360 The Power of SCRIPTS For Accounting Firms

Today we are talking about scripts. What, like scripts? Like, like scripts for handling different scenarios in your firm, be it new client onboarding, be it an upsell to another service. We. I don't listen. Do you know how much experience I have? Do you know what a wizard I am? Here's the thing. Just like processes, just like how you make the sausage, how you handle that client conversation, that's. That can be systematized as well. And if you want to scale your. Your magnificence, using scripts to like d. The way that we handle certain conversations with clients makes it way easier for the rest of your team. I would argue also makes it easier for you because as perfect as you are, most of us haven't put a whole lot of thought into, like, what are the things that we make sure we say every single time we are onboarding a new client or going through a renewal. And scripts are how we ensure that we tick all those boxes. Doesn't mean that you're following it word for word, but it's a framework for you to work within that then makes it much easier to pull other people into that process. And today we are going to build one such example. And I think you're going to absolutely love it. Come on in with me, Jason. And on firms, All right, this is one of those things where if you don't build a system for it, you end up being overly reliant on expertise. Expertise is the brute force way of getting this thing done. And when it comes to scripts and the ways that we interact with clients, probably just having somebody that's overflowing with Riz is like the brute force alternative here. Like where they can kind of muddle through any conversation and do that effortlessly. Like, that's not most accountants. And so if we can give them a script to help them through that process, make sure that they're covering everything that we need them to cover, then it's more likely they come out on the other side with what we need. Somebody got mad that I said Riz the other day. They're like, immediate credibility loss because you just said the word Riz. Instant ban only. There was a way to do that on a podcast. Okay. Several contexts for where you could build a script. And your. Your two biggest blockers with scripts are going to be. You can't script the unscriptable, Jason. Certain things are just pure craft. My essence cannot be documented, buddy. Everything could be systematized. I. I mentioned last week, I'm going through the checklist manifesto book. It is so good. I highly recommend You. You read or listen to it if you haven't, it's basically just pushing back on every notion that you have about things being, like, impossible to systematize. It just kind of breaks through all that, and it's really, really helpful. But meetings, they absolutely can be scripted. Virtually every sales process out there is working off of a script. And I know there's a lot of bad versions of that where, like, well, that's all the proof I need that I'm not going to. I'm not going to script my calls. But pushing back on the notion that these things can't be scripted, I think is valuable for the same reason that trying to standardize more of your work, even though that's hard and even though 100% of it can't be standardized, like trying to do 20% and then 40% and then 60%, that is a worthwhile exercise, worth going through scripts. Totally the same thing. That's going to be your first blocker. Your second blocker is going to be, I don't actually even know how to write this or what it should be, which was definitely my blocker preparing for this episode. And if you have the same thought, it ought to bring you full circle to be like, well, maybe we should actually hit the brakes and have a more meaningful conversation of what those conversations should be. That first discovery call with a client. What should you actually be talking about when you have a renewal call? When you're talking about upselling somebody to a new service? What are the things that you need to cover every single time you have that call? And are you actually going through that conversation in an optimized way? Because sales and, like, getting someone to a desired outcome is very much a science that a tremendous amount of thought and investment has gone into. And most accountants have not even, like, scratched the surface of the right and wrong ways to do that. And part of having a script is to have something concrete that's agreed upon, that's not perfect, but the best that we've been able to figure out so far. And that's like, for me, that was the other big blocker. Was I going to put something on paper? And it's probably going to be really embarrassing and really bad, but that's the value of the script. Like a system. It can be improved upon rather than just freewheeling in every little conversation you have. So a few contexts where you could build scripts explaining a set of financial statements. You mean you can't. What? You can't standardize that? I actually did this with AI maybe 9 months ago on my newsletter, I basically took the same SOP that I used with my team when we mandated using video deliveries every month. When we sent a set of financials to the client, the team had to include a 3 minute video explainer of the financials that the clients absolutely ate it up. But my team, who hadn't done a ton of delivery like this before, was a little unclear on, well, what do I talk about in the financials and what's the client going to care about? And I did what I think we all need to try to do. And I did my best to like codify my expertise and the way that I did it because they all looked at me and they're like, you're so good at this, I'm not gonna do it like you. And I said, I know you won't because I'm the best, but let me give you the version that's like 80% of the way there. And so I built an SOP that was like, you always, when you go through the balance sheet, you always talk about the cash accounts, you always talk about current ratio, you're going through the P and L, you always talk about payroll expenses, you always talk about things that change, you know, more than 50% beyond that month over month, like what is your process kind of the, the mental things that you know, that you always go through and do. I codified