Mike Mard wants others to benefit from his success as a CPA working in appraisals and business valuation. Based on his experience, this Florida CPA has used his charisma and knowledge to help lead the profession in many more ways than just convincing CPAs that specialization is a sound business practice; he has persuaded others that standards needed to be set along the way.

A Collaborative Effort Brings Results
As co-managing director of The Financial Valuation Group (FVG) International, Mike is one of six partners in three offices (Tampa, Chicago and Los Angeles) who conduct independent appraisals and valuation services for a variety of national and international clients. With revenues of $2 million last year, a joint effort is truly key to this operation because FVG is really a partnership of corporations who share both personal and professional goals.

“Our purpose is not just to make money,” says Mike. “We are a firm of individuals, but we believe there is a value to living, and you should give back to the profession. We want to be there for each other, and support and care for one another.”

Mike believes FVG is a prime example of a next-generation CPA firm, traditional in the sense that he complements his engagements with a knowledge of accounting—yet untraditional based on his company structure and a deep specialization in business valuation. In fact, while clients and others call him to perform traditional CPA services, he refers these engagements to others.

Mike, an Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA), believes most CPAs think of business valuation as a specialty that only recently was considered part of the whole CPA pie. Contrary to this opinion, he thinks of his field as more of a “business practice” rather than simply an adjunct to other client matters.

“Within business valuation, there are specialties, such as intellectual property, transfer pricing, mergers and acquisitions, and litigation services,” he says. “Our decision not to operate as a traditional CPA firm gives us the ability to truly sell our services to a very targeted marketplace. At the same time, our status as a regular corporation enables us to function with flexibility in building a national organization.”

Mike believes FVG delivers comprehensive valuation services because of this targeted approach and a real passion to get it right. “Nobody gets a business valuation because they want it; they get it because they need it, and they call their CPA for a referral. The practitioner needs to be able to show the skill, education and experience to serve the client’s needs; it is the CPA with specialized training who provides the depth and breadth of understanding business and financial matters and who can truly deliver valuation services competently and professionally.”

Setting the Standard
Mike’s pursuits in 1989 with the Florida Institute of CPAs enabled him to lobby the Florida Board of Accountancy to consider a standard for business valuation practices. Six years later, the Florida Board finally adopted a standard requiring compliance with an AICPA practice aid on business valuation within the Rules of Accountancy.

He currently sits on AICPA’s MCS Business Valuations and Appraisals Subcommittee, the group that played an instrumental role in assisting AICPA Council to approve the Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) specialty in the fall of 1996. Just recently, Mike counted himself as one of the 520 AICPA members who earned the ABV credential.

Now that the ABV specialty joins the previously approved personal financial specialist (PFS) in personal financial planning, Mike feels more CPAs will understand that such designations are more than just ink on paper and a benefit to delivering services in the marketplace.

“When I began my effort with the Florida Board, I observed a number of opinions on business valuation that were clearly ill-founded; I was concerned whether these CPAs were dishonest or clearly ignorant of how a valuation should be determined,” says Mike. “I felt most of these CPAs were sincere, but were not adequately prepared to deliver opinions. For example, how can you determine fair market value without looking at the market?”

It’s too soon to tell what the impact of the standard will have on Florida CPAs who deliver similar services, but Mike feels specialization and a formally adopted rule supporting the effort is a giant step towards the development of other specialties within the profession. Even with his own company, he says the most exciting and rewarding aspect is building alliances with other firms as affiliates to FVG to create protection or a base of knowledge to call upon as other specialties are established.

“For years, the view was that CPAs are experts in business, not only in the world of accounting, but in all financial services,” he says. “But now, there is too much competition in the field. CPAs must ask themselves if they are going to compete with one another in the increasingly narrow field of accounting, or become a specialist. Becoming a specialist allows the CPA the skills, education and experience to compete in a broader, financial market and generally for a greater return.”

CPAs and others interested in how specialization has benefited Mike may contact him at mmard@fvgfl.com, or visit the company’s Web site at www.fvgi.com.