And why it will cost you. By Sandi Smith Leyva, CPA Accountant’s Accelerator There are five simple steps to getting more clients. But, guess what, most accountants make a big mistake along the way. First, here are the five steps to get more clients:
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And why it sometimes doesn’t. With: Five generic reasons to advertise The 15 basics of accounting advertising The 18 benefits advertising can provide an accounting firm By Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 Advertising in CPA firms services has a strange history. More words and more dollars have been wasted on it, and less seems to have been learned from its mistakes than from any other marketing tool we currently use.
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Simple easy activities to boost your business. By Sandi Smith, CPA Accountant’s Accelerator Every working day, we’re all slammed with hundreds of things to do. We might need to occasionally slow down and ask ourselves whether we are working on the most profitable things we could for our business. Are we constantly fighting fires, dealing with urgent but not important client matters and neglecting the things that could grow our business? Here’s how to move off this treadmill to create a “money maker hour” in your business:
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A real-world approach for the smaller firm. By Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 There is much ado, these days, about niche marketing and target marketing and using mailing lists and knowledge management. How does it all come together to make sense for the smaller accounting firm, particularly when there’s a limited marketing budget, and a limited opportunity to reach out to the marketplace? More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: Who’s Better at Marketing? • Lawyers or CPAs? • Even a Random Disaster Can Be Controlled with Risk Management • Managing Risk in Client Relations • Your Clients Love You? What If You’re Wrong? • The Three Degrees of Risk • Four Essential Habits for Building Client Trust • [...]
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Standing out among the crowd of other CPA firms isn’t easy. But it may be necessary for long-lived success. In this article, August J. Aquila, author of “Leadership At Its Strongest,” provides seven tactics used by high-performing firms to beat the competition.
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The main categories of information for internal communications and management. By Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 While the substance of information varies from firm to firm, there are 10 categories that cannot go unconsidered:
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And 12 questions a good marketing professional should be asking. By Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 And now a word to accountants who think they know marketing. Unless you’re that rare bird who’s had some successful experience because you have some kind of inborn talent for marketing – and there are some of you like that – you don’t know beans. And you won’t know beans until they start teaching marketing in accounting schools, which is long overdue. Or until you’ve had long experience with a terrific marketer on your staff. But if you don’t have a natural affinity for it, there are things you should know that will result in your competing successfully in this wildly competitive [...]
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Six rules of professionalism that accountants need in their marketers. by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 There’s a wonderful cartoon in which a guy in a business suit is looking over the shoulder of an artist at his canvas. The caption, spoken by the artist, is “I used to dabble a bit in accounting, too.” Then there’s the guy who said to me, “If you’re smart enough to be a CPA, then you’re smart enough to do your own advertising.” To which I replied, “Yes that’s true. You’re also smart enough to be a nuclear physicist — but it doesn’t make you one.” There’s the guy who read a book about tightrope walking. He knew everything about tightrope [...]
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Options to grow your profits besides raising revenue and lowering costs. By Sandi Smith, CPA Accountant’s Accelerator Many accountants these days are anxious to hit the golden $100,000 mark this year. Others are interested in growing their revenues steadily and incrementally. Still others are focused on lowering costs, raising profits from that side of the equation. More for soloists and small firms: Seven Checklist Secrets for Turning Tax Season into Opportunity Season • How to Stay Energized, Upbeat, and Thinking Bigger through Busy Season • Seven Ways to Wow Your Prospect • Rev Up Your Revenue with These Two Daily Rituals • 10 Tips for Creating More Energy this Tax Season • Take a Cue from Venture Capitalists: Your Firm Needs a Brain Trust [...]
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Learn how to read the scorecard. by Nick Keseric I have a good friend Tucker who over the years has collected over 10,000 golf scorecards from all over the world. People, even strangers, know of his quest and send stacks of scorecards to his mailbox each year from their travels. And like a proud father, he’ll pull out his latest batch of cards to show with great pride. More Nick: Six Ways to Stay Positive in 2013 • Seven Steps to Leverage the Power of Positivity in Your Firm, Your Career and Your Life • Nine Bridges to Cross in Business Development for Accounting Firms • If Business Development Is a Circus at Your Firm… • My [...]
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Use your time with the client to ask about more than just this year’s tax return. By Sandi Smith, CPA Accountant’s Accelerator Here are some fast tips to help you make the most out of busy season, which is when you have the highest amount of your clients’ attention all year long. More for soloists and small firms: How to Stay Energized, Upbeat, and Thinking Bigger through Busy Season • Seven Ways to Wow Your Prospect • Rev Up Your Revenue with These Two Daily Rituals • 10 Tips for Creating More Energy this Tax Season • Take a Cue from Venture Capitalists: Your Firm Needs a Brain Trust Trinity • Accountants, Do You Know Your Opportunity Number? • Five Ideas [...]
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Eight reasons why accounting firms need to work on internal communications first. by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 A terrific definition of chaos is when a client asks two different people in your firm the same question — and gets two different and conflicting answers. More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: Managing Knowledge as a Growth and Management Tool • The Secret Formula for Getting New Clients • What We’ve Learned Since Accounting Marketing Was Legalized • Do Accounting Firms Really Want an ‘Image’? • What Accounting Firms Need to Learn from Personal Financial Planning Specialists • The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the Prospect Another form of it is when there’s a crisis, and the press calls and gets [...]
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What do we really know when we say we know? by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 The road to knowledge management, now well-traveled, seems to end with the science of acquiring and retrieving data. The end of that road, which was built mostly by the brilliance of computer scientists, stops where a clear understanding of the meaning of useful knowledge begins. More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: • The Secret Formula for Getting New Clients • What We’ve Learned Since Accounting Marketing Was Legalized • Do Accounting Firms Really Want an ‘Image’? • What Accounting Firms Need to Learn from Personal Financial Planning Specialists • The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the Prospect • Even a Random Disaster Can Be Controlled with [...]
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The 16-step plan to focus on landing one new client at a time. by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 Here’s a little secret about accounting marketing. It always comes down to selling the individual clients — one by one. More Professional services Marketing 3.0: What We’ve Learned Since Accounting Marketing Was Legalized • Do Accounting Firms Really Want an ‘Image’? • What Accounting Firms Need to Learn from Personal Financial Planning Specialists • The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the Prospect • Even a Random Disaster Can Be Controlled with Risk Management • You can talk about strategies, and image, and niche marketing and branding. You can talk about blogs, and social media, and press [...]
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For good, bad or indifferent. EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared in the September 1980 issue of The Virginia Accountant. It is one of the first articles – if not the very first article – on the advent of legalized marketing for accountants after Bates v. State Bar of Arizona. It is as viable today as it was then. by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 When, a few years ago, the codes of ethics were changed to allow straightforward marketing by professionals, there came into play a new configuration of circumstances and activities that will reverberate throughout the accounting profession for years to come. More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: Do Accounting Firms Really Want an ‘Image’? • [...]
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It’s a hollow view. by Bruce W. Marcus Professional Services Marketing 3.0 Some years ago, in a remarkably successful marketing move, a graphic designer specializing in logos, letterheads and the like came up with the concept of the corporate image. A brilliant concept, but more mirage than image. Now one of the most successful operations in the marketing business, this company has managed to persuade its clients that corporate image is the key to corporate success. Image, it seems, is the magic elixir. At many thousands of dollars a dose. More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: What Accounting Firms Need to Learn from Personal Financial Planning Specialists • The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the [...]
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