Accountants must be clear about why they wanted to add financial planning services to their practice in order to make that business arm a success, according to the head of an institutionally owned dealer group.
“We actually think there are two things you have to get right up front. The first one is you need to be really clear about why you are doing it.
What is in this for your business and for you personally as the owner of the business?” Securitor managing director Matt Englund told the Institute of Public Accountants National Congress in the Hunter Valley on Saturday.
“Related to that is [to ask] what’s in it for the client. Why do you need to provide these services?”
Englund said once the reason for adding financial planning to an accounting practice had been established, communicating the value of the advice on offer became an easier exercise.
“One of the clear value propositions of the introduction of financial advice is the creation of space and time to explore client needs,” he said.
He used the scenario of an accountant working with a specialist financial planner to further demonstrate how the added value of the advisory service could be demonstrated.
That prospect would allow accountants, particularly those who worked with owners of small to medium enterprises, to provide services they knew their clients needed, but had not been able to provide because of the arduous nature of performing compliance duties, he said.
“If you’re like most accountants we deal with, you’re time poor [like that],” he said.
“So I think the number one value proposition that can actually be communicated is the time and space and capability to explore unmet client needs.”
He explained his own experience with his financial planner was a living example of that situation.
“From my perspective as a client of a financial advice firm, which is a multi-disciplined practice run by a CPA (certified practising accountant), it’s not just the fact they are doing my accounts; that in fact is just an outcome of the process,” he said.
“It’s much, much more the fact they’ve created a space and time for my wife and I, we’ve got four kids, to be very clear about what our goals and aspirations are and we’re happy to pay very fully for that and all of the services that come along with it.”
