Let me say something that might make you uncomfortable.

Most accounting firms don't actually do business advisory work. They think they do. They say they do. It's right there on the website, probably between 'Tax' and 'Audit'. But when you look closely at what's actually being delivered — really delivered, in client meetings, in the advice that shapes decisions — what you find is compliance work with a different label on it.

A well-structured capital gains tax strategy is not business advisory. It's excellent tax work. There's a difference — and confusing the two is costing firms more than they realise.

The Compliance Treadmill

Here's the reality inside most mid-tier accounting firms today: partners are flat out. Not productive-busy — survival-busy. The compliance workload is relentless, the deadlines are unforgiving and the rising tide of ATO reviews and audits is an added workload. And for much of this compliance work, the fees charged rarely reflect the true cost of delivery, let alone the inherent value.

I know this because I've lived it — in my own firm and then at in a top 10 firm, where I spent twelve years as a business advisory partner, including six years in national leadership roles.  3 of those years was leading National Business Advisory which incorporated working with 32 offices, 50 partners and more than 350 staff.  Raising the advisory piece to be a leading service is hard work.

The compliance treadmill isn't a perception problem. It's structural. Firms keep running faster just to stay still. And in that environment, anything that isn't billable today gets pushed to 'when things settle down' — which, of course, they never do.

What Real Advisory Actually Looks Like

So what is business advisory, if it isn't tax planning?

It's sitting across from a client and being able to talk fluently about a few things – by way of example:

1. how to genuinely improve the client’s bottom line – pricing impacts, inventory management, staffing, occupancy, who are their customers, what are the industry trends around services and/or products, how do they innovate, implement, execute?
2. their cashflow — not just present a report, but actually understand it, interrogate it, and help them manage it as a live business tool. Can you answer these questions – where has their profit gone? And if they made a loss, what funded it? And not just answer but show it, down to the dollar in a way the client understands and can change any bad habits.
3. the KPIs that drive their industry and benchmarking performance of their business against what's genuinely achievable, and I don’t mean current ratio, or liquidity ratio. I mean KPIs that drive their P&L and turn their assets over.
4. Is their balance sheet in good shape? Keep it simple – in their terms. Should their be some debt restructuring? What capital management strategies are needed to take the business where the owner wants to go, and also help meet personal goals. 
5. Where does the owner want to go and what are those personal goals?

It's the kind of work that changes outcomes — not just optimises tax.

And here's the thing: clients will pay real money for that work. They'll also seek out the firm that can deliver it, often without a referral, purely on the strength of demonstrated expertise.

The Specialisation Advantage

One way of getting knee deep into a client’s business is to specialise in just one or two industries.  My own fee base was built around an industry – retail pharmacy. Not because the work was easy, but because deep expertise in one sector creates something generalist firms can never replicate — the ability to walk into a room cold and immediately demonstrate that you understand a client's business better than they expected any accountant could.

I often won clients I had never previously met, in a first meeting, purely on demonstrating that I understood their industry and their specific problem.  And on more than a few occasions I won work from people interstate, based on a phone call or email response. I never met them.

That's what genuine specialisation enables. You stop competing on price or relationships, and start competing on knowledge and understanding — which is a far more defensible position.

Whatever the specialisation is that you choose, know this – I know that my time in retail pharmacy didn’t just make me an expert in that industry.  It taught me how to understand what the drivers are of a business and so armed me with the approach to make clients feel that I could understand their business – not just pharmacy, but almost any business. And that is also what I told staff who came to work in my team who may have been concerned about being too specialised. “You are learning to do what it is that clients expect them to do – help them in their business.

Specialisation of industry is just one way to lead into Advisory Services.  You may choose to specialise by way of solution. Whichever way you choose to build your platform, lead with insight, not price. Demonstrate understanding and benefits, not features. Show value, and price becomes a non-issue.

The Capacity Problem — You Can't Build What You're Too Busy to Build

Here's what I hear from partners, in one form or another, almost every time:

• "We know we need to do more advisory work."
• "We've been meaning to develop a specialisation."
• "We know our pricing needs a rethink."
• "We want to invest more in technology and business development."

And then — nothing changes. Not because the intent isn't genuine, but because there is no one to do it. The partners who recognise the problem are the same partners responsible for keeping the compliance engine running. There is no slack in the system, no dedicated capacity, and often no one with the experience to know where to start.

This isn't a criticism. It's an honest diagnosis of a structural problem that most firms have quietly accepted as inevitable.

It means doing it different if you want to get a different outcome.

• Does your org structure enable you to free up advisory capacity?
• Do you have the right people keeping compliance moving and the right talent supporting advisory services?
• Have you strategically set out your advisory services?
• And then resourced it?
• Do you spend your time as a partner doing a majority of advisory and business development work, or is it spend in compliance and dealing with headaches?

What Changes When Firms Get This Right

The firms that crack advisory — that build genuine service capability, develop real specialisations (industry OR solution based), and price their work accordingly — don't just earn more revenue. They change the nature of their practice.

They attract clients who value expertise, not just the cheapest compliant return. They retain better staff, because great people want to do great work. They stop competing on price. And they build something that is genuinely hard for a competitor to replicate quickly.

The advisory gap is real. But it is also closeable — for the firms that are willing to invest the focused attention it requires.

If this resonates with where your firm is — or where you know it should be heading — I'd welcome a conversation.

The work of building an advisory practice doesn't have to start from scratch — and it doesn't have to fall on partners who are already stretched.