1. The Season That Should Work
It’s tax planning season, and for most firms that means a full calendar and a steady stream of client conversations focused on what’s coming next, not just what’s already happened.
On paper, this is exactly what advisory is supposed to look like. The timing makes sense, the intent is right, and the opportunity to add value is clear. If there’s a moment in the year where advisory should feel natural and well received, it’s this one.
And yet, it often doesn’t quite play out that way.
The work is being done. The conversations are happening. But there’s a sense that it takes more effort than it should to get clients engaged, to hold their attention in the room, and to see meaningful follow-through afterwards.
It doesn’t feel broken. But it doesn’t feel easy either.
And that’s usually the first signal that something more fundamental is missing.
2. Before the Meeting – The First Friction
The first sign that something isn’t quite working often shows up before the meeting has even been booked.
It’s subtle enough to ignore at first. A client who takes a little longer to commit. A bit of back and forth on timing. Information that doesn’t come through as quickly as expected. A quiet question about whether it’s really necessary this year. Nothing unusual on its own, but familiar when you step back and look at the pattern.
Because while tax planning makes perfect sense from the firm’s perspective, the client is coming at it from a very different place.
They’re not thinking about timing windows or legislative opportunities. They’re thinking about what’s on their desk right now, what feels urgent in their business, and what will make a tangible difference in the near term.
And unless those two perspectives meet, the value of the conversation doesn’t quite land before it even begins.
What you’re asking for is their time, their attention, and often an upfront investment in something that hasn’t yet connected to anything they personally care about. So it gets interpreted as another meeting, another cost, another item on a list of things they know they probably should do.
At that point, the dynamic of the conversation shifts. Instead of building on an already understood need, the early part of the interaction is spent creating one. Explaining why it matters, encouraging them to engage, trying to establish relevance before they’ve had a chance to experience it for themselves.
And that’s where the friction begins.
3. In the Meeting – Good Advice, Limited Impact
By the time the meeting begins, a significant amount of work has already gone into it.
The client’s accounts have been reviewed. Adjustments have been made. Tax calculations have been worked through, often with multiple scenarios prepared to show what different decisions might mean, including the potential tax savings available.
This work isn’t just advisory in nature. It’s grounded in staying compliant. Getting the numbers right matters, and that foundation underpins everything that follows.
It also takes time. In many cases, more time than was originally scoped or budgeted.
So when you sit down together, the conversation has real substance. You’re not speaking in general terms. You’re walking them through considered options, explaining the implications, and outlining what needs to happen to achieve a better outcome.
From a professional standpoint, it’s exactly what it should be.
The client follows along. They ask questions. They agree with the direction. On the surface, the meeting is a success.
And yet, even in these well-run conversations, there can be a sense that something hasn’t quite landed in the way you expected.
Not because the advice isn’t clear, or because the client doesn’t understand it.
But because the value behind it hasn’t fully connected to anything that feels immediate or important in their world.
The numbers make sense. The options are logical. The potential savings are clear.
But they’re still being processed at a distance.
And when value sits at a distance, it’s very easy for it to be deprioritised the moment the meeting ends.
4. After the Meeting – Where It Falls Apart
After the meeting, the focus naturally shifts to implementation.
There are actions to take, decisions to follow through on, and in many cases, relatively straightforward steps that need to be completed to bring the plan to life. It’s common to follow up with a summary email outlining those action points, giving the client something clear to work from once they’re back in their day-to-day.
For some clients, that works well. They like structure, they like a list, and they’ll move through it methodically.
For others, it doesn’t quite land in the same way.
Not because they disagree with what’s been discussed, or because they didn’t understand it at the time, but because once they’re back in the rhythm of their business, the sense of importance starts to fade. What felt clear and logical in the meeting begins to compete with everything else already demanding their attention.
So the follow-up becomes more active.
A check-in to see how they’re progressing. A reminder about what was agreed. Another message to keep things moving forward.
Over time, that effort builds.
And while it’s easy to interpret this as a client issue, it rarely is. Most clients aren’t resistant. They’re simply prioritising what feels most immediate to them in the moment.
Which means the work you’ve mapped out, no matter how well considered, can quickly become something that gets pushed to the side.
The real challenge is that you often don’t see this straight away.
It surfaces later, when you’re preparing the June BAS or finalising the year-end tax returns, and you realise the agreed actions were never implemented. The opportunity has passed, and there’s nothing left to adjust.
So the frustration lingers.
Not in the moment, but over time, as the gap between what was discussed and what actually happened becomes clear.
At some point, there’s a quiet sense of exasperation.
Because even the best advice is struggling to move forward or make any real impact.
