You’ve probably found that some of your clients have all sorts of big plans and dreams, but they never quite manage to follow through on them. Accountability is one of the biggest benefits you can offer to your clients. But in order to be able to be the one to keep your clients on track you’ll need to be able to keep a firm hold of your own schedule. Accounting outsourcing is here to help.
How to keep your clients accountable
If you’re the one keeping your client’s nose to the grindstone, you’re going to be seen as an integral part of their growth. Being integral means you’ll be in a position to A) charge more and B) introduce them to further services.
To keep your clients on schedule, you’re going to need time. Time for meetings, follow-up calls, bookkeeping, etc. Accounting outsourcing frees up that time for you, allowing you to get away from time-consuming compliance work so that you can spend more time concentrating on your clients.
So if your client’s biggest roadblock is him or herself, how do you make your accountability role official (meaning that you get paid for it)?
The first step is to get your clients set up in a situation where accountability is an issue. This means that they need to have goals. Set up a meeting where you go over their numbers with them, and in that same meeting, get them to commit to 4 goals that they want to achieve for their business.
Use the time afforded you by working with your accounting outsourcing team to get those goals down on paper. Make it official. Next, work with your client to break those goals down into monthly milestones. Now the goals and milestones are concrete things instead of ephemeral daydreams. There are boxes to be checked. There are jobs to be handed out to your client’s various team members.
At this point your client is going to need someone to keep on them, to make sure that those boxes do indeed get checked. Happily, your accounting outsourcing team gives you the time you need to set up monthly meetings where you can go over those milestones with your client, and even better, show them what immediate effect the milestones are having on their business and your predictions for their business’ future once an overall goal is met.
Reluctant clients
But what if your client isn’t interested in your monthly meetings?
If it’s a matter of cost, pitch the meeting’s fees as coming out of their future profits obtained by achieving their milestones and goals. That way, they’re not losing any money at all from their current budget. It also means that you can tell them that your firm doesn’t succeed unless their business succeeds.
If that appeal doesn’t work, then it’s time to play the waiting game. Use the time your accounting outsourcing team provides you to go after more clients. After 6 months or so, get in touch with that reluctant client and ask them how they’ve progressed on meeting their goals.
Chances are they haven’t done much. Or they haven’t done nearly as much as they would have without your monthly meetings. It’s now time to reintroduce the idea of your monthly meetings with the goal of helping them make actual progress towards their goals instead of leaving them to languish.
Your accounting outsourcing team boosts your ability to empower your clients
Coming up with big plans is pretty easy. Even breaking those big plans down into milestones isn’t all that difficult. Sticking to the milestones, making them work, that’s the hard part. It’s also a great opportunity for your firm to prove just how much it can help your clients actually achieve the type of business they’ve always dreamed of.
