Accounting
Art of Accounting: How to make clients your sales team
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Many CPA firms rely on client referrals for growth. I consider referrals a validation of a satisfied client.
Occasionally the lack of referrals is because a client likes you and wants to continue using you but does not feel confident that you would do a good job for someone they might refer you to. There could be many reasons for this. If you feel their reticence is valid, then I suggest you examine the relationship and what might be done to right it so they will become a raving fan. Many of these clients feel that what you do for them is good and is part of the overall package of the relationship that they are happy about being with you. However, they feel something is lacking and that is what’s holding them back from referring you.
That is an important issue, but today I want to suggest ways to get more referrals from existing clients who are truly happy about their relationship with you, and I will start with a short story.
In the early 1990s we hired a full-time salesperson who was not an accountant, but a “professional” salesperson. We gave him a list of our clients and told him not to contact any of them, and otherwise, anyone else was fair game for him. About a month into the relationship, I overheard the receptionist buzz him and tell him that Mr. Soandso was on the phone. Later in the day I asked him why Mr. Soandso called him and he said he returned a call he made to him. He missed seeing his name on our client list and I called the client to apologize for the intrusion, explaining the call was from a salesman we hired. The client said he was not aware we wanted new business and the following month he recommended three clients to us!
That experience taught us that you have to let clients know you want to grow and would appreciate any referrals. We thought about this and realized that barring dissatisfaction with your services, the two major reasons clients do not recommend you are: 1) they do not think about it; and 2) they do not know how to go about it.
This led to us making a greater effort asking our clients for referrals and to develop “materials” for clients to use when referring us. We then considered our clients to be our sales force.
We changed the way we spoke and learned to never say we are busy or too busy and now we say, “We are doing quite well but are looking to grow,” followed by “and we would always appreciate referrals. They are important to us.”
As “sales managers” we need to manage our referral base, which are our clients, professionals we interact with, bankers and pretty much everyone else we know, including our alumni and other CPAs. The way we go about this is to develop fact sheets, blogs, memos and speech handouts on the many specializations and industries we have expertise in and send them to targeted clients. Email has become a ubiquitous way to distribute much of this material. However, we also want to create a personal connection, and we do this by postal mailing printed copies to people we think are interested in those topics or who know people they could refer. We include a handwritten note saying, “The enclosed is something we wrote (or presented) and I think you would enjoy seeing it. Also, I would appreciate any comments or questions you have. Further if you think you want to proceed.”
I believe postal mailed information that is not immediately thrown away will linger for a while in sight of the recipient, giving it a much greater shelf life than an email. Note that it helps if you have a mailing address where they will receive that piece of mail. Many people now work virtually and only sporadically go into their office. If you can, mail it to their house. I am a stamp collector and when I mail this material, I try to select attractive stamps that also get attention. I have a few stories about clients I’ve gotten or friendships that developed because of my choice of stamps. In many cases the mail is sent by an express service or with a postage meter — that’s OK too.
Whenever we speak with business and larger tax clients, we try to make them aware of a new service that they might be particularly interested in. You can prepare some notes on some added services you could provide to each of your clients that you have meetings with. I prepare notes about two or three added services and usually get one added engagement every other time I meet with a client.
Another thing you can do is adopt my 1/20th Tax Client marketing method. This involves calling tax clients with a goal of getting added engagements from 5% of your tax clients each year. This might require contacting many more clients, perhaps as many as 15%, in order to achieve your goal. However, none of the extra calls are wasted because they are a way to let these clients know about the additional services you offer and to also suggest that they let anyone they know that they think would need such services about you. This works wonders! The 1/20th rule is explained and included in my checklist file which you can
A final suggestion, for now, is to inform your staff about the importance of added engagements from clients, make them aware of what you offer, and how to approach it and look for openings. This takes some effort and training but is a very small investment with a very large payback with added business, better and more thorough services to clients, and more involved and aware staff.
The above might seem daunting, but it isn’t. It is many small things pieced together to create a very large whole. The goal is to make your clients more effective in referring you and more aware about how to do it. I did and do everything and this all works.
And be the sales manager your clients, i.e., your sales staff needs.
Do not hesitate to contact me at
The small audit firm from Florida that topped the charts of new Securities and Exchange Commission clients in the third quarter of 2024 got a big boost from another firm ending its SEC practice.
Tampa-based Astra Audit & Advisory brought on 10 new clients in Q3, with seven of them coming from Accell Audit & Compliance, a former mainstay of this list that began telling clients in the fall that it was no longer providing SEC audit services. It was sanctioned by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board around the same time (see “
Meanwhile, Big Four firm KPMG came in second overall and led among large audit firms, adding 11 engagements and netting nine (see “
The total number of new engagements hit 161, a significant drop-off from the previous two quarters (which had been boosted in part by the implosion of audit firm BF Borgers), but still well above the low numbers from the midst of the COVID pandemic.
Clients by filing status, and more
In terms of clients by filing status, KPMG led among new large accelerated filers and regular accelerated filers, while Astra took the lead among non-accelerated filers and small reporting companies (see “
KPMG’s big haul of new engagements helped it top the league tables for new market capitalization audited, with TKO Group Holdings — the parent of fighting leagues UFC and WWE — making up a big chunk of that, with $6.7 billion of its total $16 billion (see “
Deloitte topped the table for both assets and audit fees. Insurer American National Group represented $79.9 billion of its $82 billion assets audited, while 3D printing company 3D System Corp. had the biggest chunk of audit fees, at $10 million.
Data for the quarterly rankings are provided by Ideagen Audit Analytics, a premium online intelligence service delivering audit, regulatory and disclosure analysis. Reach them at (508) 476-7007,
H&R Block celebrated its 70th anniversary at an event Thursday in New York as the tax prep chain gets ready for the start of tax season on Monday.
