Today our guest is Chris Cocca. Chris is president of Strategic Sales, and his firm helps accounting firms and professional service firms grow and scale. Chris is also, we were arguing—not arguing—we were asking… what’s the right way to say this? But former CPA is the way he listed. I know some people say inactive CPA, I know some people say recovering CPA. Chris has a unique view on what we’re going to talk about today, being a sales strategist and former CPA. Chris, welcome to The Unique CPA. 

Thank you Randy. I’m really excited to be on with you today. 

Yeah. And when we met at one of Rob Brown’s Accounting Influencer round tables, correct?

We did. We did. 

In fact, Rob and I are talking in two days, so looking forward to, we’ve been trying to get together for the last month or two, and finally we found a date that works so we can see what we can do to continue to help people in this profession, which is what you’re doing as well.

Alright, so let’s go. We are going to talk about what you’re doing and how you’re helping accounting firms, CPA firms bookkeeping for whatever it is with their, you know, strategic sales and growth and scaling. And so before we do that, you know, I did a quick intro, but part of this, I want you to introduce yourself from a standpoint of you do have this unique perspective being a CPA or, you know, former CPA and now the sales guru, which a lot of people will think don’t mesh together well, it’s not a skillset they think a lot of people feel fits together. Why don’t you give us a little background on how you came into this role and got this passion for help in professional services firms? 

Sure, happy to. So I started my career as a CPA in public accounting back when it was the Big Eight, so that kind of dates me.

You’re aging yourself! 

So right before all the mergers got together and actually helped start a tax function at Hagar Clothing company, Hagar Slacks, for those that have ever bought Hagar in the past.

I have.

So young, started a tax function there with the help of people in public accounting. So really kind of cut my teeth, but pretty early on I found this love for sales. I admired the people, the sales guys at Hagar, what they could do with clients, how they could help grow the business. They were well regarded—they were kind of like the people that were looked on to really deliver the number for the company, and I wanted to be part of that. So I was able to move on to Frito-Lay headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and talked my way into a sales job. They hired me as an account. Little did they know I wanted to be a sales guy. And after a couple years of proving myself there, I went to my boss and I said, “Hey Deborah, I know this is going to be crazy. Probably nobody’s ever asked this of you, but I really would like to get involved with sales.”

She opened the door for me; the rest of my career kind of took a big tangent from accounting and finance into sales and 25 years of sales experience later, here I am, and I started my firm, Strategic Sales, about seven years ago, that I really wanted to work directly with accounting firms and professional services firms and get back to my roots, leverage my knowledge of how hard it is to be a CPA and do business development. And I really wanted to be closer to the smaller, mid-size businesses in my community and just love what I do, And I’ve been doing it for seven years, and I wish I would’ve started this earlier. I wish I would’ve jumped in sales earlier, but I wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have the path that I had.

Yep. It’s funny you say that ’cause that’s the same way I look at things. You know, what could I have done something different in the past, could I have changed the path I went down? Sure. But I wouldn’t want to because if it would’ve brought me somewhere different than I am right now, there’s no way I would’ve done it. So I agree. I’m glad to hear you say that. 

Alright, so I find this topic really interesting because. Public accounting or accounting in general and professional services firms, we often, I find this not necessarily always has to happen, and I think there’s other ways to do it, but it depends on the size of the firm—but we often have many hats as a partner in a firm. And as you have, you and I talked ahead of time as you have coined a seller-doer, you know, we are, or a doer-seller, probably more likely, because you’re probably doing a lot and trying to sell as well, and not everybody has that skillset, but they also don’t have the time. So let’s get into that seller-doer and how you work with that to help them, you know, one, be better, and two, probably optimize the time they have because as a doer, that’s your first thought is billable hours, which is another thing I think needs to change. But that’s a tangent we can go down later. But this whole seller-doer concept, let’s get into that. 

I think it’s a struggle, Randy, for balance, because you’re always going to be pulled into doing. Client work and taking care of clients and doing operational related things, making sure that you’re at capacity, that you’re delivering the right work to the clients to help them every day, which is absolutely critical. But at the same time, if the firm wants to grow, unless you have a big sales team—and Randy, I don’t think a lot of accounting firms have really big sales teams—I think most of them, they have rainmakers, but those rainmakers are partners or senior managers or directors or somebody that’s going out and finding that new client through their network or through other means, and it’s really difficult. There’s very little time for them to be able to do business development, and what I help firms do is get better with that limited amount of time because you can’t get more time, but you can do more with the time that you have. I find ways to help them get a lot better at the limited amount of time.

