Finance Blog: Advisory Services
Here at FUTRLI, we get many, many questions from our community of accounting professionals. Normally, they centre around serving clients the best way possible.
Do business owners know the difference between compliance accountants and advisers? What about bookkeepers? How do you become a great adviser? And how do you sell advisory to clients and prospects?
To be asking these questions in the first place is awesome. It means you’re thinking the right way about things. Putting yourself in your clients’ shoes is step one towards helping them make the best business decisions they can. Business owners – whether they know it or not – need a trusted expert that can…
Identify trends and patterns in their data
Advise on how to avoid and mitigate risk – or capitalise on it
Create bulletproof strategies for their business, and help implement them
The chances are, you’re doing all of the above already. But if you’re not, then it’s time to refresh those skills. We’ve got an ebook ready for those considering advisory and needing a light recap session. We cover the benefits of Continuing Professional Development courses, how to achieve more with your clients and even suggest a rollout plan of action. Download it here.
Let the Conversation Flow
Business owners make up a huge part of the FUTRLI community. We speak to them on the regular about what helps them operate and what gets their backs up.
The common theme?
They don’t want to be sold to.
They want a trusted, plug-in adviser who cares about their business success. And that’s where your advisory services can shine. Next time you’re scheduled for a client meeting, take a second before cracking on with their usual work.
Take a second to ask them how they are – both professionally and personally. These two are inextricably linked for many entrepreneurs. Whatever’s on their mind could well be something you could help with.
Perhaps it’s uncertainty over cash flow for the next quarter. Something your forecasting skills could help with.
Or maybe it’s unease over whether now’s the time to invest in more staff. If only they had your scenario modelling expertise.
It’s not about a hard push. Rather, you’re introducing a different style of relationship – showcasing your skill set in relation to their pain points.
Putting it into Practice
Now we’ve started dropping your skills into conversation, it’s on your clients’ radars. But it’s never quite that simple.
We know how it goes – most of your clients will be thinking about 100 things at any one time. But, if you can pique interest with some insightful visuals, you’ll catch their attention for long enough to start adding value.
Mock up a simple forecast using actual data from their cloud accounting package, or even from a spreadsheet if that’s their current way of working. If it’s the latter, introduce the idea of cloud accounting shortly.
Get the figures from the last year into a projection and compare it to the coming year’s prediction of the business’ progress.
What differences can you see? Is there a big boost in revenue your clients could jump on? Are there seasonal fluctuations that need to be taken into consideration?
These kinds of questions are the core of advisory. The insight that tools currently on the market can provide has never been seen before.
Of course, you could try forecasting in a spreadsheet, but automation can cut that time to a fraction, so there’s no more manual torment haunting you anymore.
A Retainer for the Future
Your initial meeting has gone swimmingly. Your client is buzzing about all the money you’re going to help them make. Now what?
Well there’s no one-size fits all solution, but we’ve worked out a great two-step system you can use as a springboard.
Set small but scaleable goals for your client to start thinking about
Make them easy to achieve at first, building your client’s confidence and buy-in. Then increase the difficulty.
For example, at the end of your first meeting, challenge them to put processes in place which will help them scale.
Let’s say your client wants to expand to new, larger premises with their trendy coffee shop. How can you guide them to achieve this? How much additional revenue would they get for increasing the price of their biggest selling item by a few cents or pence?
Add that little change into their forecast and see the results
There are plenty of other minor tweaks that can change the course of your clients’ businesses forever.
Keep playing with possibilities and see just how powerful advisory can be for the businesses you provide it to. You’ll see a positive trend with your clients’ data, your own revenue, and of course your relationship.
From Accountancy to Advisory
Take your first step into the advisory space armed with tailored software that does the heavy lifting for you.
FUTRLI will pull in client data and push it forward into a three-way cash flow forecast using their budgets, P&L and actuals. Freeing you up to share your expertise, ideate on their next best move, and get excited about what the future holds.
Get in touch today to book your free demo with one of our tech experts.