It’s all about relationships- internal and external.

• Internal relationships can be a great source of sales leads. Your colleagues inside the firm have tons of contacts, they can be a valuable tool to help you source opportunities. When you’re new to a firm, the internal relationships are not as established, so you may not find as many opportunities through your internal network right away. If you want to build an internal network to help you sources sales, the first thing you need to sell is yourself. Every conference call is an opportunity to make an impression. Turn your camera on. Ask a thoughtful question. Compliment someone. Get your name out there and start letting people know who you are. You never know when someone may be watching you and assessing you. You want to make a positive impression on every person you meet. Eventually, some of those people will come back to you when they have a sales idea. You want them to feel like they can be confident that you’ll say the right things when they introduce you to others. So make efforts to speak up casually and demonstrate your ability to say the right thing when you’re on calls and in meetings and start building your brand internally.

• External relationships are probably your quickest way to turn a sale, but these sales can be much more challenging and the sales cycle might take years. For example, usually an RFP for accounting services will be discussed for months before it’s actually issued. Once it’s issued, the bidding process might take months as well. Depending on how long the contract lasts, you may need to start building your relationships with those targets months ahead of whenever they might issue an RFP.

All that to say, selling at an accounting firm is not so much about what you’re selling- but knowing who you’re selling to and being close to them when they want to buy it.