Building an accounting/CPA firm from the inside can involve a number of marketing tactics. The bottom line is that building a practice from the inside increases your wallet share with current clients. This usually means providing additional services cfgohio.com to your clients. An excellent way to accomplish this is to assume the role as your clients’ financial quarterback – a role your clients want you to assume.

In a recent survey of financial advisors and accountants, the investment firm of Charles Schwab found that in the wake of the recent financial crisis Americans are taking greater responsibility for their financial future. Many are leaving online brokers and other cfgohio.com investment firms to have their accountants take charge of their total financial management. [1] Similar findings have been reported over the last ten years indicating that clients want their trusted accountant to help them understand financial issues and manage their investments and other aspects of financial planning in a holistic manner.[2]

What is a Financial Quarterback?

A financial quarterback is the person who plans the strategy, calls the plays and, actually makes the plays happen. You might believe you are providing this service to your clients – in fact, you might be performing the service. The question is whether you are earning the financial returns for your work?  Clients want the assistance of someone they trust, who can help them look at the big picture of their finances in the context of the life they want to live both now and in the future. This could involve any of these elements of financial services:

·         Accounting services to the individual who is a business owner

·         Education planning

·         Estate Planning

·         Capitalizing on government benefits

·         Investment planning

·         Personal Finance

·         Protection planning

·         Retirement planning

·         Tax planning

Why Become the Financial Quarterback?

If you are interested in building a practice, there are three solid reasons for you to step up to the line of scrimmage and become your clients’ financial quarterback.

Reason 1: Work vs. Rewards. Accountants, generally, carry a higher level of responsibility for a lower level of pay than a financial planner or investment counselor.  In most cases, an accountant makes $150 -400 per hour. The person wearing the title in “financial services,” on the other hand, earns something in the neighborhood of $1,100 per hour.

Here is an example of what I mean. Many accountants feel that if they are a trustee, they carry more responsibility, must do more diligence and face more potential liabilities to earn $1,500 – 2,000 than the investment planner who earns $20,000. Another example is even more common. The CPA has the intimate knowledge of the client’s financial picture and develops the financial plan for the client. For this work, the CPA is paid $2,000. The client then goes to a financial advisor to execute the plan and pays the financial planner $10,000 – 20,000 on an annuity basis to execute the plan.

Here’s the bottom line:  The CPA does the lion’s share of the work, and the financial planner or investment counselor gets the lion’s share of the reward.

Reason 2: Starting the Year with an Empty Calendar

Accountants begin every year with an empty calendar. The CPA/accountant generally keeps his/her clients, but there is no revenue until a service is provided. The financial planner, on the other hand, is being paid a percentage of the investments s/he handles for the clients. The financial planner, then, begins the year with an annuitized book of business.

If the CPA/accountant takes six months off, s/he earns $0. Because no specific services are provided to a client, there is no revenue. The financial advisor, on the other hand, takes six months off and earns approximately the same amount of money as the previous year.