If you ask, they will buy: selling additional services to existing tax clients.

• Author: Weston, Cari

This column challenges traditional thinking and steps into unknown territory, but it also provides mental preparation for this journey and gives practical steps necessary to start today. The topic is selling services to clients. The difference is that the selling is not to new clients but to existing ones. Cross-selling, as it is commonly called, is simply selling new or complementary services to a firm's existing clients.

The Realities of Selling

The bottom line is that regardless of firm size, services must be sold. Without clients willing and able to buy these services, the business would cease to exist. Traditionally, however, CPAs do not share the same attributes of those most often associated with advertising or marketing positions. Tax professionals are more naturally inclined toward technical roles, which do not require the same set of skills.

While some firms have a department specifically responsible for marketing the firm, most of those marketing plans are directed outward and target new clients while frequently ignoring existing clients. Most firms, whether large or small, are looking for future partners who can not only get the work done but also develop business. Those who venture out on their own need clients, and more specifically, fees, to pay the rent and feed their family. Furthermore, it is usually best that selling be done by the professionals themselves, for a variety of reasons that this column discusses.

Accountants do not enter the profession expecting selling to ever be part of the job. Selling is left to the guys on the car lots and in software megastores. So what happens when a highly competent and technically adept tax professional starts trying to move up the ladder in a public accounting practice? The role begins to shift from primarily being about productivity, chargeable hours, and realization on jobs to being about managing a base of clients and revenue. It also becomes about increasing that client base and adding value to the financial health of the overall firm. Those who excel in this area have little trouble climbing the ranks; those who do not often find themselves unable to advance beyond their present level.

The CPA who hangs out his or her own shingle and starts offering services as a sole proprietor probably has an entrepreneurial aptitude, right? Chances are good that this could not be further from the truth. A middle manager often makes this move after finding himself or herself stuck in an existing firm and deciding to break free to have a sense of ownership and seniority that his or her current employer is not offering. Other common reasons that CPAs cite when starting a practice are to gain control over the process, to "do it better," to stop earning money for other people when they can put that money into their own pocket, or to establish greater work/life balance. Despite best intentions, being good at preparing tax returns does not by itself qualify someone to run a business, any more than being a good cook qualifies someone to run a restaurant. If that person spent most of his or her career crunching numbers and never cultivated the soft skills necessary to develop new business, there may be few tax returns to prepare.

How Do Tax Professionals Feel About Selling?

Selling is still a dreaded word in this business. CPAs are generally averse to the idea, for various reasons. Approaching people to sell them anything can be intimidating. The underlying reason is often simple fear--of initiating the conversation, of making clients feel as if they are being "sold on something," or of being too pushy. With cross-selling, this is compounded by the fear that a currently happy client may become resentful or suspicious or even leave the firm altogether. This fear is exacerbated when the service being sold is to be provided by someone else.

Some of this underlying fear may be...