Why are accountants scared of selling?

By Murray Willson

Introduction

I spent over a decade and a half working with tech businesses whose primary target market was accountancy. In that time I learned more than a bit about accounting firms and their behaviors. And despite the slightly provocative title for this article, I should start by saying that this piece isn't going to be in any way ‘anti-accounting’. Quite the opposite. I have met some wonderful people in this industry and certainly some of the most intelligent people I’ll ever know. But (you knew there would be a ‘but’ right), accountants can sometimes be guilty of thinking they are somehow separate to the rest of the business world. In short, many accountants often don’t see ‘selling’ as part of their job. Now given the risk of offending an entire industry I’ll of course add the caveat that there are some exceptions to this. Some of the top accounting firms are extremely growth focused. What I am calling out here is the disproportionately high number of firms who do not put enough focus on ‘selling’ their services to new clients, or to cross selling additional services to existing clients. 

‘What I am calling out here is the disproportionately high number of firms who do not put enough focus on ‘selling’ their services’

Why the reluctance?

So with bets hedged and generalisations apologised for, let’s dig into why this trend might have come to be. There are some obvious challenges involved in becoming a sales focused firm, that I think deserve calling out;

1. Qualifications - Accounting is a profession which requires no small amount of detailed knowledge in order to be successful. And for that reason the qualifications and courses that firms put their staff through are very much focused on accounting itself. However the accounting focus of these qualifications sadly comes at the detriment of soft skills. So in many cases we have some extremely intelligent people who can work wonders with numbers, but have no idea how to structure a conversation in a way that might result in the growth of paid services. In some cases this absence of soft skills can make accountants positively uncomfortable in what they perceive to be ‘sales situations’. 

2. Capacity - Any firm who has not been through a process of building out sales strategies or working on soft skills will instead have been focusing on the delivery of high quality client work. The old adage of working in the business rather than working on the business is relevant here, and of course client work will (and should) always be the priority. In short, unless there is less client work to execute, firms might not have time to invest in building more defined growth strategies. 

3. Legacy success - This is perhaps applicable to any business, inside or outside of accounting. The idea that if sales have been relatively steady for a period of time then there is no immediate need to change tactics. Change is hard and if things are going relatively well that why upset the apple cart. Let the clients come to us. 

The challenge 

The growing problem for many accounting firms is this; the industry is evolving and the services firms have typically relied on for fees are less impactful / desirable to clients than ever before. As technology evolves and the main cloud vendors continue to develop solutions for the ‘end-user’ firms simply can’t rely on the once-a-year tax and accounts work which was historically their bread and butter. We live in a world now where clients are more tech savvy than ever, and the concept of ‘self-serve accounting’ is more accessible than it has ever been. In this economy many clients are also cost focused. These will often be the ones who work with a firm for what they perceive to be the essential services. Those clients are probably the first who would move to another accountant charging lower fees, or would be inclined to self-serve via online software when it becomes accessible enough for them. Whether MTD for ITSA & CT will have a negative or a positive impact on these clients remains to be seen. 

So coming back to the point above about ‘legacy success’, we can start to ask the question; Why change a formula that has worked for so long? Because the rules of the game are changing. If firms don’t start to focus on the services their clients can't bring in-house, then they’ll end up as useful as a sand shop in a desert. 

‘the industry is evolving and the services firms have typically relied on for fees are less impactful / desirable to clients than ever before’

How do firms continue to grow?

Accountancy has seen no small amount of change over the years though, and firms have always found ways to navigate it. So in this changing climate, how do firms evolve their approach in order to continue growing. There are a few clear options;

• Take on more clients in order to spread their risk.

• Invest is technology to automate process and increase capacity (to deliver more work).

• Focus on providing more services to a core group of ‘good fit’ clients. 

The first option in isolation is a non-starter for many firms who are already struggling with capacity. The technology approach (though inevitable in the end) involves no small amount of time and change.The third option, growing services with core clients, means identifying your high risk clients and potentially making some difficult decisions about them. Once that is done, it becomes about focusing on those who your firm is best placed to build deeper relationships with. The kind of client who doesn’t just want a set of annual accounts, but wants monthly reporting too and advice on how to interpret financial metrics. Shifting to these types of clients can increase not just revenue but also capacity as volume of work becomes less of a focus. 

Selling to the future client

So where does the sales part come in? Well, whether your firm is looking to grow through additional client volume or through growth of services with core clients, at some point there is going to have to be some ‘selling’. New clients don’t talk themselves into working with your firm, and existing clients are unlikely to come to you asking for a higher service level as often as you’d like. So building out processes to identify opportunities and qualify clients for appropriate new services must become part of every accountant’s role. 

This does not mean turning accountants into hybrid sales people. Often it can be as simple as building belief in the value of your core services in order to combat any discomfort they may have around ‘selling’. If they can get into a mindset of seeing the value a broader range of services can bring to a client, then ‘selling’ transforms into ‘helping’. But to really get the most from the opportunities clients offer, it can be extremely beneficial to build out a defined qualification process. Standardising (to a degree) the way you question clients on new services means your client information can be turned into data. This data, used in the right way, could show you what your ‘good fit’ clients have in common, or why a certain group of clients might take one service but not another. In essence, standardising your sales approach can inform overall firm strategy. 

'Often it can be as simple as building belief in the value of your core services in order to combat any discomfort they may have around ‘selling’

Services as solutions

What of the firms who are managing this change successfully? One of the most successful methods I have seen in growing client services is when firms start to position their services as solutions. Find the pain a client has and prescribe your services as the medicine for that pain. To do this we must first look for a problem or challenge the client has. That often comes from deeper questioning. Then, find a way to present the services as a means of overcoming those challenges. From a buyer psychology perspective, there is no more powerful way to convince a client to work with you. 

Let’s look at an example; Take an annual accounts client who is still creating finance reports internally on a monthly basis. Firstly, they potentially have a data accuracy issue as this work is being done by someone unfamiliar with financial data. Then there is the time taken to gather this information which might even create a capacity issue. The accounting firm can solve these problems for them by taking on that service, putting it in the hands of an expert and giving them back some capacity in the process. If the reports now provided to the client are now more robust and accurate, this puts the client in a position to make better business decisions. 

Firms positioning their services in this way are far more likely to attract good fit, sticky clients, than those whose sales process focuses on what a set of management reports look like.   

Where to start

Unlike big technology change projects, some of this can be implemented quickly and easily. Often very small changes to a sales process can make a big difference. I’ll finish with a few options your firm could implement to become more sales focused and boost client fees;

• Create a standard and agreed set of questions to qualify new opportunities - Having a consistent approach here means results can be compared, reported on, and learned from, 

• Map out your sales process end to end - The problem for many firms isn’t that they don’t have a good sales process. Its that they don’t have a sales process at all. Try writing down each step from how a new opportunity comes in the door, to how it is qualified, all the way through to how you present your services back to the client. Its likely you’ll see some clear areas for improvement. 

• Upskill your team on soft skills - Low touch options include online training courses to improve the soft skills of your client-facing team in order to help them become more confident in growth focused conversations. One such option is the short online course ‘Sales 101 for accounting’ by True Nature. 

• Work with a trusted expert - For those really wanting to evolve, there are options available to work with companies such as True Nature Sales to help build out and execute sales strategies specifically for accounting firms. These projects would start with a sales effectiveness review, and end in the agreed process being delivered to your team in tailored training sessions. Projects can take as little as a week and the increase in services revenue can be instant.