, the ability to successfully vet, build, and launch new niches provides a huge competitive advantage.   Let’s discuss how to find the next niche, calculate potential profit, find and cultivate your client base, staff appropriately, and launch your next profitable endeavor.  We’ll provide proven principles, best practices, and lessons learned from the best firms to help you niche down to level up.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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Allowing partners to weigh in on every major decision might make sense when your group is small.  As firms grow, however, this structure can bog down decision-making, limit partner productivity, and impede firm success.  Let’s talk about how and when to hire executives, how to define and clarify roles, and what needs to stay with the partner group. Learn how to amplify partner effectiveness, enhance productive collaboration, and drive firm-wide success by adding a C-suite.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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How often are firm members attending webinars, conferences, and training sessions purely to comply with annual requirements – finding hours earned more important than knowledge gained?  Certification credits are a reality in CPA firms, but how can you encourage training that also motivates, develops, and prepares individuals for future roles?  We’ll explore how to foster a culture of curiosity, continuous improvement, and proactive learning. Learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to develop a system to achieve your development priorities.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track / HR / L&D

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Every pebble dropped into a pond creates ripples—some reach farther than expected. Even well-intentioned firm changes can create unexpected challenges to employee retention, firm morale, partner effectiveness, public image, etc.  So, how do you map those ripples, anticipate the unexpected, and adjust your course when changes flow in surprising directions?  Let’s discuss how to proactively assess risk, plan for different scenarios, solicit the right input to gauge impact, communicate to the right groups, and adapt to minimize negative consequences.

Target Audience: Partner / Partner Track

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