Author: David R. Peters, CPA, CFP, CLU, CPCU
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of the South Carolina CPA Report
“I don’t do fluff stuff.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard accountants say those words when discussing CPE on topics like leadership, marketing, and communication. Perhaps it’s our natural wiring or discomfort with these topics that causes many of us CPAs to react this way. After all, we spend four years in school (and for many of us, several years in graduate school) learning rules. As auditors, we learn how important it is to keep up with GAAP and IFRS. As tax accountants, we’re taught from our first internship how crucial it is to keep up with the tax code. Accounting is a learning profession. While there’s no doubt the technical aspects are important, we too often dismiss the importance of these other areas. Even calling them “soft skills” makes them seem secondary—like we don’t really need them. But is this really true?
When Reality Hits You in the Face
When I started my own business, I quickly figured out how under-equipped I was to handle the strategic aspects of building and expanding it. I knew how to form a business with the Secretary of State, pick the right entity structure, and build a forecast. As a former CFO with a background in tax, I was comfortable in those areas. What I struggled with was developing a brand and building a client base. In previous roles, I had good people around me to help with these aspects. They dealt with the “fluff stuff,” while I dealt with the realities of cash flow, data, and hard numbers. Even with just a few marketing classes in college, a simple truth stared me in the face: if you can’t generate new clients, you don’t have a business.
A mentor at a previous job used to say, “It is not always the best financial advisor or practitioner that is the most successful. It is the one that brands him or herself the best that usually wins the business.” When I first started as a tax practitioner, those words were a blow to my pride. I believed the key to my success was the ability to study harder and know more than everyone else. However, as my mentor was trying to point out, you only get to demonstrate that knowledge if you’ve developed the skills to engage with clients. The better brand usually wins the business—not necessarily the most knowledgeable practitioner. That’s where building a personal brand becomes important.
What Is A Personal Brand?
Marketing and branding are different. Marketing tends to focus more on execution and short-term sales. It’s the campaigns, promotions, and the methods used to draw attention to our product. Branding is more long-term and strategic. It’s the slow crafting of an image or reputation among consumers over time. While marketing results in a sale now, branding results in numerous sales over time. Branding allows a product to sell even without a promotion.
In service businesses, especially smaller companies, branding often comes down to how we brand ourselves. In accounting, we could brand ourselves as a specialist in one particular industry or area, like manufacturing businesses, non-profit organizations, or medical professionals. Alternatively, you might market a particular service, such as business valuations, fractional CFO engagements, or tax planning or strategy. However, identifying yourself as a specialist in one of these areas is not enough. We cross over from identification to branding when we can distinguish ourselves from everyone identifying themselves in the same way. It’s not enough to simply say we specialize in fractional CFO work, because there are hundreds of other fractional CFOs in the marketplace. If we want to build a brand, we have to identify what makes us stand out. We need to put significant thought into why we are unique and what makes clients choose us over others.
Many CPAs say they struggle to stand out. But to really stand out, we need to do something different from our peers. I think every business valuation specialist, fractional CFO, and CPA is different. That’s why certain clients resonate better with one practitioner over another. To an outsider, CPA services might seem the same, but something—often as simple as taking a personal interest—can trigger a client’s choice. Proper personal branding identifies this difference-maker and builds our business around it.
Employee Recruiting Relies on Branding
Personal branding might be enough when you’re only marketing yourself. However, as I (and many other entrepreneurs) have found out, good branding will result in you reaching your work capacity quickly. At that point, you have two choices—you can either turn business away or bring on employees. If you’re going to grow, you’ll eventually need to recruit.
In recent years, much of the discussion when recruiting accountants has focused on pay and benefits. There’s no doubt these are important topics. However, for the small business owner, this creates a bleak outlook. If recruiting is only about how much you pay and the benefits package you offer, then what chance does a small CPA firm have of recruiting any talent?
Having started several businesses from scratch, I can tell you that recruiting is tricky. There’s always another firm that can out-pay, out-benefit, and out-compensate you. You’ll lose if you try to compete in those areas. What do you do then? You compete in spaces where you can win. This, again, is where branding matters.
One of my first full-time jobs was with a start-up insurance company. I didn’t take it for the pay. I took it for the opportunities it presented. I wanted to shape my own role, have direct access to my supervisor, and build something from nothing. Elephant Auto Insurance branded itself differently—as an alternative to traditional auto insurance. I was on board with the idea of building something unique—so on board that I gave up higher pay to go there.
If you want to recruit successfully as a small business, you have to get people on board with your brand. You have to get them to see why you are different and believe in it. You have to get them excited about the alternative that you’re presenting. The key to doing this, though, is believing in it yourself first and being excited about it, too!
Spring Splash is Coming
In two of my sessions at Spring Splash this year, we’ll dive into personal branding and recruiting and retention. As you can see, these topics are, in many ways, tougher than the most advanced tax law class or auditing course. They get us to think about things that don’t have black-and-white answers, yet can make the biggest tangible differences in our business. The tough reality is that technical skills only get you so far. If you want to build a practice for yourself or your company, you must expand beyond the rules and delve into the “fluff stuff.”
See you at Spring Splash!
Required Disclosure: This is not specific investment advice. Financial and Investment Advisory services offered through CFO Capital Management. Brokerage and Custodial Services offered through TD Ameritrade Institutional, member FINRA and SIPC. CFO-CM and TDA are not affiliated. Tax services are provided by Peters Tax Preparation & Consulting, PC and are not provided by CFO Capital Management.
