AdvanceTrack client conference | AdvanceTrack Outsourcing

Some the most popular and well-known advisers and experts have been speaking to AdvanceTrack and accountants about how to lead through the crisis, while reconfiguring your services – and people – in a locked-down world.

While physical conferences and get-togethers are currently off limits, that hasn’t stopped AdvanceTrack from running a “mini conference” online via Zoom.

On 28 April, we ran a “Beyond the Pandemic – The Customers Journey”, a 90-minute online seminar, in which experts provided insight about how best to structure your approach to support clients through the crisis, and beyond.

Innovate and communicate

Kicking off the session was AdvanceTrack MD Vipul Sheth. He said that accountants are in a unique position to provide real value to the people they work for – above and beyond a basic and narrow ‘service’.

But they must not rest on their laurels. “The wow of today is the normal of tomorrow,” said Sheth.

Citing the exponential improvements in Amazon’s service provision and constant innovation, he explained that day-to-day consumer experiences influence what people expect from professional services organisations – and they must step up.

“Don’t compare yourself with what other accountants do – consumers and clients are driven by other experiences they have – that represents their expectation,” he said. “So why do you do what you do? You have to deliver value.”

While the coronavirus crisis has proved incredibly disruptive, it has forced accountants and clients to communicate more – albeit via digital online platforms.

“The importance of relationships never goes away,” said Sheth. “And now we see our people increasingly moving up the value chain – with clients and in our business. If you weren’t using Zoom or Teams a month ago, you are now – and these tools are helping you have conversations.”

You might have had two or three client meetings in a day; now you can have ten or 15 – hopefully all incredibly valuable to you and clients, explained Sheth: “Being digital allows you to do that. You’re doing things a lot quicker, communicating more – so take the digital journey.”

Invest in relationships

Karen Reyburn, founder of The Profitable Firm, gave an inspirational talk focusing on the relationship-building you will inevitably be doing at the moment. And that, while billing and charging is a difficult and thorny task at the moment, you are investing in potentially keeping clients for a lifetime.

“Some things have changed in the crisis, some things haven’t,” she said. “Relationships… it’s always important to invest in client relationships.”

Putting yourself ‘out there’ will also engender positive sentiment towards you and your firm from potential clients and other working partners.

“So many of you are already spending time on the things that build relationships – sharing information, blogs, videos… just get it out there! You will get enquiries if you’re doing those things. You are on the front line of saving businesses,” Reyburn added.

Some firms are fearful of giving too much valuable information away in the public domain, via their website or on social media. However, Reyburn’s approach is very simple: “Give information away, charge for implementation.”

If people think that undertaking a task will be exhausting or difficult, they will come to you, whether you’ve given them the basic information or not, she suggested.

“The more you share, the more they’ll want to work with you,” she said. “Use content to build assets. What can I build so that when they have problems, this is the tool they use? This is why video is so powerful: you’re connecting with them faster – the number of accountants who are realising that it doesn’t have to be perfect, but doing so builds relationships faster.”

Efficiency and trust

As founder of presentation training business Speaking Ambition, and MD of Blue Arrow Accounting, Alexandra Bond Burnett is well placed o talk about how you build trust with existing and potential clients.

“How do you give someone the green flag that you’re the best person to choose to help them?” asked Bond Burnett.

Breaking down the elements that are required to create trust was a key part of bond Bond Burnett’s presentation.

The trust equation is: credibility; reliability; and intimacy.

Credibility – “Demonstrating your experience, be that talking about things you know and understand, having conversations with people and presenting your qualifications.”
Reliability – “This is about ‘showing up’. Doing what you said you were going to do. To be there so your clients don’t need to worry.”
Intimacy – “You can be credible and reliable, but you have to build that level of rapport. People make logical decisions but with a dollop of emotion. How do you make someone feel? Safe, challenged, that they can do anything?”

Bond Burnett pulls this together by discussing ‘self orientation’. “It is a funny phrase – but essentially we’re considering who do you think about when you’re communicating?” she said. “It’s more than likely that it’s ‘what will someone think of me?’ Don’t focus on yourself – turn it around and think about the client.

“How can they be helped right now, and then next week and then the week after that… then start communicating that to them. The hero is the client; make them the centre of the story.”

Service clarity

“How do things get done?” asks Trent McLaren, global head of accounting and sales at Practice Ignition. Accountants need to be clear about understanding the work entailed both internally for your practice, and what you do for your clients.

For McLaren, this ultimately means you are looking for a balance between the work your people undertake, the technology used as a tool and the processes put in place to make the work flow.

“When the customer and employee experiences work well, then you as a practice gain a competitive advantage,” he said.

“It means you’re completing work faster, with fewer resources, improving quality and hopefully improving customer satisfaction.”

Another key task is to ‘map’ the customer journey. Do you understand the path a client takes, and the touchpoints they have with you, as you work together? From them becoming a lead/prospect to becoming your client and beyond, think about how you communicate with them and the services you provide.

By doing this you create a ‘blueprint’. McLaren referenced an article by the Nielsen Norman Group on this very topic, which can be found here.

Understanding the value you provide as an accountant is the key that opens up opportunities to create a robust and clear pricing strategy. A key theme in AdvanceTrack’s recent ‘The Client Journey’ annual conference, Kevin Reed discovers the attitude – and action – required to increase your fees.

