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Business advice
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Business advisory: Ask and you shall receive

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30th Jun 2016
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Good business advice isn’t about single handedly solving clients’ problems, it’s about posing smart questions, says practice consultant and Practice Excellence Awards judge Paul Shrimpling.

Shrimpling will judge the new ‘Small business advisory’ category at this year’s awards. In his day job, Shrimpling frequently counsels firms who want to move from compliance driven practices to advisory services.

According to Shrimpling, the easiest part of the journey towards advisory work is the start. “You’ve been in so many meetings with business owners already, talking about their businesses,” says Shrimpling. “You don’t need to start, you’ve already started. It’s not a standing start. You already know a shed load of stuff.”

Once accountants have awoken to this fact, the next step, explains Shrimpling, is asking smart questions. For Shrimpling, ‘advice’ is somewhat of a misnomer; instead an excellent advisor knows how to play Devil’s advocate. “Accountants feel the need to be the source of solutions. But actually, I’d twist that to say, it’s your job to ask very smart questions.

“That’s the primary skill you must master: the art and science of asking questions. Sure, you might get to an advanced stage where you’ll offer business growth advice – but initially you have to ask the right questions.”

By asking these questions, the accountant leads and prods the business owner to the right answer. “We can tell a business owner they’re wrong, or we can ask two or three smart questions and they’ll arrive at the conclusion themselves,” says Shrimpling.

To formulate questions, Shrimpling follows an old journalistic principle. “There are really only six questions: who, what, when, where, why and how. From these base questions comes the primary skill of being a great business advisor.”

Questions also make the interaction with the owner more nuanced. According to Shrimpling, they also help circumvent a typical angry reaction like “How do you know, it isn’t your business? You’re only an accountant”. “It makes them think,” says Shrimpling, “and through leading them, you avoid preaching to them.”

The personal touch

Once you’re asking the right questions, Shrimpling prescribes prioritising client meetings. “Meetings with clients need to be an area of intense focus. An accountant who’s focused on compliance is stuck at his computer.

“A business advisor spends more time meeting clients.”

That’s easy when you’re just a small practice, though. But it becomes much harder to keep the personal touch as your client base grows. Indeed, Shrimpling argues that consistent growth is a key facet of a Practice Excellence firm.

The answer to this capacity crunch is to hire, coach, train and mentor managers to become business advisors.

Recruitment

This touches on one of Shrimpling’s key mantras: “I don’t care what scale of firm you are, you should be recruiting all the time. It should be a weekly habit. And if you don’t, you will end up with fewer, low quality candidates.

“The pushback might be I’m only a small firm. But if you’re a growing firm – and a Practice Excellence firm should be growing firm – growth means you will run into capacity problems.”

In Shrimpling’s view recruiting and succession is the one thing that holds back firm growth. Effective recruiting, he explains, begins at the interview process. “You can’t wing it,” says Shrimpling. “Have your questions ready before you interview someone.

“You need to have your ten best questions you’ll ask someone who is a manager, or someone who is qualified, or someone who is part way through AAT who wants to move firm.

“Your questions must be mapped out.”

Practice Excellence

To judge this year’s small business advice category, Shrimpling is looking for particular hallmarks. “I’ll look at how they get work done, both technical and relationship work.

“How are the firms investing in their people, if people don’t invest in their people they’re never going to become excellent practices, are they? What are they doing to raise the standards within the firm?” says Shrimpling.

“It’s three basic questions,” says Shrimpling, following his own question led advice. “How good are they at the technical work? How good are they at workflow work? And how good are they at relationship work?”

Replies (4)

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7om
By Tom 7000
06th Jul 2016 12:16

Dont bet the ranch on it. Its probably only 1 or 2% of fee income. They all want the advice but no one wants to pay....funny that.....

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By Paul Bulpitt
08th Jul 2016 10:37

Probably depends on the make up of your client base I guess. My experience has been that when you sell the value, there's no real sales job needed. 'Productising' advisory services is a handy way to do this.

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By AndrewV12
19th Nov 2016 12:12

Good article, I think to many accountants take the least line of resistance and dont like to rock the boat.

Mind you as stated below does any one really want to pay for advice, unless its to their benefit or ties into their thinking.

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By AndrewV12
19th Nov 2016 12:14

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

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