Bruce W. Marcus, Author at CPA Trendlines

What Accounting Firms Need to Learn from Personal Financial Planning Specialists

Is the traditional business model holding back the profession?

By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

It’s not a race, nor are there prizes for the winner. But it has been suggested that personal financial planners trading in college, retirement and estate planning are light years ahead of the accounting profession in marketing.

More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the Prospect • 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 • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm

MARKETING & SALES

The Delicate Art of Positioning Your Firm in the Mind of the Prospect

And, it’s not a mission statement.

By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

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.

CPA Trendlines research has uncovered the startling fact of the wide disparity between how accounting firm management perceives their own performance and how their clients see their performance. (Join the survey; get the results.)

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 • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Who’s Better at Marketing? Lawyers or CPAs?

Is the question ludicrous?

By Bruce W. Marcus

Looking at the question from a different point of view, the international consultant Patrick McKenna said, “If you’re trying to determine which of the two professions (lawyers or accountants) are the more advanced in their marketing prowess, I’m sorry but I think the very question is ludicrous.

More Professional Services Marketing 3.0: 5 Ways to Manage Risk in an Accounting Practice • 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 • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm

Be it accountant, consultants, architects or lawyers, it really doesn’t matter. My experience confirms for me that when you think of marketing prowess you can divide any of the individuals or firms, in any of those professions (not by profession but by mindset) . . . into three categories: hawks, doves and ostriches.”

MARKETING & SALES

5 Ways to Manage Risk in an Accounting Practice

By Bruce W. Marcus
Professional Services Marketing 3.0

Too often, we simply take risk for granted and go headlong into danger and chaos. It needn’t be so. Even in view of the elements of risk over which we have no control, there are still measures of protection that can be taken to reduce a measure of risk in any enterprise.

More for CPA Trendlines PRO members: 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 • The Nine Hallmarks of a Marketing Culture • The Four Cornerstones to Building A Marketing Culture • Getting the Client is Only Half the Battle • Practice Development: It’s Not Rocket Science • Nine Fundamentals for a Healthy Marketing Culture in an Accounting Firm •

Is there protection against risk? Yes – to a larger degree than we may realize. There are at least five things you can do: READ MORE →

MARKETING & SALES

All Great Strategy Starts with “Why”

What do we want people to know, think or feel as a result of our internal communications efforts, and why?

By Bruce W. Marcus

The answers to these questions are the foundation for any communications activity, internal or external. They define the dynamic of the program, its focus and its program goals. They make possible a foundation for defining and shaping the strategy.

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 •

There are three crucial concerns…

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Bruce W. Marcus

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Bruce W. Marcus remains a pioneer in the modern practices of professional services marketing even after his death in 2014 at age 89. He is the author of the seminal work, Professional Services Marketing 3.0, published by CPA Trendlines. The Association for Accounting Marketing named a lifetime achievement award in his honor.

Hall of Fame: The Association for Accounting Marketing Award, named in honor of Bruce W. Marcus.

In 1951 (with a degree in Economics and Philosophy), he joined the then-Big Eight accounting firm, Peat Marwick Mitchell to establish the firm’s library, where he developed an article writing and seminar program that successfully promoted the firm’s reputation.

He has served as a public relations and marketing executive or consultant to most of the international accounting firms, and many large and small law firms.

His book, Competing For Clients (1986) was one of the first to delineate the new practices of professional services marketing, followed by more than a dozen books on professional services marketing, real estate marketing, investor relations, and international accounting standards.

His first newsletter, The Marcus Report (1986), was followed by the award-winning www.marcusletter.com in 1995 — one of the longest-running letters on marketing for lawyers and accountants.

He served on the editorial boards of several leading professional services publications, a contributor to many publications, and has been a keynote speaker at major conferences.

He taught one of the first courses in professional services marketing at the Fordham University Graduate School of Business, and lectures frequently at the Fordham University Law School.

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