How do you turn the value dial up so that more clients say yes to you more often?

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It’s rare to find an accountant with complete clarity on the value they provide to their clients.

Even rarer to find one who has good enough client conversations to communicate the value they provide.

A bit like Morton Grodzins.

Grodzins could have been well known the world over. Instead, someone else recycled his 43-year-old idea and made it famous.

Grodzins was a university professor and published an academic paper in 1957 introducing the phrase 'the tipping point'.

However, his inability to use a conversational style to show the value of his idea left his
now-famous phrase hidden, until Malcolm Gladwell showed up. Gladwell described the idea in a very conversational and engaging way and created the best-selling book 'The Tipping Point' – 2.5+ million book sales have made Gladwell a household name in the business community and enable him to charge £100,000 for an hour’s key-note speech!

This business breakthrough isn’t about Gladwell (even though his strategies around the tipping point are extremely helpful), instead we’re focusing on building your value in the hearts and minds of your clients.

It’s clearly not enough to be able to deliver value, you also need to communicate your value too.

Start with the 4 helping hands here or read on for the full Bitesize Business Breakthrough

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First - how clear is your value?

Facts and figures matter.

But facts and figures are not enough – Grodzins proved that for sure.

The way you communicate your value matters more.

To be valuable to your clients, you need to show them how to assess the value of your products and services.

This applies to your existing clients as much as it does with prospective new clients.

And it’s your client conversations that dictate the value your clients see and experience.

One challenge matters most...

Know what you’re really up against:

1. You’re up against your competition of course – and it’s easy to get side-tracked by this challenge!

2. But more importantly you’re up against your clients’ deep-rooted desire to maintain the status quo – they would prefer to stay as they are!

6  aspects of a valuable conversation

3 times more valuable

World-renowned research firm Forrester Research has ongoing studies into the buying habits of director-level decision makers. Forrester results show that 74% of business executives choose to buy from firms that help them clearly see the need to change.

Forrester call this a ‘Buying Vision’.

In contrast, only 26% of director-level decision making relies on a side-by-side competition comparison of suppliers or "Bake-Off".

The graphic above shows 6 aspects of a valuable conversation from your clients’ viewpoint according to Erik Peterson et al in their powerful book ‘The Three Value Conversations’.

So how can you be chosen 74% of the time by your buyers?

Build a ‘buying vision’ rather than a ‘bake off’!

To begin with it is not about you, your firm or your products or services.

It’s about your genuine concern for your client’s business, the challenges and dangers they are facing, the threats, problems and other issues that challenge the status quo and their future success.

Become an empathetic ally...

Of course, your buyers know you have an ulterior motive aimed at helping them buy from you.
And so, showing them that their status quo is unsafe, and that you can help them, is what they expect. To help prevent this mistrust, here are 3Cs you can use to communicate your value:

This positions you perfectly as a partner on their side (to help) not a salesperson to be held at arm’s length.

Time to challenge their sense of safety...

Nobel Prize-winning research by Daniel Kahneman helped build a new understanding into human behaviour.
Kahneman’s ‘Prospect Theory’ shows how people’s attitude to risk and their willingness to change is different when facing a potential gain or potential loss.

Here’s how Erik Peterson and the team that created the book ‘The Three Value Conversations’ neatly describe Kahneman’s insights:

In short, your clients are more likely to take risks and make changes if they see a potential loss in their status quo.

Helping your clients to understand that they risk a potential loss will make them feel a real and present sense of urgency about making a change.

Also, value is relative...

Erik Peterson points to another part of Kahneman’s research into human behaviour – the contrast principle – that helps show even more value.

So how do you help them feel ‘unsafe’ with ‘things-as-they-stand’ whilst maintaining or building your customer’s trust in you and your ability to deliver for them?

Ask them questions about the unknowns!

If you ask questions about ‘stuff’ your clients already know about, you’ll fail to talk about enough value for change.

Diagnostic questions are powerful and valuable, but only if they uncover something new, unconsidered, unexpected, unknown.

A conversation about known problems, issues and challenges is what your competition are already doing – so you sound the same as them. Sound the same as them and, at best, you can charge what they charge – if you can get the client to change to you. Client change, as we now know, is highly unlikely if they are tied to what they already know and understand!

As Peterson et al point out: “If your prospects know precisely what their problem is, they can often find the information they need to make a decision – with limited assistance or input from you.
“(Instead) dig hard to find the unknown, undervalued, or unmet challenges that your prospects and clients aren’t even thinking about.”

Where do you look?

Seek out valuable insight...

To provide insight that’s of real value to your client you have 3 sources:

An example in our industry - Accountancy

Anyone asking us about our firm’s response to Making Tax Digital and quarterly reporting of tax for all limited companies (like yours?), means we’ll quietly roll our eyes and just keep doing what we’ve always done until the deadline gets nearer and more pressing.

We know about this! We’ll stay as we are thank you very much!

However, when someone asks us about the number of clients for which we do annual accounts (let’s say 200  companies) compared with the number we do quarterly accounts for now (let’s say 10).

Then asks us to divide the difference (190) by the number of months between March 2022 and March 2025 (190 divided by 36 months means 5 client companies must go quarterly every month from March 2022) then we start to appreciate the scale of the task facing our team.

Especially when we’re then asked about the enthusiasm and willingness of clients (and some team members) to adopt new technology and the new weekly processes needed. Now we’re open to help and guidance, decisions and action.

Evidence is your best friend

You are less believable than independent evidence. Therefore, it pays to put the power of proof to work for you.

Share client stories, independent analyst claims, industry statistics, your client’s own data and use guarantees and any other relevant and trustworthy sources of proof to help you help your clients see the value of change and moving away from the status quo.

Important: Uncertainty rather than certainty helps...

It’s likely that there’s a time and place for absolute confidence and certainty.
However, research by a Stanford School of Business professor clearly suggests that providing ‘source certainty’ about the insights you provide can undermine the value of
your conversation. Instead, here’s what Peterson et al point out to explain this idea: