I really enjoy helping people, and I train everyone in my business to treat our clients like their Mum and Dad. We want the best for our parents – we’ll push them in the right direction to help them, and we’ll protect them from being taken advantage of.
But it’s really sad that for many accountants and financial planners, they view what they do as just a job (with revenue targets), instead of focusing simply on helping people meet their financial and lifestyle needs.
Take new technology for example.
Why do so many accountants stay away from new technologies and recommending them to their clients? I’ve heard many accountants say “if something goes wrong I don’t want to lose the client”, so they refuse to try new stuff.
Seriously, this view is NEGLIGENT! That’s right – NEGLIGENT. Why?
Your clients are DEPENDING on you as their accountant / planner to educate them about better ways of doing things. So much of what we do is tied up with technology, so we should be making technology an important part of our client offering.
Here’s an example:
I’m a passionate user of the Xero online accounting system. I was probably the first accountant in Australia to take it up many years ago, and until recently (when WHK with over 100 more offices across Australia pushed us back to No. 2) my firm was the No. 1 Xero Accounting firm in Australia for two years.
When I established Change Accountants & Advisors in 2011 (borne out of a previous Accounting firm I founded back in 1990) I had one rule – clients had to use, or switch to Xero – or else we wouldn’t take them on. My business was to become 100% Xero.
The benefits included having just one way for our accountants to do things and our ability to give REAL TIME advice to clients based on 100% up to date records – an absolute winner for tax planning time!
What do you think happened to our client numbers? Yes, we experienced a huge increase because clients are looking for a BETTER way of doing things from just using MYOB or some other software.
Every week, we get five to 10 enquiries from potential clients wanting to move to Xero. Half of them say “our current accountant doesn’t use it / doesn’t want to use it, BUT WE DO!” They tell us other business friends of theirs using Xero rave about it, and now they also want to use it.
Accountants, take note – your clients are looking to you for ideas and advice about how to do things easier and better. Don’t just sit back and think “my clients will ask me when they want to use new software or do something different”.
If you are not personally learning about and then continually educating your clients about better ways of doing things, your clients will become my clients. You won’t even know until you receive my ethical letter!
