karen reyburn wants accountants to stop thinking “about marketing as this one-off thing where you tick little boxes,” but instead about the ways you can use your marketing to connect to the human experience. her company, the profitable firm, or pf for short, has been helping accountants with their marketing since 2012.
in reyburn’s view, marketing is closely connected to the business. “if you have a marketing problem, you have a business problem. if you have a business problem, there’s often a marketing solution that can help with it.”
this book springs out of a pf coaching group called the accelerator, where participants were guided through a process of creating a structured approach to content marketing that made their marketing better. reyburn and pf take a collaborative approach to marketing. “we don’t do marketing for people,” she explained. “we do marketing with them.”
marketing has traditionally been something that firm owners did reluctantly. but today, reyburn is seeing accountants “who are excited about marketing, they’re trying stuff with chatgpt and ai and virtual reality and all the socials and videos” and who don’t mind “looking at other businesses for ideas.”
the book is based around a core set of principles, including “good marketing divides,” “just get started,” and “keep going.”
another one of reyburn’s principles is that everyone – including accountants – is creative. “it’s one of those very simple formulas,” she said. “humans are creative. accountants are humans; therefore, accountants are creative.” she urged her peers to recognize that creativity makes your marketing better “because you’re giving yourself permission to lean into what is already there. you don’t have to create it out of nothing.” she added that accessing your inherent creativity, which often gets “squished down” in accountants, can help people escape “a box that you don’t have to be in,” she added.
when the marketing, firm culture and client experience all match, then people will feel comfortable, and “that’s a win for them and for you” and “everybody’s happy,” reyburn said.
17 more takeaways from karen reyburn
if a firm is struggling to recruit, the problem may be that how they show up on social media or in videos isn’t aligned with their culture, so the people who would be a good fit are not finding them.
before you start any marketing, consider your audience. what are their issues? what troubles them and what motivates them?
who is your ideal audience? will they read things? will they attend an online zoom session? or do they prefer videos or an app? what is most helpful to them?
good marketing divides. it should bring you the right clients and send away the ones that aren’t a fit for you. this lets you spend time with the people you are best placed to serve.
just get started and keep going, and keep going in the right direction. the most important part of marketing is getting started and to keep doing the right things consistently. invest in the good, big foundational things and quality ingredients. keep going in the same direction to get where you want to be.
the right way is the long way. to do anything really well takes a long time. it can take two to three years of consistent custom content to attract the right audience. occasionally, someone will get a new client from their first blog post, but more likely, it’s the combination of branding, website, social media presence and other contacts over time.
scottish whisky is made of three ingredients: yeast, barley and water. likewise, good marketing is made of two ingredients: who you are and who you serve.
you can take the fear approach to new tech like chatgpt that we’ll never have another original book again. or you can take the exciting entrepreneurial approach and see how to add this to your toolbox to support the foundations of quality marketing. tools like chatgpt offer the opportunity to help pull out the best of us. just make sure you’re connecting with your humanity and personality.
what are the questions your clients are asking you? create content around your answers.
you don’t need 10,000 people to find your blog. you just need that one great person – your ideal client – to find it, read it and get in touch with you.
accountants tend to want to make everything perfect. but nothing will ever be perfect. instead, strive for not perfect, but good.
making an emotional connection with your ideal clients’ fears and pains on your website is better than overprofessionalizing what you do. think about how you would say things. do what fits and what’s real.
match your marketing to the actual experience of being a client.
get your entire team involved in your marketing. your team is involved in delivering the services. your marketing will be more useful if it reflects what your clients are telling your team members every day.
your marketing, your firm culture and the client experience should match your firm values. if there is any mismatch, sort it out. don’t try to pretend your values are something they’re not.
copy from other kinds of businesses that provide you with an outstanding customer experience. we may tell one person when we have a positive experience, but we’ll tell 10 people about any negative experience. for someone to tell 10 people how great the experience with your firm is, you need to be next level and amaze them.
fix the little things one at a time. start small and start safe. then do the next thing and the next thing. and just keep going.
