Here’s what you’re looking for: August J. Aquila

What segments and services offer you the most potential?

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

Let’s continue with our marketing audit discussion. Now that we have some firmwide objectives, we need to select strategies. There are many ways to accomplish something, and it is necessary to select how you are going to go about doing it.

MORE: Maybe What You Need Is a Marketing Audit | Clients Have Six Reasons for Needing You | Six Ways to Market Your Technology Consulting Practice | Sixteen Marketing Activities to Try | The Four Steps of Your Personal Marketing Process | How Does Your Firm Measure Up? | Six Questions Before Asking for All the Referrals You Deserve | Five Rules for a Marketing Orientation | Ten Keys to Marketing Success
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Selecting Your Strategies

Let’s look at four different strategies.

1. Cost Reduction. As new forms of technology and artificial intelligence enter the workplace, it is increasingly possible to achieve a competitive advantage by using them to reduce the cost of service delivery. Tax processing software is a common example that firms have used over the last 20 years. AI could help firms reduce costs in multiple areas of the firm, from tax research to improving processes.

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How to get started.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

Great marketing tactics can take time, money and a great deal of sweat to plan and execute. CPAs who appreciate the power of marketing are frequently anxious to jump right into the implementation process without doing any planning. But do they really know what the marketplace wants from them? Sometimes gut feelings are right, but few firms can afford to act on intuition alone.

MORE: Clients Have Six Reasons for Needing You | Four Steps to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign | Five Reasons to Implement Change Orders | Make Your Practice Better | Eleven Marketing Strategies for Smaller Firms | Five Questions for Developing Your Marketing Plan | You Only Have Four Strategies | The Damage That Traditional Fee Methods Do
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Investing marketing dollars with confidence requires a thorough understanding of your practice, its people, the marketplace and your competitors. An audit-based marketing plan lets you do just that. This post provides both the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to (1) perform a marketing audit, (2) develop marketing objectives and strategies and (3) implement the plan through an integrated approach.
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Understanding this is part of mastering the art of sales.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

No matter how good your marketing tools are, there is one tool that needs to be especially sharp, and that is your salesmanship. All the marketing tools we mentioned previously will be of little value if you don’t know how to “ask for the business.”

MORE: Four Steps to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign | Three Types of Marketing Message, and Which Is Best | Why You Need Progress Billing | Five Tips for Cross-Selling and Upselling | Five Keys to Successful Marketing | Twelve Fundamentals of Planning | One Question to Guide Your Growth Plans
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

You need to understand the selling and buying cycles. They are critical for your success.

While there are many ways to make a sale, I prefer the Consultative Partnership Approach (CPA) to selling accounting and consulting services. This approach is based on three key principles:
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Promote your consulting services as products.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

We’ve discussed marketing tools, how they can be divided into three main types (one-way messages, two-way messages, and one-on-one messages), and what each type will accomplish. In this post I will examine using email and show you how to make it effective.

MORE: Three Types of Marketing Message, and Which Is Best | Six Ways to Market Your Technology Consulting Practice | Sixteen Marketing Activities to Try | The Four Steps of Your Personal Marketing Process | How Does Your Firm Measure Up? | Six Questions Before Asking for All the Referrals You Deserve | Five Rules for a Marketing Orientation
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Email marketing is a strategy for a firm to send promotional messages to people in mass quantities. To start email marketing, you need to select an email marketing tool/service, build your email list, decide the type of campaign you want to use, write persuasive messages, make a schedule, run the campaign and measure the campaign results.
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What are you trying to accomplish?

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

There is no silver bullet when it comes to marketing. That does not mean that having a focused marketing plan is not of critical importance to the success of your consulting practice. At last count, there were more than 15 different marketing tools that you can use to support your sales efforts, to generate leads and to get prospects to select your firm.

MORE: Six Ways to Market Your Technology Consulting Practice | Five Reasons to Implement Change Orders | Make Your Practice Better | Eleven Marketing Strategies for Smaller Firms | Five Questions for Developing Your Marketing Plan | You Only Have Four Strategies | The Damage That Traditional Fee Methods Do
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

The first question that comes to mind is, “Which of the marketing tools should my firm use?” Only you can answer that question, but here are some other things to consider in reaching your decision:
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Plus how to decide what services to offer.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

Computer consulting has evolved over the last 30 years and there are more choices than ever before. In fact, it is much more than just a computer and is now rebranded as technology consulting. Recent changes in technology will force us to learn a new type of technology consulting. Despite your current level of technology consulting sophistication, you will still need to market your services.

MORE: Five Reasons to Implement Change Orders | Why You Need Progress Billing | Five Tips for Cross-Selling and Upselling | Five Keys to Successful Marketing | Twelve Fundamentals of Planning | One Question to Guide Your Growth Plans | Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Get started by asking yourself (your team) the following three questions:
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