Grow what exactly?
Business owners want help to grow cash reserves, profits, capital value or all of these.
Compare an accountancy firm that exclusively provides traditional accountancy services with a firm that is able, willing and committed to helping business owners grow.
Which firm do you think will appeal the most, to ambitious business owners?
I would suggest that ‘The Business Growth Accountant’ will be the more appealing accountancy firm. The firm committed to traditional accountancy only will lose out.
And if you then add in the fact that mobile, cloud and other technologies are transforming the way book keeping, accounts preparation and much more gets done, what hope does a ‘traditional’ accounting firm have?
Sorry but I’m completely biased!!!
I only really want to work with and help accountancy firms who genuinely want to help their business owner clients grow.
Which is why I interviewed some impressive ‘Business Growth Accountants’ for my book of the same name. Some are from Australia, some from the UK, many are award winning firms. In the book (and the bonus material) all the firms share the way they think, what they do and how they do advisory work with clients, no holds barred. This means you can short-cut some of the learning and, if you wish, succeed at advisory work faster.
2018 award winning firm, Australia...
James Solomons, from scratch, has built an advisory accountancy practice. To do so James shares how important the relationship work is in building enough credibility before business owners spend healthy fees on business growth work together:
“…we’ve had to rely upon just building a great relationship with that client to trust us and then obviously that doesn’t happen straight away.” - James Solomons, Aptus, Australia
James goes on to talk about asking great questions to build strong relationships. The sort of questions that build a deeper relationship, a more intimate relationship:
“The services that we offer are fairly standard across (accounting firms) but when we ask a question and find out what is troubling (business owners), keeping them up at night, what their growth pains are, we then are able to tailor our response to end the problem they’re having”
James won ‘most innovative firm’ earlier in 2018 at the Australian accountancy awards and is definitely worth listening too – the interview we did together is available as a bonus when you buy a copy of my book – The Business Growth Accountant
The value of a question?
James shows up in chapter 7 – Make Your Firm Truly Valuable. In this chapter you’ll find many of the questions the interviewed firms like to use with business owners to build great relationships, help them grow and then build advisory fees too.
IMPORTANT: We’re committed to delivering real value so if the book disappoints in any way then please ask for your money back, you’ll get a refund no questions asked.
The future of the profession and the future of your firm, I believe, is profoundly connected to stronger business growth conversations with your clients.
So which questions work best for you with your clients?
Paul