Some Clients Just Aren’t Worth the ‘Mishegoss’

By Ed Mendlowitz

QUESTION: I have a client I really don’t like and want to drop, but I hesitate because of the long relationship I’ve had with her, and also I don’t want to lose the income. What should I do?

RESPONSE: I’ve addressed this before, but I am taking a different approach this time.

Dropping clients is never easy and I don’t think should be done lightly. However, there are some instances when it needs to be done. This particular client I was called about is extremely obnoxious. Not the normal grade of obnoxious, but far more so.

In fact it was one of the rare clients that I dropped. The call was from the accountant who had the client since then. I had the client six years. She’s had the client eight years – so she is much more patient than I am.

When she told the client she was dropping her, the client started to cry and beg her not to, so she changed her mind. Now she wants me to tell her what to do. For beginners, I have dropped very few clients. This client was one of the nastiest people I’ve ever dealt with. She was also very nasty to her husband, treating him like s – – t, and he has since passed on.

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What Shopping Habits Reveal about Accounting Clients

The four flavors of new clients.

By Hitendra Patil
Pransform Inc.

Tax season is over and you made it through the home stretch, significantly tired but scraped through!  Now is the time to rethink your business model on the new learning from tax season and to restart looking for new clients. You don’t want to create more “C clients” that suck the energy, time and profits like a vortex.

Not sure how to estimate the value of your prospects? You may want to learn their shopping habits. READ MORE →

When a Happy Client Isn’t Enough

4 essential habits for building client trust.

By Bruce W. Marcus

In the firm with a strong marketing culture, getting the client is only half the battle. The other half is keeping the client. It’s done with more than just doing good work. In fact, most clients, surveys tell us, don’t really know how good or how bad your work is. Why should they? It’s not the business they’re in. They have to trust the accountant.

More Professional Services Marketing 3.0:The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing CultureThe Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing CultureGetting the Client is Only Half the BattlePractice Development: It’s Not Rocket ScienceNine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting FirmWhat Accounting Firms Need to Understand to Grapple with Radical ChangeSix Reasonable Goals for CPA Firm Marketing

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Is the Profit Squeeze Over?

New trends emerge in net profit margins and accounts receivable.

After years of intensifying and debilitating pressure on bottom lines, profits at tax, accounting and bookkeeping firms appear to be hitting 10-year highs, according to information obtained by CPA Trendlines from Sageworks, the specialist in tracking private-company financials. READ MORE →

The Top 20 Reasons Clients Love Their CPA Firms

By Marc Rosenberg
How CPA Firms Work

The CPA’s training is geared to identifying problems that clients are experiencing and giving recommendations for improving the company.   This leads to producing what is known as the “Oh wow” feeling from a client.  Efforts to super-please clients are what it takes to satisfy clients’ needs, retain them year after year and get them to make unsolicited referrals of other companies.

Here are 20 things that CPAs do that their clients rave about: READ MORE →