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A new breed of accountants are offering the advice that SMEs need. Swoop’s experts explain a low-effort way to give clients more value – and reap the rewards.
Swoop’s three tips for advisors building great client relationships
26 August 2021
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4 minute read
Businesses are waking up to the realisation that a great accountant whom you can really trust is not just a ‘nice to have’. According to the 2019 Small Business Finance and HR Report, 86 percent of small business owners agreed that their accountant is a trusted advisor they can turn to for a range of business advice going beyond booking keeping, tax prep and compliance.
Swoop’s community of Advisors bears this out: we have found that accountant-backed strategic advisory services allow clients intelligent financial decisions and improve their business results while setting themselves up for growth. As many of the traditional accounting services are being taken over by apps and bots, accountants who are able to offer strategic advisory services to small business clients including funding advice, are changing the dynamic between themselves and their clients.
We also know from our accountant friends that they are busy. Too busy, they feel, to spend precious resources and time to investigate and offer advisory services to their clients. Is it worth adding funding advisory services to your accounting armoury? We say yes – if you use technology to do the heavy lifting.
Thanks to the recent rise of the digital marketplaces and online lending platforms, accountants have better tools with which to help business clients seeking finance at every stage of business development. Using an online lending marketplace like Swoop, accountants can now access tailored funding options and savings solutions for your clients’ businesses, all in one place. The platform is built to be fast, intuitive to use and easy to integrate into services already being offered.
As a result, canny accountants are matching businesses with better funding solutions, which builds relationships and boosts revenue – for both client and advisor.
Tip #1 – Understand your clients’ funding needs
The first step in providing this value-added service to your clients is to help them qualify their needs. You are probably best placed to understand the unique financial needs of your clients, so you can help choose the best lending options available in the market. It’s a great idea to ask them to clearly state the purpose and amount of the loan and try to find out if the desired loan is essential for your client’s business or not.
Tip #2 – Understand different funding resources available to you
Talk to a business funding specialist in your company and ask them what you can do to make financing easy and fast for small businesses. Partnership with a reliable lending marketplace like Swoop can assist your accounting firm in obtaining various types of financing for your clients.
Tip #3 – Develop funding advisory culture in your company
Building a funding advisory culture is essential to accomplish the overall small business financing goals and objectives. From the first interactions with your clients to the way you attend to their accounting, make sure you communicate your advisory role to create awareness of your funding solutions and boost the trust among your prospective clients.
Final thoughts
By adding funding advisory services to your offering, you will not only help business clients create a strong financial foundation but provide yourself a timely pathway to broaden your professional appeal and find new opportunities to excel, attracting new and more valuable business. Swoop, built by accountants for accountants, will help you make the most of the technology and tools available to transform your relationship with your client. When you are gatekeeper to what a business needs to grow, you become truly indispensable.
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