Most CPAs would agree that proactively reaching out to your clients is a best practice. The resulting conversations, if done correctly, can give you deeper insight into clients’ motivations, resources, and challenges. Reaching out proactively means that instead of panicking and scrambling to fix things after the fact, you can get ahead of potential issues and plan accordingly. It can also mean uncovering new engagements with you and additional revenue streams, so everyone comes away happy.
Setting up these proactive discussions isn’t always easy, though, because clients are often “too busy” for a quick conversation at other times of the year. Although tax season is your busy season, it’s also the time when your clients are most engaged with what you have to say. Now is the time to set yourself up for success for the rest of the year. You will already be getting together to review their taxes and get signatures, so why not take advantage of that time to discuss other ways you could be helping them?
The conversations don’t have to be particularly lengthy – a few minutes of good discovery with your best clients should be enough to identify what plans they have for their business or investments. Then set a follow-up meeting after tax season or delegate the research to an associate who is not involved in tax prep. The conversations you have during tax season can be used to get ahead of your clients’ needs and build your workflow for the rest of the year.
Topics should be driven by the clients’ needs, but you can use this year’s taxes to show them ways they can be more tax efficient in the future and reduce their quarterly payments. Then use the follow-up meetings to transition into the more consulting-based engagements that we wrote about in January.
Most clients would welcome the help to run their business better if they knew you had the capacity and the ability to provide that help. By taking just a few extra minutes during your tax season meetings, you could generate additional opportunities to help your clients throughout the year. Proactive conversations help you demonstrate your commitment to their success and solidify your role as the trusted advisor they can’t do without.