Rapid technology advances have shifted the role of an Accountant and Bookkeeper from compliance to an advisory role.
We know that.
In fact there are a lot of people out there telling us what we need to be doing, but very few people giving practical step by step advice on how to make that transition from reliance on compliance to adding advisory to your service offering.
Fortunately, our 20 years’ experience in advisory work means we’ve literally helped hundreds of business owners change their lives.
In that time we’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly, and that’s why we’ve been able to make the transition from a largely compliance based practice to significantly ramping up our value and our revenue with business advisory services.
This means you can do it faster and easier, because people like us have already done the hard work and cracked the code for you. You get to leverage from our hard work.
‘Compliance, Advisory, & Profits in just 4 steps’™
Working with other Accountants and Bookkeepers it seems the greatest barriers to transitioning to advisory are:
- They don’t know where to start
- They don’t have the time
- They don’t know what to offer
- And they HATE selling – really, really hate it.
Cracking the code involved realising that there are just 4 steps to transition from compliance to advisory. This led us to develop a model for all Accountants and Bookkeepers.
And don’t worry, this isn’t the part where we promise to share the model for thousands of dollars, we are happy to share it for free. We love our industry and we want to see it survive and thrive as technology changes the shape of what we do.
So here it is.
The EASE Model™
- Optimise your EFFICIENCIES
- ARRANGE an offering
- SELL without selling
- EXECUTE like an Accountant/Bookkeeper
1. Optimise your EFFICIENCIES
Systems have been a large part of our success since we started down the advisory path almost 20 years ago.
Yes, it took time, but we did the hard work once and it’s repaid us over and over and over.
We mentioned earlier two of the main reasons Accountants and Bookkeepers aren’t jumping on board with advisory are because they:
- don’t know where to start
- don’t have enough time
Well this is where you start and this is what’s going to give you the time you need.
And it’s even easier now to move to advisory than it was when we first started thanks to technology improvements.
2. ARRANGE an offering
Another key hurdle is that Accountants and Bookkeepers don’t know what to offer.
The fact is, there’s just so much we can offer, so much we can help our clients with, that it can become overwhelming and the temptation is to decide to think about it later.
That’s why we advocate think big, start small. Start with 1 to 3 services where you’re already confident you can add value and build towards more services over time.
The good thing about this is that it works for the client too – they don’t want to be overwhelmed either. They will love having it chunked down for them.
We’ve very deliberately used the word arrange and this is because it’s not about inventing something new. Start with your existing skillsets and work out who will benefit the most. That way you can arrange it into a service and hit the ground running.
And BTW, packaging is your friend here.
3. SELL without selling
Selling is only ‘icky’ if you’re trying to sell something to someone that they don’t want or need.
However, if they have a need and you have the solution and you don’t tell them about it, well at worst that could be negligent, at best it’s not acting in their best interests.
It’s also ‘icky’ if you’re trying to be something you’re not – it’s really important to understand that selling shouldn’t require you to change your personality, and anyone who tries to tell you differently is wrong. You should be who you are because nothing sells better that authenticity.
It’s about having a process, a system. Knowing what to say and when to say it. Some simple positioning and scripting, and if you’re in front of the right people it shouldn’t be awkward.
Think about serving instead of selling.
4. EXECUTE like an Accountant/Bookkeeper
Originally we had planned to name this step ‘Execute like a Boss’ but then we realised, actually no one executes better than Accountants and Bookkeepers!
Advisory has to become a serious focus in your business, in the same way you focus on and deliver your compliance services.
Everyone on your team needs to be on board and it should be an important consideration in any future recruitment.
It also needs to be consistent and systematised, if it’s ad-hoc, it will fall over.
Take charge of scheduling the advisory meetings (don’t leave it up to the client) and make sure you follow up and hold them accountable to their commitments. You’ll find they appreciate the accountability to implementation as much, if not more, than the advice.
Most importantly, ensure you track the results and raise them at every meeting, so the client is always seeing what working with you is doing for them and their business.
Where to from here?
Well that’s it – there are just 4 steps from compliance to advisory and now you have them.
If you’d like to go a little deeper, you’re welcome to join us for ‘Compliance, Advisory, & Profits’.
It’s perfect for you if you want easy steps to start, ideas to free up capacity, a simple offering, and a process to sell without selling.
Best of all it’s run by Accountants and Business Advisors who are at the coalface, and have already cracked the advisory code.
In 1 hour online per month you’ll get:
- Easy steps to get started
- Ideas to free up capacity
- Simple service concepts
- A process to sell without selling
It’s run by The Business Growth Group - Accountants and Business Advisors who have already cracked the advisory code and we’ll share:
- Our best tips and strategies developed over 20 years so you can leverage from our hard work
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Supporting tools and templates so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel
- A free digital copy of our book ‘Unlocking Your Financial Freedom’ an 8 step guide for business owners’
- A Q&A forum to keep you moving forward between monthly sessions
- VIP discounts to live events
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The training is live but all sessions recorded
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No lock-in period so you can try it out and if it’s not for you, just stop the program
ALL FOR JUST $79 per month
Your ‘Compliance, Advisory, & Profits’ Trainers
Michael Moschetti is a Business(es) owner, CEO, a CPA and a Business Growth Advisor. He’s also a best-selling author, speaker, industry commentator and will shamelessly take any opportunity to tell you all about the day he interviewed Vanilla Ice in South Africa.
Caren Hendrie is a Business(es) owner, a Business Growth Advisor, international speaker, best-selling author, and claims meeting and interviewing Mel Gibson in LA trumps Vanilla Ice. She was also named ‘One of the Top Female Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2019’ by Woman Entrepreneur Magazine.
Together they have combined experience of 50+ years in the business and finance industry advising owners of practically every type of business—from the mildly successful to the wildly successful. They consult to MYOB on a regular basis.
Caren and Michael specialise in working with other Accountants and Bookkeepers to guide them through their 4 step blueprint to transition from compliance to advisory.