If you’re not reaching your firm’s growth goals, it’s probably not a leads problem. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you have a completely different problem.
Hang with me.
I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting down with accounting firms of all sizes and talking to them about how they’re growing, what they’re doing and what their processes are. Some of these firms are smaller and doing $2 million a year, while others are larger and doing $60 million a year.
Across the board, there was one common theme that kept coming up. Leads weren’t the issue.
The problem was that they didn’t have a solid pipeline in place.
Short on time? Watch the video instead: https://youtu.be/hmBy9txNTlc
The Problem with a Leaky Pipeline
You can attract as many leads as you want to your firm, but if you don’t have a way to move people efficiently and effectively through your pipeline, you’re just throwing fuel onto the fire.
Leaks allow leads to slip through before they have a chance to convert.
Often, that first leak is right there at the top of the funnel when prospects initially interact with them.
Many of the firms I’ve spoken with recently don’t have a proper CRM (and even if they do, they’re not actively using it).
The rest?
They were keeping track of leads:
- In their head
- In a spreadsheet
- In their inbox
And unless a lead quickly became a client, they were essentially forgotten about. Some of these forgotten leads even made it all the way to the proposal process. Others hadn’t even booked the first meeting yet.
Now, some of you may be saying, “Well, I want the people who are ready to become a client right away. I don’t have time to deal with any of the others.”
I get it. But I will say that if your systems are broken for your current interest, you’re going to struggle to move any new leads through your pipeline, especially if they are cold leads.
So, before you even think about going outbound, like running Facebook Ads, you need to have a strong pipeline to:
- Attract them
- Convert them to book a call
- Convert them to become a client
Otherwise, you’re just missing and wasting any new opportunities that come your way.
How to Patch the Holes in Your Accounting Firm’s Pipeline
You know why a leaky pipeline is a problem. Here’s how to fix it.
1. Start at the Beginning
Let’s focus on the experience someone has when they interact with your firm for the first time. They are likely going to your website or seeing one of the partners on social media.
When someone lands on your site or one of your firm’s social channels, what are they seeing? Does your presentation and messaging reflect:
- Who you are?
- How you help clients?
- Who you want to serve?
- What your pricing is like?
Do you go over the most common questions prospects have or make it clear who isn’t a good fit for you?
For example, if your minimum fee is $1,000 a month, let’s put that up front. Let’s make that experience good for both them and you.
If you’re not positioning and presenting yourself the way you want, let’s update that first.
Another thing we want to focus on at this stage is filtering out prospects who aren’t a good fit. In my recent conversations with firms, many expressed that the leads they’re getting are often not their ideal clients.
We need a way to rule them out to ensure everyone, on both sides of the table, has a positive experience and working relationship.
2. Make the Next Step Clear and Optimized
Now that we’ve improved that initial interaction, let’s focus on the meeting. How do we make it simple and straightforward for people to take that next step and set the conversation up for success?
When someone books a call with your firm:
- Are there things they need to bring to the meeting?
- Do they need to have their financial statements on hand?
- Do they need to bring prior tax returns?
Let’s make sure they’re really prepared and communicate all of this information beforehand.
While we’re at it, create and track follow-ups about the upcoming meeting. Send some introductory information about your firm and what it’s like to work with you. Maybe you can share some case studies and customer testimonials.
On the flip side, what if someone doesn’t book a call? What’s that process like at your firm?
Put a process in place that checks to see if they filled out a form and to follow up if they haven’t booked an appointment in a certain amount of time. Let’s also make sure we have some visibility on who has requested an appointment and who hasn’t booked one.
3. Follow Up After the First Meeting
Next, let’s look at whether or not they showed up to the meeting. If not, your pipeline should have processes in place to automatically reach out to them to reschedule.
If you don’t allow reschedules, let them know.
Now, if they did attend the meeting, what does the next step look like? Do you send them a proposal? Maybe you send a proposal and book another meeting. Or maybe they’re not ready for this step yet.
Each of these scenarios should have processes documented so that someone can easily move through to the next step. Automation can help with a lot of this.
4. Onboard and Deliver Value
When you successfully convert a lead to a client, what happens next?
Are there ways you can make it easier to serve them better? To cross-sell or upsell them?
What’s it actually like to get onboarded and work with your firm?
Once we’ve improved and optimized these areas, we can then start looking at retention. Are your current clients happy? Are you even asking them if they’re happy?
Sending out requests for net promoter scores or just reaching out for feedback can help you maintain visibility on client satisfaction.
Just because someone becomes a client, your work isn’t done. You need to track their satisfaction and whether you’re fully serving them
The Bottom Line
For many of the firms I’ve had discussions with, the ultimate conclusion we came to is that their foundations need work. They started off talking about new net logos, but then realized, hey, we need to fix our pipeline first.
In many cases, there was a lot of business just sitting in the partners’ inbox waiting because they didn’t have a process in place to track and follow up with people.
So, before you start trying to pump more leads to your firm, start with the basics.
If you want more specifics on how to set up automations or put these processes in place that I’ve talked about today, reach out to us. Let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together.
