The beginning of success is great. Your firm covers your own income and you can hire a few people. Your first batch of clients love you. All you have to do is keep doing what you’re doing, right?

Unfortunately, once you reach a certain size, the skills you need to grow further change. You need to learn systems development, process development, and how to hold your team accountable. You also need to learn what to look for in a firm.

On this week’s Growing Your Firm podcast, we’re speaking with Gretl Siler. She’s the owner of Lighthouse CPAs and has successfully navigated this hurdle. If you’re stuck in the beginning stages of success and feel you can’t take on any more work without going nuts, take a listen and learn how Gretl did it.

Podcast

Summary

• About Lighthouse Cpas
• What Freed Up Gretl to Hunt for New Firms to Build the Business
• How the Team Manages Communication In the Firm
• Shifting Your Mindset About Hiring
• What Gretl Looks for In a Firm Before Making a Bid

Resources

• Lighthouse CPAs
• Gretl’s email: gretl@lighthousecpas.com

Switching Your Role Smoothly

Lighthouse CPAs is a full-service firm that serves small-to-mid sized companies. They have clients with a broad age range, but they specialize in newer companies that need extra help in the beginning. They are earning half a million in revenue and working to hit their first million. Gretl’s hope is to make the firm at least that large, get it running smoothly, then sell the firm off and retire.

How Gretl is doing that is by aggressively acquiring other firms. This stage can scare firm owners because integrating a bought firm into your company is an enormous challenge. We asked Gretl what gave her the freedom to do this.

Freeing Up Her Own Time By Hiring Staff

She does reviews of corporate returns, but the staff does most of the work. This kept her from falling into the trap of taking on all the extra work herself after a firm acquisition. It’s tempting to do that because you want to make sure you do things your way, but it leads to a lot of extra stress and long hours in the office. 

Using Jetpack Workflow

She uses the tracking system to ensure that everyone goes through all the steps, and for documenting everything about the client’s special needs. All those special exceptions and personal nuggets of knowledge need to get out of the heads of people in the company and into somewhere others can see them. Not just things like templates, but little things like how the client prefers to be called and how they like to communicate. 

The goal here is that if a new person came in and had to serve that client, that person would have all the information they need to take care of them.

How the Team Communicates

There are five people working at the company, including Gretl. Thanks to Jetpack Workflow, Gretl doesn’t need to talk to her team very often. She can watch the jobs flowing through the workflow software, see where any roadblocks are, and address them. The firm used to have face-to-face meetings when something was stuck or with a new client, but with COVID-19, those have stopped even in the office.

Like many businesses, she’s turning to Zoom to do online meetings. Her intent is to have weekly group meetings on Fridays to talk about issues instead of individual meetings. They are also experimenting with screencasting software to talk about issues with any documents, both internally and with clients.

With the clients, the hope is to avoid the phone tag game. By making a small video of the document and talking about the issues, then sending it over email, it’s much easier to stay in touch.

Beware the Good Interviewer

We asked about what Gretl had to learn to grow her team to be so reliable. The first thing she mentioned was that she was a little too kindhearted and held on to people too long before letting them go. It’s easy to think it’s your fault and you didn’t train them enough, and sometimes that is the case.

However, there are some people out there who just do not have the work ethic or the mindset necessary to work in this field. They’re the wrong fit for the position. Even if you think they’re a wonderful person, they just won’t get it. Cutting them loose will help them find a job more suited to their personality, and will keep them from harming your business’s goals.

Catching this problem before it starts is hard because interviews can be gamed. Some people interview really well but can’t do the job. Others may be great at it, but because of introversion or nervousness, they bomb the interview.

Choosing Firms to Buy

Taking on a firm is always tricky, but there are two things you can look for to avoid firms that look too good to be true. 

The firm needs to charge enough money before you buy it. 

Gretl has found that a lot of firms set their prices too low. If she bought those firms and raised the prices, it would drive away a lot of the clients in that firm and lower the value of the purchase.

If you go through a broker, you can get the average prices for different services of the firms they’re selling. If it’s about 10% lower than yours, it will be easier to bring up safely in a year or two, but if it’s too low, then ignore it.

This means that you need to set your prices appropriately before you start buying firms. One mindset shift that will help is to think of your business as an asset, not a job. Build it with the intent that someone else could walk in and run the business.

Examine how long the firm’s clients have been with the business. 

You want to find firms where the clients have stuck around for five or six years. By this point, they’ve bought into that firm’s brand and will be less likely to switch after acquisition.

