four ingredients to consider.
by hitendra patil
client accounting services: the definitive success guide
“why did i start my accounting firm/practice?”
if you are the owner of your firm, print this in a bold, big font and post it somewhere in such a way that you can see it, even if it is just in your peripheral vision, every moment when you are working at your desk.
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if you are a partner of the firm or an employee, print the following question to post it where you can see it all the time:
“why did i get into the accounting profession?”
you won’t need to refer to this question later once you start working more from places other than your desk at your office. we’ll see why.
reconnect with your purpose
the why reminds you of your core purpose.
if your current work and your purpose are aligned, you will be happy and proud. you can contribute more meaningfully to your clients’ lives. and professionally, you can achieve much more.
if your current work and your purpose are not aligned, you will need to revisit this question many times over.
the cas mindset emerges from your core purpose. your staunch belief in your value nurtures it. it develops from the trust in your experience, expertise and the ability to change the lives of your clients positively.
find your impact
when you do the work that you do, day in day out, it feels like a routine, mundane and nothing special. but you are not privy to what goes on in the minds and hearts of your clients when they receive your work. your work creates an impact on them.
you want the results you deliver to be positive, meaningful and helpful. but how do you know what is the real impact of your work on your clients’ lives?
if you have obtained reviews and testimonials from your clients (you should relentlessly keep collecting them), do not look at those only as a social proof from the marketing/sales point of view. make attempts to discover the real impact that those testimonials convey and sometimes don’t communicate.
the testimonials are generally innocuous. full of praise. but more useful testimonials/reviews state the problem the client was facing and how you solved that problem. it is great to have more of such testimonials. the key is to identify why it was a problem for the client. in other words, they praise you for having solved a problem for them – but in addition to the apparent commercial/business reason, there is a personal/emotional why behind it – why did the client feel it was a problem?
i call it the “why behind the why” and the “benefit of the benefit.” clients usually do not express that clearly. by going beyond and beneath the words your clients use, you are not only discovering the impact you have on your clients’ lives, but you are also learning what will deeply resonate with your prospects when you do your marketing.
your impact drives your growth. your impact helps you help more people out there who thoroughly deserve your expert help. the more you become mindful of your real impact, the more you internalize the mindset so very essential for offering cas.
take the dais
there is a simple formula to find your impact – and then act on it to make it your process. the recipe requires you to be the leader by being on the d-a-i-s.
data: collect testimonials/reviews from your clients. ask them to express their thoughts/feelings when they interact with you, in person or otherwise. find out what they are saying on social media, whether it is about your services or not. check out reviews from clients of your competitors, other accountants, even of those from other cities and states, not from a competitive viewpoint (which, of course, will help you get some ideas), but to identify what are the factors that please or annoy clients of other accountants. but remember, these are not insights. these are just findings. findings from your clients may help you solve a particular problem of only that client. nothing more. what you need are real insights.
analysis: when you have a reasonable number of positive and negative reviews, analyze the “why behind the why” and the “benefit of the benefit” for each review. you will soon see patterns, trends and common themes emerging from your analysis. invariably, what you will see are some connections with the core, personal, human emotions, dreams, aspirations, fears and so on. these are the real “drivers” that drive the actions – and inactions – of your clients.
insights: once you get to the core “drivers,” you will find how your services, what you deliver, what you explain, etc. relate to your clients’ drivers. these are the real insights that you want to weave into your processes, into your marketing and sales messages, into your client interactions, but subtly enough with contextual relevance to your communications with clients and prospects. insights, unlike findings, are replicable and can be applied to several clients and several client situations. insights can create new clients.
strategic actions: from the insights you uncover, you will need to find ways to adapt your processes – operational processes and client communications, as well as marketing/sales processes – to make those insights the focus point of what you do and deliver. in other words, you create processes that help you replicate the things that resonate with the core drivers of your clients, and those of your prospects. more likely than not, you will improve your processes from client insights. you will also do so based upon some unique positives you and your firm have, e.g., your rich expertise in a few niches, your experience of handling many situations of a particular type, etc.
imagine! your cas clients do not hire your services just for doing the accounting work. they want you to be on the dais of their business lives, guiding and leading them through complex dilemmas that every entrepreneur has to face. make it an iterative process to continue the dais cycle. things change. technology changes. client expectations change. competition changes. you want to be in the know of the latest ways in which clients feel your impact.
value your value
yes. it might take some time for you to enhance your firm’s processes, services, client mix and pricing to establish your truly exceptional cas practice. but it all begins with the recognition of your real value as a professional accountant. if you do not know your true value, neither will your clients nor will your staff/team. that is why taking the dais puts you in close contact with your real value. the more frequently you experience your own worth from your clients’ perspectives and expressions, the more you tune into that reality. slowly you will find yourself in a position to start declining lower-value-seeking prospects and demanding that new clients follow your proven processes of value generation. then, sooner than later, you’ll find your cas practice already established.
to build a tall tower, one has first to dig an underground foundation. the cas mindset is that underground foundation even before you can think of offering cas and learn more about its practical nuances. for the tower to be strong, the foundation has to be robust. your resolve to value your value will ingrain in your way of thinking. and that will take you to the beginning of your successful cas journey.