that. And from that the team was able to like quickly deliver a set of, of financials with more or less the same insights that I would have offered. Another context where scripts can help tax return delivery. Little more open ended than financial statements, but even within that there are some constraints, like, you know, the tax return summary. Like even if you just had a script for how you talk through a tax return summary, that would be valuable for your team. Another scenario, a specific like upsell situation where you're trying to get a client from service A to service B and like a tax planning meeting, like maybe the initial meeting before you do the work or maybe the delivery meeting. So I thought, how do we make this hyper, hyper practical? Let's go through and do this live. And it'll be really bad, but so will yours. K, once you point that finger at me, you got 4.8 yourself. So the example I want to go through is, is a super common upsell that I did in my firm, getting people from bill pay to cash advisory. So cash advisory was a service that we figured out how to more or less automate, but people would pay really, really well for it. And it was actually worth it for us to get into bill pay, which we couldn't really make money on because a huge percentage of those people ultimately we were able to upsell into cash advisory, which we can make a bunch of money on. So what are the things that this script needs to have? Well, for one, it ought to have a clear goal of, of what we're looking to do, which isn't necessarily to convince them of anything. Rather it's, it's to get them to a decision of whether it feels worthwhile or not for them today and if not, understand why. And we can use that to kind of refine how we communicate our service. But then if we get through that conversation and even we are like, yeah, no, you really don't need this, that's probably good data as well that we can use to inform like who do we try to upsell this service to in the future. This script also ought to sort of chunk out the stages of the conversation, the general arc that you want the conversation to follow. Each ought to build upon the previous because the next, like nailing the next section doesn't become possible until you've laid that groundwork, till you've kind of ticked the boxes of the previous sections. The script should give you a whole bunch of good open ended questions for each stage of this. I don't know about you. I had a couple like banker questions that I always came back to and I'd heard so many different answers to it. It was like this safe place where I could start a conversation there with a client and I more or less knew sort of the branching logic as it would f like flow from there. But oftentimes the hardest thing is just having the right question, the right open ended question to ask. And so that's a good thing that we can build it into the scripts. You can include handling for really common scenarios in each stage and you can add to this over time. So you ask open ended question, they respond with a really common pain point. Develop that script a little further down that path. If you feel like you have like a real intelligent or helpful way to respond to that, it's worth building in stages that kind of hit pause and repeat back to the client, sort of where you've gotten so far to I guess confirm that everybody's on the same page. It's also like a really big psychological thing to pair it back to someone, something that they will say yes to. Like the act of saying yes builds momentum in a conversation like this. And then last define like what exactly is the off ramp from this conversation. What are the action items? If they opt in, when should that client expect to hear from us next? Like, what's everything that happens after that if they opt in or opt out? Because even if they opt out, there's information there that we want to capture so that we're not trying to cram it down this person's throat, down the road, and maybe even to better inform how we communicate what the service is for, for future people that we have the same conversation with. You know what? Let's put those six bullet points that I just said into the Show Notes. Like, if you're looking for a starting point, then you could swipe those and maybe that's a helpful way to kind of start structuring that. Today's episode is sponsored in part by liveflow. They just shipped Live Flow dashboards. And if you're looking for a little way to gussy up the monthly reporting that you do for your clients, this is pretty nice. They're like, modular. You put your own commentary in, not a, like, giant reporting suite, not something the client has to go log into. In fact, if you're looking for, like, how to wade into more valuable advisory conversations with clients, oftentimes you can only get there if you're giving them information that they can understand and sending them a couple of PDFs of financial statements that is not likely to lead to advisory conversations. They don't know how to make that stuff actionable. The more that they can understand what you're sending them, the more likely it will lead to valuable conversations. LifeLow's got a bunch of templates you can swipe to get started. Like, even a P and L dashboard, that's pretty cool. A daily cash movement report. A lot of stuff that if your client saw it, they'd be like, oh, I would like to have that. And from there, you then go from just churning out financials to being irreplaceable. Their buddy. And these days, we all need another friend. We all need more buddies, right? I think so. Everybody else. Everyone in the room's nodding their head in agreement. Learn more about LifeFlow. Check out the link down in the Show Notes. This episode is sponsored in part by Client Hub, who I recently named one of my top practice management system recommendations heading into 2025. But according to ClientHub, when it comes to picking a PM, it comes down to the four C's capabilities, client experience, clarity, and community. Today we're talking client experience. The biggest blocker to, like, getting stuff out the door with clients is waiting on them. Them not following through on what I need, which is what makes ClientHub a really unique client experience. It's basically like a