What I’ve Learned from My Clients: By Sandi Smith, CPA Accountant’s Accelerator I feel extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful set of clients that I have learned much from the last few years. More for soloists and small firms: Take Six Big Steps to Go Beyond Compliance Services | When Your Business Needs to Be Rebooted | Two Steps to Easy Cross-sells | The Hot New Tech Product for Automated Data Entry | Five Value-Add Service Areas to Take You Beyond Bookkeeping | Six Money-Making Strategies to Take You Beyond QuickBooks | Proactive Ways to Get More Referrals | The Three Biggest Money Leaks in Your Practice | New Client Opportunities with Mobile Apps | Six Questions to Launch Your Summer Strategy Sessions | What Most Accountants Miss in the Five Simple Steps to Get More Clients | Accountants, Do You Know Your Opportunity Number? | Five Ideas to Reduce Client Price-Sensitivity | Rise to the Top with a Fresh Elevator Speech | Four Ways to Practice Entrepreneurial Perseverance | 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking New Clients | The Top 12 Business Card Blunders Accountants Make | Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have | How to Attract Clients Like a Magnet | Eleven Easy Ways to Deliver More Value to Clients Here is a list of lessons learned that I hope will inspire you to work with your clients in new ways. Lesson 1: Help Clients with What They Dislike Although not all clients dislike writing, I’ve found that the majority of professionals in financial fields appreciate getting help with their writing. What took me a while to learn was the degree to which many wanted help, and what worked the best is to provide sample letters, emails, and marketing materials that was as close to their situation and as complete as possible. What skill do you have that your clients dislike doing, takes them longer, or wants done-for-them? Lesson 2: Mindset is Huge and It’s Also Almost Always Unspoken Both you and I have businesses where we often ask people to make changes. I can’t think of anything more scary to change than financial systems (or anything to do with them). While we’re good with the numbers, our clients are not. That’s why we get hired. Clients may never tell you, but they may be insecure about making those changes. When we can stop worrying about our own insecurities about whether we’re going to get the job, we can get into our client’s shoes and really connect with how to help them. Lesson 3: Most Clients Are on Your Side I think that some entrepreneurs are a little bit afraid of some of their clients. Why else wouldn’t we reach out to them more often? Why else would we delay calling them when they don’t pay on time? Why else do we run the other way if there is a negative comment or they don’t answer our email? The truth is most clients want to be validated themselves that they hired the right person – you. They want you to succeed. They want to be contacted. They want it to work. They are on your side. Where in your business is your behavior incongruent with letting clients be on your side? Lesson 4: Honor the Silent Types Many of you are introverted and very reserved. And no matter what personality type you have, you don’t want to be embarrassed. What I learned was, to one person, being embarrassed means one thing, and to another, it means something completely different. On the webinars, this means I don’t call on you until you give me permission. That will help to keep the shy people “safe” and invisible, while helping the people willing to speak out and share. The shy people actually benefit from the people who speak out, so it all works out in the long run. Who do you have in your client base who needs to be honored as a silent type? Lesson 5: Make a List Accountants love checklists. When you can put your information into a format that your client naturally loves, then you’ll be ahead of the game. What format do your clients love? Thanks goes to all my clients for all the wonderful things I’ve learned about how to serve you better. cpaclick/13KKmac
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 13:13:18 +0000
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