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May 10, 2015

Some small/medium enterprises doubt whether their current accountants can deliver the new services they are seeking, so they can add value to their businesses.

 

I’m reminded of a comment made by a partner of an accountancy firm, whilst making a presentation at a Smithink 2020 Conference at the Gold Coast a few years ago.  The partner indicated that he was reviewing a draft set of financial accounts and noticed that the business had spent $26,000 on “business consultancy”.  Knowing that his firm had not charged the client for any type of business consulting – definitely not an amount of $26,000 – he rang the client and enquired what the expenditure was for.  The client indicated that he’d hired a business coach and he was very happy with his services.  The partner said to him, “Did you know that we could have supplied these types of services?”

 

Apparently, the phone went dead for 30 seconds.  Then the client said, “I’ve been a client of your firm for 15 years.  During that time, you’ve faithfully handled our taxation, superannuation, corporate affairs matters and I’ve received numerous newsletters from your firm that continually talk about taxation.  We’ve never received anything else from you other than taxation matters.  I didn’t think you were interested in supplying business advisory type services.”

 

The partner indicated that this have been a great lesson to him that you should never assume that your current clients know that you’ve embarked on a process to offer additional services to clients.

 

The key is to develop a process to achieve outstanding sales results from your clients and prospects:

·         Attention – gain a favourable attention from your prospect.

·         Create Interest – get your prospect interested.

·         Create Conviction – convince your prospect that your services are good value.

·         Create Desire – get your prospects to see themselves as the beneficiary of your services.

·         Close – ask for the order.

 

If you would like to receive information on Professional Sales Training for Accountants, please contact us.