your firm’s existence depends on marketing.
by marc rosenberg
the rosenberg practice management library
sometimes the most important ingredient in marketing success has little to do with marketing.
more: how to brand and differentiate your firm | working business development into your day | how marketing systems produce business growth | 6 keys to developing new client prospects | protect and grow existing clients | 19 takeaways from the history of cpa firm practice development
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this statement may seem illogical, even unbelievable, in a series professing to teach cpa firms how to generate revenue growth. but stay with us and you’ll see what we mean.
a firm can have the greatest marketing plan ever created and devise the most innovative and effective strategies and marketing tactics the world has ever seen, but until the plan, strategies and tactics are implemented, nothing will happen.
what does it take to implement a growth strategy?
- a structure and methodology for organizing marketing initiatives. this includes a marketing plan, a marketing budget, personnel dedicated to organizing and implementing the firm’s overall practice development, financial incentives for marketing success and a marketing culture that engages and excites people about revenue growth.
- sound, effective, committed management that leads and coaches the key players in the plan and holds them accountable for their roles in marketing.
what does management actually do to get the firm to implement practice development initiatives? this post provides several ways to execute the firm’s practice development.
what does management do to implement practice development initiatives?
someone needs to champion the firm’s marketing plan. perhaps the most important nonmarketing activity in the firm’s marketing bag of tricks is strong management and leadership. partners are very busy people with many critically important duties vying for their most scarce resource, their time. so it’s easy for partners to get distracted by things other than marketing and lose focus on it as time marches on. the firm’s marketing champion must do three main things:
- keep everyone’s focus on their marketing goals.
- coach them on achieving their marketing goals.
- hold people accountable for marketing.
at many firms, the marketing champion is the managing partner. larger firms may have a marketing partner or a high-level marketing director, who may play a prominent role in championing the marketing plan. whoever it is, the marketing champion needs to stay on top of the plan and avoid the “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome.
time management. managing time is a critical factor in achieving revenue growth. contrast these two opposing forces:
- partners in cpa firms (who do the lion’s share of the firm’s practice development) are very, very busy people. they work 2,400 hours or more a year, juggling client duties, mentoring, nurturing and training staff and managing the firm, tending to admin duties and more. finding the time to perform marketing functions proactively and effectively is very difficult.
- but if the partners don’t perform business development, who will? add to that the inclination of many partners to avoid business development because they don’t like it, and the result is a deadly combination that leads to a near total lack of practice development effort.
so the challenge for partners is to find the time to do marketing. and not just doing it to say they did it but doing it as if the firm’s very existence depends on it, which it does.
this is where the highest levels of firm management, perhaps the managing partner, can help by coaching partners when they appear to be mismanaging their time and neglecting their marketing responsibilities.
partner accountability. we’ve defined this several times.
business development training. cpas acquire their technical skills from years of rigorous schooling and hundreds of hours of cpe classes. isn’t it reasonable that they can be – and need to be – trained in business development?
a strong marketing culture. these are features of a strong marketing culture:
- a value system that one hour of practice development time is worth at least one hour of billable time.
- bringing in business is rewarded handsomely.
- you can’t not try. everyone can contribute in some way to the firm’s practice development efforts.
- marketing is talked about all the time. at partner meetings. at staff meetings. at partner retreats. at performance appraisals. when partners meet privately and socially with each other, they share their business development opportunities and experiences.
- those who bring in business take pride in belonging to the firm’s “in crowd.” example: i was sitting in the office of a managing partner one day when a partner knocked on the doorjamb. he said to the mp: “sorry to interrupt, but you know that construction prospect i’ve been working on for the past two months? i just got him as a client!” team members take so much pride in landing new clients that they love sharing these conquests with their peers.
- in mentoring and appraisal sessions with staff, it’s made clear that bringing in business is a criterion for advancement to higher levels.
- there is accountability for business development.
- partners are never too busy – never – to create and follow up on leads.
- rainmakers are great for the firm. so are mistmakers (people who bring in smaller amounts of business). for firms without rainmakers, a cavalry of mistmakers can be just as effective.
- the firm creates a culture in which business development is fun.
goal setting. if you are in the business world, a day doesn’t go by without someone uttering the term “goal setting.” pretty much everyone believes in goal setting. but why don’t they put it into practice?
- there’s no time to write the goals (usually a smokescreen for other reasons).
