- An owner-led accounting or advisory firm wins clients beyond referrals by building a second source next to them: check how much you rely on a few introducers, know what a client is worth and what one costs to win, reach a short list of firms that fit from a partner's own LinkedIn profile, and fix what happens after the first call.
- On our own lost deals, the person who could sign was missing from most first calls, and not one of 23 lost calls over the last few months ended with a date in the diary.
- It takes months, not weeks. One client had three to five good meetings a month from us throughout their first ten months, and signed a large deal from that pipeline in month ten.
Most of the accounting, advisory and other professional services firms I speak to were built on referrals. The work is good, clients say so, and the next piece of work arrives. That doesn't need fixing. What it needs is something next to it.
How does a firm win clients beyond referrals?
In six steps. This is the start-here guide to my weekly Beyond referrals series: each step links to the issue that covers it, and new issues fill in the rest.
- Find out how much you rely on referrals. List your last ten clients and where each came from. (Part 1)
- Know two numbers. What a client is worth over the whole relationship, and what it costs to win one through each channel. (Part 2)
- Choose who to reach, and when. A short list of firms that fit, and the moments they are likely to buy. (Coming in the series)
- Run a senior person's LinkedIn as a sales asset. Content in their voice, messages from their own profile, every message checked by a person. (Coming in the series)
- Fix what happens after someone agrees to talk. Get the person who signs on the first call, and end every call with a date in the diary. (Part 2)
- Give it months. Start while the referrals are still coming in. (Part 1)
How do you know you rely too much on referrals?
List the last ten clients you signed, and next to each one write down where it came from. Then count how many came through the same three or four people. If those people went quiet for a quarter, what would happen to the business?
The reasons referrals slow down are ordinary ones. The partners get too busy with delivery. The juniors' networks are much thinner than the partners'. Introducers retire and clients change firms. And the network ages with the partners, so the people who once sent work are further from the buying decision every year. I wrote about this in why referrals slow down.
There's a second problem hidden underneath. A referral does most of the selling before you arrive, so a firm built on introductions rarely learns to sell to someone who doesn't know it yet. That's why professional services firms often aren't built to sell.
What should you measure first?
Two numbers most firms don't know.
- What a client is worth. What an average client pays you over the whole relationship, net of margin. Work it out for each service line, then for the firm. Every other decision depends on it.
- What it costs to win one. Referrals feel free, but growing beyond them means paying for other channels: salespeople, ads, your website, conferences. Track what each costs and what it brings in.
Then track the basics a sales culture runs on: meetings a week, proposals sent, how many turn into clients, and where every deal came from. There's more on this in you can't manage what you don't measure.
Who should you reach, and when?
A short list of firms that fit your ideal client beats thousands of contacts, especially in a market where everyone knows everyone. Then watch for the moments a firm is likely to buy: a new CFO, a fund close, a first office in a new country. These moments are public and short-lived, and the firm that gets in touch inside the window gets the meeting.
Don't forget the people who refer work. Lawyers, accountants, tax advisers and family offices need their own list and a warmer approach.
Which channel works best after referrals?
Part of the second stream is inbound: a website that holds up when people check you out, something useful to download, and a newsletter that keeps you front of mind. Each of those only pays off if you know who is engaging and you follow up with the right people.
For most of the firms I work with, the strongest channel after referrals is LinkedIn. It has more than a billion members, and 65 million are decision makers. If your clients are businesses, your buyers are almost certainly there.
We treat a senior executive's profile as a sales asset. It still builds the brand, but its main job is to start conversations with people who can buy. That means content in the partner's own voice, messages sent from their own profile rather than an agency account, and a person checking every message before it goes. Run properly, it takes very little of the partner's time.
Judge it on meetings, not replies. In our study of 2,279 LinkedIn conversations, two campaigns with reply rates 2.7 times apart booked about the same number of meeting conversations per hundred messages, 9.6 and 9.1.
What happens after someone agrees to talk?
This is where most referral firms lose the work they've just won the chance to pitch for. Someone needs to own each new conversation, have time in their diary for it, agree a next step and follow through when the buyer goes quiet.
When we went back through our own lost deals, two things stood out. In every deal we won, the person who could sign was on the first call; in most of the deals we lost, they weren't. And not one of our 23 lost calls over the last few months ended with a date in the diary. The calls we won ended with a next step agreed that day.
Follow-up timing matters too. In the same study, one follow-up sent three to five days after the first message revived 14.6% of silent threads, against 8.2% when it went at six to nine days.
The habits that hold this together are simple: a CRM, a weekly look at the pipeline, and partners who take part in it.
How long does it take?
Months. One of our clients had three to five good meetings a month from us throughout their first ten months, and the team had to learn how to work those meetings, follow them up and become more sales-focused. In month ten they signed a large deal that came from the LinkedIn pipeline.
The bigger change is that they now have a second channel. That's why the best time to start is while the referrals are still coming in. Building a sales habit is much harder when the pipeline has already slowed and every conversation has to close.
How does a referral-based accounting firm in South Africa win new clients?
The six steps are the same. Two things are local.
First, the market is tightly networked, so a short, researched list matters even more than elsewhere. Second, POPIA. It is aimed at bulk, unsolicited, automated marketing. Targeted messages written by a person, sent to people for whom your service is relevant, honest about who you are and easy to decline, sit on the right side of that line. This is general guidance, not legal advice.
For one South African strategic advisory firm, The K3Y, outreach from the partners' own profiles produced 10 C-suite meetings and a USD 650,000 deal within ten weeks. There's more on how we work with advisory, consulting and accounting firms in South Africa.
Where do you start this week?
Two lists. First, your last ten clients and where each came from. Second, your last ten proposals: next to each, write won, lost or silent, and the last thing that happened before it stopped.
If most clients trace back to three or four people, or you can't fill in that last column from memory, you know where to start. If you'd like to compare notes with other firm leaders, I'm hosting a free online roundtable on 26 November on exactly this.
Want a second source of clients next to your referrals? We run a free 30-minute review of your profile, content and outreach, and tell you honestly what would move the needle for your firm.
Book a free LinkedIn review →Frequently asked questions
How can an owner-led accounting or advisory firm win new clients beyond referrals?
By building a second source of clients next to referrals, not instead of them. List your last ten clients and where each came from, work out what a client is worth and what it costs to win one, then reach a short list of firms that fit from a partner's own LinkedIn profile, with every message checked by a person and every first call ending with a date in the diary.
How does a referral-based accounting firm in South Africa win new clients?
The same way as anywhere, with two local points. Keep the list short, because the market is tightly networked, and keep outreach targeted and written by a person, which sits on the right side of POPIA. For one South African strategic advisory firm, outreach from the partners' own LinkedIn profiles produced 10 C-suite meetings and a USD 650,000 deal within ten weeks.
How can a professional services firm win new clients beyond referrals?
Build a second stream the firm controls. Part of it is inbound: a website that holds up when people check you out, something useful to download and a newsletter. For most firms we work with, the strongest channel after referrals is LinkedIn, run from a senior person's profile as a sales asset. Then track meetings and proposals by channel, so you know what each one is worth.
How long does it take to build a second source of clients beyond referrals?
Months, not weeks. One client had three to five good meetings a month from LinkedIn throughout their first ten months with us, and signed a large deal from that pipeline in month ten. Their team also had to learn to work those meetings and follow them up. Start while the referrals are still coming in, not after they slow.
Sean Winter
Sean is a CFA charterholder with 20+ years in finance and professional services. He founded AscendAI to turn executive LinkedIn profiles into a predictable pipeline of C-suite meetings for professional and financial services firms across EMEA.