So, I found my children playing. My son, with his sister’s urging, had started his own tax practice.
Now, even at this young age, they knew they needed a tag line and a way to differentiate their business. Interesting that we as adults just can’t seem to grasp this simple technique. We tell ourselves it isn’t necessary. Well, even with the second-grade spelling, we get the point.
Clients who come in at the last-minute deserve just as high quality service as those who show up timely, but quality is so hard to provide at the last-minute. We try, but they don’t give us much room for planning or correction. I lecture them and hope they understand. It’s frustrating to see clients with so much potential who either believe they can’t afford the service or simply don’t see the value. Now, we file and then look to amend if items like the small employer health insurance credit or other opportunities seem promising.
Our accounting manager spent the day with a payroll provider and a client looking into amending 2010’s payroll for some critical errors – the payroll service agreed that we would be a lower cost choice. Now that is scary. We’re less expensive than the major payroll provider and it’s their error!
How do we make the clients see value in things they don’t understand. Trust is the key. They need to believe that you know their pain and that you have their best interest at heart. It’s tired but true….They won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
As you might guess I am building this site on my own. I try to do my homework. By homework I mean that I bought a couple of books about blogging and am constructing the site using WordPress, an open-source software that was ready to download from my hosting company. WordPress is a relatively easy program to learn and use, or so I’m told. By homework, I also mean I am doing as much background exploration as I can tolerate given my patience and ability. As professionals, we are often faced with making decisions and finding solutions under tight time constraints. We usually can’t afford lengthy analysis or research (unless the client is willing to pay) – we can’t risk missing the deadline. At the same time, we don’t want to give the wrong answer or embarrass ourselves in front of a client or our peers. So, we press ahead hoping our gut instinct, skill and experience will serve us well. Sometimes it’s about the adventure of it all!