marketing & sales

attract clients, don’t sell to them

woman points to laptop to explain something to a female client

make your expertise a magnet.

by martin bissett
business development on a budget

it’s about time to realize that value is not about time.

more: how to attract clients | four reasons accountants struggle with selling | perception, even your own, is reality | stop waiting for business to come to you | four key questions about leadership | showing leadership through customer service | the real math behind the sales pipeline | keep business development going during busy season | walk the commitment walk | two steps toward mastering selling | thirteen ways to show commitment | clients can’t grow without you | seven mistakes in winning new fees
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when i look back on the research that has been conducted by various groups as to the biggest obstacles accounting firms cite to growing their practice,

  • 50 percent said creating opportunities,
  • 25 percent said knowing how to close deals
  • and the remainder said having self-confidence in presenting and then being able to positively differentiate from their competition.

let’s not sell, let’s attract.

selling – that stigmatized thing, that thing we’re unfamiliar with, that thing that we haven’t been trained to do, that thing that we feel uncomfortable with and perhaps relate to negative experiences – means pushing something on someone. we have something to sell and we say, “do you want this?” that’s selling. “here are all the reasons why you should want this, we’ll do you a deal today if you take this, have this, buy the stuff.” that’s selling in an exceptionally basic form.

attracting is demonstrating your expertise gently and professionally. it’s the ability to build a relationship and understand the needs of the business owner you’re talking to because you’ve created rapport so that they feel comfortable in explaining their outlook to you.

it’s demonstrating without being pushy in any way that your value meets those needs and wants, and then simply allowing them the opportunity to come on board with you if that’s something they want to do.

if joining your firm as its newest client is not something that they want to do, no problem. we appreciate their time and we’d ask to keep in touch with them, and when the opportunity comes to talk again we’d love to be able to do so. in the interim, their choosing not to join us is not a concern for us, because we are so confident and assured having “won the first client” that morning that we understand our value, that our value is attractive to everybody we see. we’re not going to have a problem getting clients on board here – we aren’t desperately in need of your business, mr. or mrs. potential client.

we know there’s nothing worse than a professional appearing to be desperate to win some work, and we’re not that person today. we are a self-assured, confident, very engaging individual who has the solution to the needs that the prospect is outlining – and if they would like to take that opportunity we’re offering to them, great, and if they don’t, there’s no problem whatsoever.

“selling” is the prescriptive delivery of something and a choice to be made. attracting is a demonstration of how our value meets their needs and giving them the option of taking it or not.

the skill in professional selling and understanding selling in practice is to move from this hesitancy that we have in appearing to be “pushy” through to being able to be genuinely interested in a business regardless of the outcome of that meeting.

in contrast and context to this point, please bear in mind that still to this day over 90 percent of accounting firms are delivering the compliance work required by law for their clients to an acceptable standard, but not going beyond that.

if the marketing revolution in accounting has demonstrated anything, it has proven that a large percentage of many firms’ clients want something more than compliance, but have two beliefs:

  • that the firm either doesn’t provide what they are looking for so they won’t ask; or worse,
  • that the firm doesn’t provide what they are looking for beyond compliance so they’ll look to a different firm for help.

we need to break down the unspoken barriers in our clients’ minds, to be able to create deeper relationships that are ultimately more altruistic and yet profitable for us. that gives us the opportunity then to really develop the practice in terms of the engagements that we throw into our work in progress mix.

we need to buy into ourselves, we need to be able to say “i get this, i get why a business should engage our firm.” “i get what the competition is doing and i get why we’re superior in terms of what the client needs.”

that’s the first client won.

if we can close that sale we can close any sale, because we don’t need to try to “sell.” we need to be ourselves, self-assured professionals with huge value to offer, and invested in building relationships.

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