Tired of pushy sales tactics? Discover how to master the art of selling high-value CFO advisory services without feeling sleazy as Michelle Weinstein takes the hot seat opposite Adam Lean, CEO of The CFO Project. We delve into strategies for financial professionals to communicate their value, overcome the fear of rejection, and build a thriving practice with high-paying clients. Michelle shares insights on creating empowering sales conversations and achieving work-life balance while teaching firm owners to charge premium fees and focus on value-based interactions. If you’re ready to transform your approach to selling, and build the confidence to grow your business without compromising your integrity, this is a must-listen.
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Episode 162 | How To Sell High-Value CFO Advisory Services Without Being Pushy, Featuring Adam Lean
We have a little unique show for you. I was a guest with Adam on his show talking about how to sell without selling. Join me in a conversation with Adam Lean who was a former accountant turned two-time entrepreneur who’s built, scaled and sold two businesses now. He also helps other business owners realize his passion while teaching and providing tools to business owners to help them make more money and have peace of mind.
If you are a firm owner who has the fear of selling, just know that there is the possibility for something else to work for you. You don’t have to work 12-to-16-hours a day. You don’t have to work on the weekends to keep up and you don’t have to be pushy, salesy or sleazy. Not only that, I also am going to show you how to do all these things that we talked about in a very simple, effortless and automatic way.
If you want to discuss how this can be done customized to you and your firm if you own a tax accounting or bookkeeping firm, then head on over to TheAbundantCall.com and you can book a call with me and my team. Now let’s dive into the discussion with myself and Adam on how to sell without selling.
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Michelle, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for having me.
Overcoming Sales Fear: Why Accountants Struggle To Sell
You’ve been on the show before. You’re essentially an expert at selling. You specifically help accountants, bookkeepers, and financial professionals sell. Let’s talk about sell because it’s something that a lot of accountants and bookkeepers do, it’s not their favorite part of what they do. Starting off, why is that? Why is it so difficult for financial professionals to sell?
Financial professionals and the clients that I have and have met, they don’t want to sell because they don’t know what to say. They don’t know how to communicate their values. They get nervous. They’re like, “I just want to do the work.” The problem is, they also want to get paid for it. They want to work less hours, earn more revenue and want to have this life of abundance but they didn’t learn a skillset that’s needed in order to enroll people to have high paying premium clients that are paying $3,000 to $5,000 a month for CFO advisory services.
The missing piece is having empowering sales conversations. The other piece is people don’t want to be rejected. People don’t want to be told, “No, you’re too expensive,” and all the things that you hear from your clients. In order to build a firm full of high-paying clients that you just don’t have many of them. You have a handful and you’re working not that many hours. You have to stop trading time for dollars. You have to let go of those overly demanding clients so you can get paid based on your value and worth. A lot of it, too, for this profession. I just talked to somebody. The skepticism is so high and just embracing a sales approach just doesn’t feel good to you.
That’s the underlying problem but in order to build a thriving practice, you have to gain the skills in the strategies to command premium fees and know who the ideal client is that you’re talking to and what makes them tick. That’s ultimately how a firm owner will achieve work-life balance and feel empowered to do the work instead of resenting the clients.
CFO Advisory Services: It has nothing to do with what you think the client can afford. That’s the worst thing ever to say and for you to think to base your pricing on.
You brought up several good points here. You said that a lot of accountants want to do the work. They’re more comfortable at work. Do you feel like that’s an excuse? In other words, if accountants were more confident in their sales skills, they could sell higher value services and would do it more and hide behind and won’t do work?
From what I’ve seen with my clients and I’ve worked with hundreds of accounting, tax and bookkeeping from owners, that has done a 180, literally. This part about talking to the clients can become fun. Once you have a system that you can follow just like you have a workflow system to execute the work. You’re missing the most important piece which is the sales workflow system to help you increase the revenue on your P&L because if you don’t have that, then how can you do more work for your clients?
We need to do it in a way where you’re not discounting your fees. You’re not negotiating on price. You’re not devaluing your worth in a way that feels good because ultimately, it needs to feel simple, effortless and automatic. That’s the goal of it. Once you have a structure, a system and a blueprint to follow, that’s what is possible. You can work the hours you want to work and you can have this time to dive into the work instead of resenting the work or the lady I talked to.
She was saying, “I have to put money into my business just to do the work and pay my stuff.” That’s just a recipe for disaster. People like that probably will never change because that’s their belief because they don’t want to do sales. They think it’s sleazy and pushy. If you’re an entrepreneur and you own a bookkeeping, accounting tax, and fractional CFO advisory from whatever you call it. You signed up for a 24/7 sales career.
Your Job Is To Sell: Shifting Mindset For Business Owners
That’s something that sounds daunting but I agree with it. It sounds like something that a lot of people don’t want to take on, but we all have to remember, whether we own a restaurant, a manufacturing company, or a CFO firm, it almost doesn’t matter. If you own a business, your job is to sell but a lot of people, as you said, have this negative perception of sales. Almost like the used car salesman type where you’re forcing something.
