251 How to double down on your best clients

I don't know about you. I am perpetually stuck on how do I know what to work on next. This was always a massive headache in our firm because you had different groups of people that wanted to work on different things. You're listening to Internet think, people tell you, well, you got to do that. Well, you got to do that. All your software vendors saying, well, here's the thing that you actually need. You need to be selling advisory. So many conflicting stories on what should I be working on next? When I think maybe, huh, Tell me if you agree with this. Maybe the best North Star here could be doubling down on your very best clients, your A clients, the clients that you already have, the very best clients that you already have. There's a million other things we can do, workflow, all these things, investing in stuff to attract even better clients. But for the business that I have today, what's the baby step that I can take today to make it a little bit better? It probably looks like doubling down on your best clients, making them more likely to refer more clients like them and to create a firm that in general is just the ultimate home for the people who are today your A clients. So today we're going to talk about how to do this, how to identify who your best clients are and what this looks like in a way that isn't, like, slimy. Like, asking for business. Like, that's a very uncomfortable thing, admittedly. So come on in. Today we're going to double down on our very best clients. So first of all, who are our best clients? The framing that I always come back to is if you think about your clients on a spectrum from A to F, this won't always necessarily align with a revenue. In fact, it may not even align with profitability, though profitability is definitely a factor here. But my F clients, my very worst clients, are the clients for whom I write off half of the bill and then I send the bill to them and they still complain. And I'm like, dave, if you only knew what I was doing for you, you wouldn't be so ungrateful. But then at the other end of the spectrum, you've got people who you're charging more than anybody else, and they absolutely adore you. They love you. They're the ones sending you holiday gift baskets. And you're like, why is Dave so unappreciative? While this client up here is, like, just thrilled to be paying me more than any of my other clients. I had a bunch of clients that were like this, where it's like, I know we're doing our best here, but why do they like us so much? And in almost every case, I could come back to a combination of factors that made the problems that we solved for them really, really painful for this person in particular. And so in general, when you have folks that appreciate you to differing degrees, the ones at the bottom, you're just not solving very painful problems for them. Now you'll have people who are just cheapskates and always just trying to negotiate everything down. You have annoying folks like that. But in general, the folks that super appreciate you, they super appreciate you because you are solving rare painful pains for them and they don't know another solution to it. Very good example. A lady who spent 20 to 30 years running a solo dental practice constantly, like, trying to get admin people to help with certain, like, bill and bookkeeping functions and payroll and benefits management. And it was always a pain because her team members, like, they don't have this expertise. They're not going to be any good at it. So she's perpetually disappointed at her ability of her team members to do this stuff, but then she despises it. She's like, this is the last thing in the world that I should be doing when the entire company makes money from me being chairside. And over 20, 30 years, she'd gone through all these different people. Folks had told her, no, your, your practice manager, your office manager needs to be the one to do this. And she's like, well, these people suck at this job. And I send it to my accountant and have to pay them to fix it all. And they keep making payroll mistakes, all these different issues. But when they came to us and we were the solution for the whole back office and tax, and we would take as much of that off of their plate as possible so that the doc didn't have to do any of it, after 20 or 30 years of trying to solve for this and having issues with like, theft from employees, like, all these different things, she's like, where have you been for the last 30 years? And so this was somebody that super, super appreciated what we were doing. And so to tease out, like, what are the things that made that painful experience, having done it wrong for a lot of years, being stolen from, like, these are all sort of certain little things we can tease out that could be good messaging to attract more clients who are like this client who really extremely feel this pain. By comparison, a new doc that's launching their own clinic for the first time, and maybe they're working half time so they have A bunch of spare to spend on paying bills and learning how to use QuickBooks and stuff like that. That doc's not going to feel the pain the same way that this more experienced doc does. And it's not either of their fault. It's just the reality of the value that they assign to the work that we're doing for them. And so those people who most acutely feel those pains, those are my tippy top clients. Now there are other factors here worth considering. Are they in an industry that is not, you know, totally dumping? I don't want to go to a space where like, there are not good long term prospects for the health of this space. That being said, we usually overstate the importance of this because you can run a small firm successfully on such a micro niche. Like it requires so few good clients to run a small firm. And the Internet now makes it easier than ever to find those folks in a micro niche because our brains haven't