Advisory

Client Advisor Program™ (CAP)

Duration: Five remote roundtables over 4 months

Format: REMOTE

Who Should Participate: Experienced managers, senior managers and partners who control and manage client relationships and have some business development experience

CPE: Up to 12 credit hours in the areas of Personal Development and Communications & Marketing

Class Size: 14 participants

In this dynamic and uncertain market, clients require a different level of service to support their business continuity and financial well-being. Their needs demand more than our compliance deliverables, providing information and guidance to help them make swift decisions as they manage cash, pivot their business models, and navigate staffing, technology and other infrastructure changes. To make the shift to a truly strategic client advisor, you’ll have to shed old ideas and habits and develop both your advisory skills and an advisory approach to engagements.

The ConvergenceCoaching Client Advisor Program™ (CAP) is an entirely remote, modular program designed to teach experienced CPAs and consultants advisory skills and strategies to deepen their client relationships, broaden the support they provide clients beyond compliance services and ultimately make a bigger difference in the lives and businesses of their clients.

The program seeks to teach CPAs and consultants how to identify their ideal clients for advisory and coaching services and implement various strategies and frameworks to develop deep rapport with clients, engage in query to uncover needs and to develop, scope, and price solutions, too. CAP participants will partake in five, web-based video roundtables covering a range of client-centric topics. After each roundtable, participants will complete specific homework assignments related to the ideas covered and will report back on their outcomes to experienced coaches who will provide them feedback. The result is participants become more indispensable to clients and drive growth with every module mastered.

Click here to learn more about the CAP.

Consulting Services vs. Compliance Services: Managing the Difference

CPAs have worked hard to become not just historians (dutifully ensuring clients are in compliance) but trusted advisors (regularly offering fresh ideas, proactively identifying needs, and consistently recommending innovative solutions to client challenges).  You know you can’t continue to market, grow and manage your consulting practice like a traditional compliance practice – but what’s the difference?  In this session, we’ll explore strategies to feed and grow your consulting practice where you will:

• Understand where, how and why consulting fits
• List the differences between consulting and compliance services in your:
  • Business model
  • Staffing
  • Marketing and sales approach
• Recall ways to manage your consulting practice to drive sustainability and profitability

Leave this session with an understanding about the differences you need to apply to gain momentum and growth of the consulting services in your firm.

Technology Must-Haves For Effective Remote and Blended Work

This course is for all team members.

A number of factors have given rise to a permanent blend of remote and in-person work in our profession and the general economy. Advances in computing, mobile devices, high-speed connectivity and the growing value of the internet, along with demographic shifts, are all making it a reality. At the heart of your firm’s remote and blended work strategy is the technology that enables it. If you strive to be a remote-ready firm, positioned to borderlessly recruit talent and serve clients, then we can't overemphasize the importance of investments in YOUR technology infrastructure. In this session, we’ll explore:

• The importance of “digital” when working remote and ways to root out paper-based protocols
• Remote tech enablers that support a blended team
• Investing in the right “anywhere work” set up for every team member – even after returning to the office
• BONUS - Opening up advisory opportunities to support your clients on this same journey!

Leave this session armed with practical strategies for progressing your firm’s remote technology infrastructure.

The Art of Query: Delivering Value by Asking the Right Questions

When we ask the right questions, we uncover strategic opportunities that drive value for others. We gain knowledge and intelligence by asking and listening. But most of us aren’t skilled in the art of query, so we tend to tell more than ask, talk more than listen. Truly trusted advisors want to learn more, so they can deliver more. In this exercise-based course, we’ll:

• Understand the value and uses of query in all of your communications
• Learn to generate questions that uncover information, drive learning, challenge, and evaluate
• Gain confidence in your ability to ask the right questions at the right time

Leave this session with the tools you need to be a better coach to your people and advisor to your clients