Hint: And it won’t get any easier.
by Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0
In planning for both a firm and its marketing program, there are three factors that should be understood:
- The nature of the CPA firm, static for so many generations, is undergoing radical change. This process is influenced by a vast array of factors, many of which are new, some of which are unforeseeable.
- Where once CPAs were isolated from marketers and marketing, they are now becoming active participants in the process, and many of them are themselves becoming astute marketers.
- The driving force of this evolutionary process is the need to compete, imaginatively and innovatively. It’s enhanced and accelerated by technology, which itself is in a constant state of innovation and flux.
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These factors, then, add up to the reality that if CPAs are to compete successfully in today’s marketplace – if they are to function successfully in the changing arena of professional services – there must be a shift in emphasis from the tenets of the old marketing to the realities of the new.