Accountants as business coaches? You’ve gotta be joking!!
Let me explain…
Well: let’s face it… most accountants are already business coaches, they just don’t see themselves as business coaches. For instance, think about how many times, each day, that most accountants answer questions from their clients (and prospective clients). Phone calls, meetings, conversations in the street or in a cafe, playing golf, or at their local club or community centre.
Accountants continually answer questions left, right and centre and they are continually giving away their many years of experience. Unfortunately they don’t often get paid a cracker for this ad hoc advice. And, think about this… the accountant you can still be sued for this advice (and they are paying professional indemnity insurance premiums to cover it) even though they do not derive income from the delivery of that advice.
My point here is that accountants are continually coaching their clients day in day out. They are coaches. In previous blogs I have noted how important it is for accountants to be offering and delivering advisory services. Well this is just another name for coaching. And from talking to accountants at recent conferences, I found that there are three major challenges that accountants face when it comes to offering and delivering advisory (coaching) services:-
- No time
- They don’t know how to market these services
- They don’t have a system to deliver these services
There is a solution for accountants that could help them overcome these challenges. If they haven’t got time they need to seek out the services of a business strategist/coach to help them get things started in their practice and to help them market these services to their clients and prospective clients. And the best way to do that is to joint venture with the business strategist.
Business strategists are always looking for more clients. Accountants realise that they need to do something about offering and delivering advisory services. What a great win-win situation. The accountant has the clients and the business strategist has the time and the ability to coach the clients. The next step for the accountant is finding the right business coach that has the experience and a system to ensure that the accountant’s business owner clients (and the accountant) derive a benefit from the coaching.
The next challenge for the accountant is finding the right strategist. The business strategist with the necessary experience in coaching business owners. A strategist with a track record and with testimonials that can back up what they say they can do. And, most importantly, a coach that has a system for coaching to ensure that the client has a customised road map for the coaching engagement over the life of the coaching engagement.
Discover the eight fatal mistakes that accountants can make when engaging the services of a coach.
Peter Lawson | www.bizconnectionsjointventures.com
- The top 4 business concerns for accountants in 2017 – Part 3 - 18 January 2017
- The top 4 business concerns for accountants in 2016 – and how to overcome them - 15 December 2016
- Go from surviving to thriving in 2017! - 19 October 2016
