ADVISORY SERVICES. Identifying And Leveraging Opportunities Within Your Practice.

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Transcript of ADVISORY SERVICES. Identifying And Leveraging Opportunities Within Your Practice.

ARON BRAJTMAN CA, MBAChartered Accountants and Business Advisors

ADVISORY SERVICES

Advisory Services

Identifying And Leveraging Opportunities Within Your

Practice

Do Clients Buy Our Services?

Clients don’t buy accounting services

They buy the results they perceivethose services will bring them:

Enhanced Income Quality of Life

We Are Surrounded by Opportunity

Clients have many needs, some obvious and some latent

We must learn to recognize the opportunity from the symptoms

Here’s what they look like …

Opportunities Available

Many small businesses struggle or fail because

their owners tend not to be good business

managers

They work more “in” their business than “on” it

They lack expertise in finance, operations and

planning

To survive or to gain market share they will need

proper advice

Have You Heard Your Clients Say

I don’t know where I am going

I’m not getting the return I want for my

effort

My business is too reliant on me

I want to ease out of the business but I

don’t know how

Have You Heard The Following

I don’t have the information I need to make key

decisions

I don’t know how my business is performing at any

given time

Management reports are produced too late to be useful

I don’t have a way of checking if my strategies are

actually working

The business doesn’t react quickly enough to market

changes

Do You Have Clients With These Problems?

No exit or succession plan

No vision

No business plan

No evaluation of attractiveness of

current direction

Increasing competition

How About These Problems

No systems for developing customer loyalty

No one knows how effective advertising has

been

Inadequate sales systems … no targets or

measures of effectiveness

No defined unique core differentiators

All Small Businesses Owners Have the Following Concerns

The long hours they work

Cash Flow

Succession-Transfer of Ownership

Lifestyle needs

Growth of Business

Performance

Competition

Tax effectiveness

Team Development

Are You Aware That?

According to a recently released CCH client survey, 36% of business clients said they plan on leaving their accountant within a year. Their #1 reason for doing so - their accounting firm is not keeping up with their changing needs.

What an interesting scenario:  Accountants are reluctant to talk to clients about their needs, and clients are leaving because accountants don't do so.

Asking questions beyond taxes and exploring ways to better serve your clients is not simply an opportunity, it is a responsibility. Not doing so puts you at risk.

Accountants Can Help Their Clients

Accountants are positioned to help their clients solve these problems by providing advisory services

Let us look at the model

Opportunities for Accountants

Owners are poor managers

They know their profession but not how to

run and grow a business

They work in their business not on their

business

They compete on price

They don’t know how they can improve

Accounting Services May Be Split as Follows

COMPLIANCE

Assurance Bookkeeping Tax filing

ADVISORY

Business Development SWOT analysis Succession Plan Evaluation of current

direction of the business

Providing Advisory Services

Helping them grow their business is what small business owners

require

Personal Goal settingProfit Improvement PlanBusiness PlanningSWOT analysisAnd more

Is Your Firm Able to Provide These Services?

Benefits

Higher income Higher value to client Firm is differentiated

Challenges

Implementation Time and energy Passion Financial Investment

Benefits to your firm as well as the challenges of providing these services to your clients

Our Value Proposition

We do only advisory work and do not compete for

compliance work

We will provide advisory services to current clients

of CA firm

Benefits to Your Firm

Reduced attrition. Provides reason for staying with firm

Provides competitive advantage vs. compliance only firms

No investment required

Do you Agree that Accountants Should be Advisors to their Clients?

Does it make sense?

Can you see the benefits?

Can you afford to ignore this opportunity?