Blog & News

Accountants selling to their clients is a topic as old as the profession itself. I regularly hear criticism from those looking to monetise the accountants’ relationships with their clients that “accountants can’t sell”. I also come across an attitude within the profession that “accountants shouldn’t sell to their clients…it’s unprofessional…it’s not what my clients expect”.  Let’s tackle the issue.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s, when I was a lad, doing the family laundry was a time consuming chore. Mum would disappear into the kitchen and close the door so that the noise around the rest of the house was at least manageable. She would be in there for hours, swapping between washing, rinsing and squeezing out.  Every so often the noise level would resemble a fighter jet taking off on an aircraft carrier as the tumbler element kicked in and then she’d reappear, wooden tongs in hand, to ask for help to reposition the twin tub that had danced across the kitchen floor.

Do I deal with the client who is shouting the loudest, the most pressing deadline, the thing that is most stressing me out, the best thing for my cash position, the team member who is stuck without my help, the thing that I had set out to do today or any one of all those other issues that are lined up at my door?  I would love to give you a definitive or simple answer but, of course, there isn’t one. Welcome to every day decision-making, not just in an accounting firm but in life!

There’s something like 5.5million SME businesses in the UK. To use another measure, there are approximately 2.72 million VAT registered businesses on these shores. That’s an awful lot of potential clients for accountants. You would think that there would be some good ones in there for you.  Why is it that so many accounting firms end up with a significant proportion of ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ clients who absorb the firm’s resources for little or no benefit?

Do you feel in control today? You’re not on your own if you don’t. Running an accounting firm or client portfolio should be a relatively straightforward task according to the text books. Most of the deadlines are known well in advance and are cyclical so It’s simply a case of managing the resources, workflows and clients isn’t it?  We all know it’s just not the simple!

It’s frustrating when you don’t know what to do next. It’s even more frustrating when you know what you want to do next but don’t have the time to do it.  The frustration of not being able to get off the hamster wheel for long enough to take back control of your task list or your firm is endemic within the accounting profession.

I was interested to read the comments coming out of the ICAEW this week regarding the number of supervised accounting firms being told to improve their anti-money laundering processes. With the number of reprimands, and especially severe reprimands, on the increase, it is understandably an area of concern. This comes off the back of the good people at All In Place releasing the results of their ‘The Human Touch In Accounting Survey’ that highlights the weaknesses in accounting firms when it comes to their KYC processes and how well they really know their clients, not just for compliance purposes but from a core ‘trusted advisor’ perspective.

If your childhood was anything remotely like mine then you’ll be familiar with the scenario where you were in trouble and the only defence you could offer the parent standing in front of you was that “everyone else was doing it” to which came the crushing response “And if they all jumped off a cliff would you jump off too?” You may be familiar with Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve. If not, you’ll certainly be familiar with the terminology used. We have the innovators, the early adopters, the early majority, the late majority and the laggards. 

We are very insular as a profession. Conversations tend to revolve around what is happening within the profession, what the latest developments and trends are, and yet there is a whole world out there that is creating new ideas, trends and thoughts that could help us as accountants to be more successful if only we were to look over the fence. Part of my role as a mentor and coach to accountants is to keep looking over the fence at what the rest of the world is doing. I get much of my inspiration from doing so.  Those of you who know me will know what’s coming next!