- people figure that if they create goals for themselves, they will be held accountable for achieving them.
- many believe that merely intending to achieve the goals is sufficient and that formalizing the goals by putting them in writing is a waste of time.
- laziness, often fueled by complacency. this keeps people from ever getting around to goal setting.
many years ago, i came across research on goal setting that was very persuasive and powerful. it centered on
- the correlation between success in life and goal setting.
- the fact that goal setting without a written plan is just a wish.
- the acronym smart, a short, useful way to describe how a goal should be defined.
all goals should be written as smart goals:
s specific
m measurable
a attainable
r realistic
t time-bounded (have a deadline)
goals that are vague and difficult to measure are ineffective. but goals written in a smart manner are very powerful.
the pyramid shows that:
- only 3 percent of all people are wealthy, and they frequently spell out their goals in writing.
- 10 percent live comfortably and have goals “in mind.”
- 60 percent live paycheck to paycheck and have few goals.
- 27 percent of all people need charity to eke out a living. forget about goal setting; they are in survival mode.
the takeaway on goal setting: as with just about anything worth achieving in life, you are more likely to be successful if you convert your dreams to goals and, for darn sure, put them in writing.
example: don’t just say you want to bring in business. put it in writing and be very specific.
i want to bring in $50,000 of new business this year. the revenue can come from existing clients, referral sources or prospects. i will achieve this goal by convening 10 meetings each quarter with clients, five meetings a quarter with referral sources and five meetings a quarter with prospects. the names of my targets are as follows: [to be filled in].
providing clients with world-class service and value. i knew of a cpa in the 1980s who claimed that if you want to grow your practice, and you provide clients with great service, referrals will soon follow unsolicited.
well, he was partially correct. providing great service is critically important to retaining clients and getting referrals. why would someone refer a friend or business acquaintance to you if they weren’t satisfied with your service? great service is just not enough by itself.
consulting. we could devote an entire book to the virtues and benefits of developing consulting to complement your audit, accounting and tax services. our world gets more sophisticated every day. that means that clients’ needs get more varied and sophisticated. consulting is a great way to better serve your clients. perhaps just as important, it’s a great door opener for traditional cpa services because it’s often easier to sell consulting than an audit or a tax return. clients need an audit or tax return only because they are required by a third party. but they need and want advice on improving their business.
understanding how your firm is different. for the typical local firm, differentiating yourself from others in your market can be challenging. but you must find a way.
think about it. you’ve just met a prospect and you introduce yourself this way: “hi, my name is susan smith and i’m a partner at xyz cpa. we are a full-service cpa firm, focusing on audit, accounting and tax. we specialize in privately owned businesses. our partners are highly skilled professionals, and we have a great staff.” is the prospect going to be moved or influenced by that intro? not likely.
there are many ways to differentiate your firm.
- a specialty or niche
- largest firm in the market
- third-generation firm: we aren’t going anywhere.
- 60 percent of our work is audit.
- regular winner of best place to work awards
- clients at our firm have heavy contact with partners.
- we specialize in wealth management.
stressing how different you are from the (humdrum) competition is a great way to give you a leg up.
reward bringing in business. the two biggest factors in achieving growth, profitability and success are great management and bringing in business.
bringing in business doesn’t come easily for cpas. most need to go outside their comfort zone to be successful at it. so it makes sense to establish significant financial incentives for partners and other firm members to bring in business or otherwise contribute to the firm’s marketing efforts. for partners, this is done by creating a fair performance-based partner compensation system in which business development is a major factor.
teamwork. firms are more successful when the partners and other firm members work together as a team instead of operating as a group of sole practitioners practicing under one roof, sharing a firm name, staff and overhead.
here are some best practices for team-based business development:
- two heads are better than one. if you are an audit partner, take a tax partner with you on the pitch, and vice versa. this way, the client is exposed to double your firm’s expertise. this should impress the prospect enormously.
- take a young staff person along to show how you handle yourself in a prospective client meeting. even if the staffer doesn’t say a word, watching a partner sell is a great way to learn business development skills.
- institutionalize your clients. make the client “firm-dependent” instead of “partner-dependent.” in other words, service clients as a team and as a firm, not as a lone ranger partner. this gives clients multiple touch points or contacts in your firm, thereby demonstrating that your practice has valuable resources other than the lead partner. it also increases the likelihood that the client will stay with the firm if the lead partner suddenly leaves the practice.