A comment about falling margins, retirement, recruitment, borrowing or a possible business sale can reveal an issue where the accountant could provide valuable additional help. The latest AdvisoryXpress article suggested recording these opportunities and agreeing a follow-up action rather than allowing them to disappear back into the normal workload.

But that raises another question.

What happens next?

Turn the comment into a defined issue

Suppose a client says margins seem to be falling.

That does not immediately mean you should sell them a profitability improvement service.

The next step is to establish whether there really is a problem and, if so, what the client wants to achieve.

You might arrange a short meeting to examine margins, pricing, overheads and recent changes in the sales mix. At the end of that discussion there may be a clearly defined piece of work.

The important point is that the advisory assignment develops from an identified client need rather than from an attempt to sell a predetermined service.

Define the outcome

Before beginning additional work, agree what you are going to do.

For example:

“We will review your gross margins by product category, identify the main reasons for the deterioration and meet with you to discuss practical steps that could improve profitability.”

That is considerably easier for a client to understand than offering “business advisory services”.

It also makes discussing a fee easier because the client can see what they are buying and why it matters.

Give someone responsibility

There is another practical problem.

If nobody owns the next step, nothing happens.

Once an advisory opportunity has been identified, record the client, the issue, the agreed action, who is responsible and the follow-up date.

A spreadsheet may be sufficient initially. The system matters less than the discipline of using it.

Start building a repeatable process

Over time, patterns should emerge.

Several clients may be worried about cash flow. Others may need help improving profitability, preparing for retirement, funding growth or understanding business performance.

Those recurring needs provide the foundations for structured advisory services.

The progression is therefore quite straightforward:

Listen to clients. Identify change. Ask another question. Define the problem. Agree the next step. Follow it through.

You do not have to transform your practice overnight.

You simply need to become better at recognising the advisory opportunities already sitting within your client base, and then have a process that ensures something happens when you find one.

That is where advisory starts becoming a systematic part of the practice rather than something you intend to do when you have more time.