*This blog is part of the July 2023 Thought Leader newsletter
Business development is a common goal for firms once busy season ends. Each summer, firm owners and their teams take time to think about their ideal clients and the services they’d like to provide to them—while also making a plan to end relationships with non-ideal clients.
The plan to bring in more business is often focused on new clients. However, current clients are also valuable in the search for new opportunities. In fact, they should be the first place a firm goes to find new business. Current clients know the firm and have developed a sense of trust and confidence with firm owners and their teams. Prospective clients know little, if anything, about the firm and the firm’s expertise—and it can take months or even years to develop a relationship that results in new business.
Find the opportunities
In fact, 50% of the time firms spend on business development should be spent on current clients. If you’re just starting to do any kind of business development, then that figure could be even higher.
And despite what you may have heard from other firm leaders, finding opportunities with your current clients doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are two easy ways to get started with your business development:
- Get your team together and ask them which additional services clients ask for over and over again. Once you have that list, take a closer look to see which services are requested more than once. There’s Opportunity One.
- Survey your current clients and ask them directly what services they want or need that your firm doesn’t currently provide. Firms often think clients know all the services they offer, but clients really don’t. They’re too busy running their own businesses. And there’s Opportunity Two.
Once your team has provided you with their observations, or you have the survey results, you’ll have a good list to work from so you can:
- Follow up with current clients to offer additional services.
- Create new service products.
- Find opportunities to adjust your current service products—and fees!
Start small and keep it simple
Don’t try to create everything all at once. Start with one change, like a new advisory product. To ensure you have everything in place to start delivering the new service, create the products based on what the clients request. Then rely on the expertise in your firm to deliver by clearly identifying what the work consists of and who will do the work.
Pro tip: Develop a repeatable pricing method. Your firm has likely been doing the work all along and just not charging for it. Creating a product for it allows you to capture the revenue.
Plan for the opportunities
Clients often ask for additional services, but recognizing those requests and having a process to follow up with them is the missing link. How often have you heard, “I don’t know where all my money is going…” or “I don’t like doing the bookkeeping for my business.” These are just two examples of buying signals from clients that could lead to budgeting or cash flow projections—both advisory services—and monthly accounting or bookkeeping services.
Educate your entire team on the new products or services being offered and what they should be listening for when talking to clients. When they hear a buying signal, they should know the next steps. If they understand what the firm offers, they’ll feel comfortable saying, “We can help with that,” or “We have a product for that.” Then, they can let the firm owner or their manager know about the opportunity so they can follow up with the client.
Accounting firms are built on relationships. Providing multiple services to a client builds a stronger relationship with them and gives the firm freedom to end relationships with non-ideal clients. After all, isn’t it every firm owner’s goal to work with fewer clients while keeping revenue the same or growing?
If your Rootworks membership includes coaching, schedule a call with your coach to talk about Ideal clients and Turning your Services into Products to get your business development efforts started.