their questions will help shape your pitch to others.
by hitendra patil
client accounting services: the definitive success guide
you will use very similar fundamental steps to generate words and content to express the value of your client accounting services offering. you will focus on each component of your cas offering to do so, e.g., different content to talk about bill payment services, different for advisory and outsourced cfo services, and so on.
more: your clients’ words = your new cas marketing | attract clients through facebook groups | want higher profitability? turn to cas | structure insights as what-why-what | set your processes apart in nine steps | five ways to overcome cas staffing challenges | think cas isn’t for your firm? | convince your firm of cas value | ten ways to tell a client is ready for cas
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you will also use the “contrast principle” to differentiate between your “usual” services and “cas offering.” marketing cas to your existing clients will be different than marketing cas to your prospects.
to get started with your firm’s cas offering is with your existing clients. like any other cas firm, only some of your current clients will be cas-fit clients. starting cas with a few clients allows you to gain the experience you need to optimize your cas practice with minimal effort and without disrupting your practice.
a good ballpark will be to start with five to 10 clients, or about 10-15 percent of your existing client base. once you have delivered cas for a reasonable time period to provide the opportunities to your firm to finetune your cas processes, outcomes for client and pricing, only then start pitching cas to prospects.
there are some easy ways to identify which clients are the right clients for starting your firm’s cas journey:
- clients whose staff is producing substandard work for which your firm has to spend a significant amount of time fixing errors (are books regularly messed up?)
- clients who have a high attrition rate of accounting staff (do you have to deal with new staff at the client’s office frequently?)
- clients who have 100 or more monthly sales invoices and vendor bills (isn’t this easy to find out from the accounting software?)
- clients who have part-time staff, or no more than one full-time staff, or those who outsource bookkeeping (except in cases where the business owner’s loved ones are the ones doing the bookkeeping)
this will be the first phase of rolling out your cas practice. the work you get from these initial clients should be less demanding and will give you the opportunity to set up and finetune your cas processes, build checks and balances into your workflow, examine profitability, and adjust pricing if needed. once you have improved and refined all critical components, you can then expand to other clients and prospects.
once you have identified the more cas-fit clients, seek meetings with them. when you talk to your clients, make sure to emphasize the following:
- they will spend no more than their current cost of accounting – yet they will get professional accounting done for their business.
- they will get near real-time insights from you to help them make better and timely business decisions.
- they will be relieved of the burden of managing and monitoring accounting staff and their work/output.
during such meetings, carefully note down the questions they ask. the answers to such questions will help you create some of your cas marketing content. more often than not, such questions will revolve around:
- can the clients still do what they have been doing by using the accounting software? (process change identification)
- what will be the additional value/insights they will get from your cas offering? (outcomes difference identification)
- what will it cost them? (value judgment)
after you have gained consistent experience providing cas and documenting the content that you can use for cas marketing, it will be time to repurpose the content for marketing and for reaching out to other clients and prospects. the best way to make them aware of how cas can deliver them better value is to correlate the most common challenges clients face, the questions they ask when faced with those challenges, and show them the cas reports/insights that address those questions. inform them that your new cas offering will be customized for their business, and they will receive new insights and advice to help them propel their business further and upward.