Most firms don’t fail at M&A because of bad intentions. They fail because they didn’t know what they didn’t know. If you're a CPA firm leader thinking about buying or selling a firm but you're not sure where to start or what traps to avoid you're not alone. M&A gets talked about as a strategic growth lever or a retirement solution. But when it shows up in real life, it’s rarely smooth or simple. Deals stall. Cultures clash. Clients leave. Partners second-guess each other. Whether you're considering selling your firm or acquiring another, there’s a good chance you’ve already felt some of the friction. Below are a few of the most common concerns we see and a way to gauge how prepared you really are. If You’re Considering Selling, How True Are These Statements? I have no idea what my firm is actually worth. What if my clients or staff leave when I start to step back? I don’t have a clear successor and I’m getting tired. I’m too busy running the firm to even think about selling it. If you nodded to two or more, your firm may not be sale-ready yet. But you’re asking the right questions. If You’re Considering Buying, How True Are These? We want to grow, but the right deals just aren’t out there. The last firm we bought was chaos to integrate. I’m worried we’ll overpay and lose clients anyway. Our partners can’t agree if we should even be doing this. If your head nodded on a few of those, you might have the desire but not the alignment, strategy, or infrastructure to move forward confidently. And Then There’s the Universal Stuff Buyer or Seller: We don’t have a real M&A process we’re just winging it. We’re afraid of making a bad deal that messes up the culture. We don’t have anyone we trust to guide us through this. Even one or two “yes” answers here should prompt a deeper pause. The stakes are too high to fake your way through this. So, What Now? Try this quick self-check: Count how many of the above statements you answered “yes” to. 0–2: You may be in good shape, but a second opinion never hurts. 3–5: There are likely gaps worth addressing before you proceed. 6+: You’re not alone. Many firms start here. Now is a great time to step back and build a clearer roadmap. You don’t need to have all the answers. But you do need to ask the right questions before signing a letter of intent. If this helped you think through things more clearly even a little then it’s done its job. If you'd like a simple checklist to evaluate your M&A readiness, just reach out to me at dlandrum@integratedgrowthadvisors.com. We’ve built one specifically for CPA firms to help avoid the common pitfalls. It's our mission to support CPAs in making better decisions and it's my pleasure to provide the checklist with no strings attached.

Key Takeaway

If you think being a great CPA or business advisor in the AI era is about learning to code or installing some new software, think again. Soft skills are increasingly valued over technical skills. I will share 10 of the most important ones with you shortly.  In many ways this transformation in our profession reminds me of the early settlers who stepped off the boat at Jamestown in 1607—unfamiliar land, unknown threats, and zero guarantees. The ones who survived weren’t the smartest or most educated. They were the most adaptable. They reinvented themselves or they didn’t make it. That’s where we are today in the CPA profession.

A few days ago, I stepped onto a stage for the first time as a stand-up comedian. I’ve spent years doing improv, but stand-up is different. Stand-up isn’t about reacting in the moment; it’s about crafting, refining, and delivering material in a way that resonates (hopefully) with an audience that wants to be entertained. I learned a ton from my stand-up classes and first performance and a great deal of what I learned can be applied directly to business leadership. Here are the three biggest lessons that business leaders can learn from stand-up comedy:

The backstory:

With the college football playoffs set and the NFL season coming down the home stretch, there have been countless close games going down to the final seconds. The difference between winning and losing often has more to do with a team’s culture and preparation than it does with their pure talent. In the same way, most accounting firms have smart, conscientious, talented people at all levels of the organization. The difference between high performing firms and mediocre firms is that the high performers have the ability to stay in alignment and hold their composure when the pressure is on. While it’s easy to put your organization’s core values on the wall of your lobby or locker room, you don’t find out who has really bought into those values until the you-know-what hits the fan. Like elite sports teams and military units, high-performing firms stay together and stick to the game plan when faced with a big client loss, departure of a key employee, or busy season fire drills. Under the same circumstances, lesser firms throw in the towel, point fingers, and watch staff head for the exits. Sound familiar? Sun Tsu, the legendary general and philosopher of ancient times said, “Every battle is won before it’s ever fought.” In the heat of battle, I’ve found, you must think like a triage unit in combat. Casualties are all around you and coming in fast; you must treat the most serious life-threatening injuries before the ones that are merely painful – no matter how anguished the victim. In the heat of battle, you’re not going to get perfection. You must do the best you can with the people, resources and time you have to work with. As a leadership coach, I’ve noticed that firms with a strong culture and governance model are particularly well equipped to handle “battlefield” conditions. They tend to have four characteristics in common:

December 4 2024 | 10 am PST / 1 pm EST

Dan McMahon contributed to the following article in Illinois CPA Society's Insight Magazine summer issue on the topic CPA firm M&A.

Check out Dan McMahon who recently appeared as a guest on Doug Noll’s Listening with Leaders podcast. Dan and Doug discuss the importance of listening as a leader, the art of improvisational theater performing, and why management teams must follow a parliamentary procedure for decision making.