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Accountants are often seen as the ideal people to to ask for referrals. After all, accountants in practice will often act for dozens of clients, many of whom are targets for other complementary suppliers.

This means that accountants are routinely approached by financial advisers, will writers, software developers, marketing consultants and many other service providers. The only problem is that many such people mess up. They don’t know the first thing about how accountants work, what motivates them or how to get them to refer their clients on to other service providers.

I regularly hear about such encounters – both from accountants who are ‘fed up’ with such approaches, and from service providers whose efforts are failing to secure the desired outcome. Indeed this mis-match led me to develop a seminar (now a masterclass) to help such service providers better understand what matters to accountants. I’ve run the seminar a number of times since its first outing in January 2009 and feedback has been very positive. (Next outing is 17 March 2010).

In addition to my own insights and ideas I have been sharing the data I collated in a survey of accountants in 2008. Over 200 told me what was important to them when approached by someone asking for referrals.  This enabled me to extrapolate some specific advice based on empirical evidence.

Is this still an issue I wonder? Are you often approached? What’s your attitude and response when someone asks you for referrals to your clients?

I’d welcome feedback on this new webcast that both introduces me to candidates for my mentoring services and explains how it all works.

A friend of mine, Stephen Harvard Davis is recognised as the UK’s leading authority on job transition and retaining top talent, He is the author of “Why do 40% of Executives Fail?”

The following observations were inspired by an item on Stephen’s blog in which he addressed the retention issues relevant to top executives in the corporate sector. Whilst some of Stephen’s points apply equally to ambitious professionals, I believe that there are also a number of crucial differences.

Replacing ambitious professionals can be costly and can easily involve as much as twice the salary in hard cash terms. Yet recent studies from the USA suggest that the opportunity costs when top talent leaving a company can be as much as twenty-four times the salary (Based on a salary of £62,000).

Most professional firms try to retain ambitious professionals by throwing money at the situation. Every single time I have witnessed this over the years the extra money only buys time; firms looking to poach the best partners and prospective partners will always pay more for potential because they have budgeted for the cost of the recruitment exercise and they are determined it should be successful.

I believe that there are four key steps to retaining your ambitious professionals:

Step one is to recognise that top talent can be found at all levels within a professional firm. It’s not, and never has been, confined to the partner group. Once identified, however, top talent needs to be nurtured, developed and encouraged otherwise it walks. Partners (and managers in the larger firms) therefore, should be rewarded for identifying top talent, developing and nurturing it.

Step two is to understand the reasons for top talent leaving. This means learning what individuals want from their current and prospective role in the firm. Many firms view this as difficult because of the complexity of analysing human relationships. It also makes developing a one size fits all package of benefits difficult.

The result is that many professional firms ignore the real reasons for talent loss and blame attractive salaries and benefits on offer from competitor firms. Yet the fact is that top talent tends to be hungry for knowledge and experience and to seek out the firms that can offer them this.

Certain top talent can be therefore be categorised in three ways “Knowledge nomads” moving from one firm to another seeking information that adds to their abilities. Then there are the “Prospectors”, those that are looking for better career expectations and finally the “Relationship Migrants” who seek out a particular type of more senior experienced partner as a teacher and mentor.

Step three is to evidence the firms’ commitment to the individuals concerned in a way that motivates each of them. Top talent tends to be attracted by retention drivers such as, mentoring, coaching, training programmes and also by being able to contribute to the firm’s vision, direction and future. However paying lip-service to this communication will only create resentment. The engagement must be real and motivate the individuals concerned.

The ambitious professionals tab on this blog explains in more detail the benefits of my mentoring programme and this is certainly one way a firm can evidence it’s commitment to ensuring that ambitious professionals are motivated and able to perform more effectively and profitably.

Step four is to provide constant feedback and stimulation. There is little point in hoping to retain one or more ambitious professionals if the partners merely pay lip service to their development process. Again external mentoring has a role to play here but partners cannot abrogate their own responsibility for finding out what motivates their star people and contributing to the process.

The September issue of Accountancy magazine has been published and I am delighted to see that they have included my letter in response to an article about coaching and mentoring in the July issue. The full text of my letter appeared on this blog on 30 July.

Mentoring seems to be flavour of the month all of a sudden. I was approached today by a journalist who wanted a quote from someone with experience of the traditional internal style of mentoring that some larger firms provide. Here’s what I said:

” As a junior partner many years ago I was allocated a mentor. He was a senior partner in the firm and I recall he took me for a very nice lunch to confirm his commitment to the (undefined) mentoring process. Although we chatted on and off over the subsequent months and years I did not gain any demonstrable benefit from having him identified as my mentor.

