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December 14, 2009
Suddenly, American CPAs are boozing, drugging and philandering.
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Columbia Pictures
Not really. But those folks do seem to be "getting out" more.
It's good to escape your own neighborhood--and on a regular basis. A real road trip--like drive from DC to Charlottesville or Chapel Hill. Or at least a virtual one. Like take a vacation from lawyers. Consider meeting engineers, actuaries, doctors, sales people, chimney sweeps, cocktail waitresses named Merle--you get the idea.
And accountants. As with lawyers, real accountants put clients first. As a friend of ours recently said:
Once I start gazing at my clients and stop gazing at my wallet, I have a life. Because I am doing what is important. Amazingly, my wallet takes care of itself.
Accountants, also like lawyers, are reputed to be careful and a bit risk-averse. And self-important and boring. But we never completely bought that (about the accountants, anyway). For many businesses, their day-to-day accounting firms are more cost-efficient, solution-oriented and productive than their outside law firms.
You and yours starting a business and putting your money, sweat and ideas into it? You aim to be the new Apple, new Starbucks, new P&G?
Well, that's just great. Do hire both a CPA and a lawyer you respect and trust--you need both kinds of consigliere--and do it well before you incorporate. But find that CPA firm first.
Our fellow Midwesterner Michelle Golden at Golden Practices likes good practicing accountants, too. She's noticed all the accounting blogs sprouting up (about 125 so far). One of the CPA sites Michelle features is hosted by Hansen Neiffer, a firm which intrigued and impressed us with its niches and reach.
Hansen Neiffer works out of two offices in the cities Yakima and Kennewick, key cities located in southern Washington state. This is an important American agricultural region with steady to high growth even now. However, the firm services businesses--many, but not all, are farms--in not only in the U.S. Northwest but throughout the U.S.
And while WAC? writers are primarily urban (read: way urban) creatures, we also admire Hansen Neiffer's blog Farm CPA Today, and noticed this gem: "Corporate Farms in Africa". It comments on a recent Business Week piece on the new momentum (in large part by American agribusiness) to invest in African farmland. Makes us want to visit Yakima and Kennewick. Or survey the rice farms in Siaya, Kenya.
Yes, it's good to get out of your neighborhood from time to time.
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Posted by JD Hull at December 14, 2009 12:13 AM
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