Does your law firm have more money than it can handle? Are your accountants tired of counting up the large daily haul from your clients? Are you tired of meeting at the bank during your lunch break to deposit huge bags of cash? Don’t worry. Help is available.
An all-CEO panel at the Association for Accounting Marketing in Orlando is serving up tips for driving clients away. During the session, called ”Inside the Mind of A-Level Clients,” seasoned industry professionals are sharing how they’ve increased their profits by lowering the client base.
The moderator, Michael Platt of Oak Brook, Illinois, is a nationally recognized leader in accounting and has been driving Upstream Midwest’s Blueprint for Excellence program, and has had over 20 years convening business leaders to share ideas and improve.
Charge for Everything
Bill for social time. Had a lovely two-hour lunch catching up with a big client? Send a $250 invoice for it.
Flood them with mass emails, and ignore their unsubscribe requests. Prove you have data by recording clients’ preferences: then send Omaha steaks to a vegetarian client.
Before renewing the contract, send junior staff who show up late and unprepared. Do it the most to your biggest clients.
Give clients a ‘team’ instead of a single point of contact. When the client calls, tell them it isn’t your responsibility. Blame a wide range of people, and never solve a problem.
Lead a rotation system: move clients from partner to the newest associate, changing contacts regularly. This way no client can ever get a handle on you. It’s good to show new staff the ropes. Make that client the rope. Pass the rope quickly.
Break down tasks: itemize invoices so that a client call for a five-minute question gets a $100 invoice. Nothing helps a cost-conscious client like realizing that everything they ask for costs more than they thought.
Tell them you’ll take care of their work in your own sweet time. Staff the work with newbies and keep the partners out of sight. Nothing shows that you have them close to your heart than making it crystal-clear that bigger clients matter more than they do.
When a client calls, complain about how busy and overloaded you are. It lets clients know you’re working for them. Make sure they don’t feel special: they work long hours too. “Hey, we’re really slammed. Could you call tomorrow?”
The closest thing to a guaranteed result is ignoring a client who sends you work. Don’t call. Don’t send a thank-you gift. Then, when they ask for the same favor, say no. They’ll love that.
Vanish when needed. On deadline days, disappear. On December 31, take the day off. Don’t tell your clients about deadlines that apply to them: show you know they’ll meet their deadlines by being unavailable.
Boost your bottom line by avoiding questions like “what keeps you up at night?” Never go the extra mile to be an active listener or give help unprompted.
When the engagement is over, shelve it. Ask for no feedback. It could lead to more work!
Don’t tell clients you have services that fit their needs. If your client has a problem your firm could solve, but it’s not your job, stay quiet. When the client tells you about a need you can fill in that instant? Say nothing.
Lay on the technical jargon. Assume clients are in your field and know all the terminology, then be offended when they admit they don’t know a term you use. Remember: making your clients feel foolish shows respect.
Don’t find out what your clients prefer. Email, phone, or in-person: do whatever is easiest for you, and don’t check. Find all of them on one channel, then drive them crazy by expecting them to be available on it.
Avoid face-to-face: use only email and regular mail to seal the deal. Years later, the client will have no idea what you look like.
When a client asks for a free year-end review meeting or lunch, tell them you’re too busy. Be as baffling as possible. Twist yourself in knots trying to explain that it can’t happen. Insist that they must adapt to your firm’s ways.
It’s best to sideline your marketing director. Leave them off the client teams, and prevent them from talking with clients. Assume the clients hate the director and can’t stand them. If the director has any advice, nod. Afterwards, ignore it completely.
Market through fear. Scare them: in your mail-outs, send scary letters about rule changes. But clients aren’t accountants: they wouldn’t have read about rule changes in the trade press!
Treat clients only as revenue: never talk about their businesses unless billable. Use your fees as the measure of the relationship. When in doubt, refer to the size of their bill.
Came from Real Experience
It might sound hard to believe, but every one of these awful tips came from real experience. For their inputs that inspired the tips, thanks to Dorthea M. Wynn, CEO, Orlando Heart Center; Anthony Wood, President, The Leadership Coalition, Roseland, NJ; Karen Hough, Founder & CEO, ImprovEdge, New York City training firm; Ronald Kaplan, CEO, Action Products International Inc., Orlando.
About Delancey Street
Delancey Street is a premier, and award winning, business debt settlement company that helps business owners nationwide. Our goal is simple: help you escape debt in a safe and legal manner. Based out of New York, we can help in 49 of 50 states. We tell you how it is; because your business and future is on the line.
