We help accountancy firms convert compliance clients into advisory revenue — without the awkward sell, and without changing who they are.
Most multi-service firms have the technical capability sitting in the building. The advisory revenue isn’t lost to competitors — it’s lost to three behavioural failures that compound on each other.
An audit senior may have a beer with Dave from corporate tax every Friday and still have no idea what problems Dave solves for clients. So they can’t spot the trigger in a client conversation.
Even when something is sensed, the language isn’t there. “I think you should talk to Dave” feels clunky and salesy, so it doesn’t get said. The warm intro has to be drilled until it’s automatic.
Fifteen years of trust. A genuine fear that the client will think “why didn’t you spot this?” The referral dies at partner level even when the manager flagged it correctly. This is the biggest one.
Three engagements, designed to flow into each other. You can stop after any of them — most firms don’t.
Two firms can have an identical £2m gap and need completely different interventions. We examine all four lenses and show you exactly which one is driving yours.
Quantifying the missed opportunity in £. Modelled across your top clients, your service line take-up, and benchmark advisory penetration rates. Most firms have never seen this number.
Internal awareness of service lines and triggers. Whether managers and seniors can recognise an R&D opportunity, a Patent Box claim, or a succession conversation when it sits in front of them.
Habits, language, partner blocks, fear of selling. The hardest lens to fix and where most training programmes fail. This is where habit is built or stays broken.
Compensation, recognition, referral tracking, leadership signals. If finders, minders and grinders are paid the same, behaviour won’t shift no matter how good the training is.
I’m Gemma Dobson, founder of The Advisory Gap. CTA, ATT and AAT Level 3 qualified. My career has taken me through Big 4 and Top 20 firms, most recently in a senior business development role leading tax cross-selling across the firm.
I’ve sat in the rooms where partners didn’t make the referral. I’ve been the one trying to get the manager to pick up the phone to corporate tax. I’ve watched advisory training programmes land in firms and quietly evaporate six months later.
The Advisory Gap exists because the problem is solvable — but only if you treat it as a behavioural one, not a technical one. That’s what we do.
A 30-minute discovery call. No pitch deck. Just a frank conversation about what you’re seeing in your firm and whether the Gap Audit is the right next step.
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