The Ultimate Sales Guide For Accounting Professionals With Denise Mandeau

We have a very special guest and that is Denise Mandeau, my partner in crime here at the Abundant Accountant. Before we welcome her to the show, I wanted to share that if you’re an accounting, tax or bookkeeping firm owner and you want to stop trading time for dollars, let go of overly demanding clients and get paid based on your value and worthwhile massively boosting your firm revenue, here’s what I have for you. Here at the Abundant Accountant, we show you a system to fill your firm with ideal clients who value your time so you can catapult your firm to the next level and work the hours you want to work while still having plenty of free time for yourself and your family.

Not only that, I’m also going to show you how to do all of this in a way that feels simple, effortless and automatic. if you want me to show you exactly how to do this, go to TheAbundantCall.com right now and book a call with me and my team. I look forward to speaking to some of you. Now, let’s welcome Denise Mandeau to the show.

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Welcome to the show, Denise.

I’m glad to be here.

I am glad to be here too and have a back together again. I know every time we put out an episode with the two of us, we get emails, asking, “When are you guys going to do another one?” We’ve been busy, but I’m very excited to have my partner in crime on the East Coast join us on the show. For those newer readers, can you share with everyone who you are and what you do?

I’m Michelle’s partner crime. I’m here in New Jersey. I have been an entrepreneur since I was twenty years old. I’ve been in sales for many years, teaching others and have sold millions of dollars of products and services. I love passing on that knowledge to especially accounting professionals because this is an industry that we know serves many people to make sure that their businesses are up and running, and they’re not overpaying in taxes. If we can help people in this industry, then we can help many more.

I’m glad that you’re on the team. In this episode, we’re going to talk about an important topic about your prospects who go to you, when you send out a proposal or you give a quote and then you’re wondering, waiting and that anxiety inside of you in the stress and the overwhelm of like, “We need this client, but I haven’t heard back from them.” We’re going to talk about the three biggest mistakes you’re making when you send out a proposal or quote and why prospects goes to you.

Mistake #1

That’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode. Make sure to have pen and paper because there is a way that doesn’t have to be a problem for you anymore. You can have certainty and clarity and never have to wonder. Now, we were talking about it in our Abundant Millionaire Mastermind program where this habit is ingrained in you and to change it takes a lot of repetition and practice. Denise, what do you feel is the biggest mistake that firm owners make, making having clients or prospects ghost them?

Usually, most people who haven’t been trained in this think, “I’ll get on the phone with someone. I’ll meet with them. I’ll spend all this time with them, telling them how great I am and my services.” You then get to the end and because they don’t know how to ask for money or ask somebody for a decision, they say, “I’ll send you a proposal,” then they lose control of the actual process, then they’re sitting and waiting and hoping or believing that the person is going to get back to that.

When, in reality, how many proposals and quotes you’ve sent out and then never heard back from anybody? The other biggest mistake of why we do it is because you’re afraid of the outcome. When our fear Is leading the way versus you being in control, that’s what happens. You take the passive approach. Versus having the certain tea, the clarity and understanding of what that prospect is in and in what direction they might or probably will be going.

Usually, that fear is of someone saying no. You won’t hear the no if you send a proposal. You just won’t get a yes or no. You’ll be left in proposal land.

No one likes the proposal. We hear this from our top clients who have been in sales training for quite a while with us and it’s still a default way of operating your firm. It’s hurting your firm, your clients and everyone all around because they’re not being honest with you. You’re wondering what the next step is, and then you never hear from them. To begin with, you’re not going to even help this client.

The bigger thing is the stress and the anxiety that you feel as a firm owner, wondering, “Why did I get ghosted? How come they couldn’t tell me they didn’t want to work with me? Why didn’t they tell me my fee was too expensive?” or whatever the issue or reason was. I truly believe that when our fear is running the way and you take a path of approach, you’re going to get a passive response. To me, ghosting is a form of a passive response of someone not being upfront and not being honest. Basically, just telling you what you want to hear.

Ghosting is a passive response from someone who is not being upfront or honest.

There’s that and people get busy, they forget or get lost in their email. There could be 1 million reasons, but we’ve been doing this long enough to know that first of all, they don’t respond back. It’s very rare. Secondly, it’s a waste of time and energy and it’s exhausting.

What would be the next big mistake as to why a firm owner would or why people would go ghost the firm owner that sent the proposal or the quote? The mistake is sending them the proposal or quote. In my world and my way of thinking, Denise, and I’m sure for you, the biggest mistake is that firm owners don’t ask for the money. We don’t ask for the payment, how do they want to engage our firm or even get a signed engagement letter or get a deposit because we’re avoiding the ask, we say, “We’ll send a proposal or quote and you can review when you have time,” or like Denise said, people are busy. How do you see that affecting the firm owners who want to help more people?