We’d like to thank Gretl Siler for sharing her insights and experiences with us. If you’d like to learn which two best business books she’s read this year, take a listen to the full episode at the link above!

We all want to sell more business to our clients so we can grow our firms, but many accountants find it difficult. Most accountants are not born salespeople and struggle with this piece of the puzzle.

That’s why we’ve brought on Michelle Weinstein to talk with us on the Growing Your Firm podcast. She’s the founder of The Pitch Queen and The Abundant Accountant. We discussed how to decrease the time it takes between introducing your services to someone and signing a deal.

Podcast

Summary

• Have the Mindset of a Brain Surgeon
• Michelle’s Three Tips for Closing Deals
• Why You Should Never Send Proposals

Resources

• Michelle’s free coaching call service: http://theabundantcall.com/
• Never Split The Difference book

Closing as Fast as Possible

When a client reaches out to you, they need help. But many of our readers and listeners can relate to a client acting wishy-washy about receiving it. You have the skills, but they’re not willing to make the leap.

Michelle first recommends taking on a different mindset when introducing your services. Instead of thinking about yourself as an accountant, think of yourself as a surgeon. When a surgeon says you have a problem, it’s urgent, and they’ll want to operate as soon as possible. Likewise, many accounting issues are diseases of the business. You need to assume the mindset of a surgeon and tell them they need treatment before their business dies.

In short, you need to take control of the conversation. Compare these scenarios:

• Accountant: Lets the client know they can help, but lets them decide on when to start.
• Surgeon: Lets the client know exactly what’s wrong, when you want to fix it, how you’ll fix it, and what you need from the client to make it happen.

Wouldn’t things be easier if you took charge of the conversation? This may be scary for some because we don’t want to feel like we’re telling others how to operate their business.

Think of it this way: If they knew the ins and outs of accounting, they probably wouldn’t be coming to you in the first place. They don’t know how serious tax problems and financial loans can be if they’re left to linger. You need to take charge and tell them why their business is threatened and offer a plan of action.

This mind-shift alone may be enough to close the gap between introducing your service and closing the deal, but there are three additional tips that Michelle recommends to speed things up.

Go In Like the Deal Is Already Closed

Michelle says that when you go to a client meeting, have an engagement letter and an invoice with you right at the start. Like the surgery example before, doctors won’t let you wait around if there is a problem. Take on that mindset of, “my client’s business is seriously ill, and I can help them if I take action now.” If you are prepared to start onboarding them at the meeting, you’ll reduce the time chasing clients who want time to talk themselves out of it.

If the thought of this makes you panic or feels pushy, here’s a strategy to try from the book Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss. After you’ve shared what you’ve found and explained your engagement letter and invoice, ask them why they’re choosing your firm.

This turns the client’s mind toward the reasons they want to hire you rather than why they don’t. After they’ve answered, assure them you can meet those expectations, make an appointment to get to work, and get that invoice paid.

To do this right, you must do your research in advance on your lead so you can jump right in with your engagement letter. Michelle has some tips on that in the podcast.

Control the Next Meeting

Not every client will want to jump in immediately. Michelle says that around 10-20% of people really do need a night or a day to think about a deal before closing. That’s when you book them for a follow-up appointment as soon as possible. Preferably in the next business day.

If you meet with a client on Friday, show them your engagement letter and invoice. When they ask to review it, schedule a follow-up appointment for Monday. Don’t give them time to drag out the decision-making because time kills deals.

Pro Tip: A good way to approach this is to suggest to the client two times they can meet with you so they can choose between them. If you give them a single option, they’re more likely to decline or try to move the conversation to email.

Send a Thank-You Card

If your potential client is someone that you really want to work with, then the third recommendation comes into play. Whether they signed up immediately or scheduled a follow-up, send them a thank-you card.

This is a very old-fashioned technique, but it works. The card should say something simple like:

<client>, it was an honor to meet with you today. I’m really excited to help you get your monthly accounting in line. It’s an honor to have you as a part of our firm’s family, and I look forward to working with and supporting you.

Have an amazing weekend.

<your name>

Michelle buys a box of 500 simple one-page cards from Amazon with a pre-printed message and blanks to sign names. You could also leave blanks to summarize the key points of how your firm will help them out, or if you’ve got good handwriting, you could write the whole thing yourself each time. You don’t need to add anything in with the card.

Why do this? Because it makes the recipient feel fantastic! Getting a card is rare these days. It’s a reassurance to your client that you truly appreciate them, and it sets you apart from your competition.

Try out these tips in your next client meetings, and see if they reduce the time between meeting and closing your next deals!

