Most NZ dairy farmers (83%) rate their accountant as "really valuable" when they receive advisory services. Only 23% say the same for compliance alone. The demand is in your client list—it just isn't being asked for.
In New Zealand, agri accountants and dairy farmers are working under a shared assumption that most don’t even realise is there.
On the accountant side, the prevailing assumption is that you’re there for your clients when they need you, and they’ll ask when that happens. Except, on the farmer side, they believe their accountant is only for compliance and tax purposes—they wouldn’t go to them for a strategic decision. So they don’t call.
Neither side chose this arrangement—it’s happened naturally over time.
But the result is that a lot of farmers are going without something they’d genuinely value.
The reason most farmers don’t ask for forward-looking advisory from their accountant isn’t apathy, and it isn’t because they’re happy with the status quo.
They’ve just … never experienced that service. There’s no expectation it should be there. They started the relationship to get help with their compliance side and for many it’s never really evolved since then.
If you’re an accountant looking to expand into advisory, this is an important distinction. There may not be much active demand in your client list, but that lack of noise doesn’t necessarily signal a lack of desire. They don’t know to ask.
Value. They want someone they can turn to for specialist expertise, who knows their business and can help them become more profitable, more capable, and more resilient to volatility. They want to look ahead, and get ahead, and feel like they aren’t so exposed to risk.
According to findings from a Xero/Figured survey, only 23% of farmers say their accountant is ‘really valuable’ when they only offer compliance services. That figure jumps to 83% when they get advisory services too.
Learn more: Handling Geopolitical Risks as a New Zealand Dairy Team
Neer Enterprises is a family-owned dairy operation in the Wairarapa, chaired by Rob Steele. The family went through several compliance-only accountants before eventually landing on an adviser who wasn’t just good at the compliance piece, but was willing to “stick his neck out” and say what he honestly thought about what should be done. That’s Brett Wooffindin, from Sidekick Rural.
What they were looking for came down to four key points:
“A trusted adviser is someone you’ve heard your mates say is really good,” said Rob. “Someone who, when you go talk to them, actually sounds like they know what they’re talking about. Someone that you feel comfortable talking to and can relate to. In our case, that’s Sidekick.”
“Most of our better clients—volatility doesn’t affect them at all because they accept it,” added Brett. “They manage it where they can. Where they can’t, they’re aware of where it’s going and they’re making decisions earlier to stop the impact of that later, if that makes sense.”
These relationships don't come out of nowhere, and they don't require transforming a practice overnight. Brett's experience building Sidekick Rural's advisory offering—alongside his work with Neer—points to three starting principles:
Start with structure. Great advisory gets ahead of a client’s needs. Brett’s first principle is to build a structure into your relationship that enables this to happen: scheduled meetings well in advance, standardised agendas, mandatory actions at the end of each meeting.
Make accountability the point. Many accountants think the value they deliver as an adviser is in the analysis. But Brett disagrees—his view is that the analysis is an input. The output is whether or not a farmer can make change as a result. That’s where accountability comes in.
Start small. Not every client will want this kind of relationship, and that’s OK. Start small, identifying a few happy clients you know you can do great work with, learn from the experience, and expand from there.
Learn more: What's the Real Value-Add in Agri Advisory? Accountability
Rob and Brett recently sat down with us to talk about their partnership, where it came from, and the specific structures and steps that make it a success. Learn more about these by downloading our free guide, “Navigating the Road Ahead: A Guide to Building Proactive Advisory Teams in NZ Dairy.”
Or catch up on the full webinar here.