You can feel yourself stepping in more, picking things up, trying to keep the momentum going… because you care about the outcome.
And then, just as quietly, comes the reminder.
We feel responsible… even though we know, logically, we’re not their mother.
5. The Real Problem – Not Delivery
At this point, it would be easy to assume the issue sits in the delivery. That something needs to be explained better, presented differently, or followed up more consistently.
But when you step back and look at the full picture, that doesn’t quite hold.
The work is being done. The advice is sound. The client understands what’s being asked of them. And yet, across all three stages, something is still not connecting.
Before the meeting, it’s harder than expected to create engagement. In the meeting, the advice makes sense but doesn’t quite land with enough weight to drive action. Afterwards, momentum fades and implementation slows.
When the same pattern shows up consistently across the entire lifecycle, it points to something more fundamental.
This isn’t a tax planning problem, and it’s not an advisory capability problem.
It’s a value connection problem.
Advisory itself isn’t difficult to deliver. Where it becomes challenging is in justifying it, prioritising it, and ultimately acting on it when the value hasn’t been clearly understood by the client first. Without that connection, even well-structured advice can feel optional.
6. The Missing Piece – Before Everything
What’s missing isn’t more effort in the meeting, or better follow-up afterwards. It sits earlier than that.
For any advisory to land, including tax planning, the client first needs to see how it connects to something that matters to them. Not in a general sense, and not just in terms of tax saved or outcomes achieved, but in the context of their business, their pressures, and what they’re trying to move towards.
Internal motivation isn’t driven by logic. It’s driven by emotion, and then justified by logic. It’s human behaviour 101, and it plays out in every client conversation whether we acknowledge it or not.
The challenge is that most of the work is grounded in what we can see as professionals. The numbers, the opportunities, the technical correctness of the advice. All important, particularly when it comes to staying compliant, but that perspective on its own doesn’t create movement.
Too often, the starting point is what we believe is important, rather than what the client is experiencing. Until those two perspectives meet, the value of the advice sits just out of reach.
That’s why understanding becomes the key. Understanding what is actually driving the client right now, what feels urgent, what feels stuck, and what they are trying to achieve beyond the immediate task in front of them.
Once that is clear, the role of the advice changes. It’s no longer something being presented to them, it becomes something that helps them move forward. And when that connection is made, the conversation has more depth, the decisions carry more weight, and the actions that follow feel far more natural.
7. The Shift – What Changes When You Get This Right
When that understanding is established first, things begin to change in a way that feels quite natural.
Clients engage earlier, because the conversation already connects to something they care about. There’s less hesitation around booking the meeting, and less need to explain why it matters in the first place.
In the meeting itself, the dynamic shifts as well. The advice is no longer being introduced as a set of options to consider, but as a way of supporting a direction the client already understands and values. The conversation has more depth, and decisions tend to carry more weight because they are anchored in something meaningful to the client.
After the meeting, the difference becomes even more noticeable. The actions don’t feel like a list that’s been handed over, they feel like steps the client has chosen to take. Follow-up becomes lighter, not because it’s been removed, but because the ownership has shifted.
You’re no longer trying to maintain momentum on their behalf.
They’re driving it.
And that’s where advisory starts to feel less like something that needs to be pushed forward, and more like something that moves with the client.
8. Bringing It Together – A Practical Starting Point
So what does this look like in practice?
It doesn’t require a complete overhaul, and it doesn’t mean reworking everything you already do. Tax planning will still roll around, the work will still need to be done, and the compliance foundation will always be there.
What changes is how you lead into the conversation.
Yes, you still frame the meeting clearly. You let the client know it’s time for tax planning and why that matters from a timing and compliance perspective.
But before moving into the numbers, the options, and the scenarios, you shift the starting point.
You ask:
What would move the needle for you the most right now?
What would make the biggest difference in your business over the next 12 months?
And what would you like to achieve from tax planning this year?
They’re simple questions, but they change the dynamic. They give you insight into what the client actually values, and they give the client a moment to think about the conversation in a way that’s relevant to them.
There’s more that can be done throughout the year to build this understanding consistently. That’s where structure really comes into its own, and it’s something we spend a lot of time on at The Small Business Project.
But you don’t need to solve all of that today.
This is a strong step forward.
9. The Close
Tax planning will come around again next year.
The work will still be there. The opportunity will still be there.
The question is whether the experience will feel any different.
Whether the advice will connect more easily, carry more weight, and actually move forward once the meeting ends.
Because when it does, advisory stops feeling like something you need to push.
And starts to feel like something your clients are ready to act on.
Advisory works when it connects.
Understanding is where it starts.