Episode 3: Three Lessons for Accountants + Advisors
In this episode, Sam dives deep into the three takeaways from her conversation with Ellen Ronalds Keene in Episode 2. Ellen’s story is a classic example of why accountants and advisors need to be educating current and potential clients, and the power of good client relationships.
Sam shares practical tips for you to be able to get to know your clients better so you can better serve them and how to make them feel safe so that they will come to you sooner rather than later when there are problems to address.
In this episode Sam also suggests some ways that as a profession we need to shift our belief that we are ‘boring’ and upgrade our mindsets so that clients look forward to appointments with us.
What we cover in this episode
Sam fact check’s the ATO debt and other stats from Episode 2
The need communicate with clients better online and in digital ways
A challenge: ask your clients how they want to be communicated with
The importance of educating people before they get into business
Questions to ask your clients to understand them more and then educate them more
The need to get clear on the problem we are actually solving
How we can get people excited about coming and seeing their accountant
The power of making people feel safe
Why we should be excited about what we do
Practical examples of how we re-message the conversation with clients
Quotes
“This is really fantastic starting point for us to start the communication and conversations with our clients to see how we might be able to help with that, particularly around the collectible debt, which means that the businesses themselves aren't probably in trouble from an insolvency point of view, and how we might be able to actually help our clients and get in front of this problem going forward.”
“We were being advised to get rid of our individual tax returns and that they were C or D style clients. I always argued that they are our clients of the future, and I think that's coming true now.”
“In this day and age when knowledge is so readily accessible, it is important that we are educating the client on the problems that we're solving, and that we are educating our client why it's important to have us solve their problems.”
“Don't preempt the conversation. We know what the solutions are, however, we have to understand where our client is right now. We have to actually answer to that, we have to educate to that, not educate to where we think they should be.”
“We have to start building our conversation skills and our relationship skills. These aren't really trained when we’re educated. So how can we develop that? It’s taking a little bit more time to get to know our clients and to ask questions that are a little bit more curious.”
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