Your homework BEFORE you write your business case for partnership

Posted by efficiencycoach on Sun, 06/01/2013 - 19:45 in Blogs 578 | report

We have previously considered what you need to put in your personal business case for partnership, and why you should not get fixated on your technical ability in your personal business case. In today's post we are going to focus on what you need to do BEFORE you actually start writing your business case for partnership.

Regardless of whether your business case is a simple one pager or a war and peace style document, the actual writing of your personal business case for partnership is the last part of the process. Ideally you want to be starting to build your business case at least 18-24 month before you are formally asked to produce it. Don't worry if you haven't given yourself this amount of breathing space, with focus and a good plan you can still make up the time.

Let's consider when you need to be thinking about your business case.

Your firm is likely to have its own process for admitting partners to the partnership. Ask your HR director, HR business partner for your business unit, head of department, mentor or partner to find out what the process is. When you know the process you can formally plan who you will speak to and what you will do. (Essential if you don't want to waste time) You may be lucky and find that your partnership either has a very informal process without the need for a business case, or a very clear process which is well documented, with a transparent timeframe.

"The starting point is to understand the process and what the business case looks like and how the business case fits into the process.

Darryn Hedges, Global Finance Director Marks and Clerk LLP"

The next stage is to take a step back and do your homework on the business. Imagine you are an external consultant advising your firm, what would you recommend to help them:

Strengthen the weaknesses in the partnership - be that technically, leadership, financially or commercially
Transition (whether forcible or otherwise) partners who are likely to retire in the near future
Help the partnership achieve it's long term business goals and strategic objectives

To help you complete this work, take some time to speak to partners across your firm - in particular the movers and shakers within the partnership. This actually has a three-fold benefit to you. Firstly, you get to understand from the horse's mouth what the partnership will be looking for in its new partners. Secondly, you alert them to your career intentions. Finally, you can elicit their views as to where you would best fit into the partnership and the skills (technical or otherwise) you will need to develop to be in with a good chance of making the step up. If you would like a free guide to writing your personal business case for partnership, click here (email required). In summary...

You have 2 things to do before starting to write your personal business case for partnership:

Find out the process that your firm uses to admit new partners to the partnership
Do your homework and find out what the firm needs from it's new partners

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The Joined Up Networker

I help professionals and firms become the Go-To-Expert. Unusually for someone with an Engineering Degree, I accidentally became a writer and used my knowledge on social media to write the current best-selling and award-winning book on networking, The FT Guide To Business Networking. (75 five star reviews on Amazon - and read the 1st chapter for free here) People frequently talk about me as someone who really knows her stuff – which may be the reason I have, over the last decade, worked with over 300 partners, coached and trained over 1000 professionals at every level of the UK’s most ambitious professional practices. After nearly 5 years for working for BDO LLP, I realised I loved the intellectual challenge of working with accountants, so made working with accountants (and lawyers as I am a glutton for punishment) my sector specialism.

I was honoured to be a judge at the British Accountancy Awards in 2011 and 2012, plus I am a member of the Accountant's Club Global Advisory Panel.

I’ve always loved a challenge which is why I have solved the problem in my next book, which has perplexed many accountants in practice – ‘How to make partner and still have a life’. Click on the link to read the 1st chapter for free.

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