Creating Internal Buy-In: The Key to a Thriving CAS Practice

Read Time: 5:00 minutes

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In a recent issue, I broke down CPA.com's CAS Benchmark Survey and highlighted one of its takeaways: strategy and planning are essential for a thriving CAS practice (if you missed that issue, catch up here). One of the findings was that top-performing CAS firms are far more likely to have a formal, written CAS business plan. These CAS firms reported higher client revenue, better growth, and typical monthly fees.

There are no surprises there. But having a strategy isn't enough. A plan sitting in a folder doesn't create alignment. It's not just about writing down goals; it's about making sure the firm understands the vision and how to contribute to it.

Sharing: The Missing Piece in CAS Alignment

If you've been following along, you know I'm a big advocate for creating strategic alignment within a firm. I've written about using EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) to get the entire team moving in the same direction. But one thing I haven't talked about enough is the importance of sharing your vision and what you learn.

📢Announcement: Speaking of EOS, The Kick C@$ Community officially opens on Monday, 2/17. Our first session, Strategic Goal Setting: The Year of Alignment & Consistency, will occur on Thursday, 2/20, at noon CST. 

If you’re a fan of EOS or looking for a clearer vision for your CAS practice, this session—led by a strategic coach with CPA, CFO & COO experience—will help you set the foundation for a focused and scalable 2025.

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When I was in public accounting, I failed at this. I'd go to a conference, attend a webinar, or read something insightful. Instead of bringing the firm along for the ride, I'd come back excited and immediately try to implement new ideas. There was no real explanation, no buy-in, just a "Hey, this is what we're doing now."

It didn't work.

The partners weren't on board. The team wasn't engaged. And I kept running into the same resistance. So, I had to find a different approach that focused on sharing knowledge, sparking conversations, and creating alignment before making changes. Here's what worked.

Lunch-and-Learns

One of my favorite ways to share insights was through lunch-and-learns. These weren't formal training sessions but just casual ways to introduce new ideas. I'd pick a topic (often something I learned at a conference or from a client success story) and use it to start a conversation.

For example, I once ran a session about the difference between consulting projects and CAS. A partner in the firm kept saying, "We already do CAS—our M&A projects count."

But they didn't.

That session helped clarify the difference. Consulting projects are one-off, non-recurring work (like M&A). In contrast, CAS is an ongoing, repeatable service that deepens the client relationship. This small change changed the way people in the firm thought about CAS.

The One-Pager

Another key to strategic alignment is making it easy for team members to identify CAS opportunities. I created a simple one-page internal guide to answer three critical questions:

1. Who is a fit for CAS? Think about growing businesses that need more than just compliance work.

2. How can we help them? Showcasing key services like forecasting, cash flow management, and KPI tracking that guided clients to solve problems.

3. What are the next steps? Laying out the simplest way for a team member to introduce CAS to a client.

   At the bottom, I added a simple introduction people could use.

   

That one-pager is designed to remove the friction from referrals. Instead of hoping a tax partner remembers to bring up CAS, make it easy for them to recognize opportunities and pass them along.

Bringing Others Into Client Conversations

One of the best things I did was invite other team members to CAS meetings. Sometimes, a tax partner would attend a forecasting session to integrate tax planning into the bigger financial picture. Other times, younger staff would shadow client meetings.

I'll never forget when an intern on the tax team told my boss that job shadowing my CAS meetings was the best part of his internship. That's how you get people excited about CAS—by showing them its impact on clients, not just talking about it.

Attending Conferences as a Team

We launched a firm-wide CAS offering at a top-100 firm after attending a CAS workshop together as a leadership team. Before that, CAS felt more like a side service—something a few of us were passionate about but not fully integrated into the firm's strategy.

Sitting in the same room, hearing the same insights, and working through the same challenges created alignment. Instead of one person trying to convince everyone else to get on board, we walked away with a shared vision for what CAS could be.

Since then, I've seen firsthand how attending conferences or workshops together can accelerate buy-in. At QB Connect, one reader brought a staff member who was hesitant about implementing a new project management system. After seeing one in action and talking to other firms using it, the staff member went from skeptical to its biggest advocate—telling the firm owner how great it was.

When people experience something firsthand, they don't just accept change—they drive it.

The Bottom Line: Make Sharing a Habit

Strategic alignment doesn't happen through a memo. If you want your firm to fully embrace CAS, you must make sharing what you learn part of the culture.

✅ Host casual lunch-and-learns to spark discussions. Plus, who doesn't love free food?

✅ Create simple one-pagers to help team members identify CAS clients or share CAS with clients.

✅ Invite others into meetings to see the value firsthand.

✅ Attend conferences as a team so people can experience new ideas for themselves.

Firms with a clear, shared vision for CAS see the highest client revenue, substantial growth, and the strongest pricing power. The data from CPA.com supports this, but more importantly, I've seen it firsthand.

You don't have to do it the hard way—learn from my mistakes and prioritize sharing. Your CAS practice (and accounting firm) will be better for it.

Thanks for reading, Luke Templin!

P.S. There are three ways I can help you grow your CAS offerings when you are ready:

1. Join my How to Start Offering Advisory Services Cohort. The next one starts in May.

2. Cannot wait until May? Check out the pre-recorded version here.

3. Automated financial digests for your clients with FinDaily.io