I get such a kick when I hear the line “Hal, our company or business is different than others due to the ... (this is where you can fill in the blank)!”
The next line will make this point real clear. There are NO DIFFERENT companies. Either you sell a product, a service or a combination of both. Business is business, end of story; start to realize you are not as unique as you might think.
Trust me: after working with hundreds of companies over the past 29 years, I have not found one that is different (OK, I did find one – the Red Cross, but that is a whole other article).
Let’s examine for a moment the accounting industry. Bottom line is, if you want to make partner in a firm, you have to do one thing fairly well. That is to bring in clients, business or – heck, let’s just call it what it really is, sales.
The more business a CPA brings to the firm, the faster he or she will rise up the ranks and get noticed by others in the company. Most CPA’s do not want to be viewed as salespeople, but it is still a function of selling if you want to bring in new clients.
In that industry, the term people like to use when discussing sales is billable hours. At some firms executives will meet at the end of the month, reviewing how things are going, and they discuss the billable hours for the past 30-day period. I don’t quite know why they call it a directors’ meeting or a CPA forum. I simply see it as an end-of-the-month sales meeting to discuss the past month and look at will happen over the next month or so.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the CPA’s who bring in more clients than others make more money. I don’t think we should call this a commission, but how about a little something more in their paycheck for doing a really nice job?
Believe it or not, we have a very similar scenario in the copier Industry. Now, the copier reps are viewed as salespeople and unfortunately, for the good ones, the not so good ones kind of ruin it for the salespeople that take their profession seriously. I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I have met some incredible salespeople in this industry who are as good as it gets. If a couple of the salespeople that come to mind left copier sales and were selling Learjets, they would do just as well working with high-level CEO’s.
At the end of the month at a company that sells and services copiers or printers there also is a sales meeting. At their meeting they discuss copier or printer sales for the past 30 days, whether in units sold or total dollars generated. This to me is similar to billable hours since both CPA’s or copier reps must spend time finding prospects, figuring out their needs, generating a proposal, hopefully making a sale and then keeping them happy after the sale.
The extended happy part comes in the form of great service of their equipment (copiers or printers) or great service with the staff that is working on tax issues or related services.
When a copier rep does very well, he or she can be promoted to national accounts or even sales manager, maybe even an owner of the company depending on the structure of the organization.
Yep, copiers and CPA’s have more in common than they both realize. But please, do me a favor. Do not tell either group that is what you and I might find as a commonality. This might get them to disagree with you...
Hal Becker is a nationally known speaker on sales and customer service. He is the author of numerous business books including two national best sellers “Can I Have 5 Minutes Of Your Time?” and “Lip Service.” Hal’s newest book on sales is titled “Ultimate Sales Book” He can be reached at Halbecker.com.