Selling on Value vs. Fees

What’s the difference? Compliance sells on fee; advisory sells on value.

By Martin Bissett
Understanding Selling

I’ve been asking you to believe in yourself, to get your potential clients to open up to you and to demonstrate to them the outcomes that working with you and your firm would create in their personal and professional lives.

MORE ON SELLING: 3 Ways to Convert Scheduling Practices to New Fees | Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

Now here’s a checklist for you to run through before you begin your next business development initiative, and before each new business appointment that you have. READ MORE →

3 Ways to Convert Scheduling Practices to New Fees

Martin Bissett
Bissett

Practice these disciplines every day.

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

You may be thinking right now, “Well, very good, Martin, but we have finite time. We’re very, very busy people and we need to get business in the door, and therefore creation of opportunity becomes the issue.”

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MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

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Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships

Break down unspoken barriers. Are you just about compliance? By Martin Bissett Winning Your First Client It’s about time to realize that value is not about time. MORE BISSETT: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New … Continued

When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them

Focus on the client’s concerns, not your own.

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

Let’s start with two simple definitions to avoid any confusion:

  1. The purpose of marketing is to create the opportunity.
  2. The purpose of business development (sales) is to convert that opportunity into a paying client.

MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

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When we meet with prospective clients – and I say this as someone who has sat in on many hundreds of meetings of this nature – we rarely give potential clients a reason to buy from us that they care about.

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Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard!

Martin Bissett
Bissett

Four reasons you might be having trouble.

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

Let’s take a look at the last 16 years of my experience and my research as to where new clients come from in an accounting practice. I don’t think there are going to be too many shocks here.

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MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

What I’ve found is that 82 percent of all new clients in a given year who come into an accounting firm come in from a referral source. This may be a bank or a lawyer or some other source, perhaps an existing client, who has recommended that a particular business meet with your firm and come on board as a client.

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‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word

Don’t like selling? Call it something else.

Martin Bissett
Martin Bissett

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

Being a successful person according to your own measurement of that, and your own goals and your own standards, is different for everyone.

If you’re comfortable with yourself, it’s very likely that others will be too. If you understand the value that you offer (how you can improve a client’s situation to move them closer toward their personal and professional aspirations), you’re likely to be able to convey that value in front of a prospect.

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MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

That’s a huge part of successful business development that is not often talked about.

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8 Factors in Practice Development Success

Martin Bissett
Bissett

Hint: Be successful in life first.

By Martin Bissett
Winning Your First Client

You know the identity of your first client, and if you buy into you, then there’s a good chance of potential clients being prepared to do so, too.

This is what we must remember about the purchasing of professional services such as accounting. If your prospective client is a Grade A or B style opportunity for your firm, then they are not buying the services you provide per se. The services are the vehicles of delivery;
the means to the end.

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MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

The client is buying the relationship, and they are asking themselves:

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In Sales, Perception Is Reality

You have to believe in yourself.

By Martin Bissett

“No man has the ability to step outside of the shadow of his own character.”
— Robespierre

As far as our potential clients are concerned, how they perceive us is how we really are to them, regardless of the truth of the matter.

MORE ON SELLING: Selling vs. Attracting to Build Relationships | When Selling, Don’t Chase New Fees, Attract Them | Selling Accounting Services Doesn’t Have to Be Hard! | ‘Selling’ Isn’t a Dirty Word | 8 Factors in Practice Development Success | In Sales, Perception Is Reality | Success Begins With Accountability | Do You Realize You’re Failing? | Winning Your First Client

Because of this, it’s important to realize that when we are meeting a new potential client who has not been referred to us, it does not matter what the reality of our value proposition is; it matters how that potential client perceives our value proposition. Therefore, to be effective
in winning work, we must understand how we can positively influence their perception of us at each stage of the relationship-building process.

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