How to move from compliance to business advisory

Hi there and welcome to this video. My name is Mark Wickersham and in my Facebook group, Value Pricing with Mark Wickersham. I got this question the other day and I've seen it happening more frequently. People are asking, so Mark, how would you move from doing compliance services and move towards business advisory? So I thought I'd share a video with seven ideas, seven steps for you to take as you move your practice away from compliance and more towards that advisory work. Before the seven steps, let's first though talk about, well, why and what is advisory. So the reason why is because in this current world we live in with cloud technology, cloud accounting, we are seeing that compliance work is becoming more and more automated and this trend will just get faster and faster as machine learning gets better and better, as artificial intelligence gets better. And so as a profession we have to move towards one of just adding up the numbers to one that's interpreting the numbers. So we have to change. So that's the reason why. So what is advisory?

Everyone has different definitions of advisory and so this could be, this could cover a whole range of different things. It could include tax planning. Advisory might be helping advice around different apps, technologies the client could use to create efficiencies in their accounting system. I always think of it as business advisory, giving people business advice. It's similar to management reporting or consulting work. There are many different definitions of it, but the one that I'm going to refer to in this video, I'm going to treat advisory as business advisory as the idea of as we do, the data entry, the compliance work, the bookkeeping work, what we might do to add more value is create some interesting management reports, some reports showing the client how they're performing and then meeting with them periodically to give them advice. So that's what I mean by advisory work in this particular video. So here are the seven steps that you would want to take. Number one, the first step is you need to get skilled up, you need to get the skills. Because as a profession, when we do our professional exams, for example, we're taught things like compliance work. We're taught about taxes, payrolls, bookkeeping, whatever it might well be. But we don't tend to get taught advisory. So we have to increase our skills. How do we do that? Well, one of the ways is start reading business books. There are some amazing books out there, business books that we can read to start to learn about what the keys to success in business. So start reading more. There are also many other sources that you can go to, courses, people you can listen to in fact, one of the great sources is go and find out what are the tools and apps that help you with management, reporting or advisory. Because many of the providers of those will also help you with training. They'll offer training of some sort, sometimes paid for, sometimes free, to support their app. So take advantage of the training you need to get skilled up. Number two, you have to acquire tools and tools and systems. You can't just make it up as you go along. You need to create some or purchase some systems. They could be things that are part of manuals, training resources that you can use as part of advisory. It could be software and there are many, many different software tools for doing business, advisory, management, reporting. What I'll do below this video somewhere is you'll find a link. And in that link, there was a huge thread in my Facebook group, Value Pricing, with Mark Wickersham, where someone said, well, what's the best tools, what's the best apps for advisory work? And there's dozens listed in there. So I'll give you a link to it. Click on the link after this video and go and read through that thread and, and find out what other tools people are using for their advisory services. Okay, that's number two. Get the tools. Number three, now that you've got the skills, you've got some tools. Now you want to think about, well, how are you going to package this up? What is it that you're going to sell? And one of the key piece of advice is everybody's different. Everybody's got different budgets and different needs. So having one single package for advisory work isn't going to meet everybody's needs. So give choice, give options. I call it menu pricing, where you create a number of different packages. Think of it as a bronze, silver, gold. So think about what might be in your bronze level of advisory, what might be your silver and what might be your gold. Create those packages. The next idea is we need to communicate the value to the client of advisory. And it's particularly important because adversity advisory is a luxury service. What I mean by that is, unlike compliance work, the client doesn't have to buy it. Yes, they have to have their payroll done, their bookkeeping, their taxes. So compliance services, because they're compulsory, they have to be done. Your clients have experienced those before, they know what's involved. But luxury services, things like advisory, they may never have bought those things before. And so if they've never bought them, it's even more important for you. It's incumbent on you to make sure you build up the value, explain the value of what you do. And so you have to learn communication skills. You have to understand how to turn features into benefits. You have to understand the importance of creating anchors and using numbers to quantify the benefit of what you can do when you deliver. Advisory number five, one of the things you have to do is constantly, constantly tell your clients that you do advisory. Because again, your clients might not know you do this stuff. And so you need to keep telling them. You have to remember that sometimes people have to be told several times. People might not always read your website. If you put on your website the fact you do advisory, that's fine if someone reads your website, but not everyone will. So make sure you find out as many opportunities as possible to tell people about your new advisory services, your website, in your brochures, tell them in all your communications, all of your emails mentioned in there, perhaps in the footer as a P.S. for example, you might mention the fact that you help people now improve their business to grow their profits, to grow their sales, to increase their cash flow. Keep telling people all the time, make sure it's in their face. They start to understand that you can take their business to another level. Next, idea number six is this. If you tell a client about your advisory service in a meeting, if you say to them, would you be interested in this? You may find, as you found before with other services, the client says no. Please remember that no does not mean no. No means not yet. Not yet. Sometimes we have to hear things several times before the message sinks in. Somebody might say in a meeting today, they don't want your advisory services. That doesn't mean you don't tell them a year from now when you meet them again. Because a year down the line, things have changed. Their business has changed. Perhaps their business is growing now, or perhaps it's struggling now. Their mindset's changed, you've changed, everything's changed. And so no simply means not yet. At some point, the time will be right. So just because a client said no the first time doesn't doesn't mean in your next meeting you don't offer your advisory services. And if they say no in the second meeting, that's fine. Sometimes a third one. Sometimes it takes seven times to hear something in our minds before we then do something. Let me give you an example. Some years ago, I used to be very much into LinkedIn as a social media tool. And I only did social media, LinkedIn as social media for my marketing. Then someone said, you should try Facebook. And I said, don't Be silly. Facebook's for kids. Why would I want to use Facebook for my marketing? A little while later, somebody else said, you should use Facebook for marketing. And I kind of dismissed it. Third time, I'm thinking, I've heard that from a few different sources now. I suppose I should look at it one day in the future. Fourth, fifth time. Okay, sometime soon I will do this. Sixth time, I need to go and buy a course. Seventh time, I'm going to do this. And for me personally, when it comes to my marketing, of all the social media channels, Facebook is by far and away the most powerful. But I dismissed it completely out of hand the first time I heard it. Your clients will be exactly the same. You talk about your new service, advisory. They will probably dismiss it. No, that's not for me. Just keep being constant with your message. And finally, number seven, how do you sell advisory services? You don't want to sell. Okay, selling is difficult and selling is not. What we need to do is instead allow our clients to buy. And the key thing you want to do is recognize that what we want to do is inspire them to take action. And we do that by demonstration. We demonstrate. You want to demonstrate using numbers? You're the numbers expert. Show them what's possible in their business. If they make some changes, demonstrate with some ideas, give them some examples of things they could do to improve their business. And demonstrate with stories. Collect stories when you help clients through your advisory. Get case studies, get testimonials, and then share those in all your future meetings. So there's my seven tips on how to move from compliance to advisory. If you want some more help, then somewhere below this video there's some links to some free resources. Go and grab those free resources. And if you found this valuable, please please click on the like button. Please also feel free to share this with other accounting professionals. And also, if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the channel. Bye for now.