reyburn
about karen reyburn karen reyburn’s creativity skills and accounting qualifications work together in the creation and success of pf, the creative agency working exclusively for and with accountants. she leads a creative team working from all over the world, serving accountants all over the globe. her two personal values, freedom and honesty, guide all the work she does. her experience covers 20 years of accounting, auditing, business development & marketing, and remote team leadership.
transcript (transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr 00:04
welcome to accounting disrupter conversations. i’m your host liz farr from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. my guest today is karen rayburn, managing director and owner of we are pf. how are you, karen?
karen reyburn 00:21
so good. thanks for having me, liz. great to be here.
liz farr 00:24
yeah, it’s, it’s great to have a chance to talk to you. and for people who haven’t heard you speak before, it’s always a little disconcerting that we’ve got this american who works in scotland. so it’s, it’s a little disconcerting, but i know that it works for you.
karen reyburn 00:45
it is. and it’s a good reminder, never to presume that you know, where somebody’s from, or where they live or make those connections, it’s a great opportunity for curiosity, because i get people saying, oh, you must not be from here in scotland. and i’m like, well, i have lived here for 22 years. so i sort of am now but i understand why you would think that, and then we have a lovely conversation about travel.
liz farr 01:09
that’s right. that’s right. now, can you tell the listeners a little bit about your company, and what you and your team do?
karen reyburn 01:17
yeah, so pf is a creative agency. it stands for the profitable firm. and we help accountants to understand the structure of marketing, and enjoy being involved in marketing, so that they can work with the clients they love. that’s our, that’s what we want to do. we want to do that for as many accountants in the world as we can. and whether we do that through free resources. we have tons of blogs, and videos and pdf guides and all of that, if we help even one or two accountants or 1000, accountants with all those resources, great. if people want to work with us, great. but our goal is to help accountants with that, so that they understand their role in marketing, and not hand it off to somebody but be involved in it so that their marketing truly reflects them. so we have a team of 18 creatives, they work all over the world with accountants all over the world. and we’re all remote working from home offices or co working spaces, and really enjoy getting to help so many different accountant entrepreneurs.
liz farr 02:27
that’s great. that’s great. yeah. and, and i think it’s wonderful to have a firm that, that really teaches accountants that marketing doesn’t have to be a dirty word. i think that’s cool.
karen reyburn 02:39
yes, yeah, that is really important to us that mark, i think that a little less. so now, on the positive side, i’m seeing a lot of accountants who are open to this or even excited about it and seeing how they can bring marketing into their firm. but having done this for 20 years, there’s always some accountants who have some reservations or some worries or, or thinking, well, i’m not very creative, or that’s not my job, i just do my job. and then we’ll have the marketing over here. and a lot of what we do is help accountants to connect marketing with their whole business. so if you have a marketing problem, you have a business problem. if you have a business problem, there’s often a marketing solution that can help with it. so we help to tie those together. like, for example, an accountancy firm who’s struggling to recruit, maybe their brand isn’t onpoint. maybe their social media or their videos or lack thereof, is preventing these great people that they want to hire from realizing what a great firm they are, because there’s a mismatch. so it’s not only the prospects, it’s the prospective team members, that sort of thing can connect to those? and are the clients we work with end up going, oh, this isn’t just marketing in a silo. this is the whole connection, i can actually make a better business by addressing marketing.
liz farr 04:04
exactly, exactly. yeah, you’ve recently wrote a book called the accountant marketer, the structured approach any accountant can follow to attract clients they love, which is a fantastic book, by the way. yay. why did you choose to write this book?