That’s it. Most former owners get paralyzed by the thought of the next phone call they have to have with a prospect. The person I spoke with and many firm owners feel this way, “Michelle, I have to base my prices based on what these people can afford. Not what I should charge.” If you’re starting a business like that, good luck. You might as well close it down and go get a job. Otherwise, you’re going to just continue to freeze up. Prospects take control of the call. That’s not the way to do business and I hear it quite often. It has nothing to do with what you think the client can afford. That’s the worse thing ever to say and for you to think that’s your basis for your pricing.
Agreed. I get a lot of accountants all the time that say, “There’s no way.” We recommend that you charge at least $1,500 per month per client at CFO Advisory services. We get a lot of people that say, “There’s no way my clients could afford this. They can barely the $200 or $400 for bookkeeping.” It’s like, “You need better clients. You need different clients.”
You need a better sales system. We share a colleague, Adam. She needed to increase their bookkeeping fees and she wanted to add CFO advisor. She had tried to do it on her own and it wasn’t working. Guess what? She’s closed two of her current clients. Not only did she increase the bookkeeping fee, but she also added advisory services from the two of them. They added $40,000 each of total recurring revenue. She just made an extra $80,000 in her firm for the year off to clients that she wasn’t able to do before.
Granted, she learned the skillset. She understood the process and now, her clients saw the value in it. Instead of them saying, “I can’t afford it. I can’t pay you more.” When it’s all priced conversations, it’s not how to do it but you need a step-by-step process so you can take charge and have the confidence. I see it all the time, but most of the challenges with firm owners stem from a terrible experience you have probably buying a car or someone at the mall.
Sales to me should be approached or thought of as, “I’m helping somebody.” If I believe in my service or products so much then why wouldn’t I want to tell somebody about it? It’s my duty to tell somebody about this product if it will help them.
You have to stop trading time for dollars. You have to let go of those overly demanding clients so you can get paid based on your value and worth. Share on XEspecially adding on what you do, CFO advisory. If you’re going to help put a client in a better position and help them financially and do all these things you’re going to do. Why won’t they pay you more? Her client, one of them, had no pushback. Nothing. The other one had to take it to three of their business advisors to make sure it was okay. Before they even had their follow-up meeting, he sent an email over the weekend giving her the thumbs up. I said, “You did a great job on your sales call. He got it. He saw the value. He just had to run things by his advisor and sometimes, that’s just going to happen.”
That’s what happens when we put an end to, “My clients are going to leave me if I raise my fees.” A lot of firm owners think that. If you don’t have that confidence that people will stick around, they will stay. Not everyone’s going to leave you. Any tactics you try or whatever you’re going to do on fees isn’t going to make a difference. You have to learn the art of enrollment and how to have value-based conversations with people.
Value-Based Pricing: Charging What You’re Worth & Belief
It’s almost like two things have to be true. You have to believe or know that this service or product that your selling is going to help them. If it’s not, you shouldn’t be selling the product in the first place, which is why used car salesmen get that bad rap. You have to believe that it will help the person. At the same time, you have to charge for your value. It’s what you’re saying, because you can believe that it will help them and if you charge a dollar a month, that will still be true. It will help them but you are not going to make any money at this.
It’s like this person I talked to who’s got to take money out of a retirement fund or something and put it into the business just to make it work and has already invested $70,000 in the business and is losing money hand over fist every single month. This person reached out to us months ago and said they were a great salesperson. Clearly, all of your sales stats are based on your results. Look at your P&L. If you want to free yourself of those awkward sales conversations and not have to feel pushy. You have to sometimes get yourself out of the way.
That’s the problem for so many firm owners, is that they’re in their own way. I know Adam can teach you on the technical side and I know I can help on the enrollment side. We both have solutions but until you say, “I’m going to reach my hand out for help.” There’s nothing that can be done. I think of big thing, too, Adam.
It’s the anxiety, the depression, and the anger that many firm owners have because you’ve got yourself in that position from charging too low or thinking you got a price based on what your clients can afford. That all plays into effect, into our mood and how you operate. If you’re grumpy every day and angry, you’re going to get grumpy and angry results.
I agree with you. You said that accountants have this fear of rejection in a sense. That is almost like the route calls us to why they don’t want to charge because they don’t want to hear the word no. Why is that? How could somebody overcome that?
Conquering Rejection: Building Sales Resilience
It’s so funny. My boyfriend sent me a video. I don’t know how to say his name but it’s like Jia Jiang. If you look them up on YouTube, he wrote a book about the 100 days of being rejected. If you need to overcome that, figure out a way or a game to get over it because you will be rejected. It’s not about you personally. It’s about these people’s experiences that they have in the real world that come out when you basically hold up a mirror to them.
It’s like this lady. It comes to mind because she was a piece of work. She wanted to give me feedback on my sales process and I’m like, “You came to the sales doctor. There’s only one person here who’s having a problem. It’s not me. It’s you. I don’t need any feedback.” We just don’t want to feel rejected and she just felt rejected probably because I’m like, “I can’t help you if you’re going to have this negative attitude and not be open to coaching.”