Mistake #2

Not just that. It’s like you’re doing a disservice. The second mistake is if you just send it out to them, you’ve had a discussion with them. Sometimes, very personal discussion about the problems that they’re experiencing and why you’re services are the best solution, but then you’re sending them off to figure it out themselves instead of staying there with them, talking it through with them and finding out like, “What are your biggest concerns? Let me answer all your questions.”

You’re not serving them. To help them make a decision. Yes or no. Once they have said yes to you, that said it, then the next big mistake is that people go, “I’ll send you the invoice,” and then they wait for them to pay the invoice or sign the engagement letter. That’s the way that they should do it. How many times have we heard people say, “I sent them the engagement letter. I’m just waiting?”

All the time. We literally heard this. Our client knew she made a mistake, but also mentioned it’s the brain space that it takes up, like, “I’m wondering when I’m going to hear from them. I’m wondering what the next step is.” By not asking and not asking for either payment or signing an engagement letter or something, you’re creating chaos in your brain and frustration that you don’t need to have.

That’s an emotional roller coaster. Simply, you could have it ready in advance or use a system like Ignition or SEO or and have it very simplified that you could just send it to them while you’re in the conversation with them.

You can learn how to handle objections if they tell you, “I need more time. I need to review my partner. This is too expensive,” or whatever the case may be. You can then handle that. You eliminate the wonder, stress, anxiety and all the other stuff that we hear from many firm owners that have us feeling burnt out, exhausted and wondering, “Why isn’t my sales process working?” This is a big part of it because I understand how challenging it is to ask for an investment.

It’s not a normal habit for you. You wonder why your health is on edge or you feel exhausted and stressed from this process. It all starts from that because without clients, you can’t pay rent and your payroll cannot be paid. You’re always relying on that top-line revenue. The mistake of not asking for the payment up front, getting this line engagement letter, and using something like Ignition to support you through that process is the real serious problem in your process, your sales process and your firm.

I would ask the reader, while they’re taking notes, to jot down how many proposals you have sent out. How many dollars have you left on the table, even in the last month, from people who have ghosted you that you thought were going to engage with you?

How many people have you sent out a proposal that signed it versus those that are currently sitting out there in proposal land?

It’s heartbreaking. I feel heartbroken right now just talking about it.

I know every time we hear it, we are like, “No, what happened?” The reason why is that we want you to serve your clients and get the prospects to say yes to you, but we have to avoid these mistakes because these mistakes only hurt you as the firm owner and your prospects sitting in front of you that I bet you can help. Denise, what’s the other big mistake that you’ve seen on why firm owners get ghosted by their clients or prospects?

Mistake #3

I think because they are winging it. The other big mistake is even if they do send it out if they’re going to do it that way, they need to schedule the next meeting so the client understands what’s expected of them and they don’t do that. They think they’re going to follow up, but they don’t even have a follow-up system in place. It’s dangling out there and that’s energy that’s being drained. You may have somebody that needs some time to think about it, or maybe they’re a visual person who wants to see something. If you can’t do it right then and there. Schedule the next meeting to go over it with them. Send it out. Go over it with them.

You always want to have the next meeting scheduled right then and there. Even if they needed to see your proposal engagement letter or whatever you want to call it, if you don’t have the meeting set at the time you met with them or had the call with them, you’re doing them a disservice and you’re not in control of the conversation anymore? You are not setting up that follow-up meeting. I always have this rule of thumb. If you’re going to talk to somebody, always have the next step solidified before you hang up with them.

I do it all the time with people I have as guests. I did a webinar and then we’re going to have a Q&A episode about the questions from the webinar. With the person who I worked with we had it all scheduled out. I don’t want to waste my time going back and forth. I invite you to think about and write down how many hours you waste in your head going, “I should have followed up with ABC company.”

Instead of having that extra brain space used up and your external drive feeling like it’s maxed out and about to blow up, if you schedule all of the follow-ups in advance, if you send a quote or proposal and you’re still going to do that method even though it’s not the one we recommend, schedule the follow-up to review the quote and proposal with that prospect. You will have a much different result at the end of the day.

Don’t just go over that with them who is in there. Ask them to engage with you. That’s the most important thing because here’s the thing. If you don’t ask, it’s 100% no. If you ask, at least you have a 50% chance that it will be a yes.

If you don't ask, it's 100% no. If you ask, at least you have a 50% chance that it will be a yes.

