We talk about businesses being teams, but it’s rare that I meet an owner of a CPA business who really trusts every member of his or her “team” to do what they should do, all the time, whether the “boss” is in the office or not.

Sports teams can’t work that way. When the members of any athletic team are focusing on their individual tasks, they have to trust that their teammates will do their jobs, too. If the pitcher is busy supervising the outfielders, he can’t do his job. In order to be able to focus on your job as leadership, then, you need to have staff you trust.

You want staff that you feel confident interacting with your clients if you are going to create a successful CPA practice. So they have to be top notch, both technically and from a customer service standpoint. I will often receive comments from my clients about how wonderful my staff is and in this article, I will impart to you a few of my strategies that have worked well in my CPA practice when it comes to staff recruiting and retaining.

1) The first one is to design an ad that clearly articulates the type of team member that will best fit your organization. In this ad, describe the character and attitude of the person. The important thing to keep in mind is to hire for attitude and train for skills. When I meet with a candidate, I follow a list of questions I’ve created that gives me visibility into their personality and their way of thinking. I talk to a lot of CPAs and I find that they haven’t prepared adequately to do the interview so they are flying by the seats of their pants during the interview. You want to be so prepared that you are not fumbling for questions; instead you are engaging the prospective candidate to understand their attitude.

2) Hire slow, fire fast. I have been guilty of breaking this rule more times than I am proud to admit but its good advice that I came across a number of years back. Most business owners fire slow.

They think it will get better. I read one study that said that the average firings take somewhere between 6 and 18 months after the business owner knew the employee was performing poorly, consistently non-compliant and negatively affecting others. A lot of harm is done in this period of time due to not firing the poor performing employee faster.

Along the lines of my advice to CPA practitioners to fire fast, I encourage them to hire slow. Have a second person interview the candidate. Don’t rush the hiring process. Check references by asking probing questions and LISTEN. CPAs can be poor listeners.

3) The other one is; don’t expect what you don’t inspect. Have weekly meetings to go over work duties and assignments. I have systematized my office where I now work three days per week. On one of the days that I come in, I spend half a day for staff meetings and go over administrative matters. I meet with my CPA and my Senior Manager to make sure the work is being produced within the pre-established standards.

Also, and this is important, keep your eyes and ears open when are there. Listen to the way your staff members talk to clients. I also like “mystery shopping.” What that means is you have someone call the office pretending to be a prospective client. Hear how this person is being handled. I can guarantee you that you will not be happy with the way they are handled. It’s your job to identify what needs to improve and to provide the necessary training.

4) Celebrate small victories. Reward staff for being on your team and helping you to take your practice to the next level. When the staff goes the extra mile, I will publicly praise them….sometimes send them something to their home like a fruit basket. We celebrate birthdays, and we have two parties every year, one after tax season and one during the holiday time. You want to have fun and I see that running a successful CPA practice is a team effort to give the client the “ultimate” experience.

Follow the strategies I have identified in the article and you will see your CPA practice attaining new levels.

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Two of the most important axioms of Internet marketing are to know your advertising medium and know your audience. If your AdSense ad design and placement is driven by emotion and personal preference rather than facts, then you will ultimately fail as an Internet marketer. It is imperative to use ad designs that are effective while taking into account what you know about your audience.

Let’s first talk specifically about ad design. When using Google’s text ads you do not want to use borders. Many people believe the borders make their Adsense ads stand out, and they would be correct. Therein lays the problem. You do not want your ads to stick out like a sore thumb. You’re sending a signal that this is an ad and most people have an aversion to being solicited. Therefore their reaction, in a sense, is to dodge or ignore the ad. However, if your Adsense ads look like they’re a regular part of your web page visitors to your website are more apt to scan the ads and hopefully click on them.

What about ad color? This may insult your artistic proclivities, but stay with the regular Google ad colors which consists of the blue link and black text. The reason for using this color scheme is because people are conditioned to recognize the blue text as hyperlinks and that they should click on them. Because of the blue link, your visitor’s subconscious mind is telling them that some action needs to take place. If you use some other color like bright green or pink, you are disrupting your visitor’s normal surfing habits.

Also, stay with the white background. There’s a reason why we typically write on white paper – it’s easier to read. A colored background makes the ad stand out, which is not what you want. Remember, you want the ad to blend in with the rest of your web page. Furthermore, colored backgrounds make the ad more difficult to read. Now there has been some discussion in the marketplace as to the effectiveness of using red as your link color. If you wish to give it a try that is your prerogative, but you are encouraged to stay with blue.

Regarding ad design and color, you want your AdSense ads to blend well with your site. You want them to compliment your site and appear as if they’re providing additional content. You do not want them to appear as though they are contrasting with your website. When your AdSense ads contrast with your site it creates a condition known as ad blindness. That’s right, the more your ad stands out the less likely visitors will see it.

Now that we have addressed ad color let’s talk about ad size. The best performing ad sizes according to Google are the following:

336×280 large rectangle (four ads)
300×250 medium rectangle (four ads)
160×600 wide skyscraper (five ads)

When designing your website keep these facts in mind. However, you do not want to arbitrarily squeeze certain AdSense ads into your site just because they have been designated as the best performing. The other ad sizes have value as well. The purpose of revealing these facts is to let you now that the wider formats tend to perform better. The reason is because they are more readable.

Currently Google allows you to place three text ads on each page of your site. It is suggested that you strategically max out your allotment of ads on each page. But this raises the question of “Where?”

The content of your page determines the best location to place your AdSense ads. When placing your ads there are certain things to consider.

Where is my visitor’s attention likely to be focused?
How can I place ads into an area without getting the user’s way?
How can I keep the web page clean and uncluttered?

Google provides an ad placement schematic to which they refer as their “heat map.” This is a diagram of the most productive ad placements. Here are their most productive ad locations:

> Top of the web page.
> Bottom of the web page.
> Upper left-hand corner.
> In the middle-left of your page content.

This serves only as a guideline. Put your users first when deciding on ad location. Consider their viewing habits and what will be most interesting and useful to them.

If you follow these simple guidelines regarding your AdSense ads you will discover that you will have a better response to your ads and therefore a higher click through rate. Do not allow emotions and personal preferences to determine ad design, color and placement. Your goal is to make money from your AdSense ads. If you can’t help yourself and wish to get personally creative and emotionally involved, give up Internet marketing and become an artist.

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