It's Time to Cross-Sell

Source: Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Rita Keller.

It's that time of year again. You and your team will be seeing clients face-to-face. It's time to cross-sell your firm's services. The challenge is mastering the art of cross-selling.

Why is cross-selling so valuable to a CPA firm? It is because the more services your firm provides to clients, the more profitable they become and the harder it is for them to break away from your firm.

To improve your cross-selling skills, as with most activities inside a CPA firm, at first you will probably need a system, a process, a checklist, a questionnaire – whatever tool it takes to help your accountants actually explore expanded services with current clients.

The goal is to bring extra value to your clients. Right now, do all of your team members, even the most recent college recruits:

• Know what to look and listen for while they are at a client's location?
• Understand all of the firm's service offerings?
• Know to whom they should refer opportunities when they recognize them?

If you answered “no” to any of these, quickly take action. Host a Breakfast & Learn or Lunch & Learn this month before your engagement teams go into the field.

Talk about this topic. Provide the entire team, including the administrative and support teams, with a list of questions/items to apply to the client situation and give them the name of the partner to seek out for guidance if they identify an area where your firm can bring more value to the client. Just having this simple questionnaire or checklist seems to give everyone more confidence.

For the complete article, read “Additional Services Season.”

From Solutions for CPA Firm Leaders, the newsletter of Rita Keller, January 2013, www.ritakeller.com.