Is a Recession Happening? What Do You Need to Focus On?

Summary

• Overview of your Systems
• Client Conversations
• Referrals

Resources

• What Does a Recession-Proof Accounting Firm Look Like? – Jetpack Workflow
• The Win-Win Wealth Strategy for Accountants – Jetpack Workflow
• 15 Smart Marketing Strategies for Accounting Firms in 2022 (jetpackworkflow.com)
• The Secret Leverage Behind Workflow Audits – Jetpack Workflow

In this solocast, David Cristello, founder and CEO of Jetpack Workflow, talks about three key ideas you should use to stay relevant in the market during this recession. 

While you might not be able to change what happens externally, you can find solutions internally. It’s time to look inside your business and see what you can do to improve its current state.

If you find yourself stuck in this recession, David offers three areas to focus your efforts:

1. Systems
2. Clients
3. Referrals

What can you do to create a more resilient firm? Read more below to understand what you can do to help yourself and your firm.

Overview of your Systems

Obtaining newer and more systems is not always the solution to your problems. Instead, take a look at your current systems. Your present systems are giving you the key to efficiency in your business. You may have difficulty managing your workplace, if you ignore your systems and opt for newer ones.

The systems that you’ve built over time centralize your firm. Everything is compounding based on your existing systems, processes, and procedures. Your employees need a system to follow, and so do you! 

It’s important to think about the current issues that might be in your business when looking over your systems. Some issues could be:

• Where are your services confusing your clients?
• Is profit being lost?
• Are there any internal or external confusions about your systems?

If you have a team of individuals who could potentially assist you with your systems, get them together and discuss your business’s processes. Talking with a team of individuals is a great way to brainstorm ways to update your systems/processes. Some questions to ask yourself and your team include:

• What would your process need to look like to deliver a delightful client experience? Based on this, would the client positively share their experience with other potential clients?
• What would need to change for you and your employees to feel content and focused?
• Are we missing content?
• Do we need to have a training session?
• Do we need to add, edit, or remove steps from our processes?

If you focus on efficiency by tweaking your systems, you open up the opportunity to improve your calendar and free some of your time. You’ll find areas in your systems that need more delegation so you can focus on enhancing these aspects in your firm.

Think about ways that will enable you to better use your time before you add more people and responsibilities to your firm. By working with and updating your existing systems, you can establish efficiency and have less confusion in your workplace.

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Client Conversations

Your clients are valuable to your firm. How do you know that you are providing more value to your top clients than other firms in the market? 

One method that helps is finding your niche in your firm. To find your niche or to enable more services in your firm, contact your best clients and see how they’re doing. Your clients may influence your best ideas. Your clients could be struggling with:

• Financial aspects
• Their worries concerning the next twelve months for their business
• How they’re protecting themselves and their cash positions

Ask them questions to understand what causes your clients to worry and use their responses to your advantage. 

You might have specific services that could help your clients that they are not currently using. You might have multiple clients with the same problem and realize you don’t have a present service that could assist them. However, you can create a service based on their information and offer it to them in the future.

It’s best to contact your top clients because, to you, they:

• Are pleasurable to work with
• Have profit
• Have a growing market
• Own a passion industry of yours

All of these ideas astute confidence that, when a recession occurs, you always have room to grow in your market. Your clients will appreciate your attentiveness and your urge to assist their struggles. 

Referrals

Seeking referrals is helpful for your business. Tying into the previous idea, don’t think of your clients being entirely equal to each other. Check-in on your best clients and see how they’re doing. During your call with your best clients, try to gain some referrals. 

Ask for the referrals and tell your client you have something you could offer them of interest. For example, you might offer a free industry benchmarking report for the referrals. Be sure to offer these services in a way that feels seamless.

If you don’t have an industry benchmarking report to offer, you can use other methods like webinars. You can schedule a webinar training or physical training on a topic that would interest the referrals. You can invite your clients to these webinars and encourage them to invite one or two fellow practice owners.

You can approach your clients about referrals in many ways. The goal is to have this conversation with your best clients and obtain referrals for your business.

Making it through this recession involves looking at our business and seeing what we can control and improve. Maybe your systems need updating, or your clients need more assistance. When having these conversations about helping your clients, you can also ask about potential referrals that could increase the worth of your business.

Learn more about surviving this recession by listening to the full solocast above! If you found David’s advice helpful, share it with a fellow firm owner who needs to hear this information.