Six ways to become a better business adviser

This article was first featured on Acuity Mag.

Amanda Gascoigne FCA says a lot of accountants she deals with want to shift from compliance to the extra challenges of taking on an advisory role.

“The gold standard that a lot of people aspire to is that they’ve got 50% of their practice’s revenue coming from compliance and 50% coming from advisory,” she says.

“You actually get more rewarding work, more profitable work and longer-term relationships when you’re offering that combination.”

Gascoigne is an experienced CA who now focuses on coaching and mentoring small and solo accounting practitioners, offering courses and strategies to help grow their businesses. Here, together with Ben Paul, CEO of The BD Ladder, an Auckland-based business development, training and marketing consultancy, she shares tips for sharpening your skills and becoming a more effective business adviser.

1. Find the right clients

If you want to become a business adviser to existing clients, explain to them that you can offer much more than preparing their financial statements and tax returns each year.

“The start of a new financial or calendar year is often the perfect time to have a conversation about offering more to your existing clients,” Gascoigne says. “It could be as simple as saying: ‘We’re evolving the direction of our firm slightly – we’ve been providing these advisory services to a number of clients and we don’t want to keep that a secret. We’re now sharing them with all of our business clients, so here’s what else we can do for you’.”

If there isn’t a fit with current clients, you might need to make the difficult decision to let a client go.

2. Build a framework to support your clients

You might need to change your mindset and re-think the services your clients need across their whole business life cycles – and how to do it. Gascoigne says one way to do that might be to simply go back to basics and think in terms of what you’d do if you were helping a family member start a business.

“For instance, if it were your son or daughter wanting to start a business, what would they need versus what they think they want and what they might ask for?” says Gascoigne.

“What support would you like them to have over the life cycle of their business?”

3. Don’t go it alone

Gascoigne points out it’s important to have someone such as a coach, mentor or a peer network to tap into when necessary.

“I believe what might be holding some accountants back is that when they think ‘advisory’, they think they’ve got to know everything. But in the advisory space, it’s not about knowing everything – it’s about using your technical and business skills in a different way and knowing when to bring in other experts to complement your advice.”

4. Be prepared to “shut up and listen”

Paul says communication, especially listening, is a key skill for advisers getting to know their clients.

Or as he puts it: “Be prepared to shut up and listen – then act on what you’ve heard. You need to be a sounding board when needed,” he says. “Don’t push your expertise first; instead listen and seek to help.”

Simple questions can work best.

“If you ask: ‘How’s business?’ they'll fill you in,” says Paul. “Then you might say: ‘So what’s on the horizon? What’s most important to you?’”

This is where a PEST analysis can help, looking at the political, economic, social and technological elements of their business.

“That way, you can look into things and find out what’s important in their world,” Paul says.

5. Use technology – and stay in touch

Paul believes in harnessing technology: he uses a chatbot to answer questions on his website, along with YouTube videos and blog posts, and says using AI can help you better get your messages out to clients.

“For instance, you can use AI to plan and deliver the first draft of basic social media posts,” he says.

And when it comes to your clients new and old, sharing can be better than telling.

“Telling people to increase sales if revenue is down is not advice, it is stating the obvious,” he says. “Instead, share ways they could increase sales or streamline a product or give them links to people they can talk to, to build their network and further their business.”