three keys to discovering a mutual fit.
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.”
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this post is not about fundamental sales skills. that is beyond our scope. this is more about how to develop and execute your client accounting services sales process, pitch and supporting collaterals that can help get you more cas sales.
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 periodic/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.
the typical “sales funnel” in any business has four main stages: awareness, interest, decision and action. applied to cas, this is how the cas sales funnel looks:
- awareness: your marketing that makes your potential prospects aware that you offer cas and what are the components of your cas offering.
- 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 e-books and “landing pages,” i.e., online forms for them to provide you with their name, email and phone number at the minimum in exchange for the e-book. 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. but 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 whom 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 you will “qualify” them, i.e., if they will be the right fit for your cas offering
- when they connect with you, what exactly you will say/discuss with them
- how you will address their questions/concerns satisfactorily
- what additional content/samples/reports/examples you will provide them at different stages of discussion
- how you will pitch your pricing (establish value first and then provide actual pricing figures)
- how you will 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 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’ll have helped your prospect to make the buying decision. be intent in listening to what your existing clients, as well as prospects, say. note down the words they use. note down 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 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 the 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 a prospect:
- 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”).