Building a successful accounting firm starts with offering the right services to the right clients. Michelle Weinstein and Adam Lean dive into the power of CFO services, discussing how accountants can break free from trading time for money and attract premium-paying clients. Together, they explore practical steps to build trust, phase out low-end work, and create irresistible CFO advisory packages that transform businesses. Tune in to discover actionable insights that help you work smarter, not harder while delivering real value to your clients.
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Episode 153 | How CFO Services Can Transform Your Firm With Adam Lean
Welcome And Overview Of The Abundant Accountant Podcast
Welcome to the show. We have a very special guest. Our special guest is a former accountant turned two-time entrepreneur who built, scaled, and sold two businesses while helping other business owners. He realized his passion was teaching and providing tools to business owners to help them make more money and have peace of mind. He runs The CFO Project, which is a training company that trains financial professionals on how to offer an outsourced CFO and business advisory model.
Before we welcome our special guest to the show, if you are an accounting tax or bookkeeping firm owner and you want to stop trading time for dollars, let go of overly demanding clients, and get paid based on the value and your worth while still massively boosting your revenue, here’s what I have for you. Here at The Abundant Accountant, I show you a system to fill your firm with ideal clients who not only value your time but also give you the ability to work the hours you want to work while still having plenty of free time each week for your friends, family, and yourself. Not only that, I’m also going to show you how to do all of this in a way that feels simple, effortless, and automatic. If you want me to show you exactly how to do this, go to TheAbundantCall.com and book your call with me and my team. That’s TheAbundantCall.com. Book your time with me and my team.
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Meet Adam Lean: From Accountant To Entrepreneur
Let’s welcome our very special guest, Adam Lean, to the show.
Thanks. I’m excited to be here.
Thank you so much for being here. I’m very excited to talk about everything from our webinar that we did on the challenges that people have starting and selling CFO and advisory services. I’m excited to dive into all the challenges that people have in starting their CFO advisory service. I know you’re going to answer most of those and I can talk about how to sell those services.
Let’s dive in. For my first question, you’d be perfectly suited for this, and I have some thoughts on this. There were several people that were in the masterclass that said, “I am an accountant. I’m not a salesperson.” One person said, “I’m a terrible salesperson.” What advice would you have for them?
Why Sales Is Not About Being Sleazy
I want you to continue to be a terrible salesperson because I don’t want you to be a salesperson. Most people think sales is unethical, some sleazy approach, nagging, or annoying. I like to talk about how you have to be you. You don’t have to be a salesperson. If you’re offering CFO and advisory services, people don’t want to be sold, but the truth is, people do want to buy. What we do is take you through a process of how you can sell in a way that feels good and it allows the client to make a decision that they feel good about. We do all that without having to be a salesperson. The good news is you don’t have to be a salesperson. That’s what I want to say. Be you.
One of the biggest challenges that a lot of firm owners have is that you typically answer questions for clients but you’re not getting paid for it. You feel overwhelmed. You feel underappreciated. You feel all of these sorts of ways, but in reality, the most important thing is that you need to be you. We have to stop answering people’s questions for free. You don’t have to be a salesperson. You need to be a firm owner.
I completely agree. At the end of the day, business owners want somebody that they can trust, which is you, to guide them. That’s it. If you could provide this guidance, you won’t have to sell anybody anything. They want it. It’s like going to somebody who’s in the desert or has been in the desert for a long time and is thirsty. You don’t have to sell water. You provide it and they’ll take it because they want it. Business owners need this.
That leads me to a question that would be really great if you could talk about it. If someone’s starting their firm or they’re like, “I’m an accountant. How do I start selling or offering CFO and advisory services? It’s easier to get new clients for bookkeeping,” what would you say to them about that? You can’t sell anything if you don’t have anything to sell.
Breaking Free From The Accountant’s Trap
A lot of times, accountants and bookkeepers are selling these services that end up putting us in this trap. We call it the accountant’s trap. The idea is that the accountant’s trap is where you’re trading time for money. The only way for you to make more money as a bookkeeper or a tax accountant is to take on more clients or work more hours.
CFO Services: Many accountants and bookkeepers sell services that lead them into the so-called accountant’s trap, where they are trading time for money.
