Streamline your processes with the Sales Funnel for Accountants for Communications & Media

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I'm going to share eight realities that you need to face when you're going out to sell your accounting and bookkeeping services and then four specific behaviors and strategies that you can take that will make you effective despite these difficulties so before we start let me share the good news right and you guys kind of know this every single business that exists in the market anywhere needs your services right so you're not selling some weird multi-level marketing item it's not that you're trying to recruit them for a scam you're going to sell them something that they truly need that's the good news in fact they've already purchased your service in some way shape or form and the government is even a cooc conscript for your business because if they don't get their accounting and taxes done right the business owner can get a massive fine they can get even thrown in jail like it can get bad right so the good news is that this is about the most ubiquitous service for business owners and then the other good thing is that for the most part your predecessors the old school and Boomer accounting firms have done a terrible job of both adding value to their business clients and marketing themselves and that's no shot at them but the business has changed so all of these old firms are primed for disruption which is interesting now that they're all coming up for sale so that's the good news but 95% of the accountants that I talk to and I talk to about 20 a week they struggle with getting great leads they struggle moving those great leads and then getting them to purchase High retainer uh Services especially the super valuable ones right so I shared the good news but here's some really bad news accounting sales is really easy to get wrong particularly if you don't know your client well and if you don't understand the Dynamics going on with the marketing the sale and the whole system so with that let's dive into eight realities you need to face and overcome when trying to get your accounting sales rolling so reality number one no business owner wishes they could buy your service no business owner wishes they could buy your service it's great to have amazing numbers every business owner knows it accurate financials are good and it's good to never waste your own time doing your own accounting but if we're real paying for accounting services sucks you're really just a necessary evil in this whole business operation I mean that nicely mature business owners though they understand the value and no operation can scale or improve profitability without a fantastic accountant we know that but nobody wants to spend a ton of money on you there's a little bit of an eye roll for every business owner when they realize that they have to pay someone to obey government rules and make sure that nobody screws up the QuickBooks right they all kind of okay so the first reality that you just have to kind of understand is that you're a little bit of a bummer to have to purchase so there can be some resistance there the second reality number two they dislike this subject matter and they don't care about it most business owners are high execution people with a bent towards sales or production and doing stuff most business owners know how to sell stuff and make it or do it and fulfill the the service right they started in one business found out they could do it started their own and stole client from their old employer right whether they're a builder a lawn care company a house washing company a remodeler a dentist a marketer they probably didn't gobble up their accounting and taxes as a category of learning most of them didn't sit down and enjoy that in college if they were college educated now it's not the rule but you need to realize something they only care enough about what it makes to have it go away and simultaneously they don't really want to read about it they don't want to get a million tips about it and they they really don't want to have to do your job cuz they don't enjoy this stuff generally speaking and this reality makes marketing content creation and other things a little bit harder the bottom line is that a great salesperson positions themselves as a guide that will help the hero of the story get to where they want to go they don't care how the sausage is made the hero really doesn't care and the stuff that you're really good at Unfortunately they don't really want to hear too much about it so you're really going to want to keep that in mind as you're marketing selling leading meetings and more but it also means that the content game YouTube Facebook Tik Tok the advertising and marketing stuff that we do your website and your messaging needs to be catered towards people that have this Bend to them that creates a little bit of resistance in fact I I bring this up because I see so many accountants in book Keepers giving out lots of tips on accounting bookkeeping and taxes and I'm like none of your best clients care at all about this all right so here's reality number three this is a reality that makes it a little bit hard to sell right you're selling an intangible product can't feel it can't touch it you can't smell it and it makes it boring and it's really hard to conceptualize for your customers you know contractors can show off their remodels restaurants can show off their food even driveway coding which is pretty barring can do a before and after but accounting services are just they're intangible and really hard for people to grasp just how valuable they are how much goes into them and how one provider might be different than another that's super like they don't it's hard to conceptualize for them you really can't take a photo of it your accounting work can be really hard to share and it's hard to build credibility over social media and and and other areas you'll need to get creative about taking this intangible and making it real for them the main reality here is that you're selling something more like insurance or a service plan or a warranty and that requires a very good sales process in interaction to ensure it actually comes together in a clear way for this customer it requires Vision it requires teaching and Clarity and asking questions and so many things so this sale is difficult because it's intan ible all right now number four making it hard to sell business owners procrastinate like crazy accounting tax bookkeeping all that is usually out of sight and out of mind until something becomes urgent right business owners rarely deal with this until they absolutely have to they will wait till the end of year to clean up everything they don't make decisions right away and most of them haven't been taught the great tax decisions the good ones the tax strategies that really reduce your taxes they happen before the end of the year they got to come to you before the end of the year business owners will often wait till they get that nasty letter from the IRS or the state and then that's just what went wrong 6 to 12 months ago that means that there's going to be a bunch more letters coming up right they procrastinate the real problem here is that the business owner procrastinates