It goes without saying that tax season is an incredibly busy and stressful time for accountants—the lowlights of which may include working on Saturdays and dreaming about Form 1040s. (Follow the trending #busyseasonproblems on Twitter to commiserate and have a laugh). But, in all seriousness, even when you're at your busiest, tax season is prime time to strengthen client relationships and set yourself and your firm up for success during the rest of the year...
...The ability to cross-sell services to your clients is a sustainable way to increase your profits without taking on more clients. With as many as two-thirds of clients unaware of the range of services their accountant offers outside of tax prep and bookkeeping, simply opening the lines of communication with your client can have a big impact. The season provides an excellent opportunity to show your clients that you can help them make sense of their financial information and can help them use it to make better business decisions.
There are three easy ways to offer additional value to your clients either during your tax season meeting, or immediately following, when you have time to discuss tax strategies for the future.
- “The KISS principle—Keep it simple, stupid.” The U.S Navy is correct: simple is often the best. While you may enjoy crunching numbers, your client likely doesn’t want to focus on any more than basic math. Think of it as data overload. If a client leaves your office with a lot of figures but no context, they may have a hard time coming up with a plan of action to improve their business performance. But the solution to this issue is easy—keep the data simple and focused. Offering narrative summaries, graphs, and tables will help to ensure that your client sees a connection between the numerical information and the assertion or insight you’re providing to them...
To read full article, click here.
Source: Natasha Closs (www.accountingweb.com)
