Tangible Benefits Are Easier to Sell
“Half the time we win clients because I tell them, ‘our best performing electrician (as an example) has a net profit of 24%. What’s yours?’” says Steph. “They say ‘wow, I’d like that as well’." Steph Hinds, Founder Growthwise.
One of the biggest worries accountants have when implementing advisory services is that no one will want what they have to offer, or the value will be hard to demonstrate. The best solution to this problem is to get people interested by showing them the concrete benefits of engaging your services.
Sam Musgrave of Nine Advisory suggests that you begin by thinking about the industry your client works in, and factoring in all the different inflows and outflows they may have. Then calculate exactly how much of every dollar they earn as a margin, what needs to be paid out and how much could be retained as profit.
“If that operating margin is anywhere below where you think it should be… that is your tangible demonstration of the value you can add,” says Sam. “So you say, ‘you’re at 15% margin, and you should be at 30%. If you’re turning over a million bucks, you’re leaving $115k dollars on the table. You pay me 30, 40, 50k, and we’ll get that money for you.’”
That, says Sam, is a much easier sell than the general, sometimes ‘woolly’ benefits of advisory services.
Benefits don’t always have to be that tangible, though. Sam believes that if you give people information for free, they’ll pay for the implementation. Do you have internal resources that could benefit your clients if you made them public? Why not share the knowledge, and sell your help in putting it into practice.
Getting started or scaling up your advisory services is not rocket science 🚀. It simply starts with Hello! Pick up the phone and start the conversation.
1. Start with two clients and simply ask them;
- What are your objectives in the next 12 months?
- What does success this time next year look like?
2. Who are your B & C clients - the ones who run successful businesses but don't ever ask for anything extra;
- What are their business, personal and financial goals?
3. Who are your ideal clients? Start to build your ideal client profile and communicate this to your team, your network, and other similar clients.
4. Build out your Service Opportunity Matrix - identify the services you want to deliver, that you enjoy delivering, have expertise in, and those that your clients need (even if they don't yet know it).
