Here’s what you’re looking for: Bruce W. Marcus

Every activity performed in an accounting firm is visible and of concern to prospective clientele.

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. The following article appeared in the September 1980 issue of The Virginia Accountant. It is probably the first – or at least one of the first – articles on post-Bates professional services marketing.

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: Let’s Lose the Word ‘Image’ | Marketing a Fixed Position in a Moving World | How to Build a Marketing Culture | Have You Planned How to Service Your New Revenue? | Why Is Change So Hard for Firms? | Why Value Pricing Works | Why Competition Matters Most
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For generations, concepts of probity have pervaded public accounting. Accountants were to be not merely independent, but well beyond the fray of public quarrel or exposure. The sword of the CPA has always been independence and, it was long felt, independence is compromised by public debate. And now comes marketing, the crux of which is visibility.
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It projects an infernal and involuted picture of things manipulated, unreal and untrue.

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.

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.

MORE: Marketing a Fixed Position in a Moving World | Accountants vs. Lawyers: Who Wins the Marketing Battle? | Professional Services Marketing Requires Flexibility | How to Set Marketing Objectives | Accounting Marketing 3.0: New Rules | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm
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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.
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Three things to keep in mind.

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.

There is no great mystique to the marketing concept of positioning. While it’s not as simple as some would make it seem, nor as complex as others would have you believe, it’s still very real.

MORE: Accountants vs. Lawyers: Who Wins the Marketing Battle? | The Risk In Not Understanding Risk | What Your Marketing Program Can and Can’t Do | Nine Reasons That Prospects Say Yes | How Marketing Evolved to 3.0 | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

Like so many words used in marketing, positioning has come to be shorthand for some ideas that have come a long way in the pursuit of sound marketing practice. First popularized by Ries and Trout in their 1981 book, “Positioning,” the concept took a basic advertising practice and codified it in a way that made it possible for other marketers to think differently about approaches to the market.
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Does one size fit all? A slate of experts weighs in.

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.

It’s not a race, nor are there prizes for the winner. But it has been suggested that the lawyers are light years ahead of the accounting profession in marketing.

MORE: The Risk In Not Understanding Risk | How to Build a Marketing Culture | Have You Planned How to Service Your New Revenue? | Why Is Change So Hard for Firms? | Why Value Pricing Works | Why Competition Matters Most
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

It’s nonsense, of course. Is one profession indeed better at marketing than the other? Well, no. Each profession is different, and to try to make the comparison would be an apples and oranges game. But silly as the idea may be, it opens a vast and intriguing question. Are there significant differences between the professions that affect marketing? Indeed there are.
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Five steps for better protection.

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.

Risk. It’s amazing that so simple a four-letter word can be so complicated. There are risks with dire consequences and risks with negligible consequences. There is risk in every human enterprise; in every trade or endeavor.

MORE: How to Build a Marketing Culture | Professional Services Marketing Requires Flexibility | How to Set Marketing Objectives | Accounting Marketing 3.0: New Rules | Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.

We take risks, in varying degrees (and sometimes unwittingly) every day of our lives. There is even risk inherent in getting out of bed in the morning. But what – on any level – does risk really mean? Can risk be tamed?
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