Let’s imagine that you are a chartered accountant and you work as a part time finance director for several SME clients but you’d like a few extra clients to top up your income.
You have the unique position of sitting on the one side of the desk for the businesses you act as Finance Director and you’re committed to getting the best value and minimising risk for your client.
However when you are meeting a new prospective client, you are on the other side of the desk as the sales person chasing the order and trying to close the deal.
It’s a very different feeling depending on which side of the desk you sit, isn’t it?
But it doesn’t have to be and probably shouldn’t appear to be to the entrepreneur or small business owner you are trying to impress.
That business owner is assessing you on how well he or she thinks you will protect his or her interests in difficult situations and in difficult decisions.
When you’re employed as the part time Finance Director you’d look to apply your analytical skills, assess the risks, prepare a cost/benefit analysis and come up with a considered recommendation which you can justify based on a set of facts and assumptions.
When you are representing the client in buying negotiations or considering some kind of investment proposal you probably look for three key factors:
- How much money will be saved or generated from the investment compared to the cost of the investment.
- How quickly will the payback period be? When does the investment get back into the black after it’s covered its costs and negative cashflows.
- How certain are the costs and benefits? What can be done to reduce the risk of things going wrong for the client?
What happens when you are selling part time finance director services? After all you’re hoping to impress an entrepreneur with your financial and commercial acumen and your analytical skills which you say will help the buyer make better decisions.
Does all that fancy cost/benefit analysis disappear at the time when you need to be demonstrating it most?
Are you left making vague sounding promises about how having management accounts produced quickly each month will save money without being specific?
Or are you saying that you can help the business owner make decisions by presenting the possible outcomes clearly without presenting your own case clearly?
No wonder part time finance director services can be a difficult service to sell when you are acting in a different way when you are selling than you would be if you were buying.
Let’s say that it is quite a small client with two to three days work each month. That’s going to cost the entrepreneur between £800 and £3,000 depending on where in the country you’re based.
It’s a lot of money for any struggling business concerned with profit and cashflow and you’d want a good case to support that kind of investment when you’re in there acting as the part time finance director.
So where are the cost savings going to come from? Where’s the extra revenue and margin generated?
Because of the risks involved (unless you’re prepared to take them away by some kind of guarantee), the payback from engaging you as a part time finance director has to be much better than one to one.
It’s not save £15,000 per year to pay you £15,000.
There’s no motivation in that for the entrepreneur.
Save £50,000 and pay you £15,000. Now you’re talking a language the entrepreneurs can understand and with the right benchmarks in place, they can see whether you are living up to your promises.
Save £100,000 and pay you £25,000 is even better and will leave the entrepreneur bragging at the golf club about what a wise decision it was to hire you.
Sure I understand you don’t want to take risks.. you’re an accountant.
But with vague and unspecific promises, you’re asking business owners to take a big risk engaging you and most of the time, they’re going to think it doesn’t really stack up.
Every buying decision revolves around a simple choice:
- Keep the problem and continue to pay the price
- Solve the problem and enjoy the benefits
Your job when you’re selling like a Finance Director is to help prospective clients see the costs of the problem and the benefits very clearly so the decision to employ you becomes easy.
After all, if you can’t cover your costs with savings and extra margin with plenty to spare, you shouldn't be in the position as Finance Director and the faster you and the client find that out, the better.
For more tips on how to grow your part time Finance Director practice, I recommend you join my Finance Director Mastermind if there are places available..
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