Bissett Bullet: What Does It Cost to Undertake?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “It is important to know the cost price of any given job.”

By Martin Bissett

It is not an exact science. You can calculate that cost with any given hourly recovery rate and however you see fit, but you need to know what it is. This is NOT to inform your pricing, but to inform what your break-even is. When you set your fees, they must never equate to less than cost or you are loss making, and unless there is significant long-term benefit to doing so on a short-term basis, you don’t want that.

Sounds obvious, right? So how come so many accounting firms don’t get acquired because they don’t make any money?

Today’s To-Do:

If you were to be honest with yourself, how many prospective clients really do not want to change their accountant, and how many just did not see the reason to? Now, on that basis with that reality confronted, be stronger in your next meeting with a prospective client.

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Five Questions for Grading Prospects

pipeline in shape of a dollar sign

Remember, a list is not a pipeline.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

So you’ve done all the work to get yourself composed and prepared to go out and generate new opportunities, find new business and new clients. Now what? How will you know who to contact for the first step?

Answer: your pipeline.

MORE: Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition | Keep Business Development Going During Busy Season | Walk the Commitment Walk | Two Steps Toward Mastering Selling | Thirteen Ways to Show Commitment | Clients Can’t Grow without You | Seven Mistakes in Winning New Fees | How to Develop Your Communication Abilities | Five Questions for Measuring Partner Potential | Five Ways to Rally Your Firm to Its Culture | When Would-Be Partners Aren’t Candidates | Make Your Expertise a New-Client Magnet | Don’t Think of It as Selling
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Many partners think they have a pipeline, but they don’t. What they actually have is just a list of prospects they’ve

  • met with,
  • would like to meet with or
  • have worked with in the past.

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Bissett Bullet: Who are Your Centers of Influence?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Who is sending new business your way and who isn’t but really ought to be?”

By Martin Bissett

A “center of influence” is someone who is well known and respected within their community or industry and as a result is a valued and trusted source of referral.

This may be a restaurant owner who knows everybody in the local area because they come through their door on a regular basis, or the head of your local chamber of commerce or networking group.

Today’s To-Do:

List two or three people who are influential in your local area that you don’t have a relationship with but you should, and get to know them. Identify a mutual contact who could make an introduction or a local networking event where you might have an opportunity to speak with them.

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Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition

Woman's hand pressing words "ASK AN EXPERT"

Consider what the next generation of practice leaders faces.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

The Passport to Partnership study collated a number of responses in a conversational style. The need for professionals who can remain calm in the storm is showcased below and was repeated many times in various different ways.

MORE: Keep Business Development Going During Busy Season | Health, Wealth, Stealth: Challenges on the Path to Partnership | Don’t Let Recurring Fees Kill Your Practice | Rate Your Personal Purpose | Five Ways to Make Selling Easier | Six Keys to Getting a Proposal Accepted | Tell the World Your Worth | Four Surprising Keys to Communication | Culture Can’t Be Ignored
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The expert council

What is going to be the single biggest challenge for the next generation of practice leaders?
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Bissett Bullet: Are You Their Most Trusted Advisor?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Be your client’s first, last and ultimate line of defense in making sure that their business and personal aspirations come to fruition.”

By Martin Bissett

The best hope of a business owner’s successful startup, project or even eventual exit remains in the hands of the most caring and proactive accountants.

Very often you will be their only support. They carry the burden of ultimate responsibility for the financial security of their business, their team or their own family. Show them that you understand, are invested in their success and are there to make that burden lighter. Come to them with solutions that save them time, money and stress and you will cement your position as their most trusted advisor.

If your clients can sleep at night because you are there to guide them, to act as a sounding board, to offer a friendly ear and to help them make the most difficult decisions, why would they ever leave?

Today’s To-Do:

In what ways do you demonstrate you are caring and proactive to your clients? Are there any improvements you can make to ensure that your clients feel fully supported at all times by you and your team?

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Keep Business Development Going During Busy Season

Man writing on a calendar

Consistency is key.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

You may be asking yourself how you will know when you are successful in your selling efforts. Many people have asked me that, but it’s the wrong question because firms have different goals.

MORE: Health, Wealth, Stealth: Challenges on the Path to Partnership | It’s Time to Prepare the Next Generation | Who Are You More Committed to, Your Firm or Your Clients? | Nine Checkpoints Before Every Prospect Meeting | Three Questions about Conversion | Six Keys to Turning Prospects into Clients | Don’t Overlook Internal Communication | Four Reasons People Struggle with Communication | Why Firm Culture Matters for Partners | Competence Is Step One of Seven | Three Things That Rich Accountants Do
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Some want to simply tick over and replace the clients they lose, some want to grow exponentially, some want steady and consistent growth they can measure and monitor. So there is no one definition of success. But no matter what yours is, you will never attain it if you are inconsistent in your process of winning new business.
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Bissett Bullet: Do I Know You?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “What is your LinkedIn connection strategy? Do you have one?”

By Martin Bissett

A vast number of connections on your LinkedIn profile page may look impressive but there is a compelling argument for knowing at least the vast majority of your LinkedIn contacts personally.

There will of course be people connected to you that you have never met in person. You may have worked with them remotely, may have presented with them on a virtual panel or you may have engaged with their content and identified them as somebody with whom you could build a mutually beneficial relationship; but there IS a genuine connection there.

Your LinkedIn network is a potentially valuable referral source and time spent nurturing those relationships is time well spent. The better the relationship you have with your connections, the more likely they are to champion your firm when someone in their network is in need of a recommendation.

Today’s To-Do:

Take a look at your strategy moving forward. Start to be more selective about who you connect with and prioritize people you know, would like to work with or who can introduce you to your ideal clients.

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Health, Wealth, Stealth: Challenges on the Path to Partnership

And why we need them.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

Now we move on to our sixth “C” in the passport to partnership – challenges.

Again the heading has more than a single application, which we’ll explore here.

MORE: It’s Time to Prepare the Next Generation | Walk the Commitment Walk | Two Steps Toward Mastering Selling | Thirteen Ways to Show Commitment | Clients Can’t Grow without You | Seven Mistakes in Winning New Fees | How to Develop Your Communication Abilities | Five Questions for Measuring Partner Potential | Five Ways to Rally Your Firm to Its Culture | When Would-Be Partners Aren’t Candidates | Make Your Expertise a New-Client Magnet
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Ultimately, the partners interviewed in our research broke “challenges” down into two key areas:

  1. The ability for a manager to pull the firm out of the mire when there’s a problem
  2. The ability for a manager to pull the client out of the mire when there’s a problem

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