In business, one thing that's absolutely certain is that a client’s perception of your firm is connected to their expectation of what you'll deliver to them, for them, with them. In this podcast discussion with the two Richards, Richard Brewin and Richard Bertin, of All in Place, you'll be exposed to some really powerful insights. Yes, in accountancy, you have to deliver compliance services, and most, if not all, of your clients, expect you to do that. But not all of your clients expect you to talk about their business lives in the round, and certainly many of your clients don't expect you to have a conversation about their personal lives. And yet, if you're going to be an effective trusted advisor, you are going to have to have those business life and personal life conversations. And what the two Richards do brilliantly in this podcast discussion is unpack what you need to consider in a real, practical way, so that the perception of clients of your firm – of you and your team – is at a much higher level, taking you away from being simply a transactional accountant providing services that could, in the very near future, be delivered purely by technology. So why not dive into this podcast discussion with the two Richards and unpack how you can improve the expectations your clients have of your firm, as well as how you can influence the way you communicate with your clients so that you deliver higher value. I'm sure you'll find it powerful. Please scroll down this episode page for the contact information for Richard Brewin and Richard Bertin and for the additional, downloadable resources mentioned in the podcast. |
The Solution:
We'd have this thing when talking to accountancy firms, it didn't matter whether it was a small firm, a medium-sized firm or a bigger firm, and we would ask them – ‘How many clients do you have?’ And somebody would come back with an answer. And it might be one hundred clients or a thousand clients, and then we would ask ‘Do you know what your clients are worth?’
And we did it with one particular firm, which shall remain nameless, we went through the details and said, ‘Right, so you think your clients are worth X and you've got X clients, according to my calculus, your clients are worth £6 billion’. They replied ‘Oh, I didn't realise that’.
But these are your clients. You're sitting there helping them do remuneration planning, exit planning, IHT planning, and you don't know what your clients are worth.
To me, and I think this is where Richard Brewin comes in, if you don't know what your client's goals and objectives are and if you don't know what your client's balance sheets look like, if you don't know what they want to do, it's a very perfunctory service that you provide to your clients because it's all about the compliance and reporting, which I understand is an important part of the service.
But actually, if the client turns around and says, ‘Well if you'd asked me whether I wanted to work a three-day week or a five-day week, and by the way I am about to inherit £2 million from my grandfather, so I don't need to work this hard, would I have got a different type of advice from you, Mr Accountant or Mrs Accountant - the answer would be yes, they might then reply - ‘how come you didn't tell us that?’ - because you didn't ask.
SHOW NOTES
Connect with Richard Bertin
Connect with Richard Brewin
Connect with Paul
Resources relating to this podcast:
A lot of this podcast conversation is about building the client relationship by having both the numbers AND goals and aspirations conversations, getting to know your client personally and professionally and building a relationship of trust.
They all agree that this comes from caring, being curious and asking great questions.
There is also a discussion about the reticence of the profession to step away from the compliance and numbers conversation, as this is where they feel comfortable, into the uncertainty and ambiguity of a personal conversation.
Sometimes a sense of fear is attached to this as accountants feel like they should be the font of all knowledge and they worry that 'if I ask a personal question, I am going to take the lid off and anything can come out'.
But establishing this relationship with your clients is crucial, and knowing which questions to ask can help. The decisions that people make are directly influenced by the questions you ask.
Magic happens when you master the simple science of asking great questions.
If you want to master the science of asking the right questions, please click the button below to download our Business Breakthrough report, 'Ask Better Questions'.
During the podcast Paul mentions a diagram found on the All in Place website (pictured below) and talks about how this image illustrates the creation of 6 buckets of questions that you can ask your client, which then transforms the human discussion that you have. Click the button below to go to the All in Place website.
Richard Bertin talks about a white paper they wrote at All in Place which was based on data collected at Accountex. He was surprised at how many accountants did not have sufficient knowledge of their own clients' data.
Click the button below if you want to download a pdf of the white paper. The next button will take you directly to the white paper on the website.
