Staff Demands Demand Training, Part 3

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By John Borrowman, CPC
Borrowman Baker, LLC, BV Staffing + Consulting
Gallatin, TN

Business Valuation builds from a common base of financial and analytical skills. It’s unique, however, in its application of them. That means that staff with the industry experience that ties the skills together are found only within the industry. And that creates a problem for the many practices that want to expand to meet a burgeoning market for services.

One of the best tools available to practices facing this challenge is credential-driven training. In our third in this series on that subject, we turned the spotlight on NACVA’s training and spoke with Parnell Black, CEO.

Black began with a brief history of the training which began fifteen years ago as a three-day program comprising two courses that are still keystones of today’s training. Two years later, the program expanded to four days. Included in the curriculum was a one-day case study utilizing NACVA’s BV software. Shortly after that, a day of litigation support training was added to make a full week. The training continued to evolve as more relevant content replaced the use of the software in the curriculum. The market method and discounts and premiums are now addressed in much greater depth. More recently, the litigation support component was replaced with a full day on the guideline approach.

We asked Black about the wisdom of taking the week in smaller bites. He noted, first, that the training has been designed so every day stands on its own as an independent course. At the same time, every day flows into the next. “Someone would get substantially more by sitting through the entire week rather than trying to catch it a piece at a time,” he concluded.

NACVA’s week of training is unique in that it can be done entirely self-study. On the other hand, Black made clear, “there’s a lot of additional benefit from being at the course. The best one is usually the opportunity to meet directly with the instructor and get questions answered.” Business valuation practitioners who feel like islands in their own firms seem to get particular value from the kind of life-long relationships they build with both instructors and other attendees. Black is especially proud that NACVA instructors regularly take calls from attendees with questions that need to be answered.

If you think you’re good enough, can you bypass the week’s training and go directly to the test? Only, says Black, if you have one of the competing BV credentials.

And when it comes to the test, you actually have the option of a proctored exam under the watchful eye of another local CVA or, in some cases, CPA. About 90% of the exam takers do so at the conclusion of the training, however.

More information about NACVA’s Business Valuation and Certification Training Programs can be found at the NACVA website.