The Wize Way

Episode 168: Clients Only Want to Deal with You? That’s a Problem

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 2 • Episode 168

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Is your firm stuck because every client wants to talk to you?

That’s not loyalty, that's a business bottleneck. 

In this episode of The Wize Way Podcast, Ed Chan unpacks: 

✅ Why owners become the bottleneck in client relationships
✅ The hidden cost of flat teams (where one person does everything)
✅ How to build a Client Minding Team that frees you to scale
✅ Transitioning client trust without damaging relationships

If you’re tired of being “the only one clients will deal with,” this episode will show you how to get your time back, without losing client trust.

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PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:

1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Strategy Map for FREE - Find out the 96 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here

2. Need to Hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here

3. Book a 1:1 Wize Discovery Session – Spend 30mins with our Wize CEO, Jamie Johns, a $7M firm owner who is ready to give you his entire business plan to build a firm that can run without you – Find out more here

4. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

Speaker 1:

When someone says I only want to deal with you, that's not what they're really saying. Because of this misunderstanding that you think that everybody wants to deal with you. They're just saying to you that I don't know the person. I want to get to know the person, I want to be able to trust that person, and that takes time, and it takes more time with some than others.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Wise Way, the show for accounting and bookkeeping firm owners who want more time, profit and freedom, and a business that can run without them. I'm Bren Ward, your host, and each week, we deep dive into the real stories, proven strategies and battle-tested tools from successful firm owners. Just like you, our wise mentors want to share their journey of how they've scaled and systemized their way to freedom. So you can, too. If you're stuck in the grind or you're ready to scale smarter, this is your blueprint. Let's get into the episode.

Speaker 3:

Hi everyone. I'm sitting here with the man himself, ed Chan. I am so excited for this session today Been planning it for a couple of weeks now and I'm very excited to get started. We asked some questions to our mentors to have this conversation today with Ed to see what are the topics that our firm owners are experiencing or asking about or concerned about, what are the topics that are relevant for our listeners and audience, and we wanted to ask Ed and see what wisdom he's going to share with us. How are you feeling, ed?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm all ready and looking forward to it.

Speaker 3:

Awesome, so let's get started, Ed. Most of our firm owners are encountering many challenges, and some of these firm owners asked about senior client managers why they matter. The first question that one of our listeners brought up was what's broken about how most firms use client managers and why is the wise way different?

Speaker 1:

Yes, great question, claudia. Yes, well, it matters, because when you're building a business, you need different skills and I call them grinding, mining and finding. And, yes, you do need to get the work done. So you need people to do the work, to do the work. But you also need a minder, a manager, to manage the work, and also you need a finder.

Speaker 1:

And most firms run what I call flat teams and they hire somebody to do everything and that's not very cost effective and it's also not very conducive often to the personality of the individual that's been put in that role. So often I get accountants say to me oh you know, my staff just won't pick up the phone and talk to the client because the most effective way of dealing with the client is to speak to them, not to send them an email. And it's because you're expecting a grinder, someone that likes to do the work, and not a people person, to pick up the phone and talk to someone when they're not a people person. So you're forcing them to go against what their nature is. And it's a little bit like playing sports, claudia, like everybody knows football or soccer and, uh, there's different positions in on the on the soccer team and you've got to pick people that suits those positions. So if you're a really fast person, you want to put that person on the wing, and if you're, you know, someone that's got really good reflexes, you want to put that person in the goal position as a goalie, and so forth. So some people have an instinct to join, you know, to set the forwards up, to score goals. So everybody has a position and in business it's exactly the same. So you want to put someone in the position where they enjoy talking to people and they enjoy people because they're the ones that will pick the phone up and talk to the person.

Speaker 1:

But if you ask someone that likes to do the production and not like to talk to people, and you ask them to talk to clients, they tend not to do that. And also, when there's a problem, it's always best to pick the phone up and talk, and grinders don't like to do that. They'll send another email. If you send an email, if there's a complaint by a client and you send an email, that's the worst thing to do. You need to pick the phone up and the grinders won't do that. They'll send an email and that tends to escalate the problem, not water the problem down.