That is the recipe for disaster because everyone doesn’t want to work longer hours. They don’t want to have stressful and dreadful tax seasons. They want to have more time with their family.
It’s a trap because you can’t raise your fees. Why can’t you raise your fees? It’s because there’s a lot of competition out there. There are so many places for a business owner to get books and their taxes done. There are all these “tech companies” that are trying to automate our jobs away and get into this space. At the same time, the average business owner cannot tell the difference between a good accountant and a bad one or a good bookkeeper and a bad one. Typically, when that happens, we are in this commoditization territory where the price wins.
If you’re selling a commodity, then you’re not going to be able to raise your prices. Why would one person pay you a lot more than all these other people who are willing to do it? The only way to get out of this trap is to sell something that business owners want, which is advisory services. You don’t have to stop doing taxes or stop doing bookkeeping. A great way to differentiate your bookkeeping and tax services is to enhance it by offering this advisory service with it, like bundling it with your existing services.
CFO Services: A great way to differentiate your bookkeeping tax services is to bundle an advisory service with it.
One of the first things you have to stop and commit to in your firm is you have to stop discounting your fees. You have to stop doing free work. You have to stop answering clients’ quick questions. You have to stop pricing yourself based on the competition and lowballing your fees, thinking that in the future, people will pay you a premium fee. That’s not going to attract CFO advisory-type clientele. That is the recipe for disaster.
Once you stop doing all of that, then you will phase out those low-end clients. It’s a natural course. Until then, we have to learn how to have more of this abundance mindset because we don’t want to work so much. We don’t want to have these crazy tax seasons. You don’t want hundreds of bookkeeping clients. You could bundle all of these things together. That is when we stop trading time for dollars and open up that space to attract ideal high-quality clients.
I have a question for you. Somebody put this in the questions that a lot of accountants are dealing with and bookkeepers. She was saying that her biggest challenge is that her existing list of tax clients is not an ideal fit for CFO advisory services. What is she to do?
How To Transition From Tax Clients To CFO Services
That’s like what I was talking about. We have to think about how we phase out those low-end clients or tax clients and transition into what Adam specializes in, which is how to work with a different kind of clientele offering CFO advisory services. You probably don’t want to get rid of everyone completely and then have nothing and slowly build. You could slowly build finding the ideal high-quality client, creating these higher-end package offerings such as CFO advisory packages. In my world of sales, I call that an irresistible offer. The irresistible offer attracts those higher quality clients.
Also, when you offer CFO advisory services or if some people offer tax planning, depending on if you’re on the accounting side or tax side, those services position you as the expert. If you are positioned as the expert and you come in charging premium fees, this creates a natural demand for service. I know it sounds crazy and is probably hard to even understand or wrap your head around that, but once you have your irresistible offer, such as, in this case, CFO advisory services, the choice to work with you becomes the risk-free choice that the higher quality clients will be attracted to. It makes it the no-brainer option for clients to do this versus what you were doing before for really low prices. It positions you yourself as the ideal solution to them.
If you are positioned as an expert who comes in charging premium fees, you create a natural demand for service. Share on XIf your current client base doesn’t fit the bill for this type of client, first, you could communicate and raise your fees high enough to get rid of some of that volume. We all want to work a lot smarter and not harder. You can free up some time to start focusing on what Adam teaches, which is how to create a firm that offers CFO and advisory services, and then slowly ramp that up and completely phase out your low-end business and get rid of it 100%.
That’s the only way to do it. You either get rid of it and close it down or sell off that book of business or you could increase the fees high enough and whoever will stick around will see your value and worth and be happy with that. You could also do a slow transition. At the end of the day, you need to create a different way because probably what you’re doing isn’t working.
I completely agree. You only have so many hours in the work week. You want to use those hours to make more money. Instead of spending all those hours for low-value clients, you trade those hours for high-value clients or higher-margin clients.
One of the other questions we got, maybe you can stack on this. Let’s say this person who asked the previous question decides to slowly transition. They’re going to increase their fees. They’re going to write a communication piece around that. Their biggest challenge is how to provide the service. How do they make the case to the benefit of what CFO advisory service is and why they would need it? Most people were saying they have no idea what that even means. How would a firm owner communicate to a prospect what they might even get for offering CFO advisory services in their firm?