quite adjusted to what the Internet enables there. I think we usually overestimate how big a space has to be for our firm. But I will say in general, I'd rather be working with, you know, motor cars than horse drawn carriages. There's also a, a personal level, like a personal filter to all this, where we've got kind of the demographics and maybe the industry aspects, kind of several layers of what makes this a good person for us. Like, you know, they don't have to do everything on the phone. Maybe, maybe they're, you know, maybe they're millennials or they want to work over slack. Like what is the combination of things that make them a good fit for you? Over the top of that there is another filter of just, are they a jerk? And my, my test for this is usually if they call, am I excited to pick up the phone? Which is funny that that's my test because like, nobody was allowed to call me in the, in the case of my firm. But you get the idea. Like if they did, if their caller ID did show up on your cell, would you be excited to talk to them or not? If they're a jerk and I just don't want to talk to them, you will still have those people, even if they otherwise perfectly may fit the profile of what your firm is suited to do. They're still going to be people that you just got to cut out because they're not any fun to work with. But that's my framework for, for who is my great, like my very best client that I have today. Because the reality is if that top 1% of my firm, we could grow into maybe the top 20% of my firm. In many cases, that could double the profit of the entire practice. Because those ones that are paying top dollar, that feel those pains really acutely, they're paying more than all the others oftentimes. And for those new projects, you can cut out so many other lower margin projects. We're trading, say, 40 or 50% margin work for, like, your worst work, your 0%, your 10% margin work. So growing that top 1% to. To, you know, say 10% or 20% of your firm has a huge, huge, huge impact on the bottom line and is also generally just more fun. Fun, because they do appreciate you, like, getting to interact with people who will just get out of the way and are happy to let you do your job. That's a much more fun client base to work with. Now, one of the things that keeps us from getting there and doubling down on this, like, top 1% of our client base is the other 99%. Oftentimes, the bottom 50% just take up too much headspace. They will complain about something that's not great for them but might actually be great for. For your ideal client. And we try to accommodate. And I think this often happens because we think that because they are on the client list today, we have to accommodate for them. When the reality is most firms have such a wildly diverse client base that it's literally impossible to accommodate for all of them. But then when it comes time to consider a change, your mind immediately goes to that person where you're like, oh, man, this isn't gonna work for this person or that person. And in our heads, interestingly, all of these human relationships take up, like, the same amount of headspace when, if you could scale it to maybe their profit impact on the business or scale it to whether there are clients you hope you still have in five years. Like, then all those voices would not be the same, right? You'd be listening very closely to your A clients and much less closely to your CDNF clients. But the reality is, by and large, it is our CDNF clients that perpetually take up most of our headspace. And this can have the effect of slowing change in our firm, particularly change that is optimized for our best clients. And I spent a decade in a legacy firm that worked this way, where it was like, oh, no, we can, you know, something as simple as, let's send a digital version of the tax organizer or a fillable version of the tax organizer. And they're like, no, but we got these elderly clients that can't use computers. And this is in, I don't know, 2010, 2015. And you're like, we got 1500 clients, man. Like the fact that we have some elderly clients that can't do this doesn't mean that we can't A, accommodate the exceptions, right? But also B, certainly doesn't mean that we shouldn't change at all. So my North Star is what is the best change for our best clients? We can't be so afraid of making a change that isn't optimized for the clients we have today that it keeps us from getting the clients we actually want tomorrow. There's your cross stitch quote of the day. But it's what keeps firms kind of stuck in stasis in where they already are because they're so afraid of upsetting the people that they have today. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Lifflow. Let's talk about consolidations and how every accounting platform short of like mid market ones that have built in consensus consolidation stuff, every accounting platform seems to make this harder than it needs to be. QuickBooks Online. Hello. Do you know that I actually run a whole bunch of companies in QuickBooks Online and often needs to report them together? Do you know this gang? Super easy way to do this, roll up live flow. They got this super cool like built in consolidation support where you can roll up companies whether they have the same chart of accounts or not. We actually did a five minute demo day of this on my main channel. If you haven't seen this yet, it's pretty cool. It's like the most simple visual approach to consolidations I've probably ever seen. You can theoretically roll up like an infinite number of companies, which means you can also do things that are actually kind of consolidations in disguise, like benchmarking, like monitoring a whole bunch of my clients books all in one place. All the clients that you have, you know, QuickBooks access. Imagine seeing all those things actually side by side live updating where at any point in time you could hop in and see related or unrelated clients books on a single place. That's