Stop Chasing Every Lead
Every prospect you encounter would be a great fit for your firm, right? Wrong.
Too often accountants try to be all things to all people without realizing how much stronger their firm could be if they were more selective about the types of clients they work with. There are clients you can truly serve better – and they will be better clients.
You can increase the quality of your client base over time if you approach client acquisition strategically. To win high-quality clients that you can serve better, enjoy working with and are more profitable, focus on these three areas:
- Identify Your Ideal Client. You have to first understand the depth and breadth of your current client make-up. You have strengths today with specific buyer types, whether that be by industry or service line. But don’t stop there. Consider things like company size, business sophistication and organizational structure when identifying your ideal target.
- Develop a Solid Channel of Distribution Strategy. You have identified who specifically you are targeting, now you need to know where to find them. In other words, what channel do you sell through? You need to understand what services you sell to whom through what channel: service -> channel -> target.
- Know when to Say No. The hardest thing you will have to do when being more selective with your client acquisitions is saying no to a lead that doesn’t fit your ideal clients. However, this can have the biggest impact on things like efficiency, profitability and team morale.
Learn more about these three steps in my Intuit tax blog post, 3 Ways to Gain High Quality Clients. Here I share how to segment your client base, explain more about what a channel is and why you have to say no to build a stronger firm.
