Five years ago, Ken Baggett
stood before Reznick Group PC’s partners and unveiled a
goal to become the 10th-largest
accounting firm with 10 offices
over the next 10 years — a
huge stretch for a company that
was, at the time, a $70 million
regional player.
“I’ll never forget, one of my
partners said, ‘You’ve lost your
mind,’” Baggett says. “I knew
buy-in was not there yet.”
Over the next year, this CEO
and managing principal worked
to get that buy-in. And when
Baggett presented the following
year, the firm had progressed
so much that he recast his 10-year projections. This time, that
doubting partner asked if
Baggett was being a bit conservative. Today, the firm has
reached that initial goal of 10
offices, and in 2007, it posted
revenue of $230 million.
“It takes a little time when you
have a stretch goal to get people to believe you, and you have
to continue to preach it until
they do,” he says.
Smart Business spoke with
Baggett about how to get buy-in
for massive goals.
Use your leaders. I don’t always
formulate the plan myself.
Sometimes it comes from others who say, ‘What do you think
about this?’ and we’ll sit down
and bat it around.
First, you have to get a small
group. You will not get buy-in to
something by doing it large
scale. Get that smaller group,
and let them go out. Be strategic in who you pick.
You have to pick people who
will be recognized as leaders
already. They’re already go-to
people. You say, ‘Gosh, they’re
the busiest people,’ but they will
still rise to the occasion.
Share history and trends. This
was a mistake that I made. I had
done the analysis of the history,
but I didn’t share that with the
partners because you assume
everyone knows your history.
When that guy stands up and
says, ‘You’ve lost your mind,’ I
said, ‘There’s something missing
here.’ I re-presented the strategic plan and said, ‘Guys, if we
grow at the same 15 percent
pace that we have the last 12
years, we will exceed this goal.’
Then people went, ‘Oh, OK.
You’re not out to lunch.’
Study your history. There’s a
reason we all study history, and
it isn’t to tell nice stories — it’s
so we can either predict that
future or try to not replicate the
mistakes.
Now, if history isn’t in your
favor, think another methodology. Maybe it’s the rest of the
industry. The industry has
grown, let’s assume, from an
average of 10 percent over the
last 10 years. We’ve grown at 6
— we can certainly be better
than average.
If everyone’s averaged 10,
don’t play to be average. Therefore, you look around the room
and you say, ‘Everyone else has
been able to do this. What has
hindered us from that?’
Use the industry, No. 1, and
then benchmark against other
peer group people. Don’t benchmark the guy who’s doing 7 —
benchmark against the guy
who’s doing 15.
