Most US firms know they need to start expanding into advisory to keep up with the changing market. But rolling it out to your entire client book seems like a massive challenge. So ... what if you didn't have to?
Most farm clients won't ask for advisory.
Some don't even know their accountant offers it.
And then there's all those farmers who just don't want it. For them, rolling out advisory services would be a constant battle for time, and a regular argument over fees.
So if your practice is trying to move into advisory, where do you start? In a recent Figured-sponsored webinar with Insightful Accountants, accountants were asked what was stopping them from offering more ag advisory and 'not knowing where to start' came out on top.
Well, the place to start is in realizing that as much as you might want to roll out high-value advisory everywhere, it's just not right for everyone.
It used to be the case that advisory simply wasn't feasible at scale, that the complex spreadsheet work and time-consuming meeting prep couldn't be rolled out across the entire book. These days, platforms like Figured make it so much simpler to do better, faster advisory work, you could roll it out to everyone and still not break capacity.
So the barrier now isn't so much feasibility as desirability. And on that, you can split most farm books into three layers of clients:
1. The top. A small group of white-glove clients who take a lot of time and pay fees to match. They're valuable relationships, but even an AI-enhanced, standardized model doesn't stretch much past a handful.
2. The base. Clients who will stay compliance-only, however much they might benefit from advisory work. Some of them are winding down. Some will farm the way they always have. They deserve excellent compliance work, and the practice doesn't need to push them anywhere else.
3. The middle. The largest group, and your opportunity: clients who should be getting advisory but aren't. Some don't know you offer it. Some would value it as soon as they saw it working.
Most practices work with the middle band already, but only as one-off projects (like forecasts for next week's lender meeting, or quick looks at an investment). With no structure in place, each request is a scramble at the time, and not every practice bills properly for the work.
A defined service with a set price can turn those requests instead into routine work the client expects to pay for.
Four types of client tend to sit in the middle, and each needs a different approach.
Growth clients. Expanding, borrowing to grow, or newer to farming and treating the operation as a business from day one. These clients are usually the most eager to talk about what's next.
Clients under pressure. High debt, high interest costs, and margins squeezed by input costs or commodity prices. They need advisory the most, but they're the least likely to want a new cost, and they'll want to see the numbers before they commit.
Efficiency clients. Still planning in spreadsheets, double handling data between systems, or calling last season for a plan in a hurry. They're already half-asking for advisory; it just isn't structured yet.
New clients. With no history at the firm and no expectations about price, a new client is the easiest place to set the terms of the service from the start.
Some of those groups will say yes faster than others. Growth clients are usually keen to talk, efficiency clients are already asking you for plans, and new clients have no fee history to reset.
So start with growth, efficiency, and new clients. Build a few wins with them first, then take those results to the clients under pressure.
Learn more: How to Prove Advisory Will Work at Your Ag Practice
Leaving clients under pressure until later can seem backwards, since they're the ones carrying high debt and tight margins. But stress can make them less eager for new services.
Wins from your growth and efficiency clients give you something concrete to show them. A real result from a nearby operation can do more than any pitch, and farming communities share those stories quickly.
Learn more: Growing 20x in 5 Years: Ashly Lindberg's Story
Deciding who to offer advisory to, and in what order, is your first decision. The second is how much planning each of those clients needs.
Our Farm Planning and Budgeting Made Easy framework splits planning into three levels, based on what a client needs and the data they can provide:
A reasonable starting point is to put efficiency clients and clients under pressure at Level 1, and growth clients at Level 2 or 3, depending on the decisions ahead of them.
Tiered pricing that mirrors those levels gives every client an entry point that suits their budget. Clients can then move up a level as you prove the value to them.
Sorting your book tells you who to start with, and the levels give each of those clients a starting point. The rest is about rolling it out.
The full guide walks through each level in depth, including what you'll need from each client and what you deliver in return. It also lays out a starting path for firms new to planning, so the clients you've identified can have their first plan this season.