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
By Martin Bissett
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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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By Martin Bissett
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.
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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
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.
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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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By Martin Bissett