80 CAS Ops: How To Shift From Compliance Into Advisory Services

🚀 How to Shift from Compliance to Advisory Services | CAS Minute

📢 Want to shift from compliance-based services to high-value advisory work? Many firms struggle with this transition, but it’s possible to build a seven-figure advisory practice by making the right moves. In this episode, we break down:

✔️ Why compliance services are low-margin & commoditized

✔️ The mindset shift required to move into advisory

✔️ How to position advisory services to your existing clients

✔️ Step-by-step actions to start offering advisory today

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 - Introduction: Why I Built an Advisory-Only Firm

00:26 - Why Transition from Compliance to Advisory?

01:07 - The Key Mindset Shift: From Service Provider to Strategic Partner

02:19 - What is Advisory? A Simple Definition

03:37 - Shifting from Reports to Results: The Core of Advisory Work

04:37 - How to Introduce Advisory to Compliance-Only Clients

05:09 - Identifying Pain Points & Communicating Value

06:08 - Framing the Gap Between Current & Ideal Client Outcomes

06:49 - How to Package & Sell Advisory Services

07:17 - You Don’t Have to Overhaul Everything—Start Small

07:35 - Pilot Testing Advisory with 5-10 Clients

08:26 - Using Tech Tools to Streamline Advisory Work

09:12 - Final Thoughts: The Path to Becoming an Advisory-First Firm

✅ Key Takeaways:

✔️ Advisory is about driving results—helping clients make better financial decisions.

✔️ The shift starts with mindset & positioning, not just new service offerings.

✔️ Use existing client pain points to frame advisory as a natural next step.

✔️ Start with a pilot group of clients—test pricing, messaging, & delivery.

✔️ Leverage automation & tech tools to make advisory work more profitable.

Thanks for listening! Come Say Hi 👋

Full Send | Accounting & Data

LinkedIn: Roman Villard, CPA
X: @FullSendCPA
YouTube: Full Send - Accounting & Data
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Transcript

[00:00:00] I started a firm exclusively with the focus on advisory services, so I didn't go down the path of providing traditional compliance based services and then having to decide whether or not I wanted to step into advisory, but rather just started there right out of the gates. And so I. There's a distinct advantage to starting purely in an advisory capacity in order to then potentially actually go backwards into compliance-based services.

[00:00:26] But that's not where most firms are at. We built a seven figure practice based solely on advisory in less than two years, and you can do the same thing. However, the transition from traditional compliance based service offerings to more advisory based consulting. It can be difficult. we're really going through a mindset shift of how do you think, how do you price, how do you communicate with clients differently in an advisory capacity compared to that Of a compliance relationship. They're two very different things. And so today we're gonna walk through, how do we actually think about that?

[00:01:00] How do we make the transition from more compliance oriented services to advisory based thinking?

[00:01:07] So why would somebody want to actually go this direction in the first place? When I think about the more commoditized, more cookie cutter compliance type work, I think of that being maybe a little bit, little bit commoditized, a little bit low margin, and really not sitting in that value add a category.

[00:01:24] Now, when we think about value added services or being a value driven partner, a lot of compliance based firms. Think like that and communicate like that. However, don't step into the realm of actually providing value above and beyond the compliance in order to get their clients into a more profitable, more value driving relationship.

[00:01:44] So there's, there's this mindset shift that needs to occur that starts the very moment that you have an interaction with a prospect and or even before that. The moment that they land on your website, how are you messaging what you do to them? That innately solves a problem and drives value towards an outcome.

[00:02:02] We're really trying to shift from a service provider to a strategic partner. That's the goal. If we're looking to get into advisory work, we need to angle on strategy, on value, and on outcomes rather than compliance and deadlines and filings.

[00:02:19] So what is advisory at the end of the day? How can we define advisory to say this is or is not an avenue that we want to pursue? The way that I think about it is very simple. Are you helping your clients make better financial decisions based on the work that you're doing for them? Lemme repeat that.

[00:02:37] Are your clients able to make better financial decisions based on the work that you are doing for them? Do your clients in the relationship that you have with them feel like they're better equipped to have a better outcome in the future than had they not worked with you at all? Do they feel more prepared to have conversations?

[00:02:57] About their financials because they are in order, because they feel confident in the way that they're being arranged, the advice that they're being given and the general nature of the relationship that they have with you. If yes, you're providing advisory services, no matter how you qualify that on the front end in terms of what services you are actually providing.

[00:03:17] I'm a firm believer that advisory can happen from the transactional layer of accounting. All the way through the strategic CFO work, so you could advise very specifically on an AR process or maybe a new system implementation that can improve the efficiency of their AR AP inventory movements on a day-to-day basis.

[00:03:37] I think that is just as much advisory consulting as is cashflow forecasting, scenario modeling, things like that, that would sit more under the business insights and CFO spectrum.

[00:03:49] So if we think about that through the lens of like, we're, we're really just trying to improve outcomes for our clients. We're trying to provide value above and beyond what we're doing. We're trying to provide comfort to our clients. What we're trying to do as we shift into advisory services, we're, we're, we're going through a transition mentally from we are generating a report to our clients, to, we are generating a result for our clients.