actually like a function of consolidations. I would never ship those financials off to somebody, but that might be very helpful for my firm. I know my practice, we did a bunch of like group like 20 plus company things and the consolidation was so hairy that we would just do that reporting very infrequently. Whereas getting this set up with live flow, you set it up once and it actually will continue live updating even adding columns into the future for future months. So you set it up once and you can pull that consolidation anytime. Pretty cool. Would have changed how we did consolidated reportings in my firm for sure. Learn more about that one. Check out the link in the Show Notes this episode is brought to you in part by Cloud Accountant Staffing who helps you find just mega talented accountants in the Philippines to join your team. I got another resume here. This is a real life resume. I'm looking this person right in the eyes right now. Also got an intro video because that's how cloud accountant staffing works. You tell them what your needs are. They got boots on the proverbial ground in the Philippines. Recruiters who will find you the folks that you need. Then you get a resume, you get an intro video. 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I plopped this resume on your desk and it was an onshore person. Tomorrow you'd be clicking your little heels in excitement. I know you would. Okay, it's big. It's big world out there. There's other ways to get this stuff done. But a link to Cloud Accountant staffing down in the show notes now where most of us are probably stuck here is like how do I actually double down on my best clients? Like how do I ask them to bring me more work like them on the unlike the systems in the firm building side, it just means like ensuring that those people have input on changes. So if we're going to mandate, you know, using a client portal for a certain thing or using requests for a certain thing, who are you going to ask for feedback there or who are you going to test it with first to see how it actually works. At the end of the day, know that it's 100% up to you. Like you at the end of the day can decide what's going to be sustainable for you and for your firm and all that. That needs to be number one. But if I'm then going to put it in front of clients and get some feedback, am I putting it in front of my declines or am I putting in front of like my very best clients for whom I want to attract more? I'm doing the latter. Right? Like that ought to be obvious. So we're building the systems and the branding and the messaging and all that stuff that works for the folks that we'd like to attract more of, which is not the entirety of our client base, it's the very best of our client base. But the quickest way to get more of those people is to figure out where the folks you already have are hanging out, who are their friends, where do they spend time with their friends? Is it, you know, online communities, is it associations, running events? Is it little more grassroots sort of things that have been put together where like, like minded folks that are similar to my a clients are all hanging out and how do I get access to these spaces? And in general people are more willing to be helpful than we often give them credit for. There's this kind of like a propriety around our own businesses and how we run it. And we oftentimes are so quick to dispense advice to other business owners that we're not realistic with them about the fact that like we run a business too and it's okay to ask for help with our business if there's something that they can help with, for goodness sakes, like how much time do we spend being helpful to them? And then we feel like we can't make a request or have a conversation with them about our own business and how they could support us. And so it is a very, it's a one one sided thing and they are paying you. And maybe that's where it comes from is they're paying you for your advice, you're not paying them for access or something like that. But there are non slimy ways to do this. And I think it starts with a degree, honestly it starts with a degree of like flattery to say, man, we love working with you and we're trying to build a firm that is perfectly suited for folks like you and that means being even better for you, but finding more folks like you. Because if we had a whole client list that was just folks like you. That would be an awesome business for us and for most people, that'll be enough for them to like, help you make some connections or at least have a few suggestions for you of how you can get in front of more folks. It's as simple as, like, if they were not a client, where would they have seen you and how could you have, like, impacted their thinking? Maybe that's ideas for content. Maybe that's ideas for something you could sponsor or somewhere that you could go speak. Your clients are going to be like, by and large, more than willing to share helpful stuff like that with you. You. It's actually our own kind of blockers and this misplaced propriety around, like. Well, it's not their job to make my business better. Like, for some reason we, we have a hard time doing that when by and large, people are happy to be helpful. And because I know that's kind of abstract, I've. I've actually invited a couple of clients on and we're actually going to have this conversation, live with them to just like, actually go through a practical example of what if I did make a really uncomfortable ask of a client? How would I navigate that? So the first client we're gonna get on the horn with here, his name is Alice. She is that client who absolutely adores us because we're solving really painful problems. And I basically just want a bunch of Alice's and I'm going to call her Live right now to see how this could go. Might get weird. Might work great. Might not work at all. Okay. Hello, Alice. You have a couple minutes for me to bounce an idea off here.

