How accountants get new clients by using ProfitCents
“On what page can I find the fee?”
Accountants often get this question as they meet with prospects to present a service proposal, and unfortunately, sometimes they get it soon after handing the prospect the proposal. The fierce competition in accounting these days has pressured some accounting firms to compete on price alone, which feeds into clients’ expectations that price is what matters and leads them to look first at pricing before considering how your firm can truly help them.
This kind of meeting with a prospect can be frustrating, especially when you find it difficult to convince potential new clients that your firm’s skills and service are so superior that price shouldn’t be the determining factor. Actually, many firms have a tough time identifying and explaining something that truly sets them apart from peers and provides value to the client. You may think your differentiator is that:
1. you care about your clients,
2. you provide individualized attention or that
3. you have highly experienced staff.
The fact is, many firms claim those traits, making it likely your prospect has heard it all before. Accounting firms these days must know how they provide value in a unique way in order to market, price and execute services.
One way accounting firms have been able to set themselves apart and help prospects look beyond pricing and to win new clients more easily is to use reports generated by ProfitCents as a sales tool during the proposal process.
These reports can be used in at least two ways:
1. Print out an industry report using the Sageworks suite of financial analysis solutions and show the prospect how you can help them spot industry trends. Sageworks possesses a proprietary database of privately held company financial statements aggregated by industry, and this data can be queried by 1,400 industry codes so that you can show prospects you understand their industry and are able to provide detailed information that can help them. Doing this is a great way to demonstrate to a prospect that your expertise level and your approach to helping them manage these trends is different from other firms.
You can also reference these unique reports in your marketing for new clients. Send a prospect a letter (like the one shown here) describing your ability to provide information targeted to their specific industry.
2. If you’re able to get some of the potential client’s historical financial information ahead of the meeting, you can use it to generate a company-specific narrative report with comparisons to industry benchmarks and specific recommendations for the prospect company’s improved financial results.
ProfitCents uses artificial intelligence to generate reports and analytics that change as company data changes, so your clients can receive unique and individual content based on their financial data. This demonstrates the value that your firm can add to the client relationship.
Business owners must wear multiple hats in the management of their business, which means understanding their financials and using them to improve financial performance may get short shrift. You can use the ProfitCents reports to demonstrate that by having a strong relationship with their accountant (you) and an efficient way to monitor financial performance (ProfitCents reports), they will find it easier to juggle their multiple roles.