Speaker 1:

So you've got to put people in the right seat in the right bus and the most important position is the client manager role, because that's the role for communication and generally as you're growing your firm, and the owners themselves take that role. And often you know, the owner themselves are all three grinding, mining and finding. But that's a problem if you want to grow the firm because you can't do everything and it's much easier to find grinders than it is to find miners or finders, to find grinders than it is to find minders or finders. So most people that go to university and choose accounting, they're more introverted and more of a grinding personality and you know, I'd say 80% of them are and then 20% of them are more they are, they like people and they can do both.

Speaker 1:

But when you're trying to grow the firm, the hard people to find are the people that enjoy talking to others, but there's a lot of people who just like to sit there and do the work.

Speaker 1:

So we developed this deep and narrow team structure as opposed to a flat structure, so that people can play from a position of strength, so they can be who they are and be, you know, be themselves, and then it's natural and if you're in your flow then you enjoy, you're really happy, and if you're really happy you're a lot more productive and you know it's just a really good dynamic if you put people in the right seat in the right bus and then you watch the whole team, right seat in the right bus, and then you watch the whole team work together in a dynamic way and everybody's complimenting each other.

Speaker 1:

The big mistake that owners make is when they think they've got to hire someone just like themselves. You really need to hire someone that compliments you and you've got to understand that the service that you offer to the client is made up of grinding, is made up of minding, and it's also made up of finding and you need to find people in those particular roles. So that's a long-winded answer to your question, but I think it absolutely matters. I think it absolutely matters and, of course, the way to progress your firm is that as you grow your firm, you find people to join the team, but the easiest one to find is the grinding, so someone that enjoys just sitting there doing the work. And then, of course, as you grow the firm, then you've got to.

Speaker 3:

We set up teams and then you just add another team on and another team on, but invariably the hardest role to find is the senior client manager, because that person needs to be very experienced and also needs to enjoy talking to people yeah, totally, and something that you said was very relevant and I think it's key to this conversation, because you just said that some owners embody the role of the senior client manager at the beginning and then, when they are hiring for one, they want to find someone like them and many have this friction with their clients when they're doing this transition, because clients want to stay with them with the owner and they want to manage things with the owner.

Speaker 3:

But, as we know, that could quickly turn into a bottleneck. So how do you, how do you used, to handle and channel these conversations with clients? Or how did you manage the client saying no, but I want to speak directly to Ed, or I want to work directly with Ed. How did you handle that situation usually?

Speaker 1:

Yes? Well, that's a great question, because that's part of the problem of scaling your business and people don't like change. Clients don't like change. That's part of the problem of scaling your business and people don't like change. Clients don't like change. It doesn't matter who they are, people generally don't like change and if you introduce somebody else to them, of course they're going to push back. But I found that people are either early adopters, middle adopters or late adopters. So what does that mean? What it means is that you know the early adopters they don't mind change you can. They're changing all the time. You know they're chasing the next shiny thing or the next thing that interests them and they're changing very quickly. But the middle adopters I'm a middle adopter, I don't like change, but I do change, but it takes me a little bit more to change. So I need to create a new habit and by creating a new habit, I've got to do the new thing a few times before it becomes a new habit. And then there's the later adopters, who take a long time to change and they have to do the new thing 20 or 30 times before it becomes a new habit.

Speaker 1:

So if you appreciate the client that you're dealing with some clients you can. Of course it starts with when they come in. They've only met you, they don't know anybody else in the firm, so of course they're going to come back to you. If you don't introduce somebody else to them, um, you're not going to have a chance of even you know, transitioning. But so because they don't know anybody else, they just know you. So when they say I only want to deal with you, they're not really saying I only want to deal with you. It's just what they're really saying is you haven't introduced anybody else to me, I don't know anybody else in your family and B when you do introduce somebody else to them, they might be middle adopters or they might be late adopters, which means that you've got to take the middle adopters, you've got to be in that meeting four or five or six times until they're comfortable with the new person, and then they transition over to the new person and then, with late adopters, you're going to be in that meeting 20 times before they're comfortable with the new person. So it's not about you or just wanting to deal with you. It's about being comfortable with the new person that they're dealing with and getting to know them. That's the secret and if you hire the right people.

