It’s not you, it’s me

In a recent poll that we ran, 37% of responding accountants cited client education & mindset as the challenge that they find most stressful or worrying.

With digitalisation transforming how businesses are run, how compliance is delivered and how people communicate, it shouldn’t be surprising that accountants are having to focus more on getting their clients to adapt, evolve and view the role of the accountant in different ways, but frustration levels can rise quickly when the client response isn’t as you would want it to be.

But what’s the root cause here?

Do we really have a client base that is resistant to change, not looking to improve their lot, or are we not getting our advice across through our own failings?

The starting point has to be to return to a vital strategy within your practice management, your client segmentation.

You probably have a number of clients right now who already recognise the value and wisdom of your advice and act accordingly. There’s also a fair chance that you have another group of clients who aren’t really running a business at all, at least not in their minds. They are doing a job and happen to be in a self-employed or business format for circumstantial reasons. They don’t see themselves as business managers in any way and so just do the bare minimum required of them to enable them to keep on working.

My interest is with all those clients in between these two groups. Owner-managers who aren’t running their businesses effectively enough and aren’t adapting to change. Don’t they care, aren’t they listening or aren’t you telling them clearly and often enough?

I doubt that they don’t care, this is their family and livelihood at stake. So are you loud enough, clear enough, persistent enough?

To take control of the situation, we must ask ourselves, “Are we doing enough?”

As professional advisors who, hopefully, want the best for our clients, are we allowing some of them to walk away from the hard truths and avoid the steps necessary to run a better business? Are we allowing them to make excuses because it’s easier for them and, sometimes, if we’re being honest, maybe easier for us too?

Only you will know the answer to this but, in my experience, we have to be prepared to be more open and honest with our clients and recognise that we have a professional responsibility to be so. We have to commit to push harder to create momentum in our client relationships. A client who consistently fails to take our advice shouldn’t really be a client should they?