[00:04:11] Now, ultimately, it is on the client to enact the advice that you are providing to them. If you're able to shift a mentality from, here's just a report, good luck. This is a part of our deliverable to here's what we want you to achieve. By nature of the insights garnered from this report, we're moving towards results.

[00:04:30] We're trying to drive action. That should be the goal of any firm that's looking to get into client advisory services.

[00:04:37] Now if we haven't been there before and we've really been leaning more heavily on compliance-based work, like tax returns or bookkeeping services that really just yield in this recurring work that goes on and on without that extra advisory layer on top of that, like how do we shift into that new realm?

[00:04:53] How do we get those existing clients to say, okay, there is additional value above and beyond what you're doing, uh, because their perception of you is so. Based on the compliance you've been doing for them, they may not be aware that there could be additional value placed on top of that. So how do we, how do we bridge that gap?

[00:05:09] One, we can go through a big client analysis to identify what are the pain points that most of our clients are experiencing? Are most of them experiencing pain points in.

[00:05:18] The invoicing process, the AP processes are, are there more transactional accounting items that we are doing already for our clients? That our clients have pain points within? I. Now once we've established what pain points exist within our client base, and ideally we're, we're moving from like the highest burning issue that we see most prevalently down to maybe other lower value tasks that are maybe more one-off, but your clients still face it in order to come back to the question of like, how do we move into this territory?

[00:05:48] So we've identified this pain point that exists with a client. Then we want to communicate the gap that exists between, here's what you're doing today, here's what we could be doing, and, and here's the gap that exists. Now, if you're able to take that gap, communicate it well of, there's one way to do it.

[00:06:08] There's a better way to do it and say, if you don't move to this better way of doing it, here's the potential outcome that it could have on you and or your business. Maybe it's a time input equation. If your time is being spent doing this, but it could be spent in a higher value task, this gap could translate to X dollars in revenue.

[00:06:27] We're again, focusing on results here. Now, once you've identified that gap, you've communicated what that issue is, you then want to actually formalize that and say like, here's a new engagement letter. Here's a new way that we can help you solve that. Rather than just reporting on it. So every month you may be reporting on existing issues that happen in the business, but not taking any action on it.

[00:06:49] So if you can start to bridge that gap and then communicate how and why you can solve it more efficiently, that then yields an outcome for your client. Now you are starting to move down the path of really starting to provide value for clients. Now the communication of what. New advisory services you're offering is going to be so important.

[00:07:06] So I definitely encourage you to go back and listen on some of those sales messaging episodes that we have on how to frame those new advisory services. Particularly if this is gonna be the first foray into advisory services. I.

[00:07:17] Now you don't have to actually like overhaul your entire service library to step into these waters. Like it seems really daunting to move from more compliance oriented to more advisory oriented overnight. Like you don't have to do that. You can take baby steps, identify five, 10 clients. That could be great.

[00:07:35] Relationships, great prospects for communicating what this new value proposition could look like. And then beta test, see what works, see what messaging lands, see what type of outcomes you're driving towards really lands with the prospect or lands with the client. That will give you an indicator on like, how do we actually roll this out more broadly relative to our internal skill sets, experiences, and the value that we want to be driving.

[00:07:58] Before you do that, before you reach out to those five 10 pilot test clients, you really want to have some degree of a strategy built out on like, how are we actually gonna deliver on this value? Ideally, it's. A function of identifying the pain point, solving that that really is the value driver. But if you can identify tools that can help you be more efficient in that process, you know, I'm thinking of like a live flow, a fathom, other API tools or other efficiency tools to get to value more quickly.

[00:08:26] You will have a much better path towards creating a higher profitability, towards creating higher profitability in your work because you have a plan in place and you can again, test that with a small group.

[00:08:38] So if we can step back and say, what action can we take today to step into this new territory? One, I'd say identify those five to 10 clients that you can look at and say. I think they would be prime candidates to step into this new type of service offering, and that could be based on the relationship you have with them.

[00:08:56] It could be based on the complexity of their business. It could be just simply based on the amount of pain that they're feeling in specific processes of their business. I. Once you've identified those clients, you wanna take a very simple offering. So make it maybe instead of a really big step into advisory, it's just a small step.

[00:09:12] Hey, we wanna solve this pain point for you. If you could take a small step and establish a new pathway in their minds of how to think about you and what value you can provide, you then start to expand the aperture on how they think about you. Instead of being just a compliance oriented bookkeeping shop or tax shop, you now shift in their mind towards being more of a value driven advisor.

[00:09:34] So even that baby step, a small thing can really make a big difference just on perception alone. I. Then once you have a little bit of data and feedback on how those initial tests are going, put it back into your model. Hey, how should we actually price this thing for the next opportunity that comes up?

[00:09:49] That will then position yourself to move forward really well for every new opportunity to start to drop in this new advisory and over the course of time. You become an advisory practice. Your services move from compliance to advisory and to value much more intentionally. So I hope that's a helpful overview on how to think about moving from compliance to advisory services.

[00:10:12] I really help hope that that helps you move in 2025 to become a more profitable, sustainable, and happy firm more next time.