5 Tips for Attracting High-Value Clients to Your Accounting Firm

Not all accounting firms start out with their dream clients. Are you overworked and underpaid by your current clients? Here’s why that happens and what you can do to change things.

What type of clients do you have right now in your business?

Do you have clients that call you every day asking for little tweaks, even after hours? Are they clients that pay you very little money for doing a lot of work?

Do you give your clients sound advice and they don’t use it? Do they always question your judgement? Or worse, do they often blame you for their mistakes?

Are you frequently worried that you can’t treat all your clients equally? And are some of your clients preventing you from dedicating enough time to others?

Do you dread waking up in the morning and looking at your appointments schedule?

Do you ever feel like some clients just suck the life out of you?

If you find yourself thinking and feeling these things, here’s your problem…

You’ve found yourself some vampire-clients.

These are the clients who never pay on time or value your services. They only care about what you can do for them. That’s why they want you at their beck and call. And they’re not the type of people you want working with you.

Vampire clients don’t care that you have a VITAL accounting firm. They’ll never value it.

So, what you want instead is to go after high-value clients. 

Not sure how to do that? 

Here are five tips that will help you find the ideal ones and escape your current vampire clients.

Tip #1 – Be Visible

Remember that up to 90% of buyers make their decision before picking up the phone and calling you.

Because of this, some interesting things happen during the call. Buyers try to find a logical reason to work with you. They want to find a reason they should consider your services over your competitors.

In other words, your prospects want to see if you are VITAL for their businesses. They want to know enough to trust your unique approach.

Especially when talking about high-value clients, visibility is key.

You must have a strong presence across all relevant social media platforms. And you must exercise consistency with your articles and blog posts.

Why?

It’s because your firm needs to pop up consistently in your prospects’ searches. All buyers today, including clients in the B2B world, do their research. Almost no one waits to hear an advert over the radio for accounting services. 

So, it’s your job to go out there and become visible. Work across all channels towards building trust and getting people confident in working with you. You must demonstrate that you can show up every day and work on nurturing those relationships with prospects and clients.

Become visible and available.

Tip #2 – Lead by Example

The second tip is a very old but persuasive principle – practice what you preach or lead by example. It sounds easier said than done, but it’s not. 

To understand what this means, put yourself in your client’s shoes. For example, you want your client to pay you 30 grand for your services for one year. Now, ask yourself if that’s something you would do. 

Are you willing to spend money to help your clients transform their businesses? And are you prepared to invest in advancing your knowledge and honing your skills to help your clients?

There’s always a bit of give and take with attracting high-value clients. You must show commitment to fixing your clients’ issues. Make them see that you can understand their pain points and help overcome them.

Show that you offer VITAL advisory services. Allow your prospects and clients to see that you are AGILE and can come up with new solutions.

For high-value clients to invest in you, it’s important that they feel you’re willing to offer the same courtesy.

If you don’t do this, you’re not leading by example. What’s even scarier is that you can become stagnant not just in your business growth but also in your knowledge.

When you can’t learn new things, you can’t adapt to your client’s needs. This means it’s hard to keep existing clients, let alone attract new ideal clients.

Show your audience that you’re a few steps ahead when it comes to growing a business.

Tip #3 – Share Business Insights (Not Accountancy Insights)

You may have all the accounting insights in the world. Does that mean all your audience members want to hear about is accounting? No.

It’s crucial also to share business insights. Try shifting your focus more towards sharing business growth insights across all your platforms.

If you want high-value clients, you have to offer them value. You’re not going to impress with your accounting degrees. However, you will impress with your knowledge of how to transform a business.

High-value clients, the big companies, want something more than a traditional accountant. They have complex problems that require unique solutions. And they want help beyond tax season. These are clients that want you to help them transform their businesses into something greater.

The more you can shift the discussion towards benefits, the better. Allow your clients and prospects to see why your accounting services provide so much more than your competition.

And always share your insights across multiple channels. How?

Well, that’s up to you.

You can share your business growth knowledge through videos. And you can also do it through articles or blog posts. You can use all of these things and more, or focus on a single one.

The important thing is that you focus on your more valuable insights.

Tip #4 – Select the Right Channels for Your Content

So, the choice is yours in regards to picking your communication tools. You decide how you want to share your knowledge and showcase your value.

That said, your value doesn’t mean much to anyone if it doesn’t reach the right audience.

To spread your content to become visible to the right people, you must pick your channels. Where do your high-value clients hang out? Where can you engage those in your hunting niche?

In the accounting business, two social media platforms stand out the most:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook

Twitter is also a reliable option, but it doesn’t carry the same weight as the other two. Why?

Because a platform like Twitter limits your ability to share content. Meanwhile, LinkedIn and Facebook are fantastic for sharing text and video content.

You can also engage audience members in groups and speak to multiple high-value clients at the same time. And you can even create a community to build stronger relationships.

Using your content only on the right channels can maximise the results of your marketing efforts.

Tip #5 – Leverage Exclusivity

Your high-end clients aren’t your everyday clients. They’re not common.

They have big businesses. These clients are special and quite unique, so you have to tap into that to let them know that you understand.

Leverage your exclusivity to attract and sign high-end clients.

How can you do that? There are a few methods.

For one, don’t sell yourself short. Make it known that you only have so much room for new clients that you can help. They should know that not everyone gets one-on-one access to you and your insights.

Secondly, create a more robust filter for how you select prospects. You don’t want just anyone, right? You don’t want vampire-clients but no in-between clients either.

Show that you want only the best of the best.

You want clients that can pay for your high-end services. Those that you can help transform their businesses and change their lifestyles. Much in the same way as they help you in return – by paying more and allowing you to create your freedom business.

Start leveraging your exclusivity by also offering something unique. Think of a bonus piece of insight that quickly addresses one of your clients’ pain points.

It’s easier to hook high-end clients if you create that exclusive look. This tool is one of the cornerstones of reaching a high level of mutual respect. It also puts you in a league of your own where gaining your insights becomes a privilege.

And that’s just the kind of service and collaboration that high-end clients want.

Position Your Content and Offering the Right Way

It’s crucial to know who you’re after before you make any definitive moves. If not, it’s so easy to steer off-course and end up talking to all the wrong people. And it becomes easy to forget about leveraging the content that matters on the platforms that matter.

Always lead by example to let your audience know that you’re just as invested as they are. Show even more commitment if you can. Allow your prospects to see that your knowledge is not finite.

Display your AGILE qualities by creating unique and efficient solutions. Create that exclusive offering for your VITAL advisory services.

Try to portray your firm and service package as ideal for solving big problems in the world. Focus on those transformational insights and share them across all relevant platforms.

Don’t spread yourself too thin while trying to maintain visibility. Instead, focus your efforts where they matter most. 

It’s how you can work with your ideal clients.