Having effective client communication is the first step to offering advisory services. Developing the strategy to work smarter, not harder when it comes to managing clients and adding value to your services has a few guidelines.
For more information on common roadblocks advisors face when moving to the advisory service world, make sure to register for the webinar "Roadmap to Advisory Services" on August 24th. You can register here.
Establish One Place
In order to effectively communicate and keep track of tasks it is important to establish one place of communication and collaboration with your clients. Even better if you can manage all of your clients in one place. By keeping information, documents, and communication in once place, you will save time and be able to keep track of all clients and communication at once.
Cultivate Effective Data
How long is the financial report that you provide your clients? How much of that information does your client actually read? If you want to have good conversations and provide valuable data to your client, you need to make sure the data you are providing them is relevant to what they want to know about their business. One question to ask yourself before giving your client data is: does this information align with my clients goals? If the answer is yes, great! Send it over to them. If the answer is no, maybe reevaluate what goals your client has and find the data that relates to those goals.
Rediscover the Point
A big part of advisory services is moving from a transactional relationship to a conversational and collaborative relationship. Rediscovering the point is all about understanding your clients and their business on a daily basis. Understanding what goes on in the business, why your client makes certain decisions, and how all the financial metrics connect to each other and the other members of the team is crucial to providing valuable services to your client.
Meaningful Communication
Do you ever feel like what you are telling your client is going in one ear and out the other? Like previously mentioned, you need to understand your clients goals and then frame your advice and communication around those goals. One step further than that, by making sure you are communication effectively and promptly, you are telling your client that you care about them and want them to be successful. This allows you to build long-lasting relationships with clients and it makes working with you easier.
Collaboration
Work WITH your clients not against them! Your job as an accountant or advisor is to be the expert when it comes to financial metrics and all things relating to the numbers in the business. Your client is the expert in their field. Maybe they own a restaurant, a beauty salon, a painting company, it could be anything! They know their field potentially better than you. So use them. Use their knowledge in their field to help you create unique metrics or calculations or data points that are specific to them and help them reach their goals.
24/7 Access to Your Brain
I know this is a scary idea – giving your client access to your brain 24/7?! That is exhausting! What if I told you there was a way for you to be available to your clients at all times without having to actually do any extra work? By using a financial collaboration platform like Path, you can keep all communication, data, and documents in one place and your client will have access to it at all times! Create dashboards filled with important information that your client can look at anytime – without bothering you. Keep offering quality service without doing more work.
Real-Time Data
Information and financial analysis is only as good as the data you are analyzing. As soon as you pull a report from somewhere, the data is old and your calculations are wrong. When building calculations, make sure you use the most up to date numbers – real-time data. This allows you to see the financial health of the business at all times and you don’t have to worry about having accurate up to date data.
For more information on common roadblocks advisors face when moving to the advisory service world, make sure to register for the webinar "Roadmap to Advisory Services" on August 24th. You can register here.