My experience all those years ago was part of the inspiration for the external, tailored mentoring service that I now provide for ambitious professionals. I have the time, the talent and the techniques to ensure that the firms which engage me can measure the value that I bring. This process is more motivating for the individuals concerned and enables them to build up their business and personal skills so that they can operate more effectively and profitably for the firm.”

The current issue contains a short article of mine that should be of interest to all ambitious professionals. The editor has titled it: More than technical skills and has added a desription: Whatever you may think, personal development courses are there for good reason. But, Mark Lee asks, are you making the most of them?

If you don’t get to see the magazine and would like a copy of my article, please just let me know and I can send you a pdf.

I know that my own career success owes more to the development of non-technical skills than it does to my knowledge and application of tax law.

How do we gain our technical skills? No one is born a great auditor, lawyer, tax adviser or whatever. We learn by working alongside experienced colleagues, by studying to pass relevant exams and by our experiences in practice.

Why then should anyone imagine that the other key skills of a profitable professional can just be left to ‘common sense’?

Some people assume that all of the important non-technical skills can be developed merely by working alongside experienced colleagues and by our experiences in practice. No formal training is necessary. Older partners didn’t have such training. Anyone who needs training or support in ’soft’ skills is not worthy of becoming a full equity partner.

It won’t surprise regular readers of this blog that I do not agree with these views or with another similarly flawed attitude one encounters all too often: Practice makes perfect. No it doesn’t. ‘Practice’ makes ‘permanent’. If you develop bad driving habits and practice driving, you won’t become a better driver. You will merely reinforce your bad driving habits.

I have long been a believer in the importance of developing key personal skills. My research helped me to identify and categorise 12 key non-technical skills that ambitious professionals need to some degree or another if they are to be profitable partners and contribute to their firm’s success. You will find a summary of these 12 key skills on the Ambitious Professionals page of this blog.

A mentor does more than coach you. The sessions will normally be confidential and take place by phone or meeting somewhere convenient and private.

Your mentor will help identify your development needs, give advice, open doors and help you to think through issues and problems. They will also ask you for feedback as regards what has changed since the previous session and remind you of ideas and suggestions raised previously. This form of tailored, personalised mentoring is, by definition, far more effective than conventional generic personal development courses.  The key characteristics to look for in a mentor are: Someone who will give you quality time, is empathetic, can spot unusual but effective synergies for you, can open doors and make connections, will give you independent advice and a fresh perspective – and whose judgement you can trust.

Ask your firm about mentoring.  You may be able to identify a suitably experienced and capable partner with whom you have a good relationship.  You’ll also want to be comfortable that they have the time, talent and training to do more than merely make encouraging noises.  The other option would be for your firm to engage a credible, independent and experienced mentor to provide the necessary guidance and support.

Whilst exam training focuses on developing technical skills most firms need tax managers and partners who also have a broad mix of business skills. As promotion is likely to depend upon such skills there are essentially only four options available to a firm. They will either:

• pray, hope or make a wish that you magically develop all the necessary skills so they can justify promoting you;

• send you on a range of generic personal skills courses and pray, hope or make a wish(!) that you pick up and practice sufficient tips to make the time and effort worthwhile;

• arrange for you to receive personal, tailored mentoring that overcomes the problems inherent in the “courses” approach;

• recruit someone else who already has proven business skills across the board.

Some firms combine the last two options and arrange mentoring as an additional benefit to attract potential recruits. In such cases the mentor is usually an independent third party; this evidences the firm’s commitment to the new candidate and will be a positive supplement to the firm’s conventional induction process.

Such mentoring can be equally motivating for managers, senior managers and even junior partners where traditional ‘hopes’ and courses have not enabled them to yet achieve their potential or to be as profitable as the other partners would prefer.

Most people would agree that we can all achieve better levels of professional success with the guidance and help of a mentor; someone with whom we can discuss our career plans, evaluate options and achievements, and work through issues.

Key managers often have many key skills but these may require honing or enhancing before promotion to partnership can be assured. There may be someone suitable in your firm who is prepared to free up enough time to act as a mentor. Often however even if someone is asked or expected to fulfil this role they are missing either the training, the talent or the time. There’s invariably something else more pressing to do than to fulfil their obligations as a mentor.

This is one of the reasons why it can make more sense to engage a mentor from outside the firm. Indeed, there is much to be said for engaging a senior, experienced, highly regarded and ‘expert’ practitioner who is committed to mentoring a select number of ambitious professions. Imagine the positive impact this is likely to have on their confidence. But I would say that wouldn’t I!