Does anyone on here know if there are small accountancy firm start-ups that hire an independent sales representative as one of the avenues that can be used to take care of their marketing for their firm? Would it be feasible and sound to try and retain the services of a sales rep during the first couple years of the firm's existence?
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I having recently taken the plunge myself I have found that Sales are intrinsically linked to technical expertise and knowledge. Clients don't want to deal with a sales rep who says they can save is and that and it may well be a load of bull. I can honestly say I wouldn't entrust client expansion to anyone we was not a qualified or experienced accountant.
Thanks again CParker...
I think that if I did hire someone who knows something about the Finance sector and has more of a knack of how to market the firm to potential future clients, I'd pick someone who still didn't know accountancy or bookkeeping too directly (or hardly any of it!). I don't want to suffer unneccesarily due to any crafty behaviour and I don't think I want to be in a partnership either.
I think anyone who works for me will be signing a non-disclosure agreement and a non-competition agreement too before I can finalise their work contracts with the firm.
clients expect technical knowledge - not a salesman
agree with cparker .... i've signed up 300+ clients in the last 27 months from a standing start - so probably had 350 client meetings. my experience is that clients want to talk technical at the first opportunity - they want to hear that you know your subject, and feel confident in your expertise. putting a salesman in place of the owner / principal wouldn't work in my experience.
thats different from having a 3rd party get you appointments ... thats fine. but YOU as the owner and expert have to attend the client meetings, impress the propsect, provide a service proposal, and then 'on-board' the client. personally, i then hand over to my small but growing team to deal with the initial admin etc, and the scheduling of year end work etc.
i'm not convinced that NDAs and the like would have any real teeth ... if an employee wants to walk away and take some clients with them, there isn't anything you can do to stop that EXCEPT by ensuring that the clients thinks your firm (or you) are providing service / expertise they can't get elsewhere.
my tip - as a new practice start-up, be prepared to hone your pitch because most new clients will be buying into you as an individual, and will stay with you because of what you and your practice deliver on.
hi lancsboy2,
just wondering how you picked up so many clients from a standing start? any tips for a bristol boy?
cheers,
Tony
Yes
My experience - and others experiences above clearly vary - was that during a couple of periods of seriously growing my practice, it tied in with hiring good sales people. They mastered what they needed to know about accountancy fairly quickly, but their skills were personal, presentational and sales not technical. One in particular stands out over two years / 3 day week helped develop branding, market position and a flow of new clients.
That worked well for me - it allowed me to be dull & grey in the background! Seriously, I don't like selling, so having someone do it for me whilst I ran the practice was just fine. Latterly others ran the practice as well, and I just oversaw everything.
YMMV - its what works for you, but I would always say try bringing someone in, but if they don't work out don't carry passengers, be butal.
Depends
I am aware of research done by the university of Luton a few years ago that reported that partner involvement in the sale increased results.
But, I suppose it depends on the type of service. If you are going for simple, lost cost compliance then I think it could work better than more relationship based/technical work.
Malcolm
Why not hire another accountant instead?
Get them doing the technical stuff and you focus on the sales?
You'll do your practice more harm than good....
I would never advise a client to take on a sales rep to go to meetings. You'll lose business hand over fist. As has already been pointed out by others, in this industry people want to talk to someone with the technical knowledge and not the gift of the gab. The practice owners we work with that do the best from prospect meetings are those that either:
1) have the personality and confidence to go to meetings themselves
or
2) recognise that they are perhaps not the best person for the job and delegate to the practice manager or an a other accountant within the business.
As the original question mentions a start up practice then my suggestion would be to get out to as many meetings as you can, you'll soon find out if you have what it takes to close. Be yourself and believe in yourself. If you don't think it's your scene and you have the money to invest then recruit an accountant with the proviso they will be the person going to prospect meetings and has a good track record of signing up. A good sign up rate would be 1 in 3 meetings, an average 1 in 5. Anything above that should be improved upon.
I wrote some guidance notes for accountants who are perhaps just starting going to new prospect meetings or feel they could improve on what they are doing currently; this can be requested here http://qiaccountancymarketing.com/meetingtips.html please feel free to take a look, you may find it useful.
All the best
David
It would be great....
...if I turn out to have the good fortune of girlofwight and be able to find a sales rep who could learn just enough of the technical jargon to answer the clients' more usual questions and still be good and efficient enough to bring in clients constantly.
But just in case that won't work out well for me then I will have to bring in someone with the financial expertise to demonstrate to potential clients especially regarding the initial contact. I think I should approach someone who works with insurance, mortgage, or maybe a business advisor for a bank and see if they'd have enough pull to attract clients by saying the right things, being able to explain certain processes, and possibly thinking of trying my firm out.
Hmm not a bad idea actually...
The way around the technical issue
The way around the tecnhical sales side of it is for a sales professional to be upfront at the outset - "I'm not an accountant, I'm just here to find out about who you are, what you need, and your business, just to liten" - my experience was that worked well. Sign up was over 1 in 3 :)
However I did strike lucky with people, I'll agree.
Why thank you for the great idea BigBadWolf!
Although that idea would only work effectively if I decided to just be a sole ownership.
Another factor
How would this work in your business plan?
Who is going to fund the sales person?
Anyone who is any good won't do this simply for a share of the fees they generate.
And they will want paying long before the new fees are received.
I think that it's a non-starter for all of the reasons stated above.
It may be worth checking some of the other Q&A from start -up practices and also the AccountingWeb start-up practice guide and some of the more recent start-up practice articles here.
Mark