You might find it difficult to believe that the income you earn is directly related to the size of the problem you solve and not just experience and education. Compliance and administrative work can be done by just about anyone including Artificial Intelligence. If there are a million people who can do what you do welcome to the widget department.
Let’s use two students who go to medical school for example. Both graduate and continue their Post Graduate studies. One chooses Family Medicine and the other Cardiac Surgery. As important as family medicine is, the doctor who takes your blood pressure, takes your temperature and checks your colin does not earn the same money as the Cardiac Surgeon who just performed a triple bypass on you. Yes, it is often the family doctor who recognizes you have a real condition but it’s the surgeon performs the work and yes solves the problem. The bigger the problem you solve determines the income you make.
So, your asking, what does this have to do with Accounting Paul? Everything if you want to be a top earner. Let’s say you see some problems with a clients P&L and Balance Sheet. You have now identified the problem. Do you know how to fix it? I can tell you knowing the fix is where the real money is. More importantly, the size of the problem you can fix determines what you charge the client to fix it. Do you think a client would pay you 20,000 dollars to fix a 100,000 problem? Exactly.
The big firms have business experts who can step in and do this type of work. You as a small firm partner can do it too. It about understanding what levers to pull to help your business clients turning greater profits. There are a ton of numbers in a business that are not on the P&L or Balance sheet.
There are two steps to helping your client’s big problems with confidence that you’ll deliver the results.
- Learn the process to make several small changes in critical areas of the client’s P&L that will yield huge results with very little risk to you and the client.
- Learn how to approach the client on how you can help put more profit on their bottom line. Risk Free. Yup Risk free.
Once you have mastered these two stages you are in a position to help your clients earn more profit the while you’re earning a larger income because you solved a problem the client was happy to pay you to solve. You don’t have to be brave. You just need to know how to position your expertise.