I think we don’t ask because we’re scared about what might happen, “They might say no. They might reject us. They might tell us we’re too expensive.” In reality, if we don’t ask, we don’t know. What our clients have seen here at the Abundant Accountant is the one they asked, big changes happen. They have a full bank account, and they’ve seen massive shifts. They have many clients that they love working with and they’ve got rid of all their low-paying ones.

That’s more fun. People tend to worry about the nos, but then they don’t focus their brains on the yeses. They get less yeses because they’re focusing on the nos. That’s a mindset thing. It’s like looking in the rearview mirror instead of looking at what’s in front of you.

That’s a good way to put it.

Usually, if you’re focused on the rearview mirror, it doesn’t turn out well.

How To Avoid Being Ghosted

These are all the mistakes that a lot of firm owners have that we’re making, which is resulting in prospects ghosting us. We talked about it a little bit already. What do you feel would be the best approach for someone who has a prospect where they are like, “I am done being ghosted. I never want this to happen again. What do I need to do?”

I think we did touch on it. Right. The first thing to do is to be prepared before your meeting. Know what you’re going to offer. Have either your proposal. We don’t obviously recommend proposals. We represent engagement letters because in an engagement letter, you can sign a move forward and engage, but to have it ready ahead of time, have an idea, know what you want to be paid and be ready for that. Maybe you have a couple of options laid out.

Go over with them. Offer to go over it with them in your meeting so you can answer any questions that they may have about it. If there are no questions, say, “Let’s move forward. Let’s sign this. Let’s get a deposit or let’s take your payment. How do you want to handle them?” These are MasterCard ACH. You’re done. Imagine how wonderful that feels.

You don’t have to wonder. You don’t have the unknown. The biggest thing is how we clear our headspace from all of the wonder and all of the unknown that exists in your current sales process because those are the things holding us back. Those are the things that frustrate us. When we’re frustrated, we can’t serve our clients at a high level.

We’ve got to clear out the past belief that it’s easier for us to send something and wait because it’s not easy.

It’s reading more work, but I think Denise recommended the analysis of how many proposals you sent out or quotes. How much money have you left on the table? Another thing is to calculate a conversion metric. If I sent out 100 proposals and I only had 5 people, that’s a horrific conversion percentage. Looking at your actual numbers. Look in whatever system you have. How many were sent and how many engaged and did you even ask for the amount you wanted or did you lowball your price to try to see if then they would accept your proposal? That’s another thing you could explore and look at.

That’s another big mistake or giving them a discount to say yes now. That doesn’t work real well. You have to calculate in. It’s not just how much you could have made if you had asked and they said yes, but how much did it cost you to acquire that potential lead if you’re spending money on marketing or you’re not spending money on marketing, how much time did you invest in networking or building relationships for referral partners? There are all costs involved in that. Is it more painful to ask or if you look at how much it’s costing you, which is more painful?

You have to look at it for yourself. Does the passive approach serve you and serve your prospects or is that driving you crazy? That’s up to you to figure out. We can’t do that for you, but we can definitely tell you what to look at. I would look at how many proposals you sent, how much money you’ve left on the table by lowballing your prices in hopes that they would sign them and then how many were engaged versus lost and proposal land. Is there anything else that you want to add that maybe we haven’t talked about yet to help firm owners understand why prospects ghost firm owners when they send out proposals?

Understanding and thinking about yourself, your own beliefs like why you are afraid to ask right then and there? Ask somebody to say yes to you. Look inside and see, “Is it true if I ask that it’s scary?” Maybe it’s not scary what would feel better for you to get a yes or even a no right then and there and then move on. Sometimes that’s the best thing to do. Say, “Thank you for being honest,” and then let go. Move on to the next one.

Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. It’s always an honor to have conversations. If you are a firm owner and you’re reading, you’re completely overwhelmed with the amount of proposals you’ve sent out, no one’s responded or very little and you’re sick of being stressed out and anxious all the time, wondering, you want to stop trading your time for dollars and let go of overly demanding clients and get paid based on your value, worth and boost your revenue, here’s what I have for you.

Denise and I show you a system to fill your firm with the ideal clients who not only value your time so you can catapult your firm to the next level but also figure out what hours you want to work and do what you want to do while still having plenty of free time each week for yourself and your family? Not only that, we show you how to do all of this in a way that feels simple, effortless and automatic, giving you the confidence to learn how to ask for the sale and payment when you meet someone so you never send a proposal again. If you want to show you exactly how to do this, go to TheAbundantCall.com and book a call with me, Denise or another team member of ours. I look forward to speaking to some of you soon. Thank you so much for being here and have a wonderful day.