"To be, or not to be, a Partner"

Only a small percentage of trainee accountants will go on to become a Partner in an accounting firm. From experience, those who have a real interest and genuine potential are often identified quite early on by both senior level staff and their own peer group. However, a keen interest and natural ability will only get you some of the way. Having trained as a Chartered Accountant myself in a Big 4 firm, I have first-hand experience of watching members of my peer group progress to Partner level and I have helped numerous great candidates achieve Partner appointments. With this, I have identified 8 key skills and strategies that I feel are essential for anyone looking to become a Partner.

1. Plan

Decide if it is for you. Firstly, do you enjoy the work you are doing? Can you see yourself in the same line of work for the duration of your career. Understand what it takes to become a Partner and what the life of a Partner entails. Look at the lives of the Partners that you know. Be honest with yourself, use your self-awareness and ask yourself – is this really for me? (The answer to this may change over time so it’s one to always keep in the back of your mind).

Like any goal in life, the first step is to start a plan. If you have identified making Partner as a strong preference, then starting early will make all the difference. Watch those around you. Look out for pattern recognition. Who are the Partners in your firm? What did their path to Partner look like? Are there any similarities in their journeys? Especially keep an eye on new Partners as things will evolve every year. Many new Partners are ‘boomerangs’ who trained in practice originally but spent some time in industry. The knowledge they accumulate in industry can add great value and strengthen their expertise, upon return to practice, particularly in an advisory department.

2. Find a Mentor

Actively search for a mentor. Find a Director or Partner that you feel you work well with and try to develop these relationships. This may occur naturally but if not, don’t be afraid to ask, and offer value to them in return. Learn as much as you can from mentors and soak up any advice, they give you. Learn by osmosis. You will naturally achieve an unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge and even technical skills. Your mentors will be valuable allies as your progress on your Partner journey. Ideally this needs to be done before Manager level is reached.

3. Develop the Skills

Understand the skills involved. You may have the technical skills (and ability to develop them further) but do you understand the soft skills that are needed as a Partner? You will need to have soft skills such as communication, selling, negotiation, networking, presenting, conflict resolution, leading, problem solving, multitasking, decision making, sound business sense, and a strong sense of integrity and ethics. If these don’t come naturally, try to work on them as you progress in your career.

4. Specialise

Become an expert in one sector. The level of knowledge required to be a Partner needs to be deep rather than broad, particularly in the larger firms where divisions are segregated into specific sectors. For admission to Partnership, you will need to have a strong business case where you demonstrate to the leadership team that you can help grow the profits of the firm. So be careful on your chosen area of specialism. Look for trends and current or future high-growth areas. You don’t need to specialise immediately, but it is worth identifying your preference early on and doubling down on this. Current trends include automation and artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, data analytics, cyber security, sustainability, and both finance and digital transformation.

5. Network

Strengthen both your internal and external networks. It is vital to develop and maintain good working and personal relationships with your colleagues. This should be done from day one and range from your peer group up to the Directors and Partners in your firm. Keep in touch with ex-colleagues, if they move into industry then they will often become your future clients.

When working on assignments try to ensure that relationships are developed with clients, so you are remembered and known as someone who is genuine, professional, and produces high quality work. Ask for secondment and international relocation opportunities. These are a great way of extending your network and working relationships. Attend sector specific events - meet and get to know the thought leaders, potential clients, and your competitors. Making Partner doesn’t mean that it has to be within your current firm. It’s often not who you know – but who knows you.

Without being biased, there are huge benefits to building a relationship with the right external recruitment professional. This is beneficial for a number of reasons:

? Understanding what is happening in the market so you can understand who the movers and shakers are from a client and competitor perspective.

? Seeing where the growth areas are – this could aid with deciding on an area to double down on.

? Helping you source the correct the right talent when you have identified your area of specialism. Your business case will be dependent on building one or multiple revenue streams and you can’t do that without the right people around you.

? Being able to confidentially introduce you to a competitor firm if you are not being progressed quick enough.

6. Build a Strong Personal Brand

Make sure your personal brand is strong. Ensure that you are active on LinkedIn, contribute to conversations, publish updates, write blogs, and share sector news. A great way to elevate your personal brand and become known as a thought leader is to speak at sector specialist events. While this comes naturally to some, it’s quite daunting and difficult for most. However, the ability to speak in public and say ‘yes’ to speaking engagements is a game-changer for almost any type of personal and career development. From personal experience, I can tell you that the opportunities that arise from public speaking are disproportionately beneficial. There are many ways that you can build your confidence in this area, most notably joining a local Toastmasters group.

7. People Management

First you need to learn how to master your own workload. Learn how to say ‘no’ to people. You need to ensure that your life-jacket is on before you can help others. As a manager of people, you need to be available for questions, provide support, and also perform your own work to a high standard. It isn’t sufficient to just cover one of these areas. Often experts will take on too much (‘if you want something done right, do it yourself’ is not the motto to live by in this regard), you must learn how to delegate. Treat others the same way in which you like to be treated. The idea of making people put in excessive overtime and treat people badly because it happened in the past, will have the opposite affect and push people away.

Build confidence and trust as a team leader. Professional Services is a team business so you must be a good team player (evolving to player-manager, then eventually overall team manager). You will be working in teams throughout you career so it’s important you are comfortable in this dynamic. Offer to be a mentor to junior staff. Take this role serious and it will prove rewarding. These relationships developed will compound over the years. Firms look for future Partners who can teach, mentor and develop their people and thus strengthen the foundations of the business.

8. Learn How to Sell

It’s not enough to simply be technically proficient in what you do. In order to make Partner you will need to have commercial awareness, past evidence of business generation, and a plan that demonstrates the extent and value of new business that you can generate and execute. I would advise everyone to learn how to sell. The earlier the better, but it’s never too late, and it is often the most impactful skill to learn when feeling stuck in your career. Knowing how to sell will develop your ability to identify and evaluate opportunities, identify key stakeholders, become aware of important drivers, deal with objections, rejections, and find ways to reach agreements while maintaining relationships. Develop the ability to find pain points within organisations, look for cross-selling opportunities with current clients, look at trends and developments internationally, and keep up to date on what your competition is doing.

There are many ways to learn how to sell. You could take a course (in-person or online), read books on the subject (I would recommend The Psychology of Selling, Getting to Yes, and Never Split the Difference), or learn from commercially minded people that you know.?

Remember it is rarely the best technicians who make it to Partner level, it’s often those who have the ability to develop and nurture talent, thrive at business development and above all else make their area of expertise profitable.

To discuss Partner opportunities in the market please feel free to contact me directly at [email protected] or view current openings here.