karen reyburn 04:25
yeah, it’s a great question. i think the short version is, this is everything i would love to be able to share with any accountant who wants to understand marketing and their role in marketing. so having served accountants for 20 years and helping them with marketing. i’m a qualified accountant myself in the states. i’m a cpa. i’ve worked as an auditor i’ve worked in an accountancy firm, i worked as a marketing person in a accountancy firm. i worked as a business development person, i created a whole consultancy advisory division in an accountancy firm. so i’ve been on that side. and i’ve worked with accountants since then. and the more we helped educate accountants about content marketing specifically, and how it applies to their firms, the more we saw patterns of things that when they know these things in order, and how the structure fits together, it makes their marketing better, it helps them be more confident, like i can do this, this isn’t this nebulous thing far away that i have to hire somebody else for hope that they get it right. and then feel really annoyed later that i’ve wasted all this money and haven’t gotten what i wanted. instead, you can understand how they fit together. so you know what parts you do and what parts you hire somebody else for whatever it be. and we turned it into a coaching group called the accelerator, and we had 12 sessions that all stack together. and i’ve been running that for eight or nine years, we’ve had over 500 accountants go through it. and, and now it’s a 12 week program. whereas originally, it was 12 months, but the 12 elements have roughly stayed the same. so the book flows from those 12 each, each chapter is one of the 12. and they go in order, it’s very important that before you start any marketing, you consider your audience. so that’s chapter one. and then as you consider your audience, you think about what their issues are, and how they feel, and what’s troubling them or worrying them or exciting them or motivating them. those are the issues they face. that’s chapter two. so they go in order, they connect with the accelerator group that we run, but my desire for this book is that accountants can have a essentially like a resource manual to go to, to say, you know, i just really want to learn more about how branding is a part of my marketing, i’m gonna go read chapter four, or i want to get better at video, i’m just gonna read chapter 10. and pull this, i still recommend that you read all the chapters in order to see the big picture. but it’s all there’s also a lot in it. there’s a lot of stories, there’s a lot of specific instruction and bullet points and ideas. and most of the accountants i’ve spoken to who have read an advanced copy you or you are one of them, were saying, i have all these ideas, and i’m writing things down. and i’m thinking of this, and i’m rethinking my brand or whatever it be. and that’s really exciting for me, because that’s why i wrote it. like if all an accountant does is get this book, read it and be helped. that’s a win.
liz farr 07:39
that’s perfect. now something i really liked about your book is that it was based around a set of core principles. and a lot of these are not applicable just to marketing. some of my favorites are good marketing divides, and just get started. keep going. and the right way is the long way. now, can you talk a little bit about what these principles mean for accountants and for marketing?
karen reyburn 08:14
yeah, they all they all have a connecting theme. i think when you look at these, we’re saying good marketing divides means that marketing’s job is to bring you the right clients, the best clients, the ideal clients for you. and to send away all the ones that aren’t a fit for you. it’s a win win for everybody, you’re not wasting time, they’re not wasting time, and you are spending time on the people, you are best placed to serve. yes, just get started and just keep going have to do with they have to go together, you have to start. but starting isn’t enough. and you need to keep going. and you need to keep going in the right direction consistently. because if you keep going this way, and then turn and keep going this way, and then turn and that’s not really keeping going. that’s just going around in circles. and then you tie that all together with the right way as the long way. which means that if you’re going to do anything well, really well. it takes a long time. now that’s comparative, depending on what the thing is, if you’re going to be more healthy or get more fit that could take two months, it could take two years. if you’re going to make whiskey, which i mean shamelessly borrowed that phrase from glengoyne distillery in scotland. one of my favorite distilleries. i’ve been through their tour a couple times. and they have the slowest stills that the copper stills that distill the whiskey in scotland, and they’re proud of it. they’re like we have the slowest ones. were the ones that do it the long way. because that’s what gets you the high quality whiskey or high quality, whatever that prints out. pull applies to the good stuff. so if you want something that’s good, you need to invest the time and effort into the ingredients to get there. and actually, that one ties in the whiskey making analogy ties in beautifully with content marketing, because usually it takes two to three years of consistent custom content in the right direction for the same audience. before you get that beautiful drip feed of wow, where did this lead even come from? i don’t even know. and it doesn’t mean you won’t get results as you start things. we’ve seen clients write a blog, and two days later, they signed a new client for 30 grands worth of work, yay. but we all know that it’s not just the blog, it’s the brand and the website and the social and the fact that they met them in an event three years ago. but as you are consistent with it over time, that drip feed begins to happen. so if you want the good stuff, whether you consider whiskey good stuff or not, right? i do, not everyone does, it’s fine, you can have other things. but that principle of investing in the good big foundational things, the quality ingredients that and keeping going in the same direction, that’s what gets you where you want to be. and as far as i can tell, i believe that most people i’m talking to recognize that in their lives, you want to have a really beautiful and well constructed house, it’s going to take us probably going to take longer than you think you want to look completely different than you look now it’s probably gonna take a good amount of time. there aren’t shortcuts. and we have this temptation to want the shortcut, what’s the quick thing, how, what’s the diet, what’s the food that i can buy is going keto gonna do that, whatever. and there are many things that can help you. but at the end of the day, it’s it’s something very simple. and again, with the whiskey analogy, scottish whiskey is made of three ingredients. yeast barley and water. that’s it, that’s what makes scottish whiskey and time. but those are the three ingredients and, and the ingredients of marketing are actually quite simple. and they have to do with who you are and who you serve. and when you consider both of those, and you continue in the same direction, you get those quality results that you want.
