Never Mind the Bullets

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Debt leverage is a very risky business, especially for smaller firms. I appreciate that it’s not always avoidable, but proactively planning and saving for a rainy day is a far better strategy.”

By Martin Bissett

In an ideal world, if the unexpected occurs and you need to draw on an emergency fund, you turn to your cash reserves, the money you have saved to allow you to continue drawing from your business in the event of a temporary shortfall in income. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, those businesses with a three- to six-month reserve saved for a rainy day found that it didn’t rain quite so hard as it might have done.

The lesson? Be financially wise. Treat the funds in your business as sacred and plan for the unknown. You will sail through whatever emergencies come your way without accumulating debt to repay.

Today’s To-Do:

How much can you reasonably afford to save each month to build your rainy day fund? Plan to start doing so immediately.

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Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Framing the conversation is a tremendously useful way of focusing a prospect on what the meeting is about.”

By Martin Bissett

When a prospective client walks into the first meeting with you, they think they know about accountants. In reality, they know a little bit about what their current accountant does and will measure you with the same stick. If you can do more for them, you need to educate them. Framing the conversation for a commercially minded business owner in terms of the outcomes you can achieve will help them to understand the true value of what you bring to their firm.

Explain that the purpose of the meeting is to find out all about them, but that you appreciate that they probably want to know more about you, too. Tell them about the business owner who you enabled to pay for their first vacation in years. About the client whose dream of early retirement was realized. Leave them with those stories spinning in their heads.

Today’s To-Do:

Every firm has resounding success stories, but very few leverage them to get across a sense of who they are. Find two or three relevant outcomes for clients of a similar size or sector for your next prospect meeting.

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Today’s Bissett Bullet: “In writing a proposal for a potential client, it serves us to remember that they want us to help them create history more than record it.”

By Martin Bissett

Because we are so used to providing compliance work, we are used to looking in the rear-view mirror. Our prospective client, however, wants to look out of the windshield to where we are going. So, let us make sure that our proposals represent a forward-looking view more than they do a historical-looking view. The prospective client takes the recording of the past as a given. They want to know where they are going with us in charge.

Today’s To-Do:

Today the action point is this. Before a meeting with a prospective client, make sure that our agenda is future-focused, not historically focused.

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Today’s Bissett Bullet: “How easy or difficult it is for an accountant to write a powerful proposal document is often dependent on how well the initial meeting with the prospective client went.”

By Martin Bissett

If I had a penny for every time somebody had reported a new business meeting they had attended and said to me, “Martin, you don’t understand, there was just no client need. I’m not sure why I was there, I could see no opportunity.” All these three phrases are code for “I did not find the need,” “I did not create strong empathy and rapport,” “I did not put together a compelling commercial argument for that business to work with our accounting firm.”

If this is true of your client meeting, you will find a proposal very difficult to write because you will be competing on the fronts of price, geography and likeability rather than a return on investment, which is the front we should be fighting on.

Today’s To-Do:

When reviewing your next quote or proposal document read it from the client’s perspective before you present it to them and see if YOU would buy from you. If not, can you identify an opportunity you missed to build rapport? Bear it in mind for the future.

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Today’s Bissett Bullet: “When it comes to meeting with a prospective client for the first time, there is only one way to approach the conversation. As a fellow business owner and human being.”

By Martin Bissett

Your prospect is a business owner, just like you. They have cash flow problems and sleepless nights and clients to service, just like you. This meeting with them is, after all, simply a human interaction between two people. So, be you. Be sincere, be genuine, be empathetic. If you are interested in them and aim to serve them, not to sell to them, then that will resonate and they will reciprocate by opening up and giving you the information you need to find the right solution for their business.

Today’s To-Do:

Prepare a more informal agenda for your next meeting. Have questions that you know you need to ask and the means to record the answers to those questions but remember that a more natural, relaxed interaction will build better rapport.

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