Those kinds of people, I just can’t help. Many firm owners take the passive approach with selling, meaning you send a proposal. You send a quote, and then you cross your fingers and hope you hear from people then you get ghosted. That’s also a form of rejection. If you continue to get ghosted and people don’t respond to your emails and you let people off the hook easily when it comes to your enrollment conversation and you constantly are chasing people down for money and having to feel like you’re begging to have people work with you.
If you’re grumpy every day and angry, you’re going to get grumpy and angry results. Share on XThat compounds on top of everything and that’s why no one wants to get rejected but you got to get over it somehow. Figure out a game for yourself to put yourself in a position to get rejected every day so you build that muscle. It’s a muscle that has to get billed just like if you were going to go to the gym because it’s inevitable that you will be rejected in business.
We get people all the time that don’t want to enroll with us or whatever for whatever reason. There’s always going to be that form of it but it doesn’t even phase me anymore. It bounces off my arm and goes away. Once you build that muscle, it will change but also, you can change and be proactive on your sales process by having a step-by-step and by having a process where you’re not aiming or winging it. You’re not going off the cuff. When you do that, the odds of being rejected, told no, ghosted, and people not responding to you increase.
If you had a formula to command these premium fees, show your true value, show how you can deliver what you’re promising and have people see that, then you can come across without being pushy or salesy or any of that stuff. You can get people to either tell you yes or like my client who is upselling her bookkeeping increase price and CFO advisory. He just said, “I need to take it to my advisors.” They were going to meet that following Monday from a Friday.
That’s fine, but at least there was the follow-up in place and she did not send a proposal and a quote. He took what they talked about in that meeting and digested and went over with his advisors. Everything was great. We have to start taking a proactive approach versus always being reactive or passive. If you continue to take the reactive or passive approach, you will continue to get rejected and then you’ll continue to not want to sell basically.
I’m a big believer that you need confidence in order to sell but to get confidence, you have to take action to build that skill. Take action to build confidence. Once you’re confident, then you’ll continue and you’ll be competent. It’s like the confidence loop. It all starts with taking action and starting with the system that you’re talking about.
Building action on what you’re showing them or what I show my clients. Nothing’s going to change, unlike the woman. She said, “I’ll just read books and watch YouTube videos.” I wish them nothing but the best. That would be like going down to YouTube University. It’s great. Good luck, especially if you continue to watch and read stuff and not implement and put into action. Nothing’s going to work. It’s still going to be the same reading books and watching videos without implementation doesn’t do anything for you, your business, and your clients.
Without implementation and without accountability and feedback. The highest performing athlete’s almost every single one has a coach. They’re probably the people that don’t even need the coach because of the high performing athletes but they have one because they want to be the best and good.
They have a psychologist. They have a team of people that are supporting them. In business, you should have the same.
Capacity And High-Value Clients: Key To Business Growth & Retirement
We have to remember that in our line of work, whether you’re selling bookkeeping services, accounting services, CFO services, tax rep, or whatever. We are selling a service, which means our time and our employee’s time is finite. We have a capacity issue. If we have a finite capacity and finite amount of clients that we could take on, then we might as well earn as much as we can for each client. Why wouldn’t you do that? It’s your business.
Again, it’s the only way to do it so you can create a retirement for yourself. There’s so many firms I talked to that don’t even think about that yet. How do you not have a retirement plan for yourself or how are you not creating this firm that has high value so you can sell it in the future as a retirement plan option for a high multiple? All of this stuff is so crucial. It’s all derived from your sales because your sales dictate on your P&L and your top line revenue. That number drives the rest of the business. You can’t have profit without revenue. You can’t pay a team well without revenue.
CFO Advisory Services: You have to learn the art of enrollment and how to have value-based conversations with people.
I agree 100%. On that note, Michelle, thank you so much for being on the show. This is a fantastic conversation as always. Where can people find you?
You can find us at TheAbundantAccountant.com. If you’re ready to take action now and change the way you’re doing your sales process and stop feeling awkward about it and start stashing away for retirement. You can have a conversation with us about how to do that at TheAbundantCall.com. You can book a time, fill out the application and you’ll talk to myself or someone on our team. Pick a time that works for you.
Michelle, thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me.
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Thank you all so much for joining Adam and I on that discussion of how to sell without selling. Remember, if you’re in accounting tax or bookkeeping firm owner and you want to stop trading time for dollars and let go of overly demanding clients and finally get paid based on your value and worth and boost your revenue. Here’s what I’ve got for you. At the Abundant Accountant, I share the secrets to fill your firm with ideal clients who not only value your time but can help catapult your firm to the next level and work the hours that you want to work while still having plenty of free time for yourself and your family.
Not only that, I’m also going to show you how to do all this in a way that feels simple, effortless and automatic. If you want to show you exactly how to do that, head on over to TheAbundantCall.com and book a call with me and my team. Thank you so much for joining Adam and I on this conversation. I look forward to speaking to some of you soon. We’ll see 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.
