Make me love you and you will be rewarded

Love & Hate: gapingvoid

John O’Nolan commented on the story I wrote about his experience with accountants summed up in a Tweet. The comment contains so many gems from which professionals can draw lessons that it is well worth putting out as a post in its own right with my comments interspersed:

Hi Dennis, thanks so much for this write up – I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see my thoughts and sentiments written out by someone else.

My accountants drove me slightly crazy – They run a system whereby at the end of each month you send them all of your invoices and expenses, and “they do the rest”. Sounds great right? Well it would be, except that after 4 months I had absolutely no idea what was going on with my business. I didn’t know how much money I was making each month, whether I was making a profit, or even if I was owed any money from unpaid invoices! I was totally in the dark, and I dreaded anything to do with my accounts.

Providing timely service is table stakes. Don’t do it and you’re at risk.

Then a friend of mine recommended FreeAgent to me, and I gave it a try. Within 48 hours I was completely sold on it. This isn’t a sales pitch for FreeAgent, so I won’t go into all the reasons why, but let’s just say as someone who HATED and was HOPELESS with my accounts, FreeAgent made me love and understand them. (seriously)

Hugh MacLeod often talks about the power of love (check the 167 comments.) It sounds corny but now you’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth so to speak.

So I told my accountants, “check out this great app – I can upload all my bank statements, transactions, invoices, expenses, and it’s all in one place! I can even set up a login for you (my accountants) so you can see it all too when you do my books each month.”

Their response was (basically): We used it a few years ago and didn’t like it, so we do not support it.

I tried to talk them round, I tried to reason, I tried to send screenshots of my monthly accounts in FreeAgent so that I could still get the information to them, but they wouldn’t have to take that dreaded 10 second 3-click process of logging in (). But they refused to look at those too.

Refusing to look at something after the passage of time shows poor judgment. We can all get set in our ways but a blank refusal seems nuts. Accountants often think they know best. SaaS solutions are showing there is a viable alternative.

Heather Villa above summed it up best:

“The client has to work in an application that they feel comfortable with.”

This is 100% true – so I had to choose between staying with my accountants, and not understanding one bit of my accounts… or finding someone else. Let me tell you – it was a pretty easy decision.

I’m now talking to CarpenterBox in Worthing, who are a “FreeAgent Friendly” accounting company. Want to hear the kicker? I’m now probably going to be paying them double what I was paying my old accounting company, just because they’re willing to cater to my needs – and I’m more than happy to pay the extra for it.

So let’s get this straight: I have an application I LOVE, I’ve found an accountant that uses the same application and I am prepared to pay DOUBLE? This proves Verasage’s point: value has a price that clients are willing to pay provided the value proposition is aligned with what the client wants. Novel idea to some I imagine.

An accountant to me isn’t for figuring out complicated numbers and taxes – I have a calculator for that. It’s about forming a relationship, and working TOGETHER to understand and manage the finances of the business.

I’ve been saying it for years…now we’re hearing clients come out into the open and confirm the importance of the relationship message. I’d love to hear more stories of this kind. They are what will define the way in which clients interact with their professional advisors over time.

Good luck John – I hope it works out well.

Tagged as: Accountancy, Accounting, Business, Customer value proposition, FreeAgent, Hugh MacLeod