Coaching Better Business Development in Accounting Firms

Sebastian Fox

Sebastian Fox is a qualified team and executive coach. He’s an expert in helping accounting professionals develop better, longer lasting and profitable relationships with clients, prospects and referrers.

He has worked with over 200 individuals helping them build their business with existing and new clients, delivering tangible improvements in their performance across a variety of areas, including winning more work, client management and “asking the right questions”.

Seb’s background is from both industry and professional services through 3i, Arthur Andersen, BAT and Eversheds and he worked for a number of years overseas. Outside his work for the Brown Fox Consultancy, Seb spends time playing and watching rugby, plus a fair amount of travelling. Listen to this insightful interview with a world-class business coach and team performance facilitator, and enjoy these takeaways:

• Exactly how coachable are people like accountants and lawyers?
• “In the 80s and 90s, you could be average and make money. That game has changed”
• For very large firms, the brand is important. Outside the top 5-10 firms, it’s more about personal brands
• The ability to win work is the #1 metric for success in professional services
• 5% of professionals are good at BD. 5% will never be. It’s the 80% that makes the difference
• Few professional firms properly measure the effects of business development training
• Why traditional classroom training is ineffective
• How team coaching can help improve BD performance
• The power of collaboration in producing confident and effective work winners
• The key factors in maximizing BD performance amongst professionals
• BD is the fulfilment of the opportunities created by marketing
• Big mistake large firms make – thinking everyone can be good at everything
• Why the top 20 firms are doing well and those outside that are ‘caught in the valley of death’
• How lawyers lose out to accountants as the trusted advisor for their clients
• How Brexit and AI are impacting the growth for many professional firms
• The biggest frustration in large professional firms – the difficulty in making decisions
• The ONE THING firms will need to do if they want to succeed in coming years

…and much much more!

Seb’s expertise covers professional services and multinationals in the areas of interviewing customers, developing strategies and tactics to improve relationships and grow businesses. He’s also experienced in a wide range of marketing and sales projects ranging from implementing price increases to restructuring marketing departments. He has worked with over 150 individuals to help them maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of their business development efforts. To contact him directly, go to www.brownfoxconsultancy.com or phone: 07930 98 66 77 or Twitter: @Sebastian_bfc or Liked your PFA Podcast Interview with Rob Brown" target="_blank">email him directly>>

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianfox/

Key skills include: team coaching, CRM, client interviewing,client satisfaction programmes, changing partner behaviours, business development coaching, project management, business strategy.