Oh, my gosh, yes. I always have time for new ideas. What's on your mind? I'm so excited to hear what you've come up with.

Coming on a little strong, Alice. Okay. We're thinking about what we're doing with the firm next year and wanting to add more clients that are actually just like you. So I'm curious, where do you work with similar entrepreneurs? Like, where do you hang out? I would love a. I'd love to find a way to get in front of them.

Absolutely. I know so many people who would love what you do. Oh, my gosh. I have the best idea. I could throw a huge party and invite everyone I know. It would be the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your amazing work.

That's. That's very kind. I was thinking something maybe a little more humble than that. Like, we don't need a whole party. I am an accountant. After all. And frankly, that the idea terrifies me. I was thinking more like, are there. Are you part of any, like, associations, More traditional ways that I could support them?

Oh, associations. That's so boring. Here's what we're gonna do. I'll make a bunch of TikTok videos raving about how incredible you are. We'll get you tons of exposure and go viral in no time. Trust me, it'll be a game changer.

Again, I'm very flattered. I guess you're welcome to make TikTok videos about me, but that's not really what I had in mind. Maybe something that's a little better suited for my skills as an accountant, which is not being a tiktoker, I guess in this case, the subject of TikTok videos. What? Do you have anything like, more traditional? Like, where do you go to learn? Do you go to conferences or anything like that?

To this local entrepreneurs group that meets monthly.

Ooh.

Always looking for speakers to share insights on business strategy and financial management. I could totally recommend you as a guest speaker.

Okay.

Your expertise would be super valuable to them. Oh, and I'm part of this online forum for small business owners in our area. People are constantly asking for recommendations for reliable, savvy accountants. I could write up a glowing review of your services and share it there. That way, when someone's looking for help, your name will be top of mind.

Bless your heart, Alice. I feel like Alice slowed down a little bit at the end there. Small business forum. Little bit of alarm bells going off. Maybe I double down on, like, okay, maybe, you know, if you do X if you're a beekeeper, is that like a. Is that like a small business beekeeping forum? So if I'm not clear enough in my request to Alice, it's possible they may just go, like, put me on blast in a general way, which, frankly, is not what I want. I want people who run businesses like Alice. So maybe there's a more. Was a more specific way for me to ask that question. Like, not just other folks like you who are business owners. I need something more specific than that. This episode is sponsored in part by. By the folks at Forwardly. Are you sick of ach transfers that stick to bank hours or checks that get caught in the mail? Of course you are. That's disgusting. Stop being stuck with slow and expensive payment options and say hello to the future of money with Forwardly's award winning cash flow management platform. Tell you what, I moved some money around this morning and nobody involved in that exchange has won awards. I can tell you that. Start sending instant payments for free to hold money in the bank longer and receive instant payments for 80% less than credit cards. Plus enjoy same day ACH for free. Why is everything not same day ach? It's 2024. Can everybody just get with the program like Forwardly has? With Forwardly, us businesses can improve cash flow and simplify accounting with automatic payments and a two way sync to QuickBooks and Xero. Shout out to two way syncs. We've all seen those one way syncs. I remember when we first started rolling a BillPay platform. We're a long ways off the ad read copy at this point. I remember when we first rolled out using a bill pay platform with our clients. Not an exaggeration. I think 50% of the time we spent paying bills was actually on support troubleshooting sync issues. That sync is no joke, man. Start receiving bank payments now to work towards a free iPhone 15 Pro with our new giveaway. Sign up for free@fordly.com or check out the link in the show notes to learn more. This episode is sponsored in part by Tech Guru. I'm in Florida right now at an accounting conference. And you know who else is? I think I probably spoiled it already. Tech Guru is here. They're here exhibiting at a conference. An IT company. You know why? Because they understand accountants, they value them. They go around hobnobbing at stuff like this, having conversations about, you know, computer things and whatever IT is that IT companies talk about. But the main thing is that they are focused on us and our problems and the tools that we use and the best way to get that IT stuff handled so that we can focus on the important stuff, which is not it. Now, any old run of the mill IT shop, they're not going to understand your needs same way that Tech Guru does, right? You think about all the other accounting firms. Tech Guru is working with the best practices that they see and develop, working with those firms. And then your firm joins the squad. You better believe you're gonna benefit from a bunch of the stuff they've learned with working with other people. Right? Who you using for it right now, huh? Let me take a quick look out the window. Nope, I don't see them here. They're not here. Okay. That's why you should use Tech Guru. Cause they're here. And I think that about sums it up. Okay, Tech Guru link in the show notes. I'll be honest though, that Alice was like a little bit too easy there. I got another client here Who's a little bit more of a stick in the mud. Let's talk with Gerald. Gerald's a good old boy. Gerald's more traditional. Like sticks to his business, plays his cards close to his chest. Tougher nut to crack. Let's give this a try on Gerald. Okay. Gerald. Hello. You got a couple minutes for me to bounce an idea off you?

