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Overcoming the trials of multiple offices Expansion usually equates to growth, but it’s not without its challenges; a little planning can go a long way when a firm decides to open new locations. O P I N I O N
F or most firm leaders, growth in client base, markets, revenue, and locations are all harbingers of success. Yet there are always challenges to growth, which can be compounded if that growth involves multi-office operations. A significant challenge is not just integrating your culture and your company values to achieve a level of cohesiveness, but also being mindful that remote offices can easily become “out of sight, out of mind.”
STEPHEN LUCY
could lead to alienating your staff and clients. For us, what works in Dallas or Houston might not work in West or East Texas. Each region has unique charac- teristics, and to be successful, knowing how to relate to and incorporate those differences speaks volumes about how to effectively establish a new office, prop- erly staff it, and properly sell it to your clients. Budget for your expansion. Hard to understand, but many firms never think about developing a busi- ness and revenue plan for any new office. They just “follow the money” or grow where their key clients grow. There are obvious costs to open an office such as lease agreements and personnel contracts. There are also daily operational costs, which must be cov- ered until income begins to flow from contracts. You must also plan and budget for a possible exit as that outcome is always a possibility and fulfilling contrac- tual obligations with clients after an office closure may require greater expenditures. Under that sce- nario, not only are there financial risks, but risk of damaging your client relationships. Treat all offices equally. You cannot show favorites among offices. If you are being unequal in your treatment, you may be saying that you can’t tackle interoffice issues that need to be addressed. Timely responses to questions or requests from other of- fices demonstrate that their needs are as important “Managing multi-office operations requires establishment of clear protocols regarding work product, staffing, and client relationships. Many of these operational processes may be different than those used when you were a single office, but failure to address these issues will put you at risk with your clients and staff.”
As a firm that has grown through highly productive partners and leaders, JQ has stumbled occasionally in trying to gauge the best time and the best reasons for opening offices in other locations. From this experience, I offer a few recommendations that have proven to be effective over time: Plan your expansion and establish clear goals. You must have clear reasons and expectations of how your new office will perform. Does the of- fice support some strategic plan for the company, or do you simply want to expand your geographic footprint? The former is a valid business reason to expand while the latter might be driven more by ego. Which do you think will have the better financial results? Given the commitment of time and resources needed to successfully open a new office, geographic growth should only be considered when multiple positive outcomes are anticipated. Your goals should also be codified so you can later evaluate that office and its bottom-line results. Every firm has limited resources with time being the most valuable. There- fore, allocation of those resources to a new office should only be undertaken if the planned result is to obtain a higher rate of return on the use of those resources. Transfer existing staff or hire locally. To integrate our culture and company values, we have found that transferring existing staff can expedite the integra- tion of the new office into overall firm operations. This combined with hiring of local personnel who know the local markets typically results in more rapid development of new business. However, it may not always be feasible to transfer existing staff to a new office. For those locations, our leadership team visits the new office more often to establish consis- tency of practice, review work, and get to know the local team better. It is not just about embracing our culture; it is about work ethic and other intangibles that need to be demonstrated by the people leading the office. Embrace regional differences. Every region is dif- ferent and a failure to recognize those differences
See STEVEN LUCY, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 16, 2015, ISSUE 1128
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