COMMON QUESTIONS ABOUT CPA COACHING

I help partners, owners, and firm leaders see their situation more clearly, decide what to do about it, and do it. On some days, I’ll ask the questions nobody else will ask. On others, it means I’ll share what I’ve seen work. Sometimes, my role is to hold you accountable to the commitments that matter most.

The role changes with the conversation between coach, mentor, challenger, and accelerator. What doesn’t change is that the work is about you, not an assessment or curriculum.

CPAs understand the importance of professional credentials. While anyone can call themselves a coach, professional certification demonstrates a commitment to the training, ethical standards, and demonstrated competencies that effective coaching requires.

That said, holding a certification isn’t what makes me a good coach. Training and practice are. I’m a Professional Certified Coach credentialed by the International Coaching Federation with more than a decade of experience.

Good coaching takes restraint. I’m not here to give you answers. I’m here to help you become a better decision maker, thinker, and version of yourself.

In my professional coach training, I was taught that a coach can coach anyone on any topic. I’ve never fully believed it.

A coach can ask good questions about any career. But understanding the pressures, politics, and trade-offs of public accounting takes more than good questions. It takes having lived it.

I’ve been a CPA in a national firm and in a small one. I’ve been a partner and a firm owner. And I’ve coached professionals both from inside an accounting firm and from outside of one, with the formal training and credentials to do it well.

Hunter S. Thompson didn’t just write about the Hell’s Angels. He rode with them. My coaching works the same way. I don’t understand public accounting from the outside looking in. I’ve lived it.

You deserve more than a coach who understands coaching. You deserve a CPA who understands your world and knows how to coach. I am that coach.

Partners, owners, firm leaders, and high-potential professionals in public accounting.

I might work with a partner to help achieve their business development goals, a new partner acclimating to their role, a managing partner working to influence their team’s performance, or a solopreneur planning their strategy for the next season.

The most common topics relate to becoming an effective partner, moving from practitioner to advisor, business development, burnout, developing other professionals, creating capacity, pricing, succession, and firm growth. Career decisions are popular too.

Often we start with a topic and discover the real opportunity is something else entirely. There’s no standard agenda, because there’s no standard person working with me.

No. Many people come with a feeling as much as a goal. They feel that something isn’t working, or that while their career looks great on paper, something could be better. Figuring out what matters most is often part of the work. Bring what you have, and we’ll uncover the real issue together.

Most engagements begin with six one-hour conversations, typically scheduled about a month apart. Some clients continue beyond that, and some relationships last for years.

There’s no predetermined curriculum. The conversations are built around what you’re working through, and they evolve as your goals and circumstances change. Expect hard questions, perspective when it’s useful, accountability, and yes, sometimes homework.

Yes. Even if your firm pays for it.

The firm may fund the engagement, but the coaching belongs to you. At the start, we may work with a firm sponsor to agree on goals and expectations. After that, what’s said in our conversations stays between me and the professional I’m coaching. Otherwise, I won’t do the work.

Confidentiality is part of what makes coaching work. Professionals can’t do real work in a conversation they have to manage for someone else.

Coaching is an investment. It’s for the professionals a firm is betting on, not the ones it’s worried about. It’s offered because of the potential a firm sees in its partners.

It’s also an advantage. An accelerant. Many of my firm-sponsored clients come to me skeptical about why coaching was “offered” to them. They come out as advocates.

If you’re asking, you’re probably closer than you think. Professionals reach out when they sense a shift: a new role, bigger responsibility, a decision they’re putting off, or a sense they’re plateauing.

You’ll know you’re ready if you’re willing to be honest about where you are and ready to do something different about it. You don’t need a crisis, and you don’t need a plan. You just need to be done waiting for things to change on their own.