THE SMALL FIRM AND SOLO PRACTICE

Give to Receive, and Eight More Ways to Boost Sales

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Confident businesswoman handing man a business card in networking session

These tips work for referrals, too.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Networking is an essential part of building your business.

Whether you network locally, nationally or internationally, there are some tips that are common to all businesses:

MORE: Five Ways to Target the Low-Hanging Fruit | Eight Ways to Build Busy-Season Stamina | Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out | Six Ways to Beat the Competition | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals? | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Want Better Clients? Here’s How | Get Your Name in the News
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1. Be crystal clear about what you do and how people can use you. Also know exactly who your ideal client is in case you’re asked. If you don’t do this, you’ll leave people scratching their heads about you and they won’t know how to connect with you even if they want to.
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Five Ways to Target the Low-Hanging Fruit

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ripe apples are hanging on a branch covered with first snow

Easy tips you can implement right now.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

If business has slowed for you, it’s not just you. With people finishing their holiday preparations, getting ready for school vacations and trying to keep from falling to the latest batch of colds making the rounds, it’s all most of us can do to stay on our routines.

MORE: Eight Ways to Build Busy-Season Stamina | Five Things That Clients Don’t Know about Accountants | You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue | Beyond Compliance: Six Tips for Adding Value | Track Six Figures to Test Your Marketing | Eight Things to Give New Clients | Four Ways Small Firms Can Beat Large Ones | Five Emotional Skills for Entrepreneurs | Transform Your Marketing with CRM | Five Kinds of Small Thinking | Five Tests: How Open Are You to Change?
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As entrepreneurs, we still need to make payroll, meet our budget goals and get enough cash in to keep our doors open. So how can we cash in on the low-hanging fruit?
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Eight Ways to Build Busy-Season Stamina

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Attitude is key, but can only do so much.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Busy season is just around the corner. Can you feel the excitement? Or the dread?

Here are eight ways to boost your stamina and minimize burnout for those of you who are working long hours in the weeks ahead.

MORE: Five Things That Clients Don’t Know about Accountants | Are Your Revenue Projections Realistic? | Six Strategies to Make More without Working More | The Art of Prompt Engineering for Accountants | Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios | Five Ways to Acquire More Clients | Five Stages of Any Business | Put Your LinkedIn Profile to Work | What’s In a (Domain) Name? Plenty
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1. Understand the physical limitations of “willpower.”

According to scientists, our willpower is replenished every morning after a good night’s sleep. It’s strongest in the morning (even if you’re an evening person like me), and it wanes throughout the day. The more stress you’re under, the faster it depletes during the day, and sometimes your willpower runs out before the day does.
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Five Things That Clients Don’t Know about Accountants

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number 5 drawn in sand

We have to remember to offer this information.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

I’m pretty sure that I am not the only accountant who has made the following mistakes with clients. Here are a couple of ideas to help us remember what we know that the client doesn’t and why it costs us when we forget.

MORE: Are Your Revenue Projections Realistic? | Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out | Six Ways to Beat the Competition | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals? | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Want Better Clients? Here’s How | Get Your Name in the News | Four Ways Small Firms Can Beat Large Ones
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1. Clients do not know how to evaluate our technical skills.

If you need to hire an accountant, chances are you don’t know a lot about accounting. It just follows that you’re not going to be perfect at hiring an accountant. As accountants, we need to remember that it’s not our technical prowess that gets us the job because the client has no way of evaluating that piece.
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Are Your Revenue Projections Realistic?

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outstretched hand reaching through funnel of money

Three ways to evaluate your new client funnel.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

You may have heard about the marketing funnel before. There are lots of variations, and I want to cover it in a way that helps us examine our mix of products, services and prices.

MORE: Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out | Five Ways to Wow Your Clients | How to Fight Feeling Overwhelmed | You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue | Make the Most of CPE Conferences | Beyond Compliance: Six Tips for Adding Value | Track Six Figures to Test Your Marketing | When You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
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The funnel can be pictured like a big “V.”  At the top, wide-open part, there are a lot of prospects interested in your services and products. At the bottom, narrow part, there are a few select customers who buy the most from you.
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Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out

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Businesswomen shaking hands and exchanging a folder

Eight must-haves and 10 ways to go beyond the expected.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

If you’ve spent any time at all in business talking with prospects on the phone or in person, then you probably have a list of benefits or advantages that you like to mention about your company to every prospect. You may have a very structured way of going about this, and you may not.

MORE: Five Ways to Wow Your Clients | Six Strategies to Make More without Working More | The Art of Prompt Engineering for Accountants | Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios | Set Bold New Goals for the Rest of the Year | Five Ways to Acquire More Clients | Five Stages of Any Business | Leverage Your Client List Today | Need Leads? Try a Quiz
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In any case, building a prospect kit will help you become even more consistent in the presentation of your company’s strong points to prospects. And, it’s absolutely essential as you move into larger and larger business deals.

