Introducing a New Service to the Market

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Before you take a new product to market, you need to test it with poten­tial buyers. Companies in many industries conduct beta tests using early adopters; they are just as important in the accounting industry.

An early adopter (a.k.a. guinea pig) is an early tester of a potential offering. In exchange for preferential pricing (often starting at free and increasing from there), your early adopter provides feedback on the offering. You’ll ask them to tell you what they liked, what they didn’t and what they would like to see different. This will allow you to refine your offering until you get it to a stage when you know others will buy it. Read more →

Stop Chasing Every Lead

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Every prospect you encounter would be a great fit for your firm, right? Wrong.

Too often accountants try to be all things to all people without realizing how much stronger their firm could be if they were more selective about the types of clients they work with. There are clients you can truly serve better – and they will be better clients. Read more →

Is There Strategy to Your Content Marketing?

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Content marketing is hot today. It seems as if everyone is doing it. The problem is, not everyone is doing it well. That leaves a lot of disgruntled readers wanting more from what they consume.

How many times have you clicked on an article to read it and less than 200 words in you realize it’s not what you thought it would be? Or that it didn’t add anything to your knowledge base? Make sure you provide something of value to your readers so they keep coming back for more. This is easy to achieve in the accounting industry. After all, content marketing is all about sharing intellectual capital and that’s exactly what we’re selling. Read more →

Creating a Growth Culture Needs Champions & Buy-In

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As competition increases, more CPA firms are focusing on firm growth as a way to remain competitive and add revenue to the top line. Typically, a decision to shift direction stems from a strategic planning process or a partner meeting. But what comes next? Deciding to make a change is the first step in a lengthy and challenging process that will change your firm for the better.

Forming a growth culture in an organization requires that you get buy-in from your partners if you have any chance of being successful. And amongst the partners who support your direction, there will be a handful of them who can, and will, help you champion the effort. You need to be able to identify these people early on in the process and use them to help win over those who are still undecided. Read more →

Be Consultative to Grow Revenue & Relationships

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Clients want many things from their CPA, but at the top of that list is usually proactive advice. While it seems like a simple thing, many accountants drop the ball and leave their clients wanting more.

Whenever you have the chance to sit down with your clients to talk about the business, you need to fully understand the company’s obvious needs, but you should also use the opportunity to uncover the not-so-obvious ones. Every business owner is facing a challenge that needs a solution. That’s where consultants help. Read more →

Three Elements Imperative to Service Innovation

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“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.”

That quote by Peter Drucker illustrates the importance of innovation in business. Innovation is what makes the world go around, and it should be part of regular operations. Who in your firm is responsible for innovation? What are you innovating now?

Innovation is imperative when revenue from a service offering has increased to a significant amount while your margin has dropped. To drive additional revenue in this area, you need to change up what you are doing. That may include conceptualizing something entirely new that you want to take to the marketplace. It could also include adopting a service delivery model that that differs from your competitors. Or it could include providing a special feature to every buyer of a specific service. There are many ways to innovate. Read more →

10 Strategies that Will Drive Firm Growth in 2016

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A revolution is occurring in marketing today. Marketing strategies of the past are not as effective as they once were. And there are new tactics today that didn’t exist just a few years ago. This requires firms take a deep look at what they are doing and open their eyes to new things. Growth does not occur from marketing alone. There are many factors that contribute to firm growth and here’s a look at 10 strategies that will grow in importance in 2016.

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Marketing Data is Never 100% Accurate

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Consistency is the Key to Proving ROI

Marketing today is being driven by data…and its effectiveness is being proven by data. However, there are many different ways calculations can be made – there are more loopholes to navigate than can be found in the tax code.

In order for data to be accurate, it needs to be complete, up-to-date and relevant. Look in your firm’s time and billing system, your email distribution list or your CRM. Is every piece of data in there? Probably not. However, you should strive for consistency to improve your accuracy. There a many ways to do this when firms place a priority on data integrity, but that’s a topic for another day. Let’s explore why no two firms will make the exact same calculations and the factors that will impact how calculations are is made. Read more →

Ready, Set, Move to Action

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To motivate is to move to action. Marketing is all about motivating. You motivate clients to use your services. You motivate prospects to buy. You even motivate internally to get partners to sell. Whether you realize it or not, you’re in the motivation business.

While many people believe you need to provide incentives to get people to take action, that’s only part of the solution. In professional services marketing, some of the key motivational tools may be simpler than you think.

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