Speaker 1:

So if you hire a people person for the client manager role, then the and because they're people, they're a people person. You know people like them generally, so the transition is much, much easier. But if you put a grinder in that role, it's going to be much, much harder to transition. That person, you know the client may not resonate with you. Yeah, finder in that role, it's going to be much, much harder to transition. That person, you know the client may not resonate with him. Yeah, um, but generally the owners are a combination of all three. But I find with the owners when they start their business, they've got to be like a finder kind of person. A person who's a finder is a people person. Yeah, so generally people that start their own businesses are a people person and they can attract a lot of new clients and so you've got to find someone.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't have to be a people person in that client manager role, but that person has to like people, not shy away from people, and they've got to be fairly knowledgeable because knowledge can, even if someone doesn't click with you, your knowledge can overcome. You know some differences in personalities and so forth. So you and spontaneous and service. If you don't know something, you can, you know, make sure you go away, find out, but you've got to make sure you come back to that client and then you know, provide the answer. And the worst thing to do is to say I'll get back to you on that and you don't, and then that loses trust. So they're the ingredients. So when someone says I only want to deal with you, that's not what they're really saying. So you've got to understand the dynamics, otherwise you'll recoil into all my clients only want to deal with me and then you'll burn yourself out and you won't be able to scale your business because of this misunderstanding that you think that everybody wants to deal with you.

Speaker 1:

Because I'm an example of that. I started my practice and my business. Everybody was just seeing me and I transitioned it right across. I don't see anybody anymore and my largest client is still there and they're quite happy with the new person they're dealing with, and so it works. But you've just got to get the technique right there. And you know they're quite happy with the new person they're dealing with, and and and uh, so it works, um, but you? But you just got to get the technique right and it starts with your mindset. Don't think that when someone says they only want to deal with you, that's what they're really saying. They're just saying to you that you know, I don't. I don't know the person. I want to get to know the person. I want to be able to trust that person. And that takes time, and it takes more time with some.

Speaker 3:

Awesome. So from that and I find it very interesting because that's one thing that happens when you are hiring a client manager you said that a rule of thumb should be that this person is a people's person and that's the best case scenario, right? You hire a client manager and this person goes very well, your early, middle and late adopters get on very well with this senior client, but then there's the B side of this thing and it could go really wrong. So what do you think or what have you seen one mistake firm owners make when they're defining the role or hiring this person that makes a senior client manager or a client manager fail at their position. What's one thing you've seen that makes them really not not stay for long?

Speaker 1:

well, um, a common thing is that, um, they, they think this person needs to be just as experienced as they are themselves, and they often say to me oh, that person's not ready yet, you know, she's not ready for the client manager role. That's a misconception, because if we go back to the 80-20 rule 80% as long as they can handle 80% of the questions that are coming through then you're still there for the last 20%. So the culture should be that they should be able to handle 80%. So that gives the clients some confidence. But on 20% of the times because tax is very complicated nobody, not even the partners themselves, know everything. But in the odd times that they don't know, or in the 20% that they don't know the answer it's what I said earlier it's really important they go away, they go to the partner and they ask that question of the partner, or the partner gets involved with the last 20%. So you know the partner might get called into the meeting for those questions that they don't know the answer to. So from a partner's perspective, that's the way that you can scale your business, because if you only get dragged in for the last 20%, then your capacity increases hugely. But if you get called in for 100% of the relationship with a client, then your capacity is gone and 80% of the time you don't need to be there, because if you train your client manager well enough, then they should be able to handle it 80%.

Speaker 1:

The mistake that people make is they think that they've got to handle 100% before they can get promoted to a flight manager role. That's not the case Now. If someone can only handle 60%, then you have to get involved for 40%. In other words, you get involved for a lot more and then over time you'll find that you'll only get involved with 30%, then 20%, then 10%, then eventually it's just every now and then it could be just once a year they might bring you in, or it could be once every five years they bring you in. But that's the mistake that people make, thinking that they've got to hire somebody that's got the same experience as they are.