“The tax event for most Americans is the single biggest financial transaction of the year, and it’s true, so we’re here to make sure it’s also the most rewarding,” said Heather Watts, senior vice president of global consumer tax. “We’re thrilled that you’re here to help us kick off the tax season, which also happens to be our 70th anniversary year. In 1955, when brothers Henry and Richard advertised tax preparation services as a courtesy to their business clients, they stumbled upon a need, and by offering tax prep services, they would launch one of the most recognized brands in the country and really birthed an industry. H&R Block has continued to spur innovation in tax, business and technology ever since.”
Over the years, an estimated 950 million tax returns were filed worldwide through Block. She pointed out that over 20 million tax returns were filed through Block last year. The company has 9,000 locations offices nationwide, with 60,000 tax professionals in the U.S. and 70,000 globally. Most locations are within five miles of clients. Approximately 55% of customers will qualify to file with Block’s free software, and the company is encouraging many of them to use its software. The company is hoping to entice away customers from its competitors, offering price matches and discounts to people who switch. It’s also jumping onboard the artificial intelligence trend with a feature called H&R Block AI Tax Assist, which it began offering last tax season.
“When people ask a question, we need to make sure we’ve got content to answer,” said Jody Vanarsdale, director of global consumer tax at H&R Block. “We needed to strengthen our [Chat] GPT. We upgraded from 3.5 to 4.0, and they get stronger and more relevant and understand languages, so really,our work this season was to get it tighter, if you will. It’s more stable and in a place to go live this season.”
Block is expecting to receive a flood of customers after they start receiving the Form 1099-K in the mail from third-party transactions with services such as Venmo, StubHub, eBay, PayPal and more due to the
“The most common examples where people are going to get one is they sold something online, or they took payment through a third party app like a PayPal or a Venmo, and they exceeded the threshold for issuance,” said Andy Phillips, vice president of Block’s Tax Institute. “Going back to prior years, the threshold for issuing the 1099-K was you had to have over $20,000 in transactions in gross proceeds and over 200 transactions. That is a super high threshold. It is now $5,000 for 2024, meaning a lot of more people are going to get a 1099-K and not know what to do with it. We’re now in 2025. The threshold for this year is down to $2,500. Starting next year in 2026 and then every year after that, it’s going to be $600, meaning a lot more people are going to get a 1099-K.”
Many taxpayers who were affected by natural disasters such as the wildfires in
“Each one of those natural disasters, for the people impacted by it, it’s a life event,” said Phillips. “They have tax impacts. People in Southern California that are impacted by the current wildfires have gotten an extension until October 15 to file their taxes for this year. That is all of Los Angeles County. In another example, people in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene and Milton generally are going to have until May 1, 2025 to file their taxes. That’s within IRS discretion that when an area is a federally declared disaster, they can do certain things, including extending deadlines. Those are two examples that people may need to know about.”
For people who invest in cryptocurrency and other digital assets, they may want to talk with their tax professional about the upcoming Form 1099-DA that they can expect to receive next year or even this year.
“Starting in 2025, digital assets traded through a brokerage are going to get reported to investors on a Form 1099-DA,” said Phillips. “Some platforms are already issuing the 1099-DA. What we’re really talking about here is virtual currencies, digital assets. Starting in 2025, if you have a transaction in a digital asset on one of these platforms, you are going to get a 1099-DA. The IRS has put out estimates that they expect to receive up to 8 billion 1099-DA’s for 2025 alone coming from these platforms. As you can imagine, a lot of people are going to be getting these for the first time.”
The forms may not just be going out to people who have invested in cryptocurrencies like BItcoin and Ethereum. Even some gaming platforms like Roblox issue a kind of digital currency known as Robux that may be taxable in some circumstances.
“A lot of those just stay within the environment of the game,” said Phillips. “You just get points or coins or whatever. There’s no taxable transaction in those instances. But some games allow you to actually take what you’re winning in the game in those awards and turn them into actual currency. For example, the game Roblox, they have Robux. You can earn those for certain things you do within the game. And if certain requirements are met, you may be able to exchange those Robux for U.S. dollars. At that point, that is then a taxable transaction. That is going to rock some people’s world when they realize, ‘Oh my gosh, Roblox, I now have a taxable transaction from this.’ But that’s the reality.”
Phillips previewed an upcoming partnership for H&R Block with both Roblox and another popular game, Minecraft. “A quick peek ahead before I move on,” he said. “Stay tuned for an announcement that we will be making soon for a partnership with both Roblox and Minecraft in the coming weeks. You heard it here first.”
Accounting Today asked about how Block would be able to deal with some of the tax proposals made by President Trump during the campaign, such as exempting income from tips, overtime and Social Security from taxes.
“Look, in 70 years, we’ve seen all kinds of different legislative packages,” he responded. “We saw a huge tax change in 2017, in fact, in 2018. Going back to the huge Tax Code change of 1986, no matter what happens with the changes in the Tax Code, we will always be ready to serve taxpayers and help them. So depending on what happens, it may be a bigger lift than others. Either way, we’ll be ready, and it’s really going to vary based on the specific change.”
Accounting Today also asked about how Block might deal with changes if provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act don’t get extended this year, such as the 20% tax deduction for qualified business income under Section 199A.
“Looking a little bit more broadly, so many business owners say, ‘Hey, give me certainty. What’s it going to look like, not just for this year, but for years to come,'” said Kris Thiessen, a senior small business partner at Block Advisors who was recently
“That’s why tax planning is so important, because we can do that forward looking for you,” said Latsaha Randle, a strategy and small business program manager at Block Advisors. “We can do some what-if calculations and say if this does not get extended, what does that look like for your specific business, your unique situation, so that you can better plan and be prepared.”
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