Yeah, I think, which I think is great because that’s one thing I’ve seen in this profession is I really don’t think we’re the best at making the most efficient use of our time, and partly it’s because, well, “it’s always been done this way” and probably people are listening to the show are saying, “Oh, here goes Randy again, talking about being better and more efficient,” but it just is. It’s like, this is the way we’ve always done it, so let’s keep doing it this way, or, you know, partners are always selling, so partners have to do this and that. Why do partners have to sell? It’s, I assume at some level, you know, there’s just not enough resources in the firm to hire in that sales staff. I think hiring a sales staff or a sales person is something that more firms should do. Or if you are starting a firm, if you feel comfortable with the business development, then start to generate business by making that your role. You can have, you know, someone else do the other thing.

So this is, I’m going all over the board, but I’ve got this, I just have this whole concept, and it’s often this way to be a partner, you have to sell. Well, you can be a really good technician, yes, but you have to bring in business. No. Why don’t we have the rainmakers do that? So you could have partners do that or why do we not have the outside? But let’s dig into that if you don’t mind, because what’s your ideas on that? Because not everybody can—or maybe you’re going to tell me, everybody can be a salesperson. 

I am absolutely not going to tell you “everybody can be a salesperson or do business development.” I do think that you need to understand who your rainmakers are, and who they’re not, and to me that’s a DNA thing. It’s either in you or it isn’t in you. You either like it and gravitate to it and love those new client conversations and love, you know, exploring ways to better serve your clients and do more for them, and you get excited about bringing that business in, or you don’t. And if you don’t, that’s okay. If you’re not a rainmaker, that’s okay. But you know, I’ve got a firm that I’m working with now, and they all had that mindset of all the partners have to sell. You know, first we evaluated all the partners and everybody that was involved to see who the rainmakers were and who they weren’t. So the first tip I would give the audience is, you really need to do a deeper dive on the DNA of your organization. 

Just like you would from an accounting delivery prospect to understand what your capabilities are with your clients, you also want to understand your business development capabilities within your organization to see what you have and what you don’t have. Once you do that, I agree with you. Let’s say that you have 20 partners in a firm, and half of them are rainmakers and half aren’t. Then I would give the 10 rainmakers in the firm a couple things: One is I would give them a goal. So that’s unique for a lot of firms too, is that they have a revenue goal and they have a growth goal, but they never allocate it across all of their people. They just hope that everybody’s going to deliver the number right and hope it washes out and it doesn’t work that way. 

Yep. 

So I would work with them on giving them a goal, but then I would give them the right resources, the right coaching, the right training if they need to, so that they can be really efficient with that time. And what that will mean is they’ll dedicate more time to business development, less time to client delivery, and the other 10 would rebalance the equation a little bit from a technical standpoint so that the firm continues to grow and everybody is operating in their “area of genius,” for lack of a better word.

Yeah, no, I love that. 

And everybody’s operating in their area of genius, and then I think the next thing to consider though is, you’ve got 10 rainmakers out of 20, but who’s the next 10 rainmakers in the firm that are at the manager level or senior manager level? Because a lot of those people have the DNA, but they don’t have the coaching, they don’t have the training, and they like to get in the game. And what I tell firms there is, “Hey, you know, you’ve got to incentivize your partners and your managers to do business development, and it has to be meaningful.” Because Randy, if you’re a partner in a firm and I’m going to ask you to go do more business development or bring in more, and you do, and the firm grows, I should incentivize you based on that, based on your contribution, similar to somebody that delivers a lot of great technical work, you’re going to incentivize them for that. You should do the same for business development all the way down to anybody in the firm that touches business development. Even if they’re just originating a deal, even if they’re just bringing in a referral, they should have some skin in the game. They should be rewarded for that. And I’m guessing in your firm that you do that, but you’d be surprised. A lot of firms really don’t have a program like that. 

Yeah, we do. We’re probably a little different from a standpoint though, but we leaned in early. I mean, our fourth hire was a business development person, and so we leaned in heavy from the beginning that yes, it’s, I mean, first year business. I did pretty much all the sales and we did very well with the business, but it’s not really my skillset. I can build relationships, I can meet people, I can explain what we do, and then I hand them off to somebody that closes the deal. And so I think we’re unique there. 

I want to go back to that: I love what you said, “area of genius,” because I’ve been talking about this concept a lot lately, and I don’t use the words genius. I’ve been using skills, but I might steal your “area of genius,” but in addition, not only your area of genius, but your area of passion—I want both of those together because then you are in the role you should be. If you’re good at it and you love it, I mean, what can get better? And so I think what you said earlier is that at every level and every person in the organization, I think you need to seek this out in that area, because you’re going to be an efficient machine if people are doing what they love. And that goes with business development that so many people would put the check mark on the “hate it” part of that, I’m sure.

