Four Tips for Developing Your Marketing Plan
Plus five questions to ask first.
By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention
MARKETING & SALES
Are You Waiting for Business to Come to You?
Practice makes perfect.
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
Bissett Bullet: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “I’m a small firm. How can I possibly be perceived as ‘superior’ to the much larger firms that my prospective client is meeting?”
By Martin Bissett
See more Bissett Bullets here
Project Confidence to Potential Clients
What is your first impression?
By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget
Five Steps to More Clients
Warning: Skipping ahead is costly.
By Sandi Leyva
The Accountant’s Accelerator
Bissett Bullet: Push and Pull
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “Selling ‘pushes’ something to a prospective client. Attracting them to buy ‘pulls’ them toward your value.”
By Martin Bissett
See more Bissett Bullets here
Studley: Navigating the Adult Industry Accounting Niche | Big 4 Transparency
“You can write off lingerie?” Learn how one accountant built a judgment-free firm for the adult industry.
This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
When Katherine Studley posted a short TikTok in 2021 with the line “Boobs aren’t a write-off,” she wasn’t trying to build a firm – she was trying to prove a point. Now, the founder of The Only Consultant and Prisma Tax is one of the most in-demand accountants for adult industry professionals across North America, having helped thousands of creators, dancers, and sex workers file taxes, get compliant, and navigate financial systems that too often shut them out.
MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation
In this episode of Big 4 Transparency, host Dominic Piscopo speaks with Studley about how she carved out one of the most unusual and underserved niches in accounting and scaled it to a fully remote, growing firm with a waitlist and a social following that fuels constant inbound interest. Studley’s journey started after leaving the CPA firm grind, working in coffee shops, and being recruited into a government intelligence role. But it was a viral conversation during the pandemic that unlocked a huge market: OnlyFans creators and exotic dancers who were suddenly earning six figures with no idea how to file taxes or whom to trust to help them.
Forecast Firm Growth with Five Questions
Do you know where your next money is coming from?
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
If I could give you one tip that would assure that you could predict your consistent practice growth, it would be to look at your calendar.
MORE by Martin Bissett
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
You need to look at what is on your calendar and to look at today’s date and ask, “Where is the money coming from this month?” Look at what recurring fees you have, look at the value of those fees and what they bring in. Then consider what would happen if any of those fees did not recur. Look at what would happen if those fees dropped out of the equation and think about how you would replace that income.
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Bissett Bullet: Let Them Control ‘The When’
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “You should be in control of what happens next but allow the prospect to be in control of WHEN it happens.”
By Martin Bissett
Accounting professionals are generally of a more technical, reactive background and aren’t used to working in the kind of proactive manner that is required for business development. When we finish a meeting with a potential new client and are at the stage where we need to ask for the next meeting, it can feel as though we’re being pushy.
When you ask a prospect when would be appropriate to come back and talk them through your solutions and they tell you they have a busy period coming up and can’t possibly meet for three weeks, that’s fine, simply suggest a date three weeks away. Allow them to dictate when the next meeting happens as long as it does. They will then be happy to meet with you without feeling bullied or manipulated and you will have the opportunity to see them again having given careful consideration to your proposal.
Today’s To-Do:
Role play this scenario with a colleague. When you realize that this approach doesn’t feel pushy on the receiving end, you’ll feel more comfortable asking for the meeting in future.
See more Bissett Bullets here
Leadership Is an Upward Spiral
Four key questions to ask yourself.
By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership
Unhappy and difficult clients help our firms to improve our client management skills and present opportunities to refine our leadership skills.
MORE by Martin Bissett
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
It is tough for us to build a successful firm without difficult clients or internal personnel issues in order to provide learning experiences for us to build a robust and commercially successful infrastructure.
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Bissett Bullet: Our Firm Prides Itself on Underresourcing Your Future
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “As the old saying goes, we esteem too lightly that which we obtain too cheaply. That goes for low fees in the accounting profession too.”
By Martin Bissett
When you lowball a fee, do you instill confidence in the prospective client that you’ll be giving your full and very best attention and resources to their account? From real-life feedback, I can advise that Grade “A” prospects doubt that very much.
Today’s To-Do:
When you next lowball a fee, create a justification in your mind for doing so beyond “we need the business” and explain it to the team who will have to deliver the work under such tight margins. They will benefit from the understanding and morale might not take as big of an intangible hit as it usually does in these cases.
See more Bissett Bullets here
Marketing Without Tears
What are your clients saying about you?
By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention
Marketing and business development do not have to be painful experiences. If they are, then I suggest that you simply stop what you are currently doing. How many of us are successful in doing painful activities? I know I’m not!
MORE by August J. Aquila
Exclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.
Start your marketing thinking with the following question: “What kind of firm do I want to have?” While I can offer some suggested answers, the real answer must come from you, and it shouldn’t be determined in two minutes.
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Bissett Bullet: Don’t Fall at the First Hurdle
Today’s Bissett Bullet: “I told your person on the phone I was happy with what my accountant does. Good. Tell me how they get involved with influencing your future.”
By Martin Bissett