When the world came to a grinding halt in March, our tax seasons changed, our audit seasons changed, and everything about how we thought 2020 was going to go changed. Revenue timing is delayed, clients’ ability to pay has been questioned (but mostly debunked), and we’re having to turn our attention to the here and now. For most CPA firms, that’s the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). While we embraced this work and hosted webinars and wrote blogs about how to apply for, calculate, and accomplish forgiveness for PPP, so were all of our competitors. But this work won’t last forever, so what’s next? In a time when everyone’s doing the same thing, how do we differentiate so we can come out ahead?
Differentiation is not a new challenge for CPA firms. We’ve been trying to differentiate for years, and the move to advisory has been a big part of that, but we’ve continued to hold strong to compliance work. The harsh reality we’re being forced to learn now (that we may have been avoiding) is that the work that gives us comfort – tax, accounting, and audit – while important, is not currently critical. We’re being forced to ask, finally, what is urgent and what is important? If you’re going to differentiate today and going forward, it’s time to lean in on the urgent because, for the foreseeable future, it’s going to win the day.
Identifying your differentiators
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to differentiating your services and communicating that to your clients, start with them. Pull together a list of your top clients and hold a Q&A session with each. First, this will help you address their top problems they may have been neglecting to share with you. Second, you can then use this knowledge to identify the services that will appeal to your prospects. If your top 10 clients have the same pain points, likely your prospects will as well. This market research is free and readily available for you to seek it out.
Some examples I’ve seen from firms differentiating during this pandemic include creating reopening playbooks or offering specialty-based operations services that speak to the actual moment in time their clients are living in. I was recently talking with a CPA who had client who was being very laisse faire about their 2019 audit. So relaxed in fact that they were pushing it out to August 2020. But, instead of waiting for the compliance work to come to them, this CPA was going out and meeting the other needs the client had right now by addressing their operations concerns and the effects of the pandemic on their business. Instead of getting wrapped up in the compliance need, they tackled the urgent need.
Communicating your differentiators
The key to using these pain points to your advantage lies in the messaging. While we’re very accustomed to talking about the features of our services and what they can accomplish in terms of compliance, we’re not so good at translating that into real benefits the client can see and feel.
So, what does this practice look like? How do we craft a message that will set us apart? Here’s a quick example: Imagine you’re the client. You’re being forced by the pandemic to right-size your business and align operations when your revenue has been cut by 40%, but you’re not sure where to start. You’re brave enough to enter a store, and you’re looking for a product to help you right-size your operation when your entire revenue structure has taken a hit. You find the business services aisle and you see two boxes. One box says “We are CPAs and we can help you” and it’s right next to another box that says “Right size your operation for your revenue stream.” As a business owner, which are you going to choose?
This simple exercise illustrates that it’s not the service itself that solves our clients’ problems, it’s the resulting benefits they realize from that service. Whatever service we provide and however we accomplish it must be translated back into what issue was solved, what problem was fixed, or what challenge was overcome based on the initial interview with the client. Now more than ever, communicating benefits is key as needs feel more urgent and attention spans are shorter.
While it may seem like everything is on hold including our tax returns and audits, the reality is, this is the perfect time for CPA firms to charge forward and differentiate themselves in the other services they can offer clients and prospects – the services that will provide more long-term success and deeper relationships, like advisory. If this pandemic has showed us anything, it’s that our clients’ and prospects’ deeper needs are right there in front of us, waiting to be addressed. We just have to step out of our compliance bubbles and grab them.
