Pivot to practice profits: Here’s how

Increasing revenue and profit doesn’t have to be so much work!

In fact, you are likely sitting on a gold mine and don’t even know it.

So many firm owners miss opportunities every day to increase their revenue. By making just a few simple shifts, you’ll be able to close up money leaks, better serve your clients, and double your monthly recurring revenue in no time.

Step 1: Protect your inventory

Many firm owners make one major mistake that drains their energy and their bank account: Giving away advice, answering quick questions, or doing free work.

While this seems like a smart and benevolent thing to do, it can create some big problems.

Maybe you discover that a project requires a deeper level of work than originally thought or a client asks you to do work that isn’t in the original plan. Instead of charging them for the extra work, you think it’s easier to just do it for free than to charge them … and you think it will somehow pay off for you later on.

If this occurs with a potential client, you may think that giving some free advice will prove to them how valuable you are and convince them to work with you.

But giving your time and expertise away for free will never increase revenue. It will only leave you feeling used, overworked, and undervalued.

Think about how often a quick question or doing something fast takes you a ton of extra time and energy that you’re not being paid for. Think about how often you gave free advice to someone and never heard from them again?

Take a week or two to start tracking the following:

• Phone calls and emails that aren’t being billed.
• Clients you’ve had for some time who aren’t being charged new rates.
• Poor boundaries with clients.
• Not accurately tracking your time or your employees’ time.

You will see how much money you’re leaving on the table—and how quickly your bank account will grow if you actually start charging for your time and expertise. This is the fastest way to adding upwards of $5,000 per month of revenue to your firm’s top line revenue.

Step 2: Connect deeper with your clients

One thing that’s missing in so many firms is a simple follow-up system to regularly check in with clients.

And I get it! If you’re barely keeping up with your workload, following up can seem like busywork that you can’t be bothered with. But this step can be crucial when it comes to easily upgrading your current clients to new services that both of you may not have known they needed!

Make it a point to do a discovery call with your clients to find out about any recent or upcoming changes, new problems, and concerns they have. You can share new things you’re learning, or case studies and results you’re getting from other clients.

Just be genuinely curious about your clients, and ask strategic questions to get a clear picture of their current situation. The more layers you can peel back to understand them, the more services you can offer them.

Here are some great questions to dig deeper with your clients and find potential opportunities to serve them better:

• What is the biggest challenge you are having right now in your business?
• What is having the biggest impact at this moment for you in your business?
• What is the best/most positive outcome you desire considering all of the shifts and changes?
• What are the opportunities, no matter how small, you have right now to improve your current situation?
• What would make the biggest difference in 10 minutes, 10 weeks, and in 10 months?

Now that you’ve connected with your client, you know exactly what problems they’re facing now or in the future. You should have a solution for them in mind that you can present to them. It’s a win-win for everyone!

Step 3: Upgrade your current clients

One major misconception about increasing revenue is that you just have to work harder or get more clients.

Your current clients already know, like, and trust you to get them results. As a result, it is much easier and more cost effective to retain your current clients, and sell them new services than it is to get new business. Implementing a follow-up process will allow you to connect with them naturally about what “upgrades” they may need, but there are a lot of other options as well, getting you closer to $10,000 per month in recurring revenue.

Here are some other ways to start upgrading current clients to premium and recurring services. You can offer:

• Tax advisory services.
• Premium rate packages.
• “Concierge” value-added maintenance plans for a premium price that even non-business clients can use.
• An audit protection plan with an opt-out.
• Monthly maintenance packages.
• Consulting calls and consulting service packages.

Work smarter, not harder

Remember that you are the expert. Your clients count on you to let them know what else they need or could benefit from. There’s always another layer and more solutions, and when you work smarter, you won’t have to keep working harder.