liz farr 12:35
yeah, and you just can’t rush it. so many people just try to rush it, they, they go for the quick seo fix. or, you know, i wrote a case study for a firm that i was working for. and the person who was doing the marketing took one look at it and said, this is too long, people don’t read online. and i just thought, well, that’s not perception.
karen reyburn 13:05
it isn’t just some people don’t like some people would prefer a video or, or the short version, but not everybody. and then you get into the concept of things like stackable content. so if you have the super long case study, which as you and i both know, somebody will read that somebody who connects with that person will say, i feel like rebecca, or whoever this person is, i feel like rebecca felt but i don’t have the success that she had, maybe i’ll get in touch and they read every word of it. you know, your buyer does 70% of their make 70% of their buying decision before they ever get in touch. but there are other people who will go i’m not gonna read all that. and that’s fine. you take two sentences and put it on your social media, or record a one minute instagram real about it. so yeah, it’s it’s not about the that won’t work at all. it’s will who will it work for? and then we’re back to your audience is your ideal audience, somebody who’s going to read things or sit on a computer and attend an online zoom session? if they’re not record some videos, create an app, do whatever it is, that’s helpful for them. not do that thing, which i’ve seen some businesses and, and accountants do of, well, that other firm is doing that. so i guess that worked for them. we better try it. now you can try it. but you need to consider who you are, who your audience is why you’re doing this what you want them to do. and if it doesn’t fit, then maybe you don’t have to do the dancing video. maybe that’s not you, and that’s okay.
liz farr 14:42
yeah, yeah, i think there’s something for everyone. absolutely. now, we’ve had a lot of publicity recently around ai platforms like chat gpt. don’t just this going to impact the way that marketing is going to be done in the future.
karen reyburn 15:01
sure, yeah, it’s a great question because it’s, you know, hot topic and something everybody’s, almost everyone is either passionately wondering about and excited about and trying trying it out and playing with it. or sort of studiously avoiding it going, maybe it won’t be a thing. maybe if i ignore the new horseless carriages, everything will be okay. and it does seem like it’s the next transition for us. i mean, when you think about chat, gpt. it’s sort of a glorified google, you know, we go to google and type in what is the best, you know, coffee machine for my kitchen counter. and depending what google tells you, you revise your search terms, you go, oh, actually, that that phrase, i didn’t know until google brought it up in all the searches. so i will change that. and then you try again. and then you get a different phrase. and you try again, that concept is what you’re doing with chat gpt in a different way. and right now, that’s happening with content, but it’s already beginning to happen with images and with video, and with all of these things. and you can take a couple approaches to it. you can take the fear approach, oh, no, we’ll never have an original book ever again, nobody will ever know if an image is real, all of that. or you can take the excited entrepreneurial approach, which is, how do i use this as another tool in my toolbox, and support the good solid foundations of this quality marketing that we’re going to do? because you could go the, oh, well, you know, i don’t need to use that. i’ll just write it myself or use this content or whatever. but already, we’re seeing people say, i gathered a bunch of thoughts that i had and threw it into jet gbt. and it helped me, it helped me organize it, it helped me find this thing that was locked in the back of my brain. so if we look at it as an opportunity to pull out the best of us, but it’s still the best of us that’s coming out. it’s not the best of the machines, it’s the best of us. so when you look at chat gpt right now, it’s gathering content from all the content on the interwebs. and putting it together. that’s why you want to use your judgment and make sure you’re not copying and pasting, because then you’re just falling into the old shortcut route. oh, yeah. i found something of a generic blog post. i’ll throw this together. yeah, i have a 6000 word blog posts. is it a good blog post? who is it for? what issue? is it solving? where did it come from? is it really helpful? or is it one of these, there are four different approaches that you could take towards improving cash flow, there are a million blog posts like that, and that’s where chas gpt is getting the content. and so it’s not to say that you, you couldn’t use some of it. but make sure you’re connecting it with your humanity and your personality and the creativity that you have that every human innately has. and then it can be a very, very good and powerful thing. indeed,
liz farr 18:23
i think so. because it’s got the ability to just pull together so much information so much more than we as humans can. but yet, when you read something, you can go, hmm, this isn’t really me. and it doesn’t speak to my audience to the end that i want to attract.
