plus, how to tailor your offering.
by hitendra patil
client accounting services: the definitive success guide
“i am not a good salesperson.”
i have lost count of how many accountants have told me this over the years. but i also learned that what they really mean is that they do not have a well-defined, structured sales process.
more: how to cas: first, break bad habits | how much cas profit per person? | five reasons the top 100 loves cas | look backward for your cas processes | make sure your differentiation is truly different | is it time to outsource? | your firm’s cas team: who and how many | two tech approaches to cas | when to start building your cas tech stack | stop derailing cas
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this post is not about fundamental sales skills. that is beyond our scope today. this post is more about how to develop and execute your cas sales process, pitch and supporting collaterals that can help get you more cas sales, including:
- how to define your cas sales process
- four stages necessary for a sale
- seven things you need to know about your sales process
- the cas sales pitch
- thee key recommendations
- the cas sales collaterals
- 11 items for your tool kit
- your existing clients as your cas salespersons
- how to provide client references
- daft template of the introduction email
- the cas sales process performance measurement
- 10 kpis
- 3 objectives
how to define your cas sales process
your cas sales process will be somewhat different than that you may have for selling your other services. there is a key reason for this. it is because cas is more holistic than other services of a periodic or transactional nature. the overall value of cas is not in just period-end reports/deliverables, but more about the overall value of the many outcomes you provide to cas clients.
a typical sales funnel in any business has four main stages: awareness, interest, decision and action. applied to cas, this is how the sales funnel looks:
- awareness: this is your marketing that makes your potential prospects aware that you offer cas and what the components of your cas offering are.
- interest: your potential prospects (whether they interacted with you or not) feel your cas may be relevant to them, and they start exploring more. many times, it may be just consuming your published content on your website, even without ever contacting you. (this is why you need “lead magnets,” i.e., useful brief ebooks and landing pages or online forms for them to provide you with their name, email, and phone number at the minimum in exchange for the ebook. it could be your direct mail advertising, too, that gets them interested and hopefully, call or email you).
- decision: prospects may decide in their minds, with or without interactions with you. without interaction with you, the choice is about a generic decision, i.e., “cas is a good thing for my business.” with some interactions with you, the decision is more specific, i.e., “cas is a good thing for my business, and this firm looks good to provide cas to me.” more often than not, the prospect will engage in some discussions with you to find out if you can help them overcome the accounting-related challenges they are facing, your cas pricing, what outcomes they can expect, etc. however, this is still one step away from “action” by the prospect, i.e., buying cas from you (and not from your competitor).
- action: this is when the prospect makes the purchase, i.e., he/she is convinced you are the one from who they will buy cas, and you take them through the process of signing off on your cas engagement letter. before this happens, you may still have to do a lot of convincing for the prospect to take action.
to define your sales process, you will need to identify:
- what content you will share with prospects
- how will you “qualify” them, i.e., if they will be the right fit for your cas offering
- when they connect with you, what exactly will you speak/discuss with them
- how will you address their questions/concerns satisfactorily
- what additional content/samples/reports examples will you provide them at different stages of discussion
- how will you pitch your pricing (establish value first and then provide actual pricing figures)
- how will you convince them that they should buy from you
the cas sales pitch
the critical difference in the sales process for your other services and that for cas is what you will do at the interest and decision stages of a prospect’s journey through your sales funnel. when crafted correctly, these two stages that constitute the longest time for the prospect to complete can be significantly shortened. this is the inherent benefit of cas – both for your firm and for your prospects because the outcomes of cas (when clearly expressed) are easier to understand and relate to.
your cas sales pitch actually starts with your discovery process, i.e., how do you identify if an otherwise qualified (business structure/size, industry, etc.) prospect will really benefit from outcomes of your cas offering. if the discovery is done right, the sales action can become a mere formality.
several sales process studies and research prove that insights-driven, consultative discovery processes are more effective than asking every prospect to answer a series of pre-formulated questions to get you information about the prospect. in cas sales, it is the opposite – you want the prospect to understand the information and insights about how your cas offering is relevant to him/her.
the purpose of discovery discussion for cas is to uncover the prospect’s underlying challenges and motivations and to map them to the outcomes of your cas offering. in the accounting profession, it is a common experience that the prospects “do not know what they do not know” because it is the professional accountants who know both – the business issues clients face and the accounting principles/laws/regulations/ technologies/processes that help address those issues. hence, it takes an intelligent effort from you to uncover a prospect’s underlying challenges and motivations.
what this all means is that you don’t need a well-crafted cas sales pitch. what you need is a process that helps you as well as the prospect to discover the mutual fit. how do you do this?
