Playbook, accounting firm
The questions people are too embarrassed to ask before a first meeting
The messages that arrive before a first meeting are rarely about the meeting. They are about whether somebody with three carrier bags of receipts is going to be told off, whether the hour is going to appear on a bill, and whether they can ask the one question that has been keeping them awake. Answering those honestly converts more enquiries than any description of the practice ever does.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for first visit questions holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The prospect's real worry is the state of their records, and a practice that says plainly it has seen worse removes the reason most of these people have put off ringing anybody for a year.
- Whether a first meeting carries a fee genuinely differs between practices and between kinds of meeting, so an answer borrowed from a competitor's page is wrong in a way the client only discovers afterwards.
- People arrive expecting their own question answered in the room, so the material has to set the expectation that a first meeting establishes the position rather than settling it.
- The identity checks are usually explained at or just before the first meeting, and bringing the documents to it saves a week, which is worth saying in the same breath as what time to turn up.
How it arrives
- what happens at the first meeting
- is the first appointment free
- what do i need to bring with me
- my paperwork is a complete mess is that ok
- can i ask about my tax situation in the meeting
- how long will the first meeting take
What has to be indexed for this to work
| What the first meeting covers, and how long it runs | What gets established, who is in the room and what the client leaves holding. Prospects imagine an interview, and describing an ordinary conversation is most of the reassurance that is needed. |
|---|---|
| Whether it is chargeable, stated without conditions | Free, chargeable, or free up to a point. Whatever it is, put it in the first line of the page, because a prospect who cannot find the answer assumes the expensive one and does not ask. |
| What to bring, in the order it matters | The last filed accounts or return, whatever bookkeeping exists in whatever state it exists in, and identity documents. Bringing the identity documents to the first meeting is what shortens everything that follows. |
| Your line on records that are in a state | Written down, warmly, and meant. This is the single most effective paragraph on an accountancy website and almost nobody has troubled to write it. |
The reply
A first meeting does not take long and is there to establish where you are: what has been filed, what has not, and what needs doing next. Our page says whether it is chargeable [1]. Bring whatever you have in whatever state it is in, along with your last filed accounts or return and your identity documents, because the checks have to be done before we can act and doing them early saves a week [2]. What we cannot do is answer a question about your own position without seeing the full picture first.
It answers the practical questions in one breath and folds the reassurance about the records into an instruction rather than making a speech of it. The identity documents are framed as a saving rather than as a hurdle. And the closing sentence sets the expectation about advice before the client is disappointed in the room.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor starts describing their own position, asks what something would cost in their circumstances, or asks for a time.
That needs an accountant rather than me, and it is exactly what a first meeting is for. Leave me your name, an email and a line on what is outstanding, and somebody will come back to arrange a time.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say the first meeting is free unless your own material says so.
- Never answer a question about somebody's own position because it arrived in the middle of a question about booking.
- Never tell somebody their records are too far gone, or that they should have come sooner.
- Never promise a fee will be quoted at the first meeting, since that depends on what turns up to it.
Questions
- Why does the state of the records matter so much here?
- It is the reason the enquiry took a year to arrive. A prospect who reads that you deal with this every week books the meeting. The same prospect who reads a checklist of what they should already have does not.
- Can it tell somebody what the first meeting will cost?
- It can repeat what you publish. It should not price a first meeting for a particular situation, because the things that move a fee are the things a prospect has not mentioned yet.
- Should it try to qualify the enquiry?
- Lightly, by asking what entity they are and what is outstanding, which your enquiry form asks anyway. Anything beyond that and it is collecting the facts that turn a question into advice.
Keep reading
- Everything for a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- Handling first visit questions in generalWhat to wear, where to park, how long it takes, whether they can bring somebody. Cheap to answer and disproportionately valuable.
- Eleven at night, and somebody wants an accountant by morningNothing can be taken on overnight and pretending otherwise costs more than saying so. What to publish for the late panic enquiry.
- Publishing accountancy fees so the assistant routes to the right packageFixed monthly packages against hourly work, priced by client profile, and why the answer changes in the weeks before a filing deadline.
- Why the package price is not the quote for the person askingCatch up years, records in a carrier bag and income from abroad all break the published package. How the assistant gives a range and stops.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.