That is a fantastic question, one that we get a lot because most people don’t know what a CFO is nor do they think they need one. Somebody who owns a $4 million general contracting business could use the services of a CFO but they don’t think they need the services of a CFO. They’re thinking, “Coca-Cola needs a CFO, not my small business.” The fact remains that all businesses, regardless of the size, need somebody like a CFO.
The idea is that we’ve got to first build a relationship with these people to get them to trust us enough so that when we suggest something, which ends up being CFO advisory services, they’re going to pay attention. It’s not a chicken and eggs-type situation. You have to put one thing in front of the other. You have to build the relationship first to get them to trust you, and then you have to give the solution.
Let me explain what I mean by that. You go to the doctor and you trust this doctor. The doctor gives you a review and says, “You’ve got to have this life-saving surgery or you’re going to die in a year.” You trust the doctor. They told you that you need this surgery. Does it really matter how much he’s going to charge for this service?
No.
Building Trust And Explaining CFO Advisory Benefits
Imagine if somebody that you didn’t know came up to you and said, “You need this $50,000 surgery.” You don’t know them, you don’t have the context as to why you need the surgery, and you don’t know you’re sick. It’s a completely different situation. You’ve got to build a relationship with the person first and then they will pay attention to what you have to say.
CFO Services: You have to build a relationship with clients first before they will pay attention to what you have to say.
Let me put it in a practical example. Let’s say it’s tax season. You call your client afterward or send an email and say, “Mrs. Smith, I was reviewing your tax return and your books and I’ve spotted some red flags and opportunities that I see for growth. Can we hop on a call and discuss how these opportunities for growth in these red flags can help you have a better business?”
It’s an opportunity. It becomes that conversation piece to bridge the gap into how you can help them into that irresistible offer, which is CFO and advisory services, and being able to have that enrollment conversation with them. What you’re talking about, and I talk a lot about this, is building the know, like, and trust factor. It is having the relationship be built based on building rapport.
It’s similar to if you were to buy a house. I bought a really expensive fixer-upper. The foundation of the house was not supportive enough for the house. When they did a remodel, it wasn’t enough, so I had to redo the foundation. That is the same thing that we have in the relationships we have with our clients. The foundation had to be big enough in order to sustain the house that was remodeled. It was doubled in size. I had to invest a ton of money, and probably almost 10% of the value of this house is in the ground, to fix the foundation. That’s how important the foundation is, not just to a structure like a house or a building but also to your client-firm relationship. It’s the most important thing. Having that before you launch your CFO advisory services in the firm is crucial.
Foundation is important not just to a house structure but also in a client-firm relationship. Share on XI wanted to point out that in the email that you sent to that person who is one of your clients, if you didn’t even use the word CFO, advisory, or financials, you’re not selling. They already trust you. When the person they trust is telling them, “Let’s hop on a call so I can tell you how to have a better business,” who’s going to say no to that? That would lead to how to have the proposal conversations for the CFO service because you’re helping them. You’re not selling them.
You could look at it this way, for the people with tax stuff. I was teaching one of my friends who does a lot in the tax planning space. She said, “When you do the tax return, it’s like recording an autopsy. You’re like, “Here’s what happened. Here’s how they died.” The preventative option would be to go to your annual health checkup with your doctor and see if you needed a CT scan or MRI to do the preventative work to catch something in advance.”
I’m going to guess that the CFO advisory services in the firm, if you were to send the email to your current clients to help them have a better business and have that advisor looking from the top down, is that annual checkup at the doctor, even though you might meet with them monthly, quarterly, or whatever your irresistible offer is in your VIP package for these higher level service offerings. At least then, you won’t have to do an autopsy when their business goes under.
Isn’t it 1 in 5 only last or something like that of businesses and the rest will end up going belly up? How many business owners are stressed out because they can’t make payroll every couple of weeks? How many business owners are stressed out because they don’t know how to pay their rent, especially for people who have multiple locations? I used to be that person. A CFO advisory service is the most important thing. If we don’t offer it to our clients, we’re doing them a disservice.
It’s like that doctor not offering that life-saving surgery.
They’re recording the history, which is an autopsy report of how the person died. It’s not any different than a business dying.
That’s right. I completely agree. You could be the accountant for the Titanic. You have done your job perfectly but the Titanic still sunk. Does it really matter that you did the books perfectly? It’s all for naught.
