\n
Not all clients are worth your energy.
You probably know that; although you hate to admit it.<\/p>\n
Many accountants seem to spend far too long servicing clients who:
\u2013 drain time and never refer anyone
\u2013 pay late (and not that much to begin with)
\u2013 don\u2019t respect you or value your advice<\/p>\n
And yet, when asked \u201cWho are your best clients?\u201d, many accountants answer instinctively, not strategically.<\/p>\n
You might think of:
\u2013 those paying the highest fees
\u2013 the friendliest ones
\u2013 the long-standing loyal clients
\u2013 or those who regularly refer new business<\/p>\n
But are they really your best clients?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a subtle danger here \u2014 confusing \u2018best\u2019 with \u2018most visible\u2019 or \u2018most vocal\u2019.
And that confusion can quietly undermine your marketing, your growth plans and even how you allocate your own time and attention.<\/p>\n
When the wrong assumptions lead everything astray<\/strong>
Years ago, I worked with a firm that ranked new clients by the projected fees the partners expected them to generate in year one.<\/p>\nSome partners gamed the system. They included inflated projections based on potential corporate finance or advisory work \u2014 which frequently never materialised.
These pie-in-the-sky projections skewed everything.<\/p>\n
I remember the managing partner telling me he routinely downgraded Ted\u2019s forecasts.<\/p>\n
But Ted\u2019s \u2018big\u2019 new clients still got all the attention \u2014 and priority when it came to allocating staff for audits and tax work.
Even though the actual revenue rarely matched expectations.<\/p>\n
Staff became demotivated when they saw the new clients weren\u2019t as profitable as promised.<\/p>\n
And other partners weren\u2019t thrilled either \u2014 once they realised Ted had been gaming the system.<\/p>\n
Priorities had been set based on false assumptions that served no one other than Ted\u2019s ego.<\/p>\n
Do your fee projections for new clients impact your priorities? And are the projections typically acheived?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nFrequent contact may not equate to valuable clients<\/strong>
Some years later, I took over responsibility for a tax consultancy with thousands of accountant clients.<\/p>\nWhen I asked the consultants to identify our \u2018top\u2019 clients, the answers varied wildly. Across the teams we seemed to have over 200 \u2018top clients\u2019
Clearly that wasn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n
I knew that one team in particular had confused frequent contact with financial value.
Many of their favourite (\u201ctop?\u201d) clients were regular callers to the tax helpline\u2026
\u2026 but didn\u2019t pay us more than a few hundred pounds a year.<\/p>\n
Beyond that we discovered that only 20 of the 200+ \u201ctop\u201d clients had paid us more than \u00a32,000 a year during each of the past three years.
That was the wake-up call.<\/p>\n
We stopped trying to keep thousands of occasional users happy.
Instead, we focused on deepening relationships with those 20 top clients \u2014 and a few others who showed potential.<\/p>\n
Everyone\u2019s time was used more wisely.
And we saw stronger growth as a result.<\/p>\n
Where are you focusing your energy?<\/strong>
It\u2019s worth asking yourself \u2014 and your team, if you have one:
\u2013 Who really are our best clients?
\u2013 What makes them \u2018best\u2019?
\u2013 Are we all aligned on that?
\u2013 Are we investing time and marketing effort to attract more of them; Or just\u2026 anyone who walks through the door?<\/p>\nThis is exactly the kind of clarity I have helped accountants find in mentoring conversations.
Because it\u2019s often hard to spot these patterns on your own \u2014 especially when everything feels \u2018fine\u2019 on the surface.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re unsure where to focus your time or which clients to prioritise, let\u2019s have a chat.
Sometimes just one short conversation can reveal what\u2019s been hiding in plain sight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not all clients are worth your energy.You probably know that; although you hate to admit it. Many accountants seem to spend far too long servicing clients who:\u2013 drain time and never refer anyone\u2013 pay late (and not that much to begin with)\u2013 don\u2019t respect you or value your advice And yet, when asked \u201cWho are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11759],"tags":[11235,11488,6320,152525],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-325694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accounting","tag-clients","tag-cost","tag-hidden","tag-misunderstanding"],"yoast_head":"\n
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