David

David had built the practice over eighteen years on the back of personal relationships and a reputation for doing the work properly. he was the most trusted accountant in his town. he was also, by his own admission, the most tired. every significant client relationship ran through David. renewal conversations, tax planning meetings, estate planning discussions. all required the principal. his senior accountants were technically strong and well-liked by clients. they had never been formally handed a client relationship and told it was theirs to manage.

he had tried to hand things over before. briefed a senior accountant on two client relationships three years earlier. stayed too close. the clients kept calling him. within six months he had quietly taken the relationships back. he told himself the clients preferred him personally. what had actually happened was the handover had no structure behind it. no formal introduction process. no defined authority. no clear signal to the clients that the relationship had moved. the failure wasn't the senior accountant. it was the architecture of the handover.

within twelve months David had successfully transferred sixty percent of his client relationships to senior staff. not a single client left. several commented that the service had actually improved because their queries were answered faster than when everything waited for David. the practice grew from $2.4m to $3.6m. David took four weeks off the following financial year. he came back to no backlog.

clients weren't loyal to the practice. they were loyal to David. structure transferred that loyalty to the business. not by replacing David, but by building something that didn't depend on him to hold it together.