Yeah. That’s okay.

Yeah exactly. And it should be. I don’t know if every firm actually realizes that’s okay, and that was the question I want to ask: When you do go in and you start consulting with a firm and you find who the rainmakers are, I’m assuming firms probably aren’t the best at figuring out ways to put the incentives on that, compared to. “Hey, I need X billable hours.” Is that a struggle sometimes when you go into firms to, to make that transition from, you know, hey, they don’t have to have as many billable hours, because look at the business they’re bringing in?

I think it’s a difficult transition, but it starts with do they really have a growth goal? Because if they do, they know they’re going to be bringing in more clients, more work. They’ve got to be prepared to execute it. So there’s an operational end to this as well, like if you’re the COO or the person that makes sure that you’re hiring the right people, you really need to be hiring ahead of this work coming, so that you can stay balanced and you can make sure that if somebody closes a nice, big client, you’ve got the team ready to go to be able to do that work in addition to all the clients that you already have. So I do think that there’s some planning between business development and operations that has to happen. And then there is a pivot to taking the rainmakers, putting them in a better position, and asking them to spend maybe a little more time. Maybe they were spending five hours a week and you need them to spend 10 hours a week, or whatever the case may be. We’ll figure that out. But in order for them to spend that extra time, that means that they might not be signing off on audits or signing off on tax returns or delivering consulting work or whatever they need to do, and they’ve got to develop the team underneath them to be able to do that work that they’re selling.

Okay. And is that part of the, ’cause one of the things that we’ve talked about before we start recording is the efficiency end of business development and so that they still probably have the mindset of, “I need to get work done too.” So are there like specific tactics that you work with people to make this business development as efficient as possible?

There are, I’d say there’s a couple of like, really big areas for them to get more efficient. One is my mantra with all my clients, especially accounting firms, is get to “no” faster—the word no. So if you’re not going to win the deal, get there as fast as humanly possible. Don’t let it drag out. Don’t let it linger well past the proposal stage—and in many cases, you shouldn’t even be doing a proposal for a lot of the “nos.” You should disqualify them a lot earlier. It could be that you’re not qualified to work with them, right? But more often it’s not going to be a fit, you know, for them either, and if you can get to “no” faster, you’ll get all of that work out of your pipeline, you’ll reduce your hours, and then you can focus on the things that you really can close. 

So firms really have to get clear on the sales process. That’s a big part of what I do, Randy, is most firms do not have a repeatable business development process for their partners and their teams. So let’s get that fixed so that you know how to execute it, you know how to get to “no” faster, you know how to get to “yes” faster, because that’s the flip side. Even the deals that you’re winning, they may be taking you 90 days, 120 days. You can close those deals a lot faster if you follow the right process and you get to the right information and you deliver the right proposal at the right time, there are ways for you to take that 90 day cycle and get it down to 70, 75 days or less, and just think about how much time that gives you back to do more client work or more business development or more whatever. So that’s where the efficiency comes in, is doing a better job of qualifying and disqualifying and do a better job throughout the sales process from lead all the way through winning or losing the deal to shrink the sales cycle. Those are two really big levers to pull to get more efficient. 

That’s nice, and I’ll ask you a question. Sorry, I’m laughing ahead of time. So we had this business development person once here and I always said he doesn’t take “yes” for an answer. I mean, do you ever run into that? I mean, it’s already “yes.” And he’s still selling, and still selling, and still selling. I’m like, you know, Bill, they said “Yes.”

I run into that all the time, especially with business development people, and it’s really just a training and coaching thing. And so I’m going to flip back to what you said about, you know, you, you’ve hired business successfully. Many firms haven’t. They’ve tried it. I’m sure you know of a lot of firms, they’ve hired one or two or three people and they have this carousel of business development people in and out. And it’s a huge investment. You know it’s a very big investment. If they’re not bringing in 7, 8, 900,000, a million or more a year, it’s hard to justify their job because they’re not inexpensive people. They’re one of the more highly compensated people you’ll have in your entire firm, outside of the partner level. 

