To become a successful rainmaker for your accounting practice, you have to differentiate yourself from the competition, and tap into your prospects pain points and emotional needs. Marketing and sales gurus refer to this technique as need-based selling, solution selling and/or customer centric selling.

In a nutshell, the rainmaker focuses on the needs of the prospect by asking probing questions, listening intently to the prospects responses while showing empathy with the prospects pain, and then connecting the benefits of your firm's services to alleviate their pain while articulating the benefits (e.g., less stress, fewer headaches and ROI). When done effectively, the accountant will be able to evolve toward consultative selling by establishing trust earlier in the process.

Here are four tips for deploying this approach so you can become more effective generating new business:

• Treat the initial dialogue with the prospect more like an interview - Your initial meeting should focus on understanding your prospect's business situation, listening more than talking, and then illustrating how your firm is unique and can eliminate the pains they've been experiencing. With the right questions, many prospects will walk right into the sale.

• Keep it conversational - Although you've probably got a script and process for selling, approach your prospect in a conversational tone. Seek to understand before trying to be understood.

• Connect the attributes of your service to benefits - Rather than just focusing on the types of services you offer, paint them a picture that explains what's in it for them. Whether those benefits are lower taxes for a more comfortable lifestyle, outsourcing their accounting so they have fewer employees to manage, or reducing the risk of an IRS audit, which can be expensive, time consuming and full of sleepless nights.

• Offer solutions that save them time - Assume your customers are busy like you are during tax season. Offer them solutions to work with your practice virtually and avoid the hassles of making appointments to meet with you.

Hugh Duffy MBA

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Hugh Duffy is co-founder and chief marketing officer for Build Your Firm, a leading practice development firm dedicated to the accounting industry.  Based in Madison, Conn., Build Your Firm works with small accounting firms providing accounting marketing, practice management and Web site development services. 

Prior to co-founding Build Your Firm in 2003, Hugh was a Vice President of Internet Marketing for Business & Legal Reports (BLR), a business-to-business publisher for small and medium sized businesses.  Prior to BLR, Hugh was a Director with a publicly traded global internet media company, 24/7 Real Media responsible for Business Development and Strategic Partnerships.  The foundation of Hugh’s marketing background is fourteen years of consumer packaged goods marketing with Schick, Nabisco, Clorox and Coca-Cola. 

Hugh has 25 years of marketing experience, an MBA degree in marketing from the University of Rochester and a B.S. in finance from the University of Maryland.  While at Maryland, Hugh was on a golf scholarship and his coach was Fred Funk, PGA Tour player.  Today, Hugh’s golf game suffers and he is content watching his two kids play college lacrosse.