As the story goes, in the early 300s Constantine the Great sent out vast armies of men to conquer the world. The soldiers could be gone for years at a time. Overtime, soldiers who missed their families became melancholy and lost much of their will to fight. Constantine, seeing that families were at the root of his army's waning courage and resolve, decided to ban marriage all together. The mandate went over almost as well as trying to cure hunger by banning food.

Well here it is, the start of another new year. Most CPAs are already rolling up their sleeves in anticipation of another tax season, business as usual. On the contrary, many business owners have been running for their business life for more than a year and are likely struggling to find a reason to celebrate anything as they struggle with their recession hangover.

Scenario 1: A clients asks for help with a business problem that doesn’t quite fit with our ordinary tax and A&A service offerings and you say, "of course, we can help you with that." Then you head back to the office to figure out your next steps. Scenario 2: Your firm has a couple of really good consultative type CPAs who seem to have a gift for taking on unusual projects. I call these Consulting Savants – they have the ability to create unique deliverables on the fly when a client presents the need. But when they are not around what happens to the firm's ability to provide similar services?