Renee Daggett is one ambitious entrepreneur. A juggler by heart, she is studying for her Enrolled Agent designation, managing her team of four bookkeepers and CPAs, and constantly looking for ways to improve her business. And that’s just this Fall’s lineup.

One of the pieces I recently looked at in the role of one of her business coaches was her sales process. She offers a free 30-minute consultation with each new prospect and asks that they complete an intake form prior to the phone call. I reviewed the form as well as the phone script that Renee uses and offered my suggestions.

Not only do I like to look at these items from a marketing standpoint, I also put myself in Renee’s client’s shoes and ask myself “How easy and fun is it to do business with Renee?” A few of my suggestions were around streamlining the process, reducing any unnecessary paperwork, and making bookkeeping services as fun as possible. We accountants love paperwork – it’s our strength – but the clients who hire us usually don’t, so we often have to keep that in mind when we design our customer interfaces. The best customer interfaces will help us get the job done but will also do it from the frame of reference of the customer’s comfort as much as possible.

Each of my coaching clients has homework every week, and Renee’s was to revise her form and her script. When her next coaching session rolled around, I received those changes plus a beautiful, illustrated PowerPoint presentation from Renee. It was fun!

It now looks like fun to get your books done with Renee. She included photos that remind you of your peace of mind, photos of her team, a funny cartoon about the IRS, and fun descriptions of her services using a metaphor based on her book, “Your Financial Flight Plan: Pilot Your Business To Profitability.”

Here’s what we can learn from Renee:

1. If you don’t have a sales process, get one and systematize or proceduralize it. Create a prospect intake and follow up process including scripts, handouts, price sheets, and welcome packets.
2. Use ideas from other industries. Not all entrepreneurs use a presentation in their sales process, but there’s no reason why you can’t.
3. Make it fun. Your clients will love to hear you joking about the IRS or something very serious in your business and will appreciate you when you can show them more of your personality and humor.
4. Use your creativity (not when you’re booking journal entries, but in other ways!) in your business. Add some fun to your web site, forms, processes, and any other places you can find to do so in your business. It helps to reduce the stress of all those deadlines we work with, especially the accountants.

If you’re not an accountant, I hope you can still relate this story to your type of business and find the benefits. Putting the fun back into your business will help you, your clients, and your employees enjoy the work day just a little bit more.