Truth Behind a GOOD Accountant or Attorney

 

The People You Hire are Only as Good as You Are

 
The truth behind a good accountant or attorney is they are only as good as you are. What does that mean? It means that ultimately you are responsible for the effectiveness of the professionals you hire. The powerful truth behind hiring professionals is that you are the one that makes them good, yet you don't know the specific discipline you hired them for. That creates a paradox, so how does this work? There are three steps to fulfilling this powerful truth.
 

Step 1: Know your Objective

 
You need to know why you are hiring this professional and the goal you want to achieve. If you're hiring an accountant, is it to file your tax returns and reduce your tax bill as much as legally possible? Or is it that you need a strategy for the future to reduce your taxable incomes because you foresee a more profitable year? In the second scenario you may not need a CPA or accountant, you might need a tax attorney. Specifically and clearly communicate in your mind what the objective is and that will help frame the other two steps.
 

Step 2: Hire Most Qualified

 
The most qualified professional is the one that has a tremendous amount of experience achieving the objective you're trying to accomplish. Finding the most qualified professional upfront saves you a lot of time and money in the end because you aren’t paying extra legal fees or extra accounting fees for someone to do research.

An example of this would be hiring an attorney for an eviction. If you look at the names of attorneys on the docket for eviction cases, you will see the same names repeated. They are processing most of the eviction cases and they do it every day. So for an eviction case you would hire one of these eviction attorneys because they are the most qualified.
 

Step 3: Be Good

 
Clear and Honest Communication: It starts with clear and honest communication. If you are dealing with an accountant, you are honest, providing all the documentation they need. Or if it's an attorney, you provide all the legal documents, all the correspondence with the opponent, and all the other details that they need to do their job. Be honest but be clear in your communication as well. No ambiguity because if there is, they can't do their job to the best of their ability. If you aren’t clear in your objective and honest in all the information you provide, then it's your fault. You’re not being as good as you can be.

Understand: Ask questions until you understand. Throughout the course of working with any professional, if you get to a point where you don't clearly understand what's going on, you need to ask questions until you do understand. When your tax returns are filed, the responsibility is still on you. The IRS does not care who the tax preparer is. And if that professional is unwilling to explain it to you, even though you're paying them, then hire a different one. It’s their responsibility to explain to you why they're doing things. And you need to understand well enough that you could explain to someone else what it is happening and why it’s happening.

Challenge: Challenge the status quo. Ask questions like, “Why are we doing it that way? Could we do it a different way? I was thinking about this. What about these ideas?”. When you challenge them, you make them the best they can be by asking questions that are outside their box. Even though you aren’t an accountant or attorney, it's your job to understand your objectives so well that you're constantly asking these professionals how to get there, and if there is a better way to get there.

Hold them Accountable: Even the brightest and best people need accountability. So, hold them accountable to fulfill the objective you’ve hired them for. This can be a big problem for people when they hire professionals, especially attorneys. They never hold the attorney accountable, so the attorney just keeps racking up fees and nothing gets accomplished. You need to hold them accountable because if you don't, you're not going to get the best out of them.

Pay Quickly: Fast pay makes for good friends. When you pay quickly that speaks volumes. And when you pay fast for good people, they work hard for you. I have followed this principle with my contractors, and it has created a working relationship that benefits everyone.

In summary, this is how you be good: Clear in your communication, asking questions until you understand, but then challenge them and take them to the next level. You bring out the best in them and then you hold them accountable and pay them quickly. If you follow these steps, you can fulfill this powerful truth that the people you hire are only as good as you are.