Sigh I guess. So what is it?

Sigh I think that was a sigh at the beginning. So we're planning for next year at the firm here and just want to find more Geralds, more folks who are similar to you. So I want to see, are there membership groups that you're a part of? Like, where do you go to learn? Where do you hang out with other people who do sort of the same thing that you do?

Shrugs I don't know. I'm pretty busy. I don't really have time for this.

Time for. For helping me or for hanging with your colleagues? I know you mentioned you've got some friends that have gotten hosed from like tax planning mistakes and getting stuff wrong. Do you see that a lot with your peers? Like their professional help not doing a good job?

Grunts yeah, I guess it happens sometimes. People don't always know what they're doing.

They sure don't. Do you feel that? Like we've gotten into a good rhythm? Like you feel like we're doing a good job for you?

Nods slightly sure you guys are all right? I don't have any complaints, I suppose.

Okay, Gerald, what would it take to chat with some of these friends of yours who don't have good help yet?

Sighs heavily Look, I'm not really comfortable just handing out my friends information like that. It's nothing personal against you.

Listen, man, just tell me, like, where do these people get together? Where do they hang out? I just want to be helpful. Are they part of associations, anything like that?

Shakes head Nah, not really. We're all pretty independent.

You're killing me, Joe.

Our own thing. There's no big club or anything?

No Gerald Club. Okay. Where do you usually bump into these people then?

Shrugs non committally I don't know. Just around at the gym sometimes.

Okay.

Grabbing a beer after work. Oh, it's not like we have regular meetings or anything.

Okay, so working out or having beers? Working out. Where are they working out? You guys still working out down at McGillicuddy's?

Raises an eyebrow slightly yeah, I hit the gym there a few times a week. What about it?

What about it? Okay, how about this? I know the gym does sponsorships I've seen the big old like banners they put on the walls in the gym. How about this? I'll sponsor the gym. And the next time you're getting beers, see if the guys would be open to me just tagging along.

Pauses to think for a moment, then nods slowly. Alright, I suppose that could work.

Got him.

I can't make any promises, but next time we grab drinks after a workout, I'll mention you might swing by. Just keep it casual, you know.

Of course, of course.

Gives a half smile. Fine, we'll see how it goes. But don't make it weird, alright? These are my buddies, not just potential clients for you to schmooze.