So what I would say is you’ve got to have a performance management process to go with a business development process, and you have to have business development leadership. And a firm that I’m working with now out in Seattle, they recognized that they wanted to do all the things that I’m helping them to do, but then they really needed development of their leadership, because their leadership is focused on client work and capacity and utilization and technical prowess and all of those things. But they’ve never been sales leaders. So how do you just wear that hat that you’ve never worn before and actually lead and coach a salesperson when you’ve never been a sales leader? And that salesperson, contrary to popular belief, where you think you can just wind them up like a doll and let ’em go, and then they’re going to come back with business, they have to be managed, they have to be coached, they have to be developed, and it has to be something that’s specific to what they do. You can’t coach them like you would coach an audit manager. It’s two different animals. You really have to understand that. So I help firms either find that leadership or maybe the managing partner is going to be that leader or is worn that hat, and I help that managing partner be a much, much better leader in business development. 

Yeah, that is a great point because in reality I’ve got that story where, you know, I told you we hired, you know, number four, our employee was a business development, and we went through, we hired someone else shortly after who was in business development, tried to set him up as a sales manager. He didn’t have any history with doing that, had no idea how to do it, and we’ve pretty much struggled for 17 years to fill that role. That’s the role—we have business development, we a have marketing team, I did it for a while, like ad hoc. I mean, you can’t really do that. My partner who started Tri-Merit with me, he has  been doing it now for the last year. In between there we brought in like a fractional sales manager, good guy, but it just didn’t fit our culture. And so that was an issue. 

And so I love that point that yes, you can bring in business development people, you can convert your current team into business development. You can give a portion of their time to business development, but you still have to have a leader that knows how to manage that role. And so what you do, this long question to get to, so what you do is you actually go in and whoever that is, like you said, the managing partner, you’re going to teach them the skills of being a sales manager?

I’m actually going to sit alongside them in the seat and show them how to coach, show them how to run a one-on-one, show them how to run a business development team meeting, show theem how to build a plan, all of those things, I do all of those things until the person’s comfortable—the managing partner or the principal is comfortable on their own, I’ll be with them, coaching them as long as they need me. 

Right. So it sounds like the coaching and shadowing at the same time and seeing how you’re doing, and then I’m sure you have meetings talking about, that part I think is super important because I think too often in public accounting it’s just, okay, well Sally and Bob should be bringing in business and nobody really explains how or or what, or even why or what the goals are or, or what even the client base is that we want to, look for? Is that something you go in? Because I find too often there’s this shotgun approach and we’ll just take anything that comes to us. I assume for me, having an expertise in the area that you’re going to go for new business, is that something you talk about in this business development cycle? 

It is. So the process that I’ve developed for firms is called Evergrowth, and part of this unique process with Evergrowth is building a playbook for everybody on the business development team, including partners, so that they all see the ideal client the same way, they all see the ideal work the same way, they understand how to attract the right clients and how to win the right clients, they understand how to expand the current clients that they have. You know, I think a lot of firms struggle with that as well. That’s sort of a tangent, but I call it white space, Randy, where let’s say your firm does five core services and for your top hundred clients, you maybe do two or three on average. Could you do the other two or three? Maybe not. Do you have a process for it? No. If you do identify the opportunity, do you know how to do the right discovery and get to the right needs so that you can unlock that value? Maybe not, depending on who you are and how good you are at it. 

So there’s a whole other part of growth to unlock with that process, but it all goes back to what work do you really want to do? What are you great at? What are your differentiators? That’s part of the playbook too, Randy is. What should your story be? What are your differentiators? What’s your value proposition? Which is really hard in accounting because accounting firms can argue that they all sort of do the same thing, so if they all sort of do the same thing, then it’s a race to the bottom on who’s the cheapest at the same thing. And that’s probably a whole nother podcast. But you really need a playbook so that everybody is laser focused on how to go get that niche they really love to do, how to go penetrate that vertical. Maybe they’re experts at government contracting, or they’re really good at CAS work with family offices or whatever their niche is. How do you really put a playbook together so that everybody’s kind of marching to the same beat and they have a common language, a common process? And a common purpose on really going and serving those clients.

Yes. And congratulations on saying “niche.” 

It is important! It’s important. You’ve got to have your thing. You know that, that’s why, you know, I, I’ve worked with every type of business to business firm and company that you could think of, but I’m really focused and dedicated to. Accounting firms and professional services firms. That’s my niche. 

Yeah, which is perfect. I think that just makes things so much easier when you’re looking to grow, when you’re looking to expand, when you’re looking to show the value that you bring because of your expertise, and I think that’s a huge part of the sales. Alright, I think this has been awesome information. I’d like to keep going, but we are at about that stopping point, so I think we’re at a good wrapping point too. But really when people hear this, and we’re talking about business development and things that you should be doing and niche, and making sure that people are in the right role too when it comes to sales or whatever their role is in the business, but if listening to this somebody says, yes, we’re ready to take our business development to the next level, what do we need to do? Is there like a key first step or, or how would you explain what the next steps are to somebody? 