two sided task management system. You're doing your work over here, client's doing their work over there. It actually looks largely the same the two sides of that system. This isn't like a portal that they bolted onto a task management system after the fact, which is what most PMs are. Client Hub was built for the client experience from the ground up since that's what's going to make you more productive. Productive, a better client experience. If you've been unhappy with that side of the systems that you use today, Client might be a great fit for you. Learn more about that one. Check out the link down in the show notes. So I'll talk you through this like high level script that I made and as I've said several times now, as I read back through it, it really isn't good. But I also don't know that it's going to be that it's like any worse than what that conversation would have looked like if I actually just picked up the phone and had it with a client. Which I've had this conversation a bunch of times. But for some reason when I see it written down I'm like oh sucks. This doesn't do this well enough for that. It's not optimized in this way or that way. And the reality is until we go through this exercise, we're probably having these conversations in very like non optimized ways. So here's my script. First bullet point. You got 15 minutes for a check in. Wanted to see how things are going and had a couple thoughts on opportunities of what we could do better. So I'm framing this as an opportunity for them. I don't want to frame it as something that they're doing wrong that we can fix because that requires them to agree or accept the fact that they're doing something wrong. Like don't even try to fight that battle. I'm framing this as an opportunity. I'll hit on something along the lines of, you know, each year around this time I do some strategic planning around what we do for you, make sure it's still necessary and seeing if there's any opportunities that we're missing out on. Then I'll get into something along the lines of how is, you know, cash visibility related thing Or I know we've talked about this cash related thing. How do you feel on that right now? Or it looks like some insight that I've gleaned from their work. Cash has been better, cash has been tighter. What do you attribute that to? So kind of kicking off an open ended conversation of where they feel like they're at with their cash situation, what they see the drivers being so that we can get a better understanding of where they're at. And just to kind of warm them up to that conversation. I got a bullet point in here that is like find a way to relate to ultimately what that response is either from my own entrepreneurial journey or, or from something more personally that they have shared. Like, yeah, what impact does that have kind of on your work life balance or something that, that makes that feel a little bit more personal to them to get out of sort of the business thing for a moment. The next section here I've got framed as kind of a transition to get to get them to start like confirming some of my suspicions and agree that they need some sort of solution. So in this transition I'm asking things like, you know, does this stress you out? Does this keep you busy in here? I kind of try to clarify what the goal ought to be. Like does it keep you from other things that would drive the health of the business overall? That's probably the biggest opportunity here is not this specific acute pain or thing. It is. This is blocking you from whatever is next, from whatever is better. And only you are going to drive that forward. That's a much better framing of the value of what you're going to do for them. Another way to say the same thing. What could you work on instead? I've got two more sections. Next is create curiosity. So I've kind of confirmed where they're at right now. So because of abc you can't do xyz like they're blocked by. This makes total sense. And here I'm probably going to tease something that we've done with a number of our other clients that in most cases has gone pretty well. They shared XYZ similar blockers. Happy to share this process with you. Do you have anybody on your team that could help you to do this? And the answer there is is almost always no or they would just sooner have you do it. And then from there I'm either going to get get them on an engagement right away or I'm going to say like if I'm fairly certain that they need this, maybe in a way that they don't even realize yet, I may say like, how about this? We'll start doing this for you today until the end of the week and you can Tell me if it's worthwhile or not. We could talk price a bit here. I would usually frame that as you know, in other situations. This usually came in for a situation like yours around X per week. But even there I'm happy to like, like this is an ongoing like client where we, we do a bunch of stuff for them already. Even there I'm going to be happy with a very limited scope to say like, but give us a few days to do this for you. Let's see if it does what we think that it will do and then we can go from there. And oftentimes what happens is like, they love it. It helps unblock some other things and they're like, don't stop doing this. Send the proposal through and they accept it right away. Again, not a like super locked down script. But even this is better than nothing because it's giving me some prompts if I get stuck. It's helping me to guide like the overall flow of the conversation, not get too down to brass tacks too fast. Which oftentimes I had a problem with. Like I just, I just get hyper rational and hyper technical and that's like not how most people make buying decisions. In fact, it oftentimes require like, gets them to be super, super rational back to me and then we start splitting hairs over the cost of this or that and it's like, no, the opportunity is you, what you can do otherwise, the other ways that you could spend your time, how you doing this thing isn't going to take you on a path that you ultimately want to go down. So even some structure like this I think can be helpful. But rather than just sitting here and talking about it, let's get somebody on the phone, let's actually do it. We'll do it live. Hey, Gerald.

