If you can’t stand the thought of looking at another tax return, you’re not alone. Each busy season seems to have its own set of complexities and tight deadlines. Now that it’s over, your clients still need your financial smarts – in the form of advisory services.
The real return on investment for your clients happens when you deliver advisory services. QuickBooks consulting and workflow improvements are two examples of advisory services on the technology side. Tax planning is the most common advisory service on the tax side. But what about the accounting side? These advisory services are often overlooked and have tremendous benefits for your clients.
The number one challenge for most owners of small businesses is getting more revenue in. Studies show that business owners who focus on revenue more than expenses grow faster. Yet, accountants still focus on expenses over revenue, possibly due to their own aversion to marketing. But you don’t have to know marketing to help your clients increase their revenue. You just need a few business skills.
Business skills are different from accounting skills. When you learn these skills, you can help clients with revenue, profit, and cash flow improvement. You might even be able to help them with pricing.
Clients also need financial literacy skills. Many of you are great teachers already; it’s just a matter of going beyond teaching accounting software and boosting the financial acumen of your clients.
If you’re interested in adding advisory services as a revenue stream, here are three steps to consider.
- Decide if you need training.
- Review your client base to estimate the demand for your new service.
- Create your new service based on what your clients need.
Expanding your practice to include a larger percentage of advisory work can be extremely rewarding, both financially and personally. It’s not only where you can become a true business partner to your clients; it’s where you can turn a client’s accounting department from an expense into a profit center.
And, if you’re interested in advisory training on profit and revenue improvement, check out our free webinar on May 2 with 1 hour CPE: http://complimentarywebinar.com/