I’m going to cheat and give you two. 

Okay. That’s good.

So, start with doing a really good assessment of the business development DNA of everybody that does business development and the entire organization. And the tool that I use that I think is absolutely best in class, it’s called Objective Management Group. So I’m trained and certified in that. So that would be a great first step is use the Objective Wanagement Group, assess your entire organization to see what you have and what you don’t have in terms of rainmakers and business development, DNA, ’cause that level sets where we go from there. 

That’s perfect. 

And then I couple that with, take your process for business development and formalize it. And document it, and tie it to CRM, because that’s another really big first step for companies is they may have a CRM, they may be using it, but they really don’t have a formal process that is anchored to the CRM. And so everybody’s using that CRM differently, nobody can rely on it, you can’t forecast. So it’s a really good first step to formalize and document, and then train the team on a business development, step by step process. 

Nice. And that’s where I lose my skills as a sales leader is the process end of things. Processes are not a skill set I have, so.

I can understand. You’re not alone, Randy. You’re definitely not alone there. 

Alright. That’s why, and Andy, who is now managing the sales team, he does, he is a process person, so at least hopefully that goes well. But we are actively looking for that to fill that role.

I’ve heard that. It will be a key part of the next-level growth that you’re trying to get to in the firm, and it’ll be one of your key leaders eventually. I would tell you this, hire somebody in that role that can also be on your leadership team. You want them to be a thought leader in your firm. They’re going to be really important. So when you’re trying to find that right person, find somebody that’s going to be a great cultural fit, a great fit with your leadership team, and then a great salesman.

No, that’s good. So thank you for that. But before we end, a couple final questions, and I think I might know one of these answers, but you know, we’ve been talking about business and business development and accounting firms and sales. But when you’re not thinking work and doing work, what are your outside of work passions, what do you like doing when you’re not the strategic sales guru? 

I’ve been happily married for 34 years to my wife, Missy, and we both have a passion for wine, and we love to travel. And so if there is a great vineyard to see in Napa, or a great winery to visit in Oregon, we will probably try to seek it out and make that trip, because it’s such a great experience. Wine is so social, it’s so personal and the people that create it are amazing people that, you know, I love meeting them as much as I love the wine is meeting the wine maker, meeting the families that create these great wines. So love to travel for wine and spend quality time with my wife. 

That’s awesome. Those are great things. And my wife and I are also wine travelers. In addition, I’m a beer geek too. And both of those go together the way you said with just the people and the experiences and getting to know people. And just a quick story, because it’s my show and I can do this, my wife and I are currently in Sedona, Arizona, and we went to a distillery two days ago. Sitting at the distillery, somebody at the table next to us was talking, and I heard him say he lives in Northern California. My wife and I are going to be in Sonoma County next week and ends up, he’s in Napa. His wife is the hospitality manager of a large winery that we probably all know out there in Napa. And just by, you know, talking to the guy while you’re sitting and having a drink, he’s already going to set up, like this private tour of this winery for us. He’s also a cicerone, which is a, like a, the beer version of a Sommelier, and I’m a big, big beer fan, so he and I are going to try to get together and, and share a couple beers when we’re out there. So you meet really cool people, and maybe that’s not the right way to say it, but associated with alcohol, and it’s just been a lot of fun. 

Yeah. I’m so jealous. I’m so jealous. So you’ll have to tell me all about it because it sounds like a great connection. 

Yeah, it’ll be fun. Alright, and then final thing, Chris, ’cause this is all really important information that I think every firm should be looking at, even if you’re one person firm, you have to have a plan for business development and growth. And so if anybody wants to find out more information, get ahold of you, see what you’re doing, where would they look? 

So they could find me on LinkedIn. I’m the only Chris Cocca that I know on LinkedIn. My website is ChrisCoccaSales.com/Evergrowth. And hey, if anybody’s listening to the podcast and you just want to call me, I’m happy to give out my cell phone: (918) 409-9559. I love having conversations with people that are trying to figure out how they want to grow at scale, and I’m open to any conversation, anytime. I’m passionate about what I do. And if I can’t help you directly, I will find some resource—I’ve got a pretty big network of people, I’m happy to find something that can help you get to where you want to go. It’s really important to me.

Chris, again, thanks for being on the show. 

Thank you so much, Randy.