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MARKETING & SALES

What Will You Get from Your Marketing? Make Sure You Know

woman holding tablet and smiling, talking to man at trade show

How to maximize three activities.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

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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MARKETING & SALES

Ten Key Questions for a Successful Marketing Plan

Don’t waste your efforts by shortchanging your planning.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

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.

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I’m going to propose 10 key questions that you need to answer before embarking on your next marketing program.

  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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MARKETING & SALES

The Sales Cycle and What You Need to Know

There are five steps and you can’t skip ahead.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

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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MARKETING & SALES

Five Practice Building Basics Revealed

two men standing and shaking hands

Plus a quick quiz about your marketing.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

Some firms go from one marketing activity to another without much success. The firms that are successful do the basics very well. Like any athlete in spring training, accountants and consultants need to practice the basics of building their practices.

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Here are the basics:

  1. Creating opportunities to meet people

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MARKETING & SALES

Four Questions for Setting Firm Strategy

businessman turning compass labeled "strategy" like a steering wheel

Which segment will you target?

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

We’ve discussed marketing audits. Once 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.

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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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