Well, howdy, there's this, here's Gerald speaking. Now. Who's this? And what sort of business y' all reckon you've got with old Gerald?

This doesn't sound like Gerald.

Mind you, I got my hands fuller than a tick on a hound dog with this here retail floor and enterprise. So let's make sure it's worth my time.

Alrighty, I'll get right down to the point. You got 15 minutes for a check in. I wanted to see how things were going and had a couple thoughts on opportunities of what we could do better for you.

Well, all right then, but let's keep her tighter than a bark on a tree, you hear?

Okay.

I ain't one for all this modern hullabaloo, but I'LL bite. Things seem to be humming along well enough, so I reckon if it ain't broke, I don't need no fixing. What you gotta say about that?

Okay, so he already doesn't. He already isn't open to my suggestions. So each year we do some strategic planning around what we do for you both. To make sure it's necessary, like you said, but also to see if there's any opportunities that we're missing. I know we've talked about cash management a few times and how that's gotten tight. It feels like the last few weeks bill pay has been a little, little tighter. Any insights on. On why that is or what's holding up cash?

Well, money's like butter on a hot biscuit. It spreads thin real quick round here. Costs been crawling up faster than a squirrel up a tree. Nothing to fret too hard over though. I've managed this long without fussing over strategic plans, so I reckon I'm just fine as is.

You ever get about 20 seconds into a bit and regret it? So, getting real tactical, what. What do you think is causing that? You mentioned costs and money being spread thin, but. But do you have any idea exactly what the inputs are that are making cash be more constrained?

Well, reckon it's a heap of things stacking up like firewood. Supplies ain't cheap, freight's going up, and labor costs, well, they ain't what they used to be neither. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants more and customers seem slower and a Sunday driver paying up these days, so. Yeah. Guess that cash flow's trickling in about as slow as molasses in January. Don't mean I need no overhaul though. Just part of the business.

That creating any stress for you ain't.

No picnic, I'll say that much.

You gotten out on the boat much this year?

Not near as much as I'd like. Business keeps nipping at my heels.

A lot of these things, customer payments, costs like this is stuff that we can project pretty accurately. If we had a better. If we had our fingers on the pulse of this a little better, would it give you some flexibility to, I don't know, like, have a little more attention that you could give to more long term business stuff. Profitability, pricing strategy, like not getting mired into that day to day sort of cash grind.

Well now you might be onto something there. If I didn't have to wrestle that cash flow bear every day, reckon I might could steer the ship a little steadier. Maybe give some time to think long term instead of just keeping the Wolves from the door.

Is that tight cash like stopping you from becoming more profitable and having the time to focus on that better work.

Might be hard to grow when you're just scraping by. Feels like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.

So I was actually just talking with somebody else that we rolled out just kind of a cash planning solution for a couple months ago that has worked pretty well. Basically a couple times a week we send you a short report of what the next three or four weeks look like. You know, much further ahead of time. If you got to, you know, put together a plan to make payroll or if you got to push some bills off, you got to go dialing for dollars to get some some client payments in. You can see that stuff much further into the future. And actually the case with this other client is once we had that we were actually able to step in and help with more of that on your behalf so that we could better advise on. You probably want to pay this bill yet probably need to hound this client for payment. Probably need to set up better payment terms with these couple of customers. It's actually worked surprisingly well if you wanted to explore something like that. Not perfect but that's why we're building a script. Right.

Well I'll be. Now that kinda heads up sounds right helpful. Ain't no harm in seeing down the road a piece if it'll keep me from scrambling like a headless chicken. If y' all could help wrangle those late payers and point me toward what bills to hold off on that might just keep my hair from turning any grayer. Reckon it couldn't hurt to give it a whirl. Long as it don't mean messin with what's already working.

How about this? We're not gonna put another thing on you, another thing on the team. Let's do this for the rest of the week. We can circle back early next week and see if it was helpful for you and go from there.

Well shoot, that sounds downright manageable. If y' all can handle the heavy lifting and I just gotta sit back and take a look see then. All right, I'll give it a fair shake. Let's give her a go and see if it's worth its salt next week.

This is really weird and clunky but this sort of exercise with your team I think is actually pretty helpful and like kind of fun if it's not too high pressure. I think with every version of that that you do, you're also going to improve upon your script. You're going to be like, yeah, I didn't really cover this bit, or it went off track a bit over there. Or here's a few more examples that maybe would have been better. But having no script, which is, I think, the case for most of us and most of the calls that we go into, even though a lot like a big percentage of them are recurring calls or recurring formats of calls, having no script, you kind of just go wherever the conversation takes you, rather than like having to get it from A to B or there being an optimal outcome for a meeting where you can iterate on that script and build that out over time and then systematize that and pull other people into that process again. It is the difference between building an SOP for how to do a thing and then asking someone to follow it versus just like projecting your wisdom on to them and hoping that they get there someday. Like one of those paths is much shorter than the other and they're not going to be as good as you maybe, and that's totally fine. But giving them your process is actually going to accelerate their path towards not only getting better at that, but running those meetings in greater alignment with your expectation, with what you want to see. I'm actually curious anybody has like scripts out there that they've used that they love or that they swear by. Would love to to hear more if you're open to sharing that stuff in the comments. Not the scripts themselves, but just kind of best practices for how to build that stuff out. That's all we got for today. Thanks for coming and hanging. Ra.