Geography is your secret weapon

Do you Double Niche?

How a “champagne expert” in France can charge 10x more than a “general auditor” in Paris – and what that means for your practice in the age of AI

There’s a moment in every accountant’s career when someone asks: “So what makes you different?”

And your internal monologue probably sounds something like: “Well, we’re very thorough… and professional… and we really care about our clients…” Exactly what the last three firms they spoke to said.

I’ve just spent an hour on the phone with Siong Yoong in Singapore, who will be presenting at our Bangkok conference next month. He’s so confident in what he’s going to share that he’s bringing his own video production team from the Philippines to film it. That’s not arrogance – that’s a man who knows he has something worth documenting.

And what he told me has been rattling around my head all afternoon, keeping me from my usual afternoon mini-donut contemplation.

The Champagne problem

“If I tell you I’m a specialist ESG advisor for champagne companies,” Siong Yoong said, “and I’m based in France, you’ll believe me. But if I tell you the same thing and I’m based in Malaysia where it’s not permitted for Muslims to drink alcohol, nobody will believe me.”

“Or imagine I’m a Kobe beef specialist, but I’m Indian and Hindu. Would you trust me?”

The answer, obviously, is no. But here’s what’s fascinating: most of us in professional services are making exactly this mistake. We’re claiming expertise that our geography doesn’t support, or we’re sitting on geographical advantages we never articulate.

This is what Siong Yoong calls “double niching” – the intersection of your service line expertise and your national (or local) credibility. Get both right, and you’re not just another accountant. You’re the accountant.

Are you a ‘million dollar’ accountant? 

He illustrated it with a pricing exercise that made me wince that we give away our specialist TGSU training for free (if you’re a TGS member):

“If I say, ‘Hey, I’m going to teach you how to sell’ – that course is worth $97.

“If I say, ‘Real estate agents, I’m going to teach you how to sell property worth at least $5 million’ – that course is worth $1,997.

“If I say, ‘Million-dollar real estate agents, I’m going to teach you how to sell $60 million properties to billionaires from Mallorca, Spain’ – that course is worth $4,997.” Or is it even worth a percentage of the next property you sell? But that’s another story.

The more specific you get, the higher the price. Because specialists are always paid more than generalists. You know this. You’ve lived it every time you’ve been referred to a medical consultant rather than your GP.

So why are you still marketing yourself as a general practitioner?

The LinkedIn test. What your profile actually says about you.

Yesterday, someone from Indonesia reached out to Siong Yoong via LinkedIn. They’d never met. The message was simple: “My company is about to be taken over in a hostile takeover in the next 27 days. Can you help me?”

This wasn’t a warm lead. This wasn’t a referral. This was someone who looked at a LinkedIn profile and thought: “This person can solve my specific problem.”

When was the last time that happened to you?

If your LinkedIn profile says “audit, tax, and advisory services,” you’re background noise. If it says “I help luxury fashion brands in Paris navigate complex international ownership structures,” you’re a phone call away from your next six-figure engagement.

It’s not optional.  AI makes this urgent

AI is commoditising everything you currently charge for.

Bookkeeping? There’s an app for that. Tax returns? Automated. Basic compliance? Done by software that never sleeps and doesn’t take coffee breaks.

“As products and services come down to zero,” Siong Yoong told me, “the price of everything can be commoditised. The only thing AI cannot replicate is you.”

But AI can’t replicate you when you’re authentically positioned. If you’re a generic “audit and tax advisor,” AI absolutely can replicate you. It already is.

If you’re “the ESG specialist for champagne houses in Reims with 20 years of experience navigating French and EU regulatory frameworks” – well, that’s a rather different proposition, isn’t it?

The assignment you should do before participating in the TGS Bangkok conference

Siong Yoong is going to walk everyone through this properly at the conference. But he suggested two simple questions to prepare:

• First: What is your service line expertise? (Audit, tax, advisory, M&A, due diligence, succession planning, etc.)
• Second: What are the top three industries in your country or region – and which one gives you natural credibility?

If you’re in France and you say you specialise in champagne houses, people believe you. If you’re in Japan and you specialise in manufacturing quality control, that makes sense. If you’re in Singapore and you focus on financial services, that’s geographically credible.

But if you’re in landlocked Switzerland claiming to be an expert in commercial fishing regulations, we’re going to have questions.

Before the conference and before any of this becomes actionable – ask yourself this:

If someone asked you right now, “What makes you different?” – could you answer in one sentence that would make potential clients think, “Oh, I need to speak to this person”?

If not, you’re leaving money on the table. Lots of it.

And in a world where AI is eating compliance work for breakfast, you don’t have time to figure this out slowly.