karen reyburn 18:47
and once again, having that confidence of saying this is who i am, this is who i serve, this is who we are, this is our approach. these are our values, then that improves how you use that or any other tool, which is the same approach that we take pf when a client is coming to work with us. they might say, could you write me a blog post per week? like, well, technically, yes, we could. and first, in order to do that, we need to understand who you are, who you serve, what their issues are, what’s your tone? what’s your take on this? what would the approach be if one of your clients came to you? and they didn’t say, i’m wondering how to streamline my cash flow processes, but they say i’m a little worried. i don’t have enough in the bank. can i hire somebody? if that’s their question, then that’s the content we create. and we want the tone of who you are to come across so that when they read the blog, watch the video, follow you on the socials and then they meet you in matches. you know, that’s my hope for somebody who reads my book and then listens to this podcast and they go, oh, they’re the same. that sounds like her. that’s what you’re doing in your marketing. and if ai can help you do that faster, if it can pull that out great. but currently, at least you’re the one who needs to tell it where to go and what to draw from, and add your, your perspective on it. because otherwise, you could fall into that trap of just grabbing other people’s stuff, shining it up a little, and presenting it as your own, which isn’t really going to help anybody, it’s just going to help you feel better about having more blog posts on your site.
liz farr 20:33
yeah, you know, and it might make google a little happier. because what google likes is fresh content.
karen reyburn 20:44
but fresh content being the key as well, like, again, if you’re gathering content from other people, and putting a little fresh spin on it is it truly fresh content, so google’s getting smarter about that. and then secondly, don’t write for google, write for your audience. like, if you get one great lead of the kind of ideal client, like you think of your favorite client, the one that you’re like, i wish all of my clients could be like this person, or these people. i love their approach. i love the way they respond. i love the way they raise their hand, if they’ve made a mistake. i love the way they’re honest and have an opinion, whatever it is that you love about them as a person, about them as a business. and you think i wish every single client i had was like this. imagine if your marketing was bringing them all you need is one. i mean, you might want one per day or one per week, or whatever it is, your goals are, but all you need is the one you don’t need 10,000 people finding your blog and then leaving that doesn’t do anybody any good. you want your one great person to find it, read it and get in touch with you.
liz farr 21:51
absolutely, absolutely. now, another one of your core principles, which is also a pillar of pf is creativity, which i just love. you know, accountants don’t think that they are creative. we’re numbers people we’d like. we’d like our boundaries and our checklists, right and wrong. but you say creativity is for accountants, too. so how can accountants tap into the creativity that they don’t even know they have?
