I recently had the great privilege of spending an hour with a business leader who had sold her business just a few days before, after 22 years. That business started in her home, and she built it up over time to just short of a million-pound turnover – a modest-sized business, but what an insight she provides when it comes to client care and how you create a systematised business that works brilliantly with three grades of client and establishes enough capital value to enable it to be sold for a substantial sum. I hope you'll take time out to listen to this deep and meaningful, highly valuable conversation with Tracy Irwin. She signposts specifics that you and your firm can employ to build that value equation in your clients' minds and that allow you to better look after your team so that they deliver exceptionally for your clients, ensuring that you ‘live happily ever after’, as the saying goes. Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Tracy and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast. |
The Solution:
After six weeks of taking on a client, I send them an email. Now I had a really good excuse to send this email because I don't live in the country. I send an email after six weeks saying, “Hi, I just want to introduce myself as the owner of TI Accountancy and just because I don't work from the office, I just want to check that the team are looking after you?”
And it's the email that gets the most response. The amount of times that people would send a reply back saying, “Oh my god, your team reply so quickly.” I just want to qualify that by saying we have a two-day turnaround for replying, but they were so used to their super busy accountant never replying to them, that they were shocked when they suddenly came into this environment where they started getting responses.
We reply even if we can't answer the actual question within two days. They will get an email back saying “Thank you for your email, I’m looking into it, but I'm really sorry I can't answer that just now. I will give you a response by a certain date.” That was one of our non-negotiables, because I think communication and feeling like they matter is what's key to your client.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Tracy
Connect with Paul
Resources relating to this podcast:
Paul and Tracy make numerous references about the importance of delivering value to clients. Tracy shares her onboarding process, her and her team's responsiveness to clients and why making clients feel special ensures their loyalty. Her relationships with her clients matter more than anything else to her.
How much do client relationships matter to you? Remember - if you have loyal clients, they will stay with you, buy more and refer you to other business owners.
You build this loyalty by delivering value.
Do you have clarity on how you deliver value to your clients?
And how good are you at having conversations with your clients where you talk about your value to them?
Your success is determined by your ability to communicate your value to your clients. It pays to be clear on how you and your team show the value of your firm and your firm’s products and services in a conversation.
If you want to understand more about the importance of communicating your value to your clients, please click the button below and read the Business Breakthrough report, 'Client Value Counts'.
Tracy discusses the emotional payoff that, for her, comes from building relationships with her clients, connecting with them and having trusted and loyal clients. So many business owners are just focused on winning clients and, when they get those clients, they think that is the end of the relationship. But for Tracy, that is where the relationship starts.
She talks about a book called Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days, by Joey Coleman, and how it influenced her thinking.
If you want to access this book, please click the button below.
Towards the end of the podcast, Tracy shares some of her employee-related challenges when she ran TI Accountancy. She talks about losing control of the culture of her firm and how the team changed the way they dressed and behaved when she was in Spain and unable to return to the office during Covid. She shares that there was one person not following the processes of her business, even though she ran a 100% process-orientated business. Paul mentions the book by Michael Gerber called The E-Myth Revisited, which talks about the importance of behavioural standards and cultural values. He refers to a quote from the book - 'this is how we do it here' - in connection with the issue that Tracy had with trying to get this person to follow the processes she had set.
If you want to access The E-Myth Revisited, please click on the button below.
Tracy also mentions the importance of hiring well and admits having got this wrong in the past. She talks about how vital it is to get the 'right person on the right seat in your bus', a quote from Jim Collins book, Good to Great. To access this book, please click the button below.
