Growth Strategies: Think Channels, not Referrals

Just as CPAs apply rigorous discipline to deliver services, so too can firms achieve growth.

By Gale Crosley
Crosley Co.

You know the services your firm has to offer and you know who your target buyer is. In order to drive growth you need to align these elements in an act of strategic matchmaking. If you’ve been relying on referrals as a way to achieve this you’re operating with about one-and-a-half hands tied behind your back.

MORE CROSLEY: SURVEY: Technology Will Solve Labor Shortages | Four-Part Plan to Re-ignite Revenue Growth | Not All Fish Need Audits | The 4 New Growth Engines in Today’s Marketplace | Change Catches Up with Auditors | The 6 Elements to Sustainable Growth for CPA Firms | Jody Padar’s New Vision for the ‘New Accounting’ | Reality Check: Achieving World-Class Growth Requires Real-World Intelligence | Crosley: The New Growth Evolution | Expand Your Vision and Expand Your Business | Leveraging Leadership: A New Way of Looking at Growth | Are You Creating a Sustainable Firm? |

VIDEO: The Three Elements of Growth Strategy | Defining the New Business Model | The 3 Hallmarks of the ‘New Accounting’ Business

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The required firepower cannot be unleashed by occasional meetings and introductions. Instead you need to energize your efforts by cultivating focused channels of distribution. This will take your efforts from tactical to strategic and lead to a more powerful growth experience.

A distribution channel is the way you find your buyers and they find you in large numbers. Distribution channels are the individuals, businesses, organizations, websites, events, publications and places your buyers prefer. The possibilities are limited only by your knowledge of your prospective buyers and your ability to seek them out. The best channels are those your competitors have never considered.

Posted on February 20, 2017

Gale Crosley

About the Author

Gale Crosley, CPA, of Crosley+Co., is one of the Most Recommended Consultants in the Inside Public Accounting BEST OF THE BEST, one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today and has been named to The Advisory Board Hall of Fame.

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She consults with large and large-thinking accounting firms, assisting managing partners, partners, and marketing directors, to effectively increase their firm’s revenues. She guides them through development of the best strategies and tactics to achieve aggressive revenue growth objectives. Gale’s 35-year-plus career represents a unique combination as a practicing CPA at Arthur Andersen, PwC, and a local CPA firm. She has also held senior management roles in business development and marketing in the cutting edge technology environment with IBM, MCI and several start-up technology companies. Gale has helped dozens of large and large-thinking firms, both domestic and international, create high growth cultures, driving revenue from all aspects of the practice. She is an honors accounting graduate from the University of Akron, Ohio, and winner of the Simonetti Distinguished Business Alumni Award. Gale is a licensed CPA in Ohio and Georgia, a member of the AICPA, the Ohio Society and Georgia Society of CPAs, and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Accountancy. Her cornerstone book, At the Crossroads, chronicles the challenges and successes of a fictional CPA firm struggling with growth.

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