accountants take note: clients may be the lifeblood of a business. but remember: managers manage, leaders lead. it’s your business. to make the point, here’s an email we received from one reader, name withheld for obvious reasons: rick, i was … continued
what we know that clients don’t even know they need.
by sandi leyva
i’m pretty sure that i am not the only accountant who has made the following mistakes with clients. here are a couple of ideas to help us remember what we know that the client doesn’t and why it costs us when we forget.
choosing a crm system can be tricky. here are some pointers.
by becky livingston
when do you need crm? you know you need crm when your list of contacts has outgrown your rolodex. you remember what a rolodex is right? another indication is when you begin to forget important information about your clients, or you notice your communication with them has dwindled.
also consider crm when you are looking to increase sales as well as relationships with clients, in the end positively affecting the bottom line.
lastly, if you find yourself personalizing emails manually and/or do not have a clear idea of where you customer or lead is in the pipeline, you may need crm.
income statement, balance sheet, cash flows? it’s time for a fourth statement.
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edi osborne
by edi osborne
ceo, mentor plus
in the words of bonnie raitt, “let’s give ’em something to talk about; a little something to figure out.”
fact or fiction, rumors or true business intelligence, those that can make the distinction have a huge opportunity to add value to their business relationships.
recently, i had the opportunity to sit down with several business owners to interview them about how they make business decisions. decisions, as it turns out, are one of the most important reasons business owners walk away from nine-to-five jobs. business owners like to have control over their destiny. they actually thrive on the decision-making process and are willing to live with the consequences of those choices. and although, business owners don’t want anyone to take away their options, they do want someone to help them examine them. they want to know that the information they are basing a decision on is accurate and relevant. that it is not conjecture, rumor, or worse yet, self-serving misinformation provided by others at the company. sounds like a job for a true, trusted adviser, would-be super hero.
unfortunately, when asked about the quality and quantity of data, business owners utilize daily to inform their decisions, including the real-time, management value of financial statements, their answers paint a very unsatisfactory picture of the decision support provided by their accountant. as the role of cpas who serve as cfos in a corporate environment has morphed into that of a cio — chief information officer — cpas in public practice continue to lag behind in this transition. when pressed on this issue, many cpas admit they want to do more, but they are not comfortable outside the realm of compliance matters.
more from edi osborne for 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 pro members (go pro here):
so how can public cpas become chief information officers? how can they utilize their accounting skills to capitalize on the fast growing business intelligence market?