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Five Ways to Wow Your Clients

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chocolate chip cookies in white plate with red cup coffee

Sometimes it truly is the thought that counts.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

You don’t have to be the Ritz-Carlton or Mercedes to provide your customer with a great experience.

Just a little forethought and planning will make a huge difference.

MORE: Six Strategies to Make More without Working More | Six Ways to Beat the Competition | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals? | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Want Better Clients? Here’s How | Get Your Name in the News
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Here are five tips for your consideration:

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Six Strategies to Make More without Working More

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Time is money : clock hands on $100 bills

Are there skills you can leverage in multiple ways?

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

When I worked in the corporate world, it was always great to get a raise. Now that I am an entrepreneur, raises are replaced by increases in revenue and profits. More revenue and profits are nice, as long as we’re not working correspondingly more hours.

MORE: Six Ways to Beat the Competition | How to Fight Feeling Overwhelmed | You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue | Make the Most of CPE Conferences | Beyond Compliance: Six Tips for Adding Value | Track Six Figures to Test Your Marketing | When You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know | Eight Things to Give New Clients | Put Your LinkedIn Profile to Work
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So how can we give ourselves a true raise: work the same amount of hours or less and make more? Here are a few strategies for your consideration:

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Six Ways to Beat the Competition

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Big businessman crushing a small one in his fingers

Stop losing business to others.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

It’s rare that I lose business to competitors, and it’s also not an accident.

MORE: How to Fight Feeling Overwhelmed | The Art of Prompt Engineering for Accountants | Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios | Set Bold New Goals for the Rest of the Year | Five Ways to Acquire More Clients | Five Stages of Any Business | Leverage Your Client List Today | Need Leads? Try a Quiz | Now’s the Time to Clean Up Your Email List | Don’t Let Prospects Fall through the Cracks | Five Lessons My Clients Taught Me
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If you are losing business to your competitors, here are some strategies you can use to “become a category of one,” as they say in marketing.

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How to Fight Feeling Overwhelmed

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overwhelmed businessman covered in sticky notes

Five ways to turn a tough day into a great one.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

The exact solution to managing your “overwhelm” level will depend on what the source of your overwhelm is. You can also be suffering from more than one source of overwhelm.

MORE: The Art of Prompt Engineering for Accountants | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals? | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Want Better Clients? Here’s How | Four Ways Small Firms Can Beat Large Ones
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Here are five tips to help you manage the most common sources of overwhelm.

1. Find support.

Is your overwhelm related to your packed schedule?
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Eleven Marketing Strategies for Smaller Firms

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man wearing glasses working in office at desktop computer, laptop off to sideYou probably haven’t used all of these.

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

Small firm owners know they need to market, but they don’t always know which marketing activities they need to focus on. Here are 11 strategies for increasing your client base that are easy to implement.

MORE: Five Keys to Successful Marketing | How Does Your Firm Measure Up? | Six Questions Before Asking for All the Referrals You Deserve | Five Rules for a Marketing Orientation | Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development
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1: Get Known in the Marketplace

Before you start marketing, you need to answer these two questions:

  • Who are you?
  • What do you offer?

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Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies

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Coffee cup by napkin with words including "action plans."

Side benefit: You’ll serve your clients better.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

The latest marketing strategies and trends are almost as hard to keep up with as the tax law changes these days. Here is a quick taste of three underutilized marketing trends that can solve a couple of issues in the accounting industry and increase firm profits.

MORE: You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue | Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios | Set Bold New Goals for the Rest of the Year | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Five Stages of Any Business | Leverage Your Client List Today | Need Leads? Try a Quiz | Now’s the Time to Clean Up Your Email List | Don’t Let Prospects Fall through the Cracks
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1 – Consumption marketing

Does client attrition keep your firm’s managing partner up at night? Consumption marketing is one of several solutions to this challenge. Consumption marketing is designed to increase the consumer’s use of the product and avoid returns (think “avoid writeoffs”).
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You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue

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Here are four ways to stop leaving that money on the table.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Accounting firms have done a great job adopting paperless office technologies, the web and even cloud computing, so you may feel you have been doing all you can to streamline margins, become “client-centric,” as some consultants call it, and grow your practice. But I believe there is even more opportunity that very few, if any, in the accounting profession have fully identified or embraced.

MORE: Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals? | Generative AI: Should You Avoid It or Adopt It? | Want Better Clients? Here’s How | Get Your Name in the News | Four Ways Small Firms Can Beat Large Ones | Why You Need a Link-In-Bio Tool
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I only bring this up because I believe most CPA firms are leaving about 60 percent of their potential revenue on the table (and I can prove it). Worse, they are not sharing their badly needed financial expertise with more businesses that could be greatly helped, especially now.
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