service

if you’re a ‘best-kept secret’ cut it out!

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big businessman crushing a small one in his fingerstry these 6 ideas to stop losing business to competitors.

by sandi smith leyva

it’s rare that i lose business to competitors, and it’s also not an accident.

more: stuck at home right now? here’s 100 good ideas to relieve the stress | how to lead in a crisis | how to think straight through the coronavirus crisis | 16 tech tools for working through the coronavirus | 7 tips to keep the clients you have | do you know your opportunity number? | 7 tips to boost your firm’s performance | 5 mistakes to avoid when seeking new clients

goprocpa.comexclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.

if you are losing business to your competitors, here are some strategies you can use to “become a category of one,” as they say in marketing.
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how to tell a client how the fee was set

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and aby ed mendlowitz
the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 practice doctor

question: i performed some additional services for a client and gave her a bill that she questioned and wanted to know how much time i had spent. i billed more than the time charges, but this client never gets time bills – everything i do is on a fixed fee so i never account for my time with her. what should i say now?

more practice doctor q&a: 18 ways to blow a partnership opportunity | when experience doesn’t add up | 8 times when hourly billing trumps value pricing | 6 simple steps to impress a prospect | making meetings more productive | 5 time management tips for an overworked accountant | running an accounting business | 14 ways to switch to value pricing | pricing, billing, costing: don’t blame clients

response: if a client is on a strict time basis, they are entitled to a breakdown of the hours and person performing the services.

otherwise, when clients ask me how i arrived at a bill i tell them something similar to this:

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how accountants get new clients

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angry young woman, blowing steam coming out of earswith client retention the top issue for firms, we go looking for the “secret sauce” for landing new business.
join the survey; get the results

by rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

if you want some real answers for how to avoid losing clients, just start asking cpas how they’ve managed to pick up new clients.

that’s exactly what we’ve been doing lately. some of the answers are startling. all of them are instructional. most of the time, accountants can blame the cpa that their new clients were abandoned. read more →

readers sound off on liberty, h&r block plans to launch bookkeeping services

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liberty block logosnew strategic ally, or competitive threat?

practitioners are actively debating the effects and impact of h&r block and liberty jumping into the bookkeeping business, as detailed by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间’ hitendra patil here.

“this is an opportunity to highlight quality,” says wesley middleton, head partner at middleton raines in houston. “the only person who has something to worry about are those that are only focused on price.”

not all practitioners agree in the discussion which began at 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 and has spilled onto the 20,000-member 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 linkedin group. read more →

6 ways to move beyond compliance services

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dollar concept, financial adviser or finance advisorybecoming a ‘trusted advisor.’

by sandi smith leyva
the accountant’s accelerator

here’s a question: what portion of your revenues are derived from compliance work – e.g., tax preparation and irs representation; bookkeeping; quickbooks setup, cleanup and training; payroll; and audit work – versus value-added work, e.g., revenue improvement, business consulting, profit margin analysis and workflow improvement projects?

if you answered 100 percent compliance work and no value-added services, you’re not alone.  there’s a lot of lip service about moving from compliance services to becoming a “trusted advisor.” there’s an equal amount of confusion in how to get started.

here are a few tips to help those of you who want to move in that direction. read more →

8 essential ingredients for your new client welcome kit

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by sandi smith leyva
the accountant’s accelerator

how you welcome your new client can set the tone for a relationship that could last for years or in the worst of cases, just days. start out on the right foot by looking super-organized (because that’s part of why we get hired anyway) and making it super-easy for a client to get on board with you. the best vehicle for this is a welcome kit. here are eight things that should be in your kit at a minimum: read more →

sound off: accountants see opportunity in obamacare

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bullhorn

in comments, it gets political.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

call it what you will – the affordable care act or obamacare – accountants are calling it opportunity.

when we asked recently, “what’s the future of the professional tax preparation business?” a number of respondents called out the affordable care act.

“i think as aca takes effect we will be busier than ever before,” said jay d. parks of jay d. parks & associates, cpas in edmond, okla. read more →

how to find new clients on social media

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leadtail2

study shows cfos’ key interests and topics for conversation.

by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

new research into chief financial officers’ habits on twitter shows their favorite topics of conversation, how they describe themselves and their top sources of information.

any one of those could be an opportunity to make a connection, maybe even make a new client, according to business development experts. 

read more →

the 5 first steps in targeting clients

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and a

how to build a plan.

by ed mendlowitz
101 questions and answers for managing an accounting practice 

question: i want to start growing my practice but am having trouble defining my target client.  i tend to accept every client i can and seem to have clients all over the place. is there anything i can do to better target my “ideal” clients? 

answer: to have a target client means you have a target. the target is the result of a plan. so, what is your plan?  read more →

i just lost my biggest client

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ed mendlowitz cpa the practice doctor q and a

by ed mendlowitz
“tax season opportunity guide“

question: i just suddenly lost my biggest client. they said they outgrew me. what could i have done to keep them?

response: maybe nothing. and at this point it may not matter, but there are some things you can do to maybe get them back in the future and stop it from happening with another client.

losing any client is not pleasant, and losing a large client hurts. and when it is sudden it hurts even more.

i will answer this in three parts.

1. how to try to salvage something from the loss.
2. how to stop this from happening in the future.
3. how to avoid being “suddenly” surprised. read more →

overcoming your clients’ worst fears

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how to help them take initiative and allow you to be proactive.

by hitendra patil
pransform inc.

neuroscience studies have shown that fear is a far bigger driver than we would ever care to admit. according to kevin hogan, author of the science of influence: how to get anyone to say “yes” in 8 minutes or less!, “most people react to the fear of loss and the threat of pain in a much more profound way than they do for gain. they overemphasize the importance of pain by about 2.5:1 in decision making.”

your customers and prospects fear that their actions or inactions will cause bad things to happen, or bad things can suddenly happen to them. it’s therefore important to ask yourself what sort of problems your potential clients are facing during current times. if you can identify their true fears and show them how you can remove the possibility of loss, you are one step ahead of your competitors. read more →