here are some key recommendations:
- during the sales process, if you can articulate the conversation that the prospect has in his/her mind, in words better than he/she can use to articulate it, you don’t need to really sell. you’d have helped your prospect to make the buying decision. be intent on listening to what your existing clients, as well as prospects, say. note the words they use. note the issues/challenges/goals/wishes they express. resist the urge to use accounting jargon or try to impress the prospect with your accounting expertise. carefully listen even when you feel the prospect is not a great fit for your cas, e.g., when the prospect says, “my current accountant is very expensive,” it may not be only about pricing. it may be about the feeling that the prospect is receiving less-than-expected value from the price he/she is currently paying. in such cases, aim to uncover the real issue. in this pricing example, you may ask, “what is it that your accountant is not delivering to you or what should happen that can make you feel that the price is right?”
- by the time you are in the meeting/phone/video call for the purpose of discovery, you should have done some basic research about the prospect’s business, products/services, market/industry, company size, management, types of customers they have, what do they buy, their unique intellectual property, if any, and, more importantly, the reviews posted by their customers and also those posted by the customers of the competing businesses. such pre-discovery research can give you an instant advantage when you start your discussion with the prospect.
- your consultative discovery process will be your chance to share relevant insights and ask pertinent questions to help the prospect develop an understanding of the relevance of the cas outcomes you can deliver and what is the impact of the prospect taking action to buy from you instead of maintaining status quo. by the end of the discovery call, both you and the prospect will more or less know if you should do business together. here are a couple of examples of how you can share relevant insights to discover the challenges or motivations of prospects are:
- say something like, “when we start working with our other clients in your industry/type of business, we generally find that they struggle with cash flow challenges, and a significant part of their working capital is stuck in inventory for more than three months. is this something that you feel is important enough for you to address quickly for your business, and, if so, how do you manage it now?”
- say something like, “most of our clients find it very useful when they receive our weekly reports that list out the details of their customers from whom they should collect payments on priority. how do you control your receivables today?”
as a professional, it is your responsibility to make prospects aware of issues that can harm their business and share what happens when those issues are resolved (outcomes). you can devise quite a few discovery scenarios similar to the ones mentioned above.
in my own discovery process, in addition to the discovery scenarios that fit my work, i always ask the following two questions to uncover other issues that i may not have anticipated but exist deep in the minds of prospects.
- before: “what triggered you to even think that you should look for <a solution, e.g., another accounting/payroll software?>”. this not only instantly uncovers the key motivation why the prospect is speaking with me but also gives the prospect confidence that it is first about his/her benefit and not about my sales process.
- after: “is there any other question i should have asked but haven’t?” this ensures to bring out any lingering doubts/questions/concerns that may have developed in the prospect’s mind during the discovery process and/or those that the prospect already had but forgot to ask (which, if not brought out, can delay the “action”).
the cas sales collaterals
as you hone your sales discovery process, you will see that asking and telling is not enough. you need to show, as well. what you show during the discovery discussion are your cas sales collaterals. they are the proofs that you actually do what you say. these collaterals answer the often-unexpressed question in the prospect’s mind, “what will i get?”
for your cas sales process, the following are some examples of the sales collaterals:
- what will the prospect see when he/she logs on to the collaborative software?
- the samples of daily/weekly/monthly/ad-hoc reports
- the exact samples of the alerts/notifications your cas clients receive for instances that need immediate attention of the clients
- the samples of analysis/advisory emails/letters your cas clients receive
- some of the key but common questions your cas clients ask (during the discovery discussion, don’t provide the answers, just list the questions)
- the before and after measurable impact of the outcomes (e.g., the average dollar amount of receivable before cas and after cas)
- the before and after comparison of tasks that the prospect currently performs and which ones your firm will manage as cas responsibilities (must demonstrate a considerable reduction in accounting tasks to be performed by the prospect. most business owners view those as not just tasks, but they perceive them as accounting headaches.)
- relevant reviews from your cas clients
- references of existing cas clients with whom your prospects can speak, if need be
- your cas engagement letter with all relevant annexures
- your pricing sheet (as much as possible, don’t show until you are reasonably sure that the prospect has recognized the value of your cas offering)
your existing clients as your cas salespersons
“can i speak with a couple of your clients?”
don’t be nervous when a prospect asks you this question. instead, be thrilled that the prospect asked you this question because it indicates that the prospect is more or less convinced he/she should work with you and wants to remove that last lingering piece of concern by using social proof.