because it's painful it's kind of dreadful and it's not something that they like to get handled this leads into reality number five they don't know the problems they have people don't take action until they realize that there's either major pains staying the same or major benefits that they're missing out on until the business owner perceives their current solution as truly problematic and that it's costing them or that they're missing out or don't do anything and they're going to get screwed up they don't take action they just really don't your customer often has has a rotten broken accounting and bookkeeping system but they don't know it because the chickens have not come home to roost it's often not until they get audited or their estimates don't match and they mishandle something and the letters start to pour in that they come to get help or they have a huge tax bill the bottom line of this reality is that if they knew the problems that they had they would probably value them more if they knew the problems that could be coming they would probably value them more now this leads into reality number six is that they don't realize the benefits that they're missing out on they don't know the benefits so first off they don't know the problems number six they don't know the benefits most business owners assume that things are going just fine and they'll just blissfully March forward ignorantly until someone comes by and helps them see that their accounting tax back office and bookkeeping situation could genuinely deliver amazing results like they have no idea how good it could be there's so much here but the reality is that unless someone comes in and casts vision for them they might not be able to say like they have to understand that they might Save A Lot in taxes or that they might save 20,000 a year in staff labor or if they might double or triple their profitability by implementing job costing or something that you might come in in fact there might even be benefits about their marriage because they won't have fights about tax bills because you'll come on and help them be proactive unless somebody comes in and helps them realize that there's a better future forward they will not change this reality is that business owners usually don't understand how a great outsourced accountant will make their lives way better so you need to somehow get into position that you can make the case along with a challenge for them that you'll make the future brighter for them you're going to help them go from here to a better there and then reality number seven is tied to all those they probably think they're current accountants bookkeeping is just fine they probably think that the current situation is fine that's probably the hardest thing in this business is that too often the current provider is probably failing them although they trust in their abilities I mean how can a business owner even know that things are not as they should be short of them getting an IRS or government letter the reality is that they just assume that things are going just fine that brings me to number eight the last reality making accounting services really hard to sell is that they probably have a personal relationship or connection with their current provider business owners often have a status quo provider it's just true hopefully you won't be that way they're usually nice people they're usually professionals they're usually enjoyable often the business owner might even believe that they need to change they might understand that their current situation their current here is not good and that there's a there that they should get to but they don't want to hurt the feelings of an accountant that's been with them for a long time that they have connection with and relationship with so you should have that stored in your mentality as you're selling as you're marketing as you're creating content as you're engaging in meetings as you're peing curiosity with questions and you're working to earn trust and move them towards a better future for themselves if you want to know how to confront and overcome those realities you should purchase my course at feedback wrench.com so I have a video training course it's $500 or $50 a month for 12 months and it equips you with a ton of different things that are going to help you so that's the eight realities that make it hard to sell accounting services but here are the four tactics and strategies that can help you get past them okay these are just four very specific strategies or tactics so the number one strategy to sell effective and this is my first one is to Market them when they're ready to buy so timing is one of the most important factors in sales it's also much easier to sell this service to someone who's already looking for a provider rather than trying to convince them that they should finally take action that's one reason why I tend to lean so heavily on inbound based marketing inbound marketing means that when someone is looking for a solution primarily through a search engine or a YouTube search they're going to meet your content and your company as a solution if someone is searching bookkeeping services near me that means that they probably want a bookkeeper near them organic SEO paid search ads and other inbound content can help you intersect with people when they're ready for the service that's why I focus so much on developing your Google business profile the reviews on your Google business profile your local SEO and landing pages so that you can rank in all of the cities around you because people do look for local accountants when local people want a local CP accountant you can show up and be ready to take their order so by focusing on inbound marketing catching people when they're looking you'll be able to grow much easier this usually means that you'll have a paid Google search ad lineup for the core take action keywords and then you'll have retargeting campaigns that keeps your messaging and your calls to action out in front of them even after they've been to your website or clicked on an ad so that's the first thing focus on inbound marketing and catch them when they're ready to buy when timing's on your side it's super important that doesn't mean they're going to buy right away but there's some reason and it just makes life easier so number two here's a strategy passionately seek to do a tax and accounting analysis passionately seek to do a tax second opinion passionately seek to get your paw on that tax return and get into the accounting and find out how you can add value you guys your conversations your videos your marketing your website all your remarketing needs to confidently move people to get an analysis with you you should have a chip on your shoulder that if they' send you your their tax return and let you see the accounting that you'll be able to come up with ways to lower taxes and improve their business you should do three steps for your sales cycle first you connect with them in some way shape or form usually to frame up who they are learn their story frame up a little bit of how you work second you invite them to send you their tax returns you do a snapshot you look in their account and get added in bookkeeping you'll analyze their tax returns and accounting to find