Developing A Marketing Mindset For Your Firm

So, having seen the efforts of this year’s marketing awards winners elsewhere in this issue of The Bottom Line, are there any lessons to be learned, and if so, can you take any of these and apply them in your own practice, no matter what it’s size?

Yes, of course you can.

First, we should start with the end in mind. What type of client do you ideally want to attract?

What type of services do you want to provide to them and at what price?

Is there a niche market that you want to attack and build a practice around?

Simply hanging a shingle, placing an advert in the yellow pages and crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, is hardly producing a marketing plan.

Hope, indeed, is not a strategy.

Kudos to the 2005 winners, your careful planning and meticulous execution has paid off, not just with the results you achieved, but also in getting the recognition you deserve.

Winning these awards should be used as a great marketing opportunity itself, as entrepreneurs like to do business with others business people, including their Accountants, who have a proven track record for being entrepreneurial themselves.

So, starting with the end in mind, what can you do to get a marketing effort rolling in your own firm?

For those with no idea, I am delivering my “Marketing For The Modern Practitioner” seminar across the country in the coming months for various provincial institutes (for dates and locations see my own website: www.mfagroup.com, and click on the ‘speaking’ tab) which should give you plenty of ideas to get you started.

For those who cannot attend, all is not lost. I will try to give you some ideas here.

1. Develop a target market. Decide which industries you like and how you can help them and try to be creative in how you might reach that market.

2. Develop an elevator pitch. If someone asks you what you do for a living, please, please, do not answer with ‘I’m a CA/CGA/CMA’. That’s a great conversation killer.

Instead, respond using the following formula: I work with ____________ to help them ___________.

Fill in the first of the two blanks with the target audience (such as Real Estate Agents (if you’re at a Real Estate Agents gathering) and the second with a real benefit (such as ‘to pay less tax) if you believe their biggest concern is their tax liability.

3. Decide on a budget. Know how much you’d like to spend on marketing and promotion and then allocate those resources into specific projects.

4. Make your marketing effort measurable. For example, keep a record of how many prospective clients you make presentations to, how many convert into clients, who makes referrals to you and which of those turn into clients.

5. Keep a record of which clients produce the most referrals that convert into fee-paying clients. Knowing this will help you determine which clients to ‘spoil’ with preferential service.

6. Talking of service, aim to provide an awesome service experience to your best clients to encourage more referrals.

7. Never eat alone! Use lunch times as an excellent opportunity to take out a banker, a lawyer, a client or any other referral source. Everybody has to eat so why not combine a lunch with a business opportunity. You never know what might come from these events.

8. Join a club. Choose a club where clients (or potential clients) hang out and get actively involved. As accountants, we often get ‘volunteered’ for the role of treasurer. It’s a high profile role that gets you noticed and known as ‘the accountant around these parts’.

It is amazing how many opportunities can come your way just from this one idea.

9. Write. Writing articles is a time consuming activity. It is also a responsibility. But why do you think I spend so much time writing for The Bottom Line? It is because the profile it creates for me is a priceless form of advertising. Indeed money could not buy the type of publicity this column brings me.

You can do the same too. Pick a trade journal or newsletter that goes to your ideal clients and try to develop a relationship with the Editor and offer to provide the occasional article for him or her.

If you succeed here, then good things will happen to your practice, I promise.

10. Produce good collateral. Your brochure and web site, your business card and newsletters are all ambassadors for your firm, representing you when you cannot be there.

Make sure that they do you justice. They don’t have to be expensive to look expensive.

Finally, if you have three or four staff, they should all be familiar with how to answer the question, ‘What do you do?’

Some simple training and communication with your staff can often produce new circles of influence for you to break into – groups of people with buying power that might not otherwise be available to you.

Finally, if a sole practitioner in Calgary can win an award, I don’t want to hear any excuses why your firm does not enter the marketing awards next year. I’m looking forward to reviewing your entry next year.