The curse of ‘how much’ accountancy

“How many times have I heard this!” said the managing partner of an accountancy firm I met with recently. On reflection I said to him “this is what is constantly being said to me when discussing business development with many accountancy firms, and not just yours, over the last 12 months!”

The conversation then focused on why this was and what could be done by fee-earners in accountancy firms and indeed professional services firms to overcome this apparent hurdle.

Well, just maybe, prospective clients don’t always see the benefits they are being offered by way of the service to be provided; or, could it be that the adviser is not really communicating the benefit in an easily understood and articulate way? Does the prospective client see the real value and the return on the investment?

One point that needs to be front of mind for the adviser is answering this simple question – “What is the prospective client thinking about when looking at the price?”

One thing is for sure we all run scared of those immortal words – even more so when we knew they were coming.

Why do we always say that we lost on price when asked about the latest project we were bidding for?  And when we win a project why do we not wait to be asked, because we get too excited and can’t wait to tell every man, women and child that we got really close to the client and understood their requirements really well and managed to pull off a fantastic fee in the process?

So why are we too expensive when we lose and what is expensive anyway? Is it just a perception because the client did not understand the benefits in the offer, and what are we comparing our price and offer against?

Let’s try and answer some of these questions posed, because if we have really powerful solutions to avoid these questions being asked in the first place then those immortal words of ‘how much!?’ may indeed never be mentioned, and how comfortable would that make everyone feel.

Your (adviser) mindset

Continued...