The lifeblood of any CPA firm is a consistent referral stream. Without referrals, natural attrition will kill your firm in due time. But asking for referrals can feel awkward. What if there was a way to do it without asking?

That’s what we’re going to talk about today with Stacey Brown Randall. Stacey is the multiple award-winning author of Generating Business Referrals. She’s the host of The Roadmap to Grow Your Own Business podcast, and has been featured in many national publications. Let’s get into it!

Podcast

Summary

• The old/current way of getting referrals
• The difference between referrals and prospecting/marketing
• How much can you get by making a referral plan

Resources

• Stacey’s website
• Stacey’s referral quiz

Changing Your Mindset About Getting Referrals

Stacey opens our conversation by describing how most businesses actively get referrals. They either ask for them or pay for them. And while these work, they may not be how you want to present yourself. It may not fit your brand or your professional image.

But if you don’t pursue referrals, you’re at the mercy of your clients to get them. It comes down to chance. How do you find a third way between aggressive pursuit and ignoring the referral problem?

The problem starts with how we’re taught to grow a business. The usual advice is to have a prospecting plan and a marketing plan. These can be seen as the active and passive sides of client acquisition, respectively.

What we miss is that referrals don’t fit either perspective, but we’re taught to look at it from these perspectives. If we have a prospecting mindset, we have a short-term results-focused outlook. This leads to tactics like asking for or buying referrals.

Conversely, if you view referrals with a marketing mindset, you end up with promotions instead, or gimmicky methods, or just letting your marketing generate organic referrals.

Target Audience for Referrals: Marketing

But here is the big difference between referrals and prospecting or marketing. The target for marketing is the lead. You’re hoping that you’ll meet the lead or that the lead will read your marketing material.

Target Audience for Referrals: Prospecting

In prospecting, the target is the referral source, not the leads they know. This reframes the approach. Done right, you can double or even triple the number of referrals you get when you focus on the referral source!

How Do You Get Referrals Without Asking?

The first step is to reframe your referral process: it’s not about you, the business owner. Instead, a referral is a transfer of trust from your client to the lead. Think about the usual ways we try for referrals. You go to a client or someone in your networking group and start asking if they know someone who needs a CPA. This turns the ask into a “me me me” story.

But here’s the thing: referrals are never about you. It’s not like your clients woke up and thought about how they could grow your company today.

How do you take the “me” out of it?

Think about your best referrals. Odds are you didn’t have to do much to get them to hire you. They already had a problem, went to someone they trusted (your former client), learned about you, and hired you. Your referral source shared their trust with their colleague and they went to you.

Instead of asking for referrals from your clients, Stacey recommends doing things that keep you at the top of your client’s minds. We love helping others in our social circle. If you’re the first option that comes to mind when someone asks your clients for a recommendation for an accounting firm, then you’ll keep getting referrals.

This means that you need to raise the level of trust between you and your clients so they feel comfortable recommending your business. Rather than leaning on gimmicks or begging for referrals, just stay at the top of their mind and show your appreciation.

The Importance of Gratitude

One of the best ways to stay at the top of your client’s minds is to share your appreciation for them. Without their needs and their trust, you would not have a business, right?

Stacey compares referral source nurturing to planting seeds. Each act of appreciation is a seed that improves the chances of getting a successful referral.

A Seed of Gratitude

As soon as you get a referral from a client, send the referral source a handwritten thank-you note. It’s simply a brief note that thanks the referral source for the prospect. It can be something as simple as:

David,

Thank you for referring Sam Brown to me. I appreciate the lead!

Sincerely,

Stacey

The advantage of a handwritten note is that we’re less inclined to throw them away. They can stay on a desk for a couple of weeks, or get put up on a corkboard. It will keep reminding the recipient of your thanks, unlike an email or a text message that will disappear soon into the ether.

This is just one example out of many that Stacey teaches, but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it can’t be powerful! Your referral plan is, essentially, how you plan to reach out to and thank others for helping your business grow meaningfully.

Consider Regular Opportunities to Show Your Appreciation

It’s not just when they give you a referral either. Stacey recommends doing something nice for your clients at least 4-8 times per year, depending on how many clients you have and what you do for them. You can also separate it out into gift levels if you have some clients who refer many people to you (fruit baskets, anyone?)

Another outstanding strategy she mentions in the podcast is to send Mother’s Day cards to your clients. This may seem silly, or even forward, but Stacey says that her students receive a huge response from their clients when they do this.

There’s a lot more that Stacey goes into in the interview, so if you want the full story, listen to the whole episode via the link above. Also, take her quiz and find out how much of a referral ninja you are!