Practice Development Articles

Twenty-Five Tips to Help Grow Your Practice

See How Many You Can Start Right Away

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Editor's Note: We asked August Aquila to come up with a quick list of tips to help accounting professionals — whether accountants, bookkeepers, consultants, or tax preparers — to jump-start new business. The result is this list of 25 tips that you can share with others in your business or firm, and continue to revise and update.

August explains the theme this way: "In this tough economy, the best way to grow a practice is to return to the basics of old fashion face-to-face contact and working your existing client base." The following list finds various ways to help bring home that insight as a reminder to you, or a reminder to others in your firm."

So here's the list that August devised:

The Top Twenty-Five Tips

Ask yourself, which ones make sense for your practice?

1. Talk with current clients. One of the best ways to generate new work is to meet with current clients. Find out what they are doing or want to do. Then help them achieve it.
2. Set a weekly and monthly goal for the number of client visits and hold your partners, yourself and your managers accountable.
3. Get out and meet with your referral sources. Find out what they are doing in this economy and see how you can work together.
4. Quiz your partners and managers about your services and products to be sure they are knowledgeable about them.
5. Invest in a professional sales course for all client service personnel.
6. Develop a weekly pipeline of pending new business, proposals and prospects.
7. Mine your client list.  For example, a high net income individual tax return client who is not using your wealth management services, an audit client that is not using any of your consulting services, are good prospects to contact.
8. Encourage your partners and managers to be more aggressive in "asking for the business."  Don't leave work on the table!
9. Meet with key clients quarterly about their needs and goals.
10. Focus on business development at your monthly partner and manager meetings.
11. Emphasize teamwork between your tax, audit and consulting professionals.
12. Provide incentives for clients to use more of your services.
13. Provide ongoing service/product training and updates to all partner and manager level personnel.
14. Institutionalize marketing and business development for all new and existing employees.
15. Make sure your employees know how to sell benefits to clients.
16. Encourage your partners and managers to get a copy of the client's current strategic plan and annual goals.
17. Have niche or industry teams develop mini seminars for clients and prospects.
18. Target new companies moving to the area.
19. Hire a business development professional.
20. Make sure you follow up all opportunities.
21. Get out of the office, you can't develop new business unless you meet people.
22. Go on joint sales calls whenever possible.
23. Circulate industry best practices to your team.
24. Focus on understanding your clients' real needs. Then figure out how to satisfy them.
25. Keep adding to this list!

August Aquila, CEO of Aquila Global Advisors, is a keynote speaker, author and consultant to the accounting profession. Feel free to contact August at 952.930.1295 or aaquila@aquilaadvisors.com.

Last Updated: 10/06/2009