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

CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

How to Disengage Clients

woman speaking and giving direction to subordinate

BONUS: Two sample letters.

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

Disengaging clients in a professional services firm is a sensitive process that requires careful consideration to maintain positive relationships and uphold your firm’s reputation. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it professionally:

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  1. Review Contracts and Agreements: Begin by reviewing the terms of your engagement contracts or agreements with the client. Understand any clauses related to termination or disengagement and follow those guidelines.

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GROWTH STRATEGIES

Sixteen Steps for Maximizing Firm Resources

Businesspeople having a meeting over coffee sitting together at a table discussing a document, young man and two middle-aged women present

Productivity and profitability will benefit.

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

If you understand your client base you can better allocate resources and effectively manage your human, financial, technological and other assets to maximize efficiency, productivity and profitability. Here are steps you can take to allocate resources effectively:

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  1. Set Clear Objectives: Define your firm’s short-term and long-term goals. Understand what projects, clients and services are a priority for you, and then, align resource allocation accordingly.

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MARKETING & SALES

How to Break Clients into Tiers

Woman looking at computer screen, man looking over her shoulder

Including examples of criteria.

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

Client tiering is a strategy used by CPA firms to categorize their clients based on various factors such as revenue, complexity of services, profitability and more. This approach helps the firm allocate resources effectively, provide tailored services and prioritize high-value clients.

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A tiering system for a smaller firm can be very simple with emphasis on billable hours, dollars and billing rate realized. For larger firms it can become more complex, and the firm may create more tiers.
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MARKETING & SALES

Fourteen Considerations for Tiering Clients

illustration of businesspeople standing on different heights of tiers

You might find they don’t all belong.

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

Not all clients are equal. Besides client profitability, there are various factors to consider when tiering clients.

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Here is a tiering process that looks at 14 factors that include categorizing clients based on their value to the firm, their needs, but also several other relevant factors. If you do this, you can allocate resources efficiently and effectively and provide tailored services to different client segments.
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MARKETING & SALES

The Marketing Technology You Need for Success and Growth

Tips for accounting firms of all sizes.

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

For a CPA firm to be successful today, it is necessary to leverage marketing technology to attract and retain clients, streamline processes and maintain a competitive edge. The new marketing technology is necessary to be a firm in the 21st century.

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Depending on the firm’s size you probably won’t need all the technologies listed below. I’ll break them down by firm size based on volume.

Here are some important marketing technologies that can benefit a CPA firm.

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MARKETING & SALES

AI Can Help Market Your Firm

It augments rather than replaces human expertise.

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

Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things very effectively, and one of them is to offer numerous benefits to a look at it as a start and not the end of the AI marketing discussion.

MORE: Twenty Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Marketing Plan | Five Ways Smart Marketing Boosts Your Firm’s Enterprise Value | Marketing’s Role in Staffing and Recruitment | Measuring Marketing Success: The 10 KPIs | Seven Reasons Marketing Can Make Your Firm a Great Place to Work | Seven Ways That Marketing Helps You Retain Clients | Is Pricing a Marketing Function? | Develop Your Personal Marketing Plan in Ten Steps | Five Ways to Make Partners Fall in Love with Marketing | Analyze Your Firm to Keep It Current | What Makes a Great Website? | Losing Can Help You Win More | Three More Strategies for Growing Your Practice | Four Strategies for Building Your Practice | Eight Areas to Cover for Personal Goals
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Here are some ways AI can assist in your marketing efforts:

  1. Customer segmentation and targeting: AI can analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and segment customers based on their preferences, behaviors and demographics. This enables the firm to create highly targeted marketing campaigns tailored to specific customer segments, resulting in improved engagement and higher conversion rates.

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MARKETING & SALES

Twenty Questions to Ask Before Starting Your Marketing Plan

Businesswoman sitting on table while talking with four coworkers

Make sure you’re prepared.

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

Here are 20 basic questions to ask yourself and your partners before engaging a marketing consultant:

  1. What is our firm’s mission?

MORE: Five Ways Smart Marketing Boosts Your Firm’s Enterprise Value | Marketing’s Role in Staffing and Recruitment | Seven Ways That Marketing Helps You Retain Clients | Five Ways to Make Partners Fall in Love with Marketing | Losing Can Help You Win More | Eight Areas to Cover for Personal Goals | Service Quality: The Key to Client Retention | How Life Cycle Changes Your Marketing | Clients Buy Solutions, Not Features
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  1. Is our mission clearly stated and easily understood by the market?
  2. What is our firm’s image in the market?

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MARKETING & SALES

Five Ways Smart Marketing Boosts Your Firm’s Enterprise Value

Illustration of marketing strategy

It starts with culture.

By August J. Aquila

A marketing culture can have a significant impact on an enterprise’s value.

MORE: Marketing’s Role in Staffing and Recruitment | Measuring Marketing Success: The 10 KPIs | Is Pricing a Marketing Function? | Analyze Your Firm to Keep It Current | Three More Strategies for Growing Your Practice | Understand the 10 Steps of the Buying Process

Here are five ways in which a strong marketing culture can raise to the valuation of your firm.

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MARKETING & SALES

Marketing’s Role in Staffing and Recruitment

Is your firm overlooking any of these opportunities?

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

We have talked about creating a marketing culture and an overall firm culture. These two concepts have been around for more than 30 years. What we are seeing today is that a marketing culture can have a significant impact on retaining and bringing in new staff. Firm culture also plays a huge role in retaining employees and even partners.

MORE: Measuring Marketing Success: The 10 KPIs | Seven Reasons Marketing Can Make Your Firm a Great Place to Work | Develop Your Personal Marketing Plan in Ten Steps | What Makes a Great Website? | Four Strategies for Building Your Practice | Market Technology Services through Workshops and Training | The Secrets of Great Business Developers | Dodge the Four Curses of a Production Orientation | Client Acquisition Never Stops | ‘Sales’ Is Not a Four-Letter Word | Maybe What You Need Is a Marketing Audit | Three Types of Marketing Message, and Which Is Best
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While the primary function of marketing is often associated with promoting products or services to external clients, it also has an important internal role in attracting, engaging and retaining top talent within the organization. Here are six key ways in which marketing contributes to staffing and recruiting in a professional service firm:

    1. Employer branding: Marketing helps shape and communicate the firm’s brand, which represents the organization’s reputation as an employer. A strong employer brand can differentiate the firm from competitors and attract high-quality candidates. Marketing teams develop and promote the firm’s unique value proposition, culture, employee benefits and career development opportunities to position the organization as an employer of choice.

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MARKETING & SALES

Measuring Marketing Success: The 10 KPIs

They can be used in ways you might not have considered.

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

Marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable values that help marketers track and analyze the success of their marketing campaigns. The firm and its marketing department must jointly determine which of the KPIs are important and will be tracked.

MORE: Seven Reasons Marketing Can Make Your Firm a Great Place to Work | Seven Ways That Marketing Helps You Retain Clients | Is Pricing a Marketing Function? | Develop Your Personal Marketing Plan in Ten Steps | Five Ways to Make Partners Fall in Love with Marketing | Analyze Your Firm to Keep It Current | What Makes a Great Website? | Losing Can Help You Win More | Three More Strategies for Growing Your Practice | Four Strategies for Building Your Practice | Eight Areas to Cover for Personal Goals | Understand the 10 Steps of the Buying Process
GoProCPA.comExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

 

I’m going to briefly discuss 10 key performance indicators so that you can put a dollar amount on the effectiveness of your marketing strategies and campaigns as well as track the firm’s overall marketing performance.
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