at the same time, it is not prudent to just give away the contact details of your cas clients. you want to make a very relevant introduction so that your existing clients are able to provide pertinent insights based on the types of questions the prospect may ask. it is, therefore, important to tell the prospect:
“i’d be delighted to introduce you to a couple of my existing cas clients. to make it worth your and their precious time, and to make sure i connect you with only those who can relate to your business challenges/motivations, can you please tell me what exactly you plan to ask? is it about the overall experience of working with our firm or about some specific processes?”
asking this or something similar will help you narrow down who exactly you should introduce to the prospect. many times, it can also provide you with additional opportunities to address the concerns that the prospect may not have expressed. most of the time, even when the prospect is convinced about the value of your cas offering, the prospect may still have this dilemma, “am i making the right purchase decision? i don’t want to regret it later.” you want to make sure you remove this last piece of resistance by making a relevant introduction.
how to provide client references
- never provide your existing client’s reference without seeking explicit consent from the client. some of your clients may be so happy with your services that they will give you blanket permission to give out their references. but everyone is busy. to respect their time, always give them a “heads up” that someone will reach out to them. when you do not have such green light from any given client, reach out on a case-to-case basis, and ask permission. don’t be alarmed if the client declines. it is their rightful choice.
- once you have existing clients’ go-ahead, make the introduction, preferably by email. call up both, the client and the prospect, that you are sending such an introduction email.
here is a draft template of the introduction email:
subject: <prospect’s first name>, meet <client’s first name>; <client’s first name>, meet <prospect’s first name> (e.g. steve, meet bob: bob, meet steve)
hi <prospect’s first name>,
i am pleased to introduce <client’s first and last name>, who is one of our top clients, the ceo/owner of <name of the client’s company>. like you, <client’s first name> came to our firm when he was faced with <a couple of relevant issues that the prospect is facing>. he is, therefore, the perfect person to share his perspectives about how working with our firm helped him achieve his objectives. <client’s first name>’s contact number is (_ _ _) – _ _ _ -_ _ _ _.
hi <client’s first name>,
i am pleased to introduce <prospect’s first and last name>, ceo/owner of <name of the prospect’s company>. <prospect’s first name> is in discussion with us and believes our services can be beneficial for his company. he is looking forward to taking a few minutes of your time to learn from your experience of how our cas offering helped you achieve some of your goals. <prospect’s first name>’s contact number is (_ _ _) – _ _ _ -_ _ _ _. thank you in advance for taking the time to help a fellow entrepreneur discover the outcomes that you have been enjoying with our firm.
you have each other’s email addresses and phone numbers. please feel free to connect directly.
thanks!
regards,
<your name here>
the cas sales process performance measurement
cas sales process performance measurement should be minimized to track and measure only the key metrics. just like how cas is about the outcomes, cas sales process outcomes are what you need to track and measure.
to keep the sales administration costs under control, you can broadly categorize the measurement into three buckets:
sales process productivity performance
- sales outreach: number of emails sent, calls made, referrals sought
- sales conversations: number of conversations with prospects, number of online/email/phone interactions. the number of conversations is one of the, if not the most important metric you need to focus on in your sales process.
- the ratio of referrals to new leads: number of referrals that turned into conversations, number of conversations generated without referrals
key conversion performance
- outreach effectiveness: the number of conversations divided by total outreach count (percentage)
- conversations per sales won: total number of discussions from the first interaction to cas engagement sign off
- conversations per sales lost: total number of conversations from the first interaction to prospect declining to work with you
cas sales performance
- total new cas revenue signed off
- total new revenue per cas component/level signed off
- cost of selling as a percentage of new revenue
- gross profit per engagement (without overhead and management cost)
if your firm has more sophisticated sales management technologies and resources, you can do more detailed tracking and measurements, e.g., performance per lead source, percentage of qualified leads, content performance metrics, average sales cycle, customer acquisition cost, and so on.
the aim of your sales process measurement is to identify factors that can help you minimize:
- your lead generation time and cost
- your conversion time and cost
- your per new client acquisition time and cost
without measurements, you can quickly feel disillusioned and desperate to get new sales. experimenting with your sales messaging, content and lead magnets is essential to keep fine-tuning your sales effectiveness.
the cpa from salem, indiana, i mentioned in an earlier post created a niche-specific facebook group (free, no paid ads) and kept posting periodically (about once weekly) insights that are relevant to businesses in that niche industry. in about an 18-month time period, the group has grown to over 1,200 business owners (only from that specific industry) with members from several states. from this activity, this cpa firm got new cas clients from 20 different states. the sales performance metrics for this particular lead source look great for this firm. the firm also uses other marketing/lead generation methods. the key to success was that the firm did not give up on the social media content magnet performance but also did not spend too much time on creating content. all the firm did was share what existing customers were asking and what happens when they overcome the common challenges in their industry.