One of the core attractions of the accounting firm business model that seduces so many technical professionals to start their own practice, is the lure of recurring fees.
It sounds idyllic at first, no focus on sales and marketing which many accountants are violently allergic to anyway, high retention rates and organic growth. The perfect life!
In reality, we know what happens.
Firm owners get overwhelmed by client demands and their poor record keeping. They have to keep on top of regulation, legislation and now rapid advances in practice technology.
The people they hire never seem to care as much as the firm owner does and they always seem to want more money each year too, despite not adding value to the firm beyond what they already offered.
It’s in times like this when a firm owner often takes their eye off the ball and gets blindsided by a client resignation.
The larger the client fee that’s lost, the more it hurts. The firm owner feels it on a personal AND professional level.
When that happens, there’s no insurance policy in place for replacing the lost fee or even replacing existing fees with bigger and better ones. Allergy to sales and marketing, remember?
In the more than 400 keynotes that I’ve given around the world over the years, more half of them have involved a practical session where the audience and I have built a pipeline together using the methodology that I teach. This is at the request of the conference organisers, which in itself is an insight into the needs of their members.
What’s fascinating though is that in those sessions, we have never failed to find a minimum of 7 figures of realistic, winnable work, by name; for those audience members to pursue.
This allows me to predict that in your firm, currently, you’re sat on somewhere between 6 & 7 figures (if not more) of winnable work which is often more profitable than the work you’re spending your time on right now.
So, a pipeline becomes not only a tool for growth, but that insurance policy I was talking about, to guard your billing against unforeseen client loss.
You are more than welcome to build your own or if you want the ingredients to build one. Take control of your firm’s pipeline and build your firm’s future for just $99.
View The Pipeline Bullet (Webinar Recording)
How’s that for ROI? That’s just in first year’s fees by the way. How long do you keep your clients for on average, 7-10 years?
That recurring fee model you have is pretty lucrative after all.
To your success,
Martin Bissett