karen reyburn 22:25
yeah, it’s a great question. because i am very passionate about the fact that accountants are creative. and it’s one of those very simple formulas. humans are creative. accountants are humans, therefore, accountants are creative. but it’s true in the sense that every human has this creativity within them. now, for some of us, that has been squished down for a time, or for a lifetime. and for accountants, i’ll back up for a second you see it in children, there was a study done that showed that up to the age of i believe it was up to the age of five, don’t quote me on this one specifically, but i believe it was up to the age of five children had this, the approach that they took to things was this creative, open, curious approach. and between the ages of five to 18, that started to go down. so up to the age of five, it was 98% of children had this this approach and this mindset, by the time it got to 18, it was down to 2%. and there’s a whole other conversation we could have about the education system, and how old that structure and all of those things. but we recognize that we see these little children with the way that their minds go and the things they say and the the different perspective that surprises us, because we’ve been looking at this way for 40 years, and they’re going well, why is it called that? and we’re thinking, why is it called that? where did that come from? and they’re full of questions. so we see that in children. and that same principle applies to accountants. because for a couple of the reasons you mentioned, you’ve got the, this is what i’m good at. and it is what accountants are often good at yay for accountants being good at spreadsheets and checklists. and that’s why we have them i absolutely rely on our accountants and they keep us right and they make sure we don’t pay penalties that we don’t have to or pay more tax than we have to and, and balance out all those numbers and we go to them for that. but if you find your identity in that alone, and you’re not exploring that creative part that’s been squished down, it’s there, but it’s been squished down, then you’re missing an opportunity in your marketing and i would even say in your life, because you are putting yourself in a box that you don’t have to be in. you can be an accountant who loves spreadsheets and side note i was telling one of our clients about a new guide, we’d created about all the content that your prospects most need, that most accountants haven’t created. so whatever this content is the process of saying we want this, many accountants haven’t created it. so we created a whole guide to say, here’s the content. and i said, it comes with a video and a checklist that’s in a g sheet and spreadsheet, yay. that’s great. you know, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. but if you pull yourself into that box, and don’t let yourself open up to these other things that are there, then you’re restricting your enjoyment of your business and your marketing, your understanding. and the beautiful thing about it for any accountant who’s listening, going, yes, that all sounds very nice, karen, but i’m not creative. i’m not a painter. i’m not an illustrator, i don’t write books like you, i’m not creative. then one thing that can help is to recognize that the two of the elements of creativity are problem solving and curiosity. if you have those, and every accountant we work with has those, because you’ve got it with your clients. oh, i wonder what that problem is wonder how we could help solve that. where does that come from? how might we and you combine that with the curious element of well, we could try this. or we could try that. and yes, you have some boundaries as an account of what you can try and what you can’t, but that those two elements, if you have those, then you are creative. it’s just a case of needing to practice it a bit more. and also giving yourself permission to say, yes, i am creative, maybe not in the way that i defined creativity before. so my mother, my wonderful mother, who is a research chemist, she would always say, oh, i’m not very creative. i don’t know how you girls, you know, draw these things, or paint these things, or whatever. where did that come from? and i think, mom, like, you should see this woman in a garden, you know, as you can turn the desert of phoenix into like this glorious land of flowers and beauty, that’s creativity, it’s just a different kind of creativity, or being creative, creative with ingredients in a recipe. so everybody’s got a different spin on it. but everyone is creative. and that includes accountants, and i’m passionate about it. because when you recognize that you are creative, your marketing gets better, because you’re giving yourself permission to lean into what is already there. you don’t have to create it out of nothing. you don’t have to go, okay, i’m gonna, i’m going to tell myself, i’m creative. but deep down, i know it’s a lie, you don’t have to do that. you can deep down know that it’s true. okay, if you don’t know it’s true, you can take my word on it until you experience it is true. but we just ran an event recently for a bunch of our clients on storytelling. and the big takeaway for many of them at the end of the day was, i can tell stories to everyone can tell a story. but we bind ourselves into this. oh, but i don’t tell it as well as them. oh, she told that story that way. and everybody laughed, and everybody was, you know, focused on this whole story. and the last time i told a story, i stuttered around in circles and forgot the point and ended up saying, nevermind, that doesn’t mean you’re not a storyteller. it means that maybe you need to practice your storytelling a little. but is there the abilities there? we tell stories every day?
liz farr 28:30
absolutely. you know, and, and what i find is that sometimes when i repeat a story, multiple times that it gets better.
