Why accountants proposals must stop

Accountants Proposals: resist the urge to comply

The proposal plays a particularly damaging role in the subtle and subconscious new business dance.Read on to discover why they must come to an end.
By Patrick McLoughlin
I am suspicious of black-and-white, one size fits all, declarations. When told what to do, I have to fight the urge to do the opposite.
But we all have to learn from experience. And on this, it took an awful long time for the penny to drop.
For years, I didn't just propose proposals, I helped firms write them!
"Can you put that in a proposal", seemed a reasonable request. Surely it's only fair to sum up how we can help, to help them come to a decision. Isn't it?

Accountants proposals: a symptom of a far larger problem

The best client relationships are based on mutual trust and respect: a relationship of equals.
If you’re sending or presenting proposals, you’re creating an imbalance before you even start working together.
Proposals are presented in the hope of being chosen. Salespeople present proposals to make sales.
It might seem inevitable that the exchange of value, your service for their money, is weighted in favour of the potential client.
It’s not. It’s weighted in favour of the decision maker and your decision, on who you work with, is just as important as theirs.
Otherwise, the new business process can be a humiliating experience. Like a child in the classroom, hands up, screaming, "Me, me, me", to the teacher.

Don’t accept the premise

It starts the moment you hear someone is interested in working with you.
Immediately, you feel a subtle pressure to get the client onboard / to win the business.
Don’t accept the premise. Reframing success gives you the freedom to stop complying and focus on an entirely different outcome. Your goal shouldn’t be to ‘close the business’ but to get to the truth as quickly as possible.
The truth is:
1) Am I/we the best choice for this client? Can we improve on their current situation?
2) Is this a client we really want to work with?

If you have clients that balk at your fees, are annoying to work with and just make your life crazy, then take a look at your client attraction process.
Something in there led them to believe that their current behaviour is acceptable to you."

Jason Leister

I understand you might not always feel in the position, financially, to turn work away.
But chasing 'the sale' is self-perpetuating behavior. Once you start compromising on the clients you choose to work with, it’s a difficult habit to break.
Difficult, because less than great clients, pay less than great fees, especially when they sense (and they always do) that you really want their work.
Low-margin clients, inevitably, leave you chasing more low-margin clients! In the end, it leaves you convinced that all clients want is the cheapest possible service and that's what you end up delivering.

Proposals as quotes

Proposals tend to follow one of two formats. They are both incredibly harmful, the first commoditises you, the second makes you superfluous.
The commodity proposal is the structure I've seen on most proposal software. Typically it lists the services suggested next to a fee.
Imagine you're the potential client. What message is this giving you?
From 20-plus years of helping accountants through prospect meetings and follow-ups, I can tell you the message is clear and loud. It leads prospects to focus on price, comparing each service to their current fee or a rival's proposal. It’s not a proposal, it's a quote to be compared and bargained down, line by line.

Proposal as Masterplans

The second most popular format isn't so much a proposal, as a presentation of the masterplan: a detailed explanation of the solution to their problem.
This leaves you working for free, you've done the hard part by working out the solution. Now they'll just pass it to their current adviser to follow the steps you've set out.
I've seen this happen so many times. The reality of course is that they are unlikely to achieve the same level of success as the originator, but you've made it difficult for them to understand that.