Professional Services Intelligence Brief
How to Identify Opportunities Within Existing Client Relationships
Winning a new client is expensive and slow. Often the faster, cheaper growth is hiding in relationships you already have, where trust is built and needs are known.
Short answer
To find opportunities within existing client relationships, map what each client buys against what you offer, look for unmet needs and unused services, and approach clients with value-based proposals rather than product pitches. Some firms start value pricing and extra services with existing clients after trying them on new ones; one accounting practice offered tax planning, a service with high perceived value that did not take much time to complete, to current clients.[1] Deltek notes that a client may be unwilling to spend more or may simply be unaware of all the services you offer.[2]
Why are existing clients the best place to look first?
Existing clients already know you, trust you and have shown they will pay for your work. You know their business, their people and their problems, and selling costs are low. By contrast, winning new clients takes time and marketing effort. The Federal Reserve’s 2024 Small Business Credit Survey found that reaching customers and growing sales was the most commonly reported operational challenge, cited by 57 percent of employer firms, up from 53 percent in 2023, and that for the first time since 2021 firms were more likely to report falling than rising revenues.[4] Deltek adds that the cost of acquiring new clients keeps increasing, which underlines the importance of retention in professional services.[2]
Growth from existing clients also tends to be more profitable, because there is less learning, onboarding and selling cost. But it requires discipline: you must understand the client’s needs rather than pushing what you want to sell, and you must not neglect delivery of the current work.
How do you find the opportunities?
Build a client opportunity map. List each client in rows and your services in columns. Mark what they buy today, what they bought in the past and what they have never bought. Add columns for the size of the client, the date of the last conversation about needs and the relationship owner. Then look for patterns: which services do your best clients buy together, which have a client never been offered, and which have declined?
| Question | What it can reveal |
|---|---|
| What other advisers does the client use, for what? | Work you could do instead of, or with, others |
| What changed in the client’s business in the last year? | New needs: growth, regulation, funding, restructuring |
| What problems did we hear about but not address? | Unmet needs mentioned in passing |
| Which of our services have they never bought and why? | Unawareness, price, trust or a gap in your offer |
| Who else at the client could use our help? | New sponsors and departments |
Deltek advises asking whether a client is genuinely unwilling to spend more or simply unaware of all the services you offer, and whether their needs have changed over time.[2] Many gaps turn out to be unawareness, which is the cheapest to close.
How should you approach the client?
Lead with the client’s problems, not your services. Schedule a short review meeting, not a sales pitch, to discuss what the client is trying to achieve in the next year and what is in the way. Bring evidence: a short summary of the work you have done, results and ideas that follow from it. Thomson Reuters observes that value is subjective: some clients may value a consultative brainstorm every month more than bookkeeping, and would pay more for advisory work on a recurring basis.[3]
Start with a small, well-defined step: a diagnostic, a plan or a pilot. The accounting firm in a Journal of Accountancy report, after trying value pricing with new clients, offered it to existing clients in conjunction with an additional tax planning service, which had a high perceived value without taking much time to complete.[1] A small step lets the client test the value before committing more.
What services tend to expand relationships?
Look at what the profession is already adding. A national accounting practice survey summarized by the Texas Society of CPAs reported that Texas respondents most often offered advisory and consulting services (77 percent), client accounting advisory services (69 percent) and tax services (66 percent).[5] These examples are specific to accounting, but the pattern holds across professional services: firms extend from compliance or project work into planning, advisory and ongoing support.
Choose additions that fit your strengths and your clients’ real needs, that can be delivered at a good margin and that you can price on value. Test each as a pilot before building it into a standard offer; see our guide on service offerings that deserve further investment.
How do you protect the relationship while growing it?
Keep delivery quality first: a client who is unhappy with current work will not buy more. Make requests rarely and with care. Do not use confidential information about one client to sell to another. Be transparent about fees and scope, and document the new agreement. Track outcomes: revenue added per client, margin on the new work, client satisfaction and retention. Review the results quarterly and adjust. A growth plan for existing clients is a long game; the aim is to be the adviser the client calls first when a problem arises.
Frequently asked questions
Why focus on existing clients first?
They already trust you and you know their needs, so selling costs are lower. The Federal Reserve’s 2024 survey found 57 percent of small firms cite reaching customers and growing sales as a challenge.[4]
How do I find what clients might need?
Build a client-by-service map, review what each client buys and has never bought, and hold short review meetings to ask about changes and problems.
What if the client is unwilling to spend more?
Deltek says to check whether they are genuinely unwilling or simply unaware of your other services, and whether their needs have changed.[2]
Should I start with a small service?
Yes. A diagnostic, plan or pilot lets the client test the value; one firm began with a tax planning add-on that was high in value and low in time.[1]
How do I avoid harming the relationship?
Put quality of current delivery first, listen before pitching, keep confidences and be transparent about scope and fees.
What to do next
- Build a client-by-service opportunity map.
- Schedule review meetings with your ten largest clients.
- Pick one small add-on service to pilot with three clients.
- Track revenue added, margin and retention each quarter.
Optional · interactive example
See it in an interactive example.
Firm Economics Dashboard: a service-line dashboard with utilization and realization, a scenario simulator for hours, rate and cost, evidence-linked answers from APIS, and a sample brief, all on synthetic data.
The experience below is built on a synthetic firm, “Demo Advisory Partners,” analyzed by service line. It has no client-level, pipeline or business development records, so service lines are used to show the method. Nothing in it is real.
- In the service-line table, compare contribution margin across lines. Which services would you most want to sell more of?
- Select Advisory, then Technology Consulting. Would you push them harder, or fix them first?
- Ask APIS which service lines warrant a closer review.
Understand Your Firm’s Economics and Growth Opportunities
Two Pillars helps professional services firms investigate profitability, capacity, pricing and growth using the firm’s own data and a structured assessment process. A good first step is a client and growth review that shows how concentrated your revenue is, which clients and services earn the most, and where the next dollar of growth is most likely to come from.
Sources
- Journal of Accountancy (AICPA), How implementing value pricing can help your staff get more done (2017). Accessed October 2026.
- Deltek, 3 Ways to Manage Unprofitable Clients (January 31, 2023). Accessed October 2026.
- Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting, Strategically pricing accounting services. Accessed October 2026.
- Federal Reserve Banks, 2025 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2024 Small Business Credit Survey. Accessed October 2026.
- Texas Society of CPAs, 2018 MAP Survey Summary (AICPA PCPS/CPA.com National MAP Survey). Accessed October 2026.
Sources checked October 2026. This guide is general information for the leaders of professional services firms and is not legal, accounting, tax or financial advice. Figures and rules are cited to the sources below and may have changed since they were accessed, so confirm anything you rely on against the current source. Two Pillars & Co is independent of the organizations cited. See our editorial policy.