I Just Lost My Biggest Client

Ed Mendlowitz CPA The Practice Doctor Q and A

By Ed Mendlowitz
Tax Season Opportunity Guide

QUESTION: I just suddenly lost my biggest client. They said they outgrew me. What could I have done to keep them?

RESPONSE: Maybe nothing. And at this point it may not matter, but there are some things you can do to maybe get them back in the future and stop it from happening with another client.

Losing any client is not pleasant, and losing a large client hurts. And when it is sudden it hurts even more.

I will answer this in three parts.

1. How to try to salvage something from the loss.
2. How to stop this from happening in the future.
3. How to avoid being “suddenly” surprised. READ MORE →

Past Due Fees

By Ed Mendlowitz “Tax Season Opportunity Guide“ Question: A client owes me a very large amount of money and seems to be giving me a runaround and I need to get the check quickly. The client has the cash, so … Continued

Accountants and Six Fundamental Human Needs

By Hitendra Patil
Pransform

Celebrity Author Anthony “Tony” Robbins identified six fundamental human needs that everyone has in common, and states that all behavior is simply an attempt to meet those six needs.

These Six Human Needs are Certainty, Uncertainty/Variety, Significance, Connection/Love, Growth and Contribution.

As an accounting services provider, if you can identify the ways to meet these six needs of your clients (and your staff), if you can recurrently and consistently do things that lead to clients  (and your staff) actually experiencing the satisfaction of these needs, you are more likely to improve your firm’s performance. The question to ask is, “WHAT should I do to ensure that my services/products fulfill these needs of my clients?”

For now, let us focus on your clients. Here are some suggestions on what to do to fulfill six fundamental needs of your clients. READ MORE →

Client Satisfaction Starts with ‘Likeability’

The science behind happy customers.

By Hitendra Patil
Pransform Inc.

In “The 9 Building Blocks of a Winning Vision that the Big Four Have Discovered,” August J. Aquila and Robert J. Lees brought out the common vision elements of Big Four firms. And one of them is “put the best people at our clients’ disposal.

It’s NOT common sense! It’s actually human behavioral science. You will be surprised to know how this works at a much deeper level than you think.
READ MORE →

How to Turn Client Surveys into New Revenues

Download the sample client satisfaction survey.

by Ed Mendlowitz

Question: Is there any value to sending clients a survey?

Response: Yes.  Our firm sends a survey with every deliverable to a client.  We want to know what they think and how they feel about our service.

I think your best friends are the clients that complain.  This gives you an opportunity to correct any deficiencies or exceptions.

One time a long time very good client put on the survey that we were great but our fees were high.  I immediately met with him, reviewed our charges, had the time runs and details of everything extra we had been doing beyond the scope of our engagement, and the value to the client.  In the following year he recommended two clients to us!  I don’t believe we would have gotten the referrals had he not complained.

Here is a sample of a survey we’ve used: READ MORE →

Take Six Big Steps to Go Beyond Compliance Services

Beat the billable hour by doing more than just taxes or QuickBooks.

By Sandi Smith, CPA
Accountant’s Accelerator

As compliance services become more commoditized and automated, accountants are faced with how this affects their practice and their bottom line. They can:

  1. Serve a higher level client that requires greater complexity, making themselves fairly immune to these changes
  2. Serve a larger number of clients to offset a drop in revenue per client averages
  3. Add new services to their practice to boost revenue per client

Those are pretty much the options available to keep profits from shrinking. But today I want to focus on the third point above, adding new services, and provide you with some ideas on how you may be able to serve your tax compliance clients in new ways.

More for soloists and small firms:  When Your Business Needs to Be Rebooted  |   Two Steps to Easy Cross-sells   |   The Hot New Tech Product for Automated Data Entry   |   Five Value-Add Service Areas to Take You Beyond Bookkeeping   |   Six Money-Making Strategies to Take You Beyond QuickBooks   |   Proactive Ways to Get More Referrals   |   The Three Biggest Money Leaks in Your Practice   |   New Client Opportunities with Mobile Apps   |   Six Questions to Launch Your Summer Strategy Sessions   |   What Most Accountants Miss in the Five Simple Steps to Get More Clients   |   Accountants, Do You Know Your Opportunity Number? | Five Ideas to Reduce Client Price-Sensitivity | Rise to the Top with a Fresh Elevator Speech | Four Ways to Practice Entrepreneurial Perseverance | 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Seeking New Clients  | The Top 12 Business Card Blunders Accountants Make | Seven Tips to Keep the Clients You Have | How to Attract Clients Like a Magnet | Eleven Easy Ways to Deliver More Value to Clients

Even if you don’t do taxes, you will find some ideas for new related services you can think about offering to your clients. (Remember, it’s easier to sell to existing clients than to acquire new ones.) READ MORE →