As your firm gears up for the busy season, whether defined by annual reports, earnings statements or tax returns, you need a process to ensure everything is completed. All professional and financial services firms should have a clear process in place that not only keeps everyone on track, but also ensures that no one overlooks any important steps.

We commonly hear that people in accounting and financial services are uncomfortable with the idea of selling new or additional services to their clients. There are people who feel that the personalities of accounting and financial services professionals and sales professionals are so different as to make it impossible for services professionals to be able to sell effectively. There might be people who cannot sell under any circumstances; but they are few. The rest of us can learn to sell; and cross-selling is the easiest technique to learn.

As you move closer to the busy season – taxes, annual reports, budgets, evaluations, new investment strategies, calculating dividends – you need to be thinking about more than the specific task before you at any moment.  You also need to thinking about whether you are churning out tasks or grasping all of the opportunities before you.

The center of many client or customer acquisition strategies today is not a strategic communication plan. It should be. The goal of communication plans is to convey to your “ideal customers/clients” that you understand their questions and needs and you have the expertise to provide the answers. Your strategic communication with prospective clients/customers might be to say repeatedly, “your next question answered.”

December is a very busy time. People are getting ready for or celebrating Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and the New Year. Professional and financial services firms should also be getting ready for the Busy Season of W-2s, annual reports, taxes, earnings statements, and all of the other kinds of reporting they must do during the first few months of the year.

If you are willing to build a micro-niche boutique within the business of your firm, you will quickly discover that the benefits – especially the impact of the benefits – far outweighs the effort or time you will invest in the future of your practice. Micro-niche building allows you overcome one of the challenges faced by most small and mid-sized firms: how to compete with large firms on price.