That’s so true.
Pricing CFO Advisory Services For Maximum Value
As we’re wrapping up here, there are a few questions that came in in terms of pricing. How do you price the services in a way that you won’t outprice the prospect but you’re getting paid what you’re worth? What are your thoughts on that?
Pricing all goes back to having the right skills and having the right mindset to attract the ideal quality clients. That’s the next step in the process of creating your high-end package that appeals to that audience, clientele, ideal client, or whatever you want to call it. We can use retail stores, for example. You can choose to go to a JCPenney, a Ross Dress for Less, or something like that and have really cheap prices or you can say, “I’m going to start my CFO advisory services like a Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom and do the personal shopper route where there are additional fees for picking everything out. Thinking through what the outcome is that you deliver to the client is how you have to think of your pricing and how you design your CFO advisory package to attract an ideal high-quality client.
I also always talk about how you can’t have a $1 million firm or $1 million CFO advisory firm without a proper sales system to align with that. If you’re a fly-by-night operation and you want to attract and have this other kind of vision and firm for retirement and do all this stuff but you’re not willing to make those changes to yourself, no high-quality client is going to be attracted to something that doesn’t have a process or something laid out step-by-step as you do for the advisory services and CFO options. People who need those services are expecting a certain client experience, and that’s what I call the sales process. Until you have that experience set up, then it’s going to be hard to price. We have to work backward.
I love it. I like the analogy that you used. Nothing against JCPenney, but JCPenney versus Nordstrom, they both sell clothes. How does Nordstrom differentiate themselves? It’s through everything you mentioned. That’s a great idea.
They don’t have dust bunnies on the ground. It’s clean. They have salespeople on the floor to help you to make your experience smoother.
They have higher quality clothes.
What I call that in your firm is similar to having a step-by-step system for your conversation roadmap. That roadmap is what will confidently lead you and your clients to say yes to engaging in CFO advisory services in your firm. Learning the art of enrollment is going to be one of the other key things. That’s how we communicate and connect to our clients in a way where they see our value and they’re willing to pay whatever for it. It’s not about the price anymore. It’s about having a premium-paying client. It’s two different things.
Plus, we have to remember that our clients’ business is not a hobby for them. It has to work. It puts the food on their family’s table. If somebody like you comes along and says that you’re going to help them, they’re going to pay attention. They need this.
A business is never a hobby. It has to work for it to put food on the table. Share on XYou have a choice. You can either keep burning yourself out every tax season, month after month, year after year, whatever you choose. You can continue to not get paid what you deserve. A lot of the questions we had were like, “My clients only pay me $250. They’ll never pay $2,000 or $5,000 for CFO advisory services.” You can continue to miss those family moments if you choose and feel frustrated and unfulfilled. That’s a choice. You can wonder if things will ever change or get better in your firm or you can choose to say, “I will work with high-quality value clients that value my expertise,” because you have Adam’s blueprint on the CFO advisory services or something like that. You could feel excited about your work again.
Final Thoughts On Gaining Control And Balance
When we did our webinar, there were so many people who were unfulfilled, frustrated, and irritated with our clients. Where are you going to take your responsibility? You can spend more quality time with your family and you can gain back that control in your life again and in your schedule. Those are the two choices you have. One will take you to clients that will be attracted to somewhere like Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus. Some will continue to keep going to Ross Dress for Less or JCPenney and waste time and money and be miserable.
Thank you so much for being here with us on the show and sharing all the insights about starting a CFO advisory service firm and integrating these services into an existing firm. For those of you who have no clue where to start on the sales process, my team and I have set aside some time to speak to you about how you can apply a system to attract those Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom-style quality clients and have work-life balance again. If that’s you, then go to TheAbundantCall.com and book a call with myself and my team. Make sure that you take the first spot that you see available. We look forward to speaking to some of you soon. Thanks for being here. I’ll see you in the next episode.
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About Adam Lean
Adam Lean is a former accountant turned 2-time entrepreneur who built, scaled, and sold two businesses.
While helping other business owners, he realized his passion was teaching and providing tools to business owners to help them make more money and have a peace-of-mind.
He currently runs The CFO Project – a training company that trains financial professionals on how to offer an outsourced CFO and business advisory service.
