it takes time, technique and training.
by rick telberg
today, when business is tight and competitive, accounting firms are scrambling for new revenues. but they’re discovering it takes time and effort to fill a sales pipeline. it takes training, coordinating teams, coordinating market initiatives.
and then you drill down further and you need to know what your markets are. and that opens a whole new panoply of questions for a firm, questions about understanding the client’s real needs, questions about how a prospect wants to be approached, questions about what kinds of clients you really want. at the same time, fees are under huge pressure.
what’s the answer? it starts, says cpa firm growth consultant gale crosley [click here to buy her book.], with understanding that “the key competency to winning business is knowing how to discover and build value at the client level.”
the greatest value is not in the technical. the value is in understanding and addressing “the situation around the offering.” the client doesn’t want to hear you boast about doing a better audit. to the client, an audit is an audit. with that approach, she says, you “never get to the deep, hidden and personal needs the client had.”
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