đŸ’„ What exactly is a CFO/Advisor?

PLUS: Three marketing tools every practice needs | How to help your client grow their business | How to communicate with clients

Hey there 👋,

In today's email, here are some tips to help you escape the accountant’s trap.

đŸ’„What exactly is a CFO/Advisor?
đŸ’„Three marketing tools every practice needs
đŸ’„How to help your client grow their business
đŸ’„How to communicate with clients

What’s the accountant’s trap?
You're in the trap if the only way to get paid more is to work more hours or take on more low-value and high-demanding clients.

At the same time

You can't raise your fees because there's always a competitor willing to do the same work for less.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A CFO/ADVISOR?

Season 8 Nbc GIF by The Office

If you’ve been debating offering advisory services, you’re probably wondering “What, exactly, is a CFO/Advisor?”

Good question.

Here’s how The CFO Project defines an advisory service:

A CFO/Advisor is


Someone that a business owner can trust to guide them towards having a growing and successful business.

That’s it!

It’s someone that can understand the past (using the financials) and help guide the client towards having a better future.

The keyword is successful. A ‘successful’ business is defined in two ways:

Way #1: How the client defines it.
Every business owner defines success differently. A successful business to one business owner may be a business they can pass down to their kids. A successful business to another business owner may be a business that allows them to only work 20 hours per week.

Way #2: How we define it.
We, as financial professionals, should define a successful business as one that can generate positive cash flow on a consistent basis. Period.

Now, here’s the thing: not many business owners even know what a CFO is (most think it’s the head accountant) nor do they think their business even needs one!

However, if you frame an outsourced CFO as “someone that a business owner can trust to guide them towards having a growing and successful business” 
well, you'll now be speaking your prospects' language.

Every (literally) business owner that we’ve met wants someone like this for their business.

It’s all about how you define yourself and what you do.

If you define yourself as a better/faster/cheaper CFO, your message will fall flat. If you define yourself as a better/faster/cheaper accountant that offers advisory services, your pitch goes nowhere.

People don’t want a CFO per se, rather, they want what a CFO can provide for them.

So, if you define yourself as a trusted guide who can help business owners have a growing and successful business, well, you’ll have no problem attracting high-paying clients.

Why? Because, for most business owners, their business is not a hobby. It’s their full-time job that’s supposed to put food on the table.

It must work.

👉The Bottom Line

If someone that they can trust (like you) comes along and says you'll guide them towards having a growing and successful business they will certainly pay attention to what you have to say and will most likely sign on to whatever you’re offering.

Do you offer some sort of CFO/business advisory service now?

Click on an option below to cast your vote.

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🚹FREE TRAINING THURSDAY🚹

If you’re considering offering advisory services, join our free Masterclass this Thursday where we'll show you, exactly, how to start a CFO service. You can be the person who provides real help to the thousands of struggling business owners in your town (or across the country).

In this free 1-hour Masterclass, you'll learn:

  • How to escape the Accountant's Trap.

  • What business owners really want from a CFO/Advisory service (it's not what you think).

  • How to determine if you're qualified to provide CFO/Advisory services.

  • How to get business owners to pay top dollar for your CFO/Advisory services.

  • How to get new clients to your practice and how to approach existing clients.

  • How much you should be charging for this type of service.

  • How to provide a CFO/Advisory service in the most efficient way possible.

THREE MARKETING TOOLS EVERY PRACTICE NEEDS

To have a growing accounting, bookkeeping and/or CFO/Advisory practice we need
drum roll please
a steady stream of leads.

We asked our friends at CountingWorks PRO for their thoughts on what marketing tools every practice needs to get a steady stream of leads. Here’s the three tools they say every practice needs:

Tool #1: A Website
But not just any website. You need a website that speaks to who you want to target. And is mobile friendly. And is easy for a prospect to understand how you’ll help them.

Tool #2: Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is simply a gift that you give to visitors in exchange for their contact info. That way, you can market to them over time. The idea is that it’s something that should attract leads to your practice (like a magnet!).

Tool #3: Email Campaigns
Once you’ve attracted a lead, you need a way to follow up with them and build a relationship with them at scale. This is what an email campaign does. It’s a series of emails that is sent automatically to your leads with the goal of getting them to take action (like to schedule a call with you!).

If you’re interested, CountingWorks PRO is offering to provide these three tools for you and more. If you’d like to learn more, click below and they’ll give you a demo of what they can do for your practice.

🚹FREE TRAINING FRIDAY🚹

Are you a bookkeeper?

Are you interested in becoming a CFO?

If yes, you’re invited to a special training this Friday (March 29th) called Bookkeeper to CFO where we’ll help you go from just being a recorder of the past to helping business owners have a better future.

In this free 1-hour training, you'll learn:

  • What, exactly, a CFO/Advisor does

  • How to know if you're qualified to provide CFO/Advisory services

  • How to package and price your bookkeeping & advisory services

  • How to market your bookkeeping & advisory services

  • How to overcome impostor syndrome and start offering advisory services

  • How to deliver an advisory service in a way that gets results

HOW TO HELP YOUR CLIENT GROW THEIR BUSINESS

Plants Grow GIF by KWS

As an advisor, there’s one main way to grow your clients’ business. The answer? Constantly guide them to improve their cash flow.

Getting your client to generate consistent positive cash flow is the only thing required to stay in business.

If you can help your client do this, well, you’ll have a very happy client.

There’s fifteen drivers of cash flow. In previous issues, we’ve covered the first three: leads, conversion rate and retention rate. Today, we’re looking at purchase frequency rate


⚙Driver of the Week: Purchase Frequency Rate

This is the number of times a customer purchases from your client in a year.

This drives revenue because the more purchases a customer makes, the more revenue will increase.

Your clients can dramatically improve profit by getting existing customers to buy again. Not only will they be earning more from each customer, but they also wouldn’t have to spend additional marketing dollars.

Let’s say you had a HVAC client. If the only thing they did was get additional customers to buy again, they would increase revenue without having to get new customers.

HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH CLIENTS

We all know that client communication is important – but when was the last time we felt confident even in difficult scenarios? Too often we wrestle with how to communicate with clients and feel defeated in their lack of responsiveness. But it doesn’t have to be this way!

Our friend and colleague Will Hill, over at the Will Hill Consults, is holding a Drive Action with your Client Communication webinar on Wednesday, April 24, 2024 at 12:00p ET | 9:00a PT.

In this webinar, you’ll dig into core elements of client communication that will enable you to drive action with your communication, with both clarity and confidence and you'll learn the following:

✅ You will be able to recognize the importance of context in communication and be equipped to incorporate this into their communication.

✅ You’ll be able to identify where the actionable elements in communications are present.

✅ You’ll be able to leverage questions to produce commitment on the part of the communications' recipient.

MEME OF THE WEEK

We ❀ Accountants.
We ❀ Bookkeepers.

Escaping the Accountant’s Trap newsletter is created with love by a team of accountants, marketers and business experts.

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