Of course not. I thought, I love that. Resolved. And like a half smile and Gerald all of a sudden relenting and coming around. I can tell you when I imagine this conversation in my head, that Gerald is how that conversation always goes in my head. He's going to be like, I don't have time for this. I don't want you just fleecing my friends list for, for new clients. And I think this is, first of all, most people won't be Gerald, but the toughest nuts to crack. Like they just have to understand like, what is the value in it for the folks that you're trying to get in front of. So it's like, are we helping you? Are we giving you better help than they have? Then help us to help them. And most people are actually perfectly happy and love being the connector. Like the person who always wants to show people the cool new thing that they discovered. Like most people want to be that. Oh, I discovered this new thing thing and then show that to other people. You know, the person that like makes you watch YouTube videos every time you see them or like a TikTok or like, oh my gosh, have you seen this thing yet? And you'll be like at a party or at something and they just stick it in your screen and, and then they, they like watch you watch it and you have to have a reaction otherwise they will be insulted. That's like an extreme version of that person. But most people like discovering new things and then sharing that thing with other people because they're like, oh cool, yeah, I'm the reason that this person got connected with that person. And for most people that will be enough. That's why they're going to be happy to like introduce you to their peers. But it's not going to happen like until you have that conversation. In most cases there's a passive version of it that happens To a degree where they will sometimes refer a person if someone asks. And because there is a degree of it that happens passively, we think that being active about it won't make a difference when actually being active about it does make a huge difference. You will get some without being active about it, but you will get many times more if you are proactive about it. And remember, this is making you a better advisor for that person that you're making the ask of. If you go and speak at that event, if you hang out at the conference they refer you to. If you become a member of that group that they're a member of, you going through that process will make you a better advisor for them because you're also learning from their peers and learning more about the space in general. And so you can frame it as we're looking to become even better for people like you and need to like, find what watering holes we need to be hanging out at. Not only are they going to get credit for like referring people to you because they're now that sort of connector facilitator, but you're, you're legitimately going to become better for them because you are restricting your business a little more to just be great for people like them rather than anybody and everybody. Right. And I think for most people, the biggest blocker here will be just feeling like they're making an ask. So find a version of it that doesn't feel like making an ask be like, where are the places that you're hanging out where you're learning? Are there any membership, membership groups or anything like that that we can help to support? Because we know that not everyone like you has good help. There are a lot of things in running firms where we're afraid to make the ask. In fact, this book right here, Million Dollar Weekend, we did a pot episode on a while back. This book is kind of all about overcoming the fear of making an ask. Now that ask needs to be positive. Sum for all. It's not enough to just, I don't know, some people would disagree with this. But these days at the state of DMs and how many people are coming in just asking you for something that can scare us away from just making a one sided ask of a client. Now your client relationship is very different than the relationship that you have with a random person that just DMD that you don't know. But I still have a really hard time just making a one sided ask. So I'm usually going to frame that as we're doubling down on this Space, looking to learn even more, to be even better for people like you. Where are the places we ought to be hanging out, the people we ought to be talking to to find more folks like you for our firm? That doesn't feel like a real big lift. I'm not asking for an intro. Maybe you could and maybe we should, and maybe that's my own issue that I struggled to do that. But at the very least, we can be asking them, where do they hang out? Because those people are a product of where they hang out and the stuff that they consume, right? And if we can find the hubs, then we're going to find a bunch of other people who are the product of, like, that same consumption, those same networks. And, man, if we can get that top 1% to become the top 2% and then 5% and then 20%, that will completely transform your firm. It really will, because that's your highest margin work, the stuff that you're a great fit for, and it'll give you the option to cut a whole bunch of the other stuff that is not as good. At the very least, you're now taking on, like, a bunch more of your most profitable work. Right? And that doubling down on your. On your best client is as close as I can get to, like, an ultimate North Star. For what should I prioritize tomorrow? Because it's a reflection of what you have today while still being aspirational and leading you to, like, a better client list for tomorrow. I think my clients were more like Alice's than Gerald's in this case. I was actually usually surprised by how open and helpful they were willing to be and less often surprised by them being closed down. So. So give it a try. Go give Alice a call. That's all we got time for today. I'd encourage you to, like, shoot that one email. Like, go fire it off real quick. Couple sentences, not long. We're looking to double down more on clients like you. Where are you hanging out? Where can we find more folks just like you? I encourage you to give it a try, and I'll see you tomorrow.