“Accountants, as a breed, are intrinsically embarrassed about having to charge and how much they cost,” states former Price Bailey executive chairman Peter Gillman.

It’s quite an opening gambit in the game that is understanding your value as a practitioner and charging appropriately for it.

There has been a bias towards conservative and “slightly introverted” people in the profession. Clients can sense this, and will leap on an accountant apologising for a cost.

Accountants therefore need to turn things around, and think from a client’s point of view as to what value they provide.

For example, bookkeeping has always been viewed as low value: a manual-intensive process that provides out-of-date information for compliance purposes only. The value comes from being able to produce timely and accurate financial information – data which can be interpreted by an expert to help the business make decisions.

“Can you help a client understand why costs are going up disproportionately to turnover? Can you do that? So many accountants merely shove the [basic information] in front of clients,” suggests Gillman.

This type of thinking is exactly what occurred to Paul Barnes, founder and MD of Manchester-based practice MAP.

“One of the first things I did [when MAP was launched] was list all the services I would like as a business owner – it’s about being in the client’s shoes and what solutions can be made available to them,” explains Barnes.

Then, with each line of service, no matter how small, Barnes set about putting a price against it – and considering how to differentiate it based on type/size of client or their requirement.

Barnes sees that accountants are “scared” about upselling services because clients “won’t pay more”. For MAP, there is a simple and clear message for clients: the cost of using MAP’s offerings is far less than hiring an in-house accountant or setting up a nascent finance function.

“One of the strengths and weaknesses for accountants is that there are so many clients, and it’s easy to win them,” says Barnes. “They’re coming in their droves because they have a fear of getting into trouble. So, the accountant has to break out of signing clients on their fear, and spend a bit longer thinking about what they need rather than what they ask for.

“You can then craft a package that helps the client mature as a business, rather than them clinging on with you at the bare minimum. Any firm can win business but going through the motions of selling the same simple stuff is not inspiring or rewarding.”

1. Walk before you run: Start with the basics (accounting and so on)

While most accountants are well-versed in the benefits of cloud accounting, the plethora of information and apps can be hard to navigate and make applicable for your own practice – particularly if long-established.

For Trent McLaren, global head of accounting and sales at Practice Ignition, it’s important that firms walk before they run. And the first step is to get a select number of clients onto the cloud – which creates an opportunity to produce monthly bookkeeping and reporting based on up-to-date income and expenses information.

“I’ll tell a lot of firms we chat to that it’s ‘too early’ for them: we can be the catalyst but they need to start with a smaller bucket of clients they want to work with more often and show them the extra things you’ll offer them, business goals support or regular KPI reporting,” says McLaren. “Then, your pricing revolves around that.

“You have to start somewhere and often it’s breaking down the yearly accounting to quarterly or monthly.”

And, as the practice itself is billed monthly to access tech subscriptions, “it forces firms to think differently about their own pricing” and consider regular client billing – not just waiting until a year-end ‘task’ is completed.

“Once you have the monthly reporting or meeting with the client, then other services come into play,” says McLaren.

2. Make sure you have a decent proposal tool set up

What is the experience of an established practice looking to think about what constitutes client value, and whether that means changing both what they offer, and how they offer it?

For Wood and Disney, an Essex-based practice, a discussion at AdvanceTrack’s annual conference two years ago was a pivotal moment.

“We had a chat with GoProposal’s James Ashford,” explains Wood and Disney senior client manager David Rudd. GoProposal is a pricing and proposal technology launched by both Ashford and MAP’s Paul Barnes.

“Historically we used a spreadsheet that contained details of three different pricing models based on turnover and different offerings, but we’d got to the stage where it wasn’t working well,” says Rudd.

Wood and Disney started using GoProposal and since then has adapted the pricing to suit its needs.

“For example, we quote on accounts production a year in advance: they tell us what they’re going to provide us in terms of bookkeeping and then we also price dependent on turnover,” says Rudd.

Historically the firm “gave bookkeeping away”, admits Rudd, “without realising its value”.

“It’s actually the most valuable thing we do as it’s fundamental to everything else,” he says.

Building a quote requires face-to-face time with a client, prospective or otherwise, which drives contact and conversation.

A systemised approach also improves governance, with Rudd’s bosses able to check the pricing overview quickly. “We’ve created a system that’s fair to everyone, transparent and we can explain to clients why and how we do the job – they understand what you’re doing,” says Rudd.

The next, logical, step for the firm has been to move away from timesheets. “We’ve binned those off and now have an hourly average rate, which means we can track roughly the amount is coming in and how much time that will take,” he says. “The next step is for us to monitor capacity.

“We now understand we’re doing a job that helps people and we should value it appropriately. And we needed technology to help us do this in a systemised way.”

Vipul’s view

AdvanceTrack’s MD and founder gives his take on practices’ value

I’ve said to many practitioners: Don’t sell them bookkeeping…sell the outputs and the conversations.

Of course, in order to do that you will need technology and it helps if you’re doing the bookkeeping.

The moment it’s just about doing the books, then the client will immediately think of someone undertaking it at the kitchen table, rather than what you can offer: well-qualified and professional staff who analyse and interpret information.

You have to be brave and price on value. If you recognise the value you deliver and the client can see that value, it makes it easier to be brave in that conversation.

For AdvanceTrack, it’s about using technology with our skilled team in India to deliver the processing of data, which frees up your skilled people to undertake that analysis and interrogation.