It’s Okay to Say No to Clients (Even the Large Ones)

Working with “smaller” clients can often be more rewarding – and profitable – than “big” clients.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

There’s a reason you aren’t actively training clients to allow you to work efficiently. You’re afraid that you’ll lose clients.

I guarantee that you will.

MORE: Control Your Time: Avoid Ambush Meetings and Calls | Get Clients to Bring Tax Docs Early … Yes, EARLYWhy Time Tracking Still Matters | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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Clients have trained you to be inefficient. They’ll resist retraining. Some of them will leave and infect someone else’s practice.

The reason you fear losing clients is that you fear you can’t replace them.

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When Clients Prefer Social Media

How to use every new channel to create a new touchpoint to serve a client or attract a prospect, hire the best people, find new markets. By Becky Livingston Social Media for Accountants In today’s world of CPA firms, marketing … Continued

Busy Season 2015: When Clients Are the Problem

Get a read on the busy season. Join the survey; get the results
Get a read on the busy season. Join the survey; get the results

Top nine client management solutions.

NEXT QUESTION: Lessons Learned.
Join the survey; get the results

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines annual Busy Season Barometer is uncovering some frank and candid talk about clients. Yes, we love them. Couldn’t live without them. Most of the time. But, well, not always.

It’s not that they’re bad people. But let’s face it, they aren’t always sweating tax prep much in advance of April 1, they have no idea what new regulations are in effect this year and their advisories from their CPA are filed under “migraines that can wait.” Plus, they truly believe their CPA is exclusively dedicated to their company and doesn’t really have much else to do but wait around for their phone call.

“No matter how proactive you try to be at scheduling and planning ahead, clients still delay providing information for their taxes,” Bryan Lantz says. “Seems the IRS, Congress and the media are out to make our jobs even more compressed and stressful.” His solution: “Keep communicating with clients to ensure that we can do the best we can at equalizing workflow during busy season.”

From their remarks, CPA Trendlines draws at least nine lessons in smart client management.:

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6 Ways to Know What You Don’t Know

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and ABy Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: Occasionally I get a new client in an area I am unfamiliar with. How do I find out what I do not know?

RESPONSE: This happens to everyone and probably more often than we expect. Thankfully we will continue to get new business and getting clients in areas we are unfamiliar with enables us to grow.

MORE PRACTICE DOCTOR Q&A: 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Making Small Business Clients Happy | Client’s Difficult Daughter Balks at Bill | 6 Simple Steps to Impress a Prospect | 10 (Nearly) Painless Ways to Keep Up to Date with Technology | When a Staffer Stops Listening | 10 Ways to Get New 1040 Clients | Making Meetings More Productive | Tax Return Reviewer Ticking and Tying

Here is what I suggest: READ MORE →

6 Simple Steps to Impress a Prospect

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and AHow to walk in with head start.

By Ed Mendlowitz
The CPA Trendlines Practice Doctor

QUESTION: How do you make a presentation to get a new client when you do not know everything you should about the client’s business?

RESPONSE: No one can know everything about everything. Smaller firms have a harder time but they can reach out to others in their firm, or even partners in similar firms who have the knowledge to assist in the proposal, or friends in larger firms.

Here are six simple steps to learn as much as you can about a prospect and their industry.  READ MORE →

Managing Risk in Client Relations

Wishful thinking?

by Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

CPA Trendlines research has uncovered the startling fact of the wide disparity between how accounting firm management perceives their own performance and how their clients see their performance. (Join the survey; get the results.)

RELATED:  Your Clients Love You? What If You’re Wrong?  The Three Degrees of Risk  • Four Essential Habits for Building Client Trust   •  The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture  •  The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture   •   Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle  • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science  •  Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm  •

Another consideration of risk lies in a tendency to ignore or distort reality, which can lead to a vast expectations gap. READ MORE →