Speaker 1:

But the main ingredient that you need to find someone is, yes, they've got different levels of experience, but they've got to generally like people. They've got to be happy to pick the phone up and talk to someone, as opposed to being more comfortable sending an email to the client, and I think that's the main ingredient. And of course you've got to have some, some level of experience because you, you, um, you know you want this person to take at least you know some workload off of you. So you're not called into every meeting. But you know, the more junior they are, the more you'll get called into the meeting.

Speaker 1:

But as long as they're trained to understand that, you know it's okay not to know the answer, but it's not okay to make up the answer. It's very important that you know they acknowledge that you know that they don't know the answer or things might have changed but text changes constantly. And the most important thing is they go away, they talk to you, they find the answer. They must go back to the client for that last 20% and then that builds trust and that's where the problem is.

Speaker 1:

So if we address the problem and not the symptom, the problem is not that they don't want somebody else to do their work for them or they just want to talk to you. That's not the problem. That's the symptom. The problem is that the person that you've given either isn't experienced enough or is not giving them good service, is not coming back to them, is not communicating and they don't know them. So that's the problem. So you've got to address those issues. You've got to address the problems, not the symptoms, and it's a slow process. So you've got to start with the right person first, which is someone that enjoys talking to people, and then you train them and you improve the other side and eventually you know it can be done.

Speaker 1:

And, of course, lots of partners still get involved. You know every now and then on the really important things you know, and they only get pulled into a meeting for those things. But the client manager has has to understand that you know they won't know everything, everything, and it's okay not to know everything, but need to come to me if you don't know something and don't make up the answers. And or bring me into the meeting, but only for the last 20. Don't bring me into the meeting, but only for the last 20%. Don't bring me into a meeting for everything, because what happens is that you know you get called into a meeting and they just sit back and watch you work and you know that's not the reason for you hiring that person. You know you're not going to pay them a wage and do their job for them. So the idea is for you to train them to do your work, but you need to do it slowly, not in a big rush, and that takes time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that takes time, and I actually wanted to make one last short question, and it's about the levels of the client manager. Can you have an assistant client manager? Can you train them into a senior client manager?

Speaker 1:

Yes, and the difference between them is experience, and so the common ingredient between them is that they've got to like people and be happy to talk to people. That's the common ingredient. The difference is just the level of experience. So senior client manager can handle, you know, most questions.

Speaker 1:

Um, and the and the assistant client manager is really a trainee that's being trained to step into the senior client manager's role. So, um, the excuse me, the way that it should work is that as you get, as that team gets busier and busier and there's more and more clients coming through, then you've got to start training an assistant client manager to handle the c and d class clients and all the the comp to answer the common questions. That and then then that leaves you with handling the a and b class clients and eventually you know that assistant client manager, the, the portfolio gets so large that they can carve off, you know, a portion of those fees and they start off in their own team and then they hire their own grinders to do the work and then they run. They eventually, you know, become independent of the original team and they run own team and they continue growing the feed base in that team. So that's your growth model moving forward.

Speaker 3:

Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much, ed, but I think everyone got a better picture of what a senior client manager or client managers can do in your practice, why they matter and how you can scale with the right person on the right seat. So we're going to be answering questions, probably in our next edition, so thank you so much for your time and bye, bye.

Speaker 1:

Stay tuned, see you next time.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the wise way. If today's episode sparked an idea or helped you see things differently, please don't forget to leave us a review. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast on your favorite platform yet, please, please, go ahead and do that as well. Let's continue the conversation here through YouTube or any other social platforms that you can find us on. And just remember, if you're not a subscriber, our weekly Friday tip newsletter. You can get that to your inbox every week. Going forward, whether you're starting out or scaling up, you don't have to do it alone. Let's build a business that works for you, the wise way. We'll see you in the next episode.