Why Offer Advisory Services?

Advisory Services are the fastest growing Accounting Firm service offering.

• Offers valuable, outcome-oriented services
• More fulfilment in the work
• Better Profit Margins
• Better Work Life Balance for firm owners and teams.
• SMB Demand for good advice is increasing

Big 4 Accounting Firms – Advisory Growth

Source: Monadnock Research LLC

What Are Advisory Services?

Advisory is an ambiguous term for all services that are not compliance focused.

Overcoming Barriers to Advisory 

1. Compliance Focused  →  Advisory Focused

• This is the biggest barrier for compliance heavy firms
• Compliance is defined by tax law + past events
• Advisory is defined by business constraints + future goals  
• Move from a Volume to Value

3. Systems and Technology

Two Part Barrier:

1. 1. Systems and technology are a major part of business advisory services
   2. Connectivity to the client’s systems is required for efficient and seamless delivery of advisory services

5. Unclear Messaging

• The term ‘Advisory Services’ is not understood by most clients
• ‘Bookkeeping’ and ‘Tax Preparation’ are understood 
• Advisory needs to be clarified AND defined:
• Less about what WE do, more on the CLIENT’s outcome
• We’re stuck relying on our existing client pipeline

How to Offer Advisory Services?

There are five key pillars to focus on:

• Position
• Proposition
• People
• Process
• Pricing

1. Establish A Market Position

• What services will you offer?
• What clients will you serve?
• Specialized and Expert Firms

Most firms will go wide with their offers and target clients. It is better to narrow and deep.

2. Creating a Value Proposition

• What are the problems you solve?
• What is the value you deliver? 

• Create a clear problem statement of who you help, their problem, your solution and your offer name. 

• An audience → Industry → Sub Industry → Niche
• Problem → Confidence, operational, growth or cash flow
• Solution → Specific to the problem 
• Offer → How is that solution delivered

3. Hiring the right People

• What internal competencies are you missing?
• What non-accounting hire make sense?

• Upskilling and training your internal team
• Empower them with opportunities to research and explore (IE non-billable hours)
  • External courses and training
  • Creating reports + dashboards
  • Explore technology
  • Speaking with clients

4. Develop a Delivery Process

• Connectivity to the client
• Internal capacity and workflows

• First thing: Connect Systems as much as possible
• Focus on Data Flow not Data entry
• Better connectivity equals less administration time

  Almost all of my advisory work included commenting on and/or overseeing implementation of new tech

5. Create a Pricing Strategy

• Discovery and Sales Process
• Value vs. Volume
• Project vs. Recurring

Discovery and Sales Process

Advisory Sales Cycle and Process is different from Compliance

• Compliance → Services
• Advisory → Outcomes

Advisory Requires Discovery

Compliance is Furnace Maintenance. Advisory is Home Remodelling

Value vs. Volume

• Advisory has to be priced on value, not volume.
• Value is Contextual
• Don’t price the service – Price the Client (and their situation)
• Price is what your client pays. Value is what you deliver.

Your Advisory services succeed because of who your Clients are, not because of what you offer.

Project Vs. Recurring 

• Hourly, Fixed and Subscription
• Hourly tethers you to your inputs → Penalized for efficiency
• Fixed focuses on outputs → You won’t go above + beyond
• Subscription targets outcomes → Delivers maximum value

Getting Traction With Your Advisory Services?

• Messaging + Marketing
• Leveraging your current client base
• Finding + Creating audiences

Messaging + Marketing

• Create a Problem Statement:

I help _____________ to ___________ by providing___________ with the _____________ program.

Leveraging your current client base

• Make a list of your clients
• Client that are:
  • Growing/ Transitioning and need more support
    AND
  • Match your problem statement
• Have close and ongoing conversations with your existing clients.

Finding and Creating Audiences

• All service transitions in your firm will succeed based on the number and quality of the clients for that new service
• Creating a new pipeline of clients will be required to make advisory profitable in your firm.

Finding Audiences

After you decide the service you’ll offer and the clients you’ll serve, you need to find them.

• Online Audiences
  • Social platforms (FB, Inst, LinkedIn)
    • Groups
    • Influencers
  • Podcasts as a Guest
  • Articles in online magazines

• Offline Audiences
  • Trade Group + Professional Organizations
  • Build relationships with:
    • Other CPA Firms
    • Law firms
    • Insurance providers
  • Get onstage as much as possible

Creating Audiences

• Using your messaging to create an audience
• Posting on Social Platforms
  • There is a lot of appetite for good accounting content
• Create Guides, Whitepapers (Lead Magnets)
  • Collect Email Addresses
  • Blogs + Newsletters