Bissett Bullet: Make Good Use of the Time You Save

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “The cost of cloud-based software or automation tools is no longer prohibitive for smaller firms so if everybody is using them, how do you stand out?”

By Martin Bissett

If technology is readily available and at a cost that makes it viable for firms of any size, then what sets you and your practice apart from your competitors is the way in which you use the time that the technology saves you, to better support your clients.

Today’s To-Do:

Estimate the amount of time you save in a week in comparison to before you upgraded to your current software. How much of that time do you spend reaching out to clients just to check on them or add value?

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Make Sure You Know What You Will Get from Your Marketing

 

smiling man speaking into microphone in front of laptop

Are you spending your time effectively?

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

I once knew a firm that was spending a significant amount of money on marketing and was experiencing little or no growth. They could not understand what was going wrong. They tried all sorts of marketing activities. They presented webinars, sent out a client newsletter, did some advertising and public relations, and so on.

MORE: Ten Questions to Refine Your Successful Marketing Plan | ‘Sales’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word | Maybe What You Need Is a Marketing Audit | 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 | Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development
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The problem was that this firm did not know what to expect from their marketing activities. Sometimes they wanted clients immediately, and when that did not happen, they then tried another marketing activity, never staying with an activity long enough to see results. The moral of the story is that marketing takes time to produce results, and if you are not patient, it can eat up your hard-earned dollars and time.
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Ten Questions to Refine Your Successful Marketing Plan

Stack of cards labeled with question marks

Is the right message reaching the right audience?

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

The main reason most marketing programs don’t work is that not enough time is spent up front in the planning stage. Marketing, like anything else, takes careful planning as well as execution. I’m going to propose 10 key questions that you need to answer before embarking on your next marketing program.

MORE: ‘Sales’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word | Three Pillars Support a Successful Accounting Firm | 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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  1. What one purpose do you want to accomplish? Too often, accountants begin a marketing program without really knowing what they want to accomplish. Sometimes there are so many things they want to do that it becomes unrealistic to achieve all of them. The result is confusion and dissatisfaction.

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Why Accountants Should Be Nice to Journalists

woman interviewing man in front of full-wall city window

Or else you’ll turn into a pumpkin – or something.

By Bruce Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

EDITOR’S NOTE: CPA Trendlines was privileged to have a long relationship with Bruce W. Marcus, who was ahead of his time in his thinking and practice in marketing for accounting. We are publishing some of the late expert’s evergreen work, which retains wisdom for the present.

Your mother raised you to be nice to everyone, and you’ve always been taught to be nice to journalists. Answer their questions. Tell them everything. Stop what you’re doing and cooperate. Be polite.

That’s the conventional wisdom. You’ve even read that in The Marcus Letter. But are there ever times to tell the press to bug off, and leave you alone? Maybe.

MORE: When There’s a Leak in Your Firm | Creating the Perfect Ad | How Hard Do You Work to Keep Your Clients? | When Clients Think They Know Marketing | How to Put Target Marketing into Context | Everyone in Your Firm Is Marketing | Accountants vs. Lawyers: Who Wins the Marketing Battle? | Professional Services Marketing Requires Flexibility | How to Set Marketing Objectives | How Marketing in Accounting Has Evolved | Accountants Don’t Sell Soap.
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On the face of it, the media seems to have all the power. They speak to a lot more people than you do, and they do it with what the general public accepts, usually unquestioningly and with little reason, as objectivity.
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Bissett Bullet: What Does It Cost to Undertake?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “It is important to know the cost price of any given job.”

By Martin Bissett

It is not an exact science. You can calculate that cost with any given hourly recovery rate and however you see fit, but you need to know what it is. This is NOT to inform your pricing, but to inform what your break-even is. When you set your fees, they must never equate to less than cost or you are loss making, and unless there is significant long-term benefit to doing so on a short-term basis, you don’t want that.

Sounds obvious, right? So how come so many accounting firms don’t get acquired because they don’t make any money?

Today’s To-Do:

If you were to be honest with yourself, how many prospective clients really do not want to change their accountant, and how many just did not see the reason to? Now, on that basis with that reality confronted, be stronger in your next meeting with a prospective client.

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Five Questions for Grading Prospects

pipeline in shape of a dollar sign

Remember, a list is not a pipeline.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

So you’ve done all the work to get yourself composed and prepared to go out and generate new opportunities, find new business and new clients. Now what? How will you know who to contact for the first step?

Answer: your pipeline.

MORE: Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition | Keep Business Development Going During Busy Season | Walk the Commitment Walk | Two Steps Toward Mastering Selling | Thirteen Ways to Show Commitment | Clients Can’t Grow without You | Seven Mistakes in Winning New Fees | How to Develop Your Communication Abilities | Five Questions for Measuring Partner Potential | Five Ways to Rally Your Firm to Its Culture | When Would-Be Partners Aren’t Candidates | Make Your Expertise a New-Client Magnet | Don’t Think of It as Selling
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Many partners think they have a pipeline, but they don’t. What they actually have is just a list of prospects they’ve

  • met with,
  • would like to meet with or
  • have worked with in the past.

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‘Sales’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word

woman listens as two clients speak

The five steps of the sales cycle and what you need to know.

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

For a long time, the word “sales” was not an accepted word in accounting firms. Unfortunately, too many accountants associated sales work with some type of unprofessional and even unethical activity. Fortunately, those days are long gone.

MORE: Three Pillars Support a Successful Accounting Firm | Four Questions for Choosing Your Marketing Audit Strategies | 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
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The word “sales” is not a four-letter word; it is a professional activity. People who sell make a promise of some future deliverable: “I will do this and this for you.” In turbulent times, selling is a skill that accountants must learn to be successful. Here is my definition of selling: “Selling is problem solving.” Nothing more and nothing less. It’s what you do every time you help a client with a problem. If you have been a successful new business developer, then you have been a successful salesperson.
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Bissett Bullet: Who are Your Centers of Influence?

Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Who is sending new business your way and who isn’t but really ought to be?”

By Martin Bissett

A “center of influence” is someone who is well known and respected within their community or industry and as a result is a valued and trusted source of referral.

This may be a restaurant owner who knows everybody in the local area because they come through their door on a regular basis, or the head of your local chamber of commerce or networking group.

Today’s To-Do:

List two or three people who are influential in your local area that you don’t have a relationship with but you should, and get to know them. Identify a mutual contact who could make an introduction or a local networking event where you might have an opportunity to speak with them.

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