Spotlight Reporting

Delivering the Ultimate Advisory Session

@spotlightrep

Richard Francis CA, CEO,

Spotlight Reporting

Richard is a CA and trusted advisor with 20+ years of advisory experience. As the director of a boutique professional practice, Richard saw a need to improve analysis and forecasting for his clients that led to him founding Spotlight Reporting – a global company and also the #1 Reporting and Forecasting app in the Xero ecosystem. Richard was also GM of Workpapers for Xero.

When done right, advisory has the power to grow a business, help achieve important goals or save a struggling enterprise. Despite the powerful impact of the advisory mindset and service offerings, many accounting firms struggle to transition from just doing core compliance. They may feel that the leap is too hard, or not worth it, or simply may not know where to begin.

Irecently hosted a webinar

on How to Deliver the Ultimate Advisory Session with Steph Hinds, Founder of Growthwise, and Sam Musgrave, Founder of Nine Advisory. Here are our golden tips and what we believe it takes to create advisory gold. The full webinar is well worth listening to, and can be accessed here.

1) Advisory is all about translating the numbers into meaning and action

Have you ever presented a client with a spreadsheet you were proud of, only to watch their eyes glaze over as you talked them through it? This is where a trusted advisor can make all the difference, not just by explaining what the numbers mean, but by translating their meaning in a way clients can understand. From there, better decisions can be made.

While Spotlight Reporting’s colourful, engaging, and eyecatching charts and graphs can alleviate the Excel glaze-over, the real power rests with you. What does your client need to know, in exactly the same, advisory sessions real terms, so they can get their can differ in approach. Steph, Sam business to that next level? What and I all structure our advisory insight needs to be shared and work in different ways, but we’re all what conversations will this trigger? effective because we employ the same key principles: It’s important to remember that in the world of advisory, you’re the • Active listening: you can’t solve guide, not the hero. Don’t assume an issue or help reach a goal that you have all the answers, if you don’t know what they or that you know exactly what are. Listen to what your clients their goals are. The best way to have to say, ask questions that make sure you’re providing the encourage confidence, and don’t most value is by putting the client be afraid of going on a tangent. at the heart of the session, and • Regular, consistent meetings: asking the right questions. it’s important Now is exactly the that you and your time to exercise your intellectual curiosity—get to grips with their There is no one-sizefits-all approach to advisory. As long as clients meet and interact often, so that you’re always across anything business, be you’re consistent, that might arise. across all aspects progress should be Try to see all your of the financial and made. clients monthly, non-financial data, and although you may need discuss, listen and find to hold a few ad hoc crisis the solutions to their problems and sessions as well. jump on opportunities. • Meet the needs of your clients and their community: while high 2) Key Principles, Flexible advisory fees are a part of the Structure work, be mindful of the needs of your potential client pool. Steph Because no two advisors are created her L-Platers program to

cater to startups who couldn’t afford full advisory services and found that once they found their feet, many of them retained

Growthwise’s full services, and stayed on as loyal, high value customers. • Get your team invested in your clients’ success: advisory shouldn’t be the domain of a few it should be… that is your tangible over a million bucks, you’re leaving money for you.’” That, says Sam, is

specialists. Get your whole team on board.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to advisory. As long as you’re consistent in your methods, progress should be made.

3) Tangible Benefits Are Easier to Sell

“Half the time we win clients because I tell them, ‘our best performing electrician (as an example) has a net profit of 24%. believes that if you give people

What’s yours?’” says Steph. “They say ‘wow, I’d like that as well’.”

One of the biggest worries accountants have when implementing advisory services is that no one will want what they have to offer, or the value will be hard to demonstrate. The best solution to this problem is to get people interested by showing them the concrete benefits of engaging

Sam suggests that you begin by thinking about the industry your client works in, and factoring in all the different inflows and outflows they may have. Then calculate exactly how much of every dollar they earn as a margin, what needs to be paid out and how much could be retained as profit.

“If that operating margin is anywhere below where you think demonstration of the value you can add,” says Sam. “So you say, ‘you’re at 15% margin, and you should be at 30%. If you’re turning $115k dollars on the table. You pay me 30, 40, 50k, and we’ll get that a much easier sell than the general, sometimes ‘woolly’ benefits of advisory services.

Benefits don’t always have to be that tangible, though. Sam your services.

information for free, they’ll pay for the implementation. Do you have internal resources that could benefit your clients if you made them public? Why not share the knowledge, and sell your help in putting it into practice?

4) Just Get Started

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do to begin your journey with advisory is to just get started! “Sit down with a client who is a friend, or someone who you’ve done a lot of work with, who you feel most comfortable with to start with,” says Steph. “...don’t worry about what you’re going to charge, or what tools you’re going to use, or anything else. Just sit down, have a conversation with them, and ask them great questions.”

Remember: the ultimate advisory succession is one that helps your clients succeed. It might not happen as you envision it, and you may not be a perfect advisor to begin with. But at the end of the day, if you’re saving your clients time, money, and giving them peace of mind, that’s advisory success.

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