ways to add value then that gives you the ability to build a scope to serve their business and then at last you'll unveil just how much opportunity you found and what it would look like to get those amazing benefits done by you now if your customers assume that they're fine they don't know the problems they don't understand just how great the future could look then you need to have a concrete step where you can look at where they're at and find out if there's a better there for them this is crucial so many people get too worried about getting too excit too too many free analysis meetings I just can't go there you should have an excitement and a passion to get your hands on their tax return and into their accounting to examine it for opportunities to make their life better then you can make the case for how you'll improve their life but you should also make the case passionately with conviction that they should let you look at it I recommend that you ask them if they've had a second opinion from a tax strategist you know you might bump into somebody and you might ask them hey on a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you that you're doing everything possible to reduce your taxes are you like a two are you an eight are you a five how about in terms of 1 to 10 on staying compliant and building a rock solid Financial situation so that you can scale your business and really grow on a scale of 1 to 10 how excellent is your accounting and your Bookkeeping on a scale of 1 to 10 how confident are you that you're audit proof right now you can ask some of these things most people can't be sure because they only know what their current accountant tells them and they're ignorant they're disinterested and they're unable to P just take part in the conversation so you owe it to prospects and it's in their best interest to have you analyze their situation and provide a second opinion it's in their best interest you should get excited you know you'll really Embrace this as you start to have some wins in this tax Bing area this is what does it for everybody the moment that you find a 4,000 to a $20,000 a year in tax savings you'll start to just see how vital it is the business owners get some wisdom of perspective from an aggressive tax accountant like you like you're just going to believe in it as soon as you find a couple of good ones so have a chip on your shoulder and that's the call to action that you get that's the doable thing so that's that leads me to the third strategy I don't think you should waste their time talking accounting with them and here's what I mean by this there's a lot of marketing gurus out there right now most of them rely on a lead magnet with a bunch of nurturing emails that are and I see a lot of them and I think email marketing is powerful but busy business owners don't want you to spam their inbox over and over with a bunch of wordy crap instead of like automatically sending out tons of emails about accounting and how you're going to make their financial World amazing I think it's better to just use your emails to Showcase your current clients maybe communicate super briefly but don't waste people's time don't sacrifice your email deliverability doing what every other marketing approach seems to be doing right now now email marketing works I'm not saying saying don't do it but I don't know that I have a full solution to this either like we do email marketing we do a lot of this but anything you send to a business owner better be short better be relevant and it better be authentic and impactful my spam box is overflowing with accountants and marketers and their cold Outreach and their just consistent hitting send on their emails now they have a bunch of people that open their em that's fine but you should not spam emails you should not send long emails you should do direct marketing you should ask them for an appointment and maybe share some videos share some real quick stuff about how you make their life better where they might be missing out it's all about them it's not about you and quite frankly they just they're not going to sit there and read this stuff I think there's a strategy where you combine truly personable but scalable Outreach tools things like Loom videos one to one emails referrals you can even automate it in some ways but make sure you don't just Spam at people and just Hammer especially your business owners that might have requested like a consultation or even if they did a lead magnet man like give them really high quality content and followup and that leads me to the fourth strategy hear me out here you have got to create and utilize video video requires no energy to consume reading anything puts the onus of Interest into the user and makes them spend calories to consume it it's easier to watch video than to read in other words you will get much higher engagement on all things if you include video in the content put it in the page put it in the campaign the remarketing the texting I don't care what it is whether it's on a landing page a remarketing campaign an email campaign a text all you're selling marketing and engaging efforts would be much better if they were imbued with video people read things in their own inner voice and that's a problem but your video and your voice in a video can establish the tone of your business and really the tone of your offer as well as build the start of a relationship and establish some connection with them right business owners want to get their accounting services from a great person who's worthy of trust who's engaged and passionate to pursue their best interest and nothing conveys that better than a fully rounded marketing setup with authentic videos videos are important for so many reasons but what you need to understand is that you can get fast forward Super Rich stuff super engaging conversations you fast forward them to before they book a consultation rather than just waiting till after they book a consultation if you create videos on your website your remarketing YouTube your emails your text follow-ups and through throughout your marketing people will start calling you and explaining that they're finally ready to get started and sign up rather than just booking the consultation now we'll drive more into the types of videos in my course and and everything that we do here but you should create video just believe me when I tell you you need to create videos they don't need to be perfect you have to like stop waiting guys you must grab your phones write a script practice nothing will impact your business well there are things that will impact your business more but this will have a dramatic impact on your business so yeah there's some realities getting in the way but those are four specific things that you can do to truly move the needle to sell accounting services to high quality high protein businesses like And subscribe if this is helpful God bless head to feedback wrench.com if you want a marketing setup a website SEO paid ads Google ads retargeting all of that we do the right for you we make it easy plus head to my website and check out my course for $500 that'll equip you with all this information to truly sell and engage and run meetings well also how to kind of position the whole thing so appreciate you