The word “proactive” appears on almost every accountant’s LinkedIn profile and to be honest, it triggers me. Not because it’s wrong but because it implies something is being intentionally delivered when really, most of us are just following a task list and hoping that our client feels looked after.
Advisory is the same, open LinkedIn on any given morning and you will be told that advisory is the future of the profession. Better margins, better clients, better relationships. The next step for every serious firm (!)..
What nobody tells you is what it actually looks like inside a real firm, with real clients, with real compliance deadlines and a team that has seventy clients each.
Here is the part that will either reassure you or make you slightly uncomfortable.
You are probably already doing advisory. You just are not charging for it, and depending on how those conversations are happening, you may not be insured for it either.
Think about the last time a client emailed you with a quick question. You replied. They asked a follow-up. You replied again. Ten emails later you had given three hours of guidance on a tax scenario, and there was no engagement letter, no invoice, and no record of what you actually said.
That is not a client relationship, that is a liability.
When clients say they want a more proactive accountant, what most SME clients actually mean is: have you thought about my pension, have I set aside enough for tax, am I taking money out in the most efficient way, and is someone keeping an eye on things so I do not get a nasty surprise.
That is not complex tax planning. That is a structured conversation, run to a consistent process, delivered once or twice a year. At striveX we call it the month nine MOT. A templated meeting where we check the books are up to date, estimate the year-end tax position, make sure withdrawals are as efficient as possible, and give the client a clear picture of where they stand.
To them, it feels like having a co-pilot. To us, it is a paid appointment with a before, during, and after process that any trained member of the team can deliver consistently.
James said something in our last recording that I keep coming back to..
He can tell, by looking at a client file, whether that client has a structured advisory meeting in place. Not because the file looks different technically but because clients who engage with advisory meetings are the ones who get their records in on time. They plan ahead. The year-end is easier because there are no surprises.
Advisory does not add to your plate. Done properly, it removes things from it. For us and for the clients.
And on the insurance question: if a client ever says to you “my last accountant did not charge for that advice,” the answer is that they were probably not insured to give it. Professional indemnity cover requires a letter of engagement and an invoice. Without those, the advice is unprotected regardless of how well-intentioned it was. Putting a price on advisory is not about squeezing clients. It is about being a professional who stands behind their work.
The full episode, where James and I walk through exactly how we built advisory at a seven-figure firm, what the MOT looks like in practice, how we train the team to deliver it consistently, and what changed as we scaled, is inside the paid podcast.
And if you want the actual template we use for advisory calls, including the pre-meeting preparation checklist, the structured agenda, the financial discussion prompts, and the post-meeting follow-up plan, that is available to buy directly here.
If you have a colleague who is currently giving advisory conversations away for free and wondering why their margins feel thin, please forward this. It might be the most useful thing they read this week.
Rachel 🫶🏻
P.S. The full episode is inside the paid podcast. The template is available to anyone, subscriber or not, at the link above.