karen reyburn 28:41
yes, yeah. so i find that with some of the stories that i’ve written in that book, like we’re talking about the whiskey distillery that’s in the book, i put that in there to, to give that background. and i remember somebody said once, that it’s like listening to one of your favorite songs on a soundtrack, or a spotify album or something, and then listening to them live in concert. so if somebody has read, you know, a chapter of my book and heard the story about the guy who had the bat bill, and he didn’t know what he was going to do with this, and he was blaming himself, and then you hear me tell it, they’re like, oh, well, i remember the story. here we go. you know, it’s, that’s what we do at a concert. that’s what we do a stories. that’s what we do with words. so it is there is an element of practice. and you don’t need to worry that people will get tired of those things because the ones who are interested will lean in more, and will also recognize that there’s a journey in learning how to tell stories and learning how to take your pieces of marketing together and learning to lean into your creativity.
liz farr 29:54
absolutely. now, one thing i love about this book is that, besides just being great on the fundamentals of marketing, there’s a lot of it that is dedicated to helping accountants get clear on their own businesses, you know, figure out the clients they want and figure out how to serve them best. and i think that that’s, that’s a really important connection you to make you refer to it at the beginning, that connection between business problems and marketing problems. can you talk a little bit about that?
karen reyburn 30:35
yeah, i was just thinking of this the other day, because we have an accountant who went through our accelerator group with those 12 elements. and at the end, i asked him, you know, what do you feel like you got from this and, and what was most helpful to what were some of your victories. and he said, you know, i didn’t realize when i was launching into this marketing, coaching, group and marketing learning, that i would be building a better business as well. and he said, that kind of came as a surprise, because i was putting marketing in this little box, and i will do the marketing things, and i will learn the marketing stuff. he said, i was challenged on what kind of clients do i want? how am i onboarding them? what’s their experience? like? how is my pricing? am i pricing appropriately for different kinds of clients? and have i reviewed that in a while? and how do i share that with people? and how many team members are? what are my goals? and what is it that i really want out of this, and that really encouraged me, i was pleased for him and pleased as as a leader of the accelerator group to see that somebody is making that connection. because if you separate them and put marketing in its little box and business in this little box, your marketing is not going to be any good. because marketing is a reflection of the business that you have. now, hopefully, it’s a true and honest reflection. so that the experience somebody has going through your sales, marketing, and then sales process to become a client matches the client experience. if it doesn’t, then either your client experience is great. and you’re not showing that very well before they become a client. or vice versa. you have this amazing experience. and then the client experience is a letdown. now, we all struggle with this at times, i’ll raise my hand here at pf, we have not nailed that perfectly. we were constantly working on that and trying and learning. and sometimes we screw up and we offer, we talk to somebody about something and then we get three months and they go, hey, you said this and it didn’t happen. and we go you know what, you’re 100%. right, thank you for pointing it out, we’re going to fix that we’re going to help that for everybody else. so we all go through that at times. and i don’t want anyone listening to be really hard on yourself and saying you have to have it perfect. but it does have to be good. you know the that one of the phrases you use is not perfect, but don’t just get stuff out there. another one is not perfect, but good. you know, i recognize nothing will ever be perfect. but as accountants, there’s a tendency to make it as detailed and specific and as good as possible. so if you’re working on making your marketing so good, that there is a match and that people feel comfortable and that they they feel that sense of the client experience, then that’s a win for them and for you. and wherever there is a break in that wherever you are making promises you’re not delivering on or you are not telling them about things that they find out later. that’s a break in your marketing too. because there are people who are coming to your website coming to your social and going now. i’ll look at it later. it’s just not sound appealing enough this other websites better it’s not that urgent right now. and they go away. you know, over 48% of people who come who are referred to accountancy and finance businesses never get in touch. they never do. these are the people who are referred. they’re like, oh, liz is great. i love liz, go and talk to liz. and they come this isn’t to pick on you. i’m just picking random. and they come and they go, oh, maybe later. so what if that happens to you, the accountant, and you don’t know about it? you’re sitting there going? well, our business is built on word of mouth and referral. and that’s great. that is a wonderful thing. and it shows wonderful things about your firm. but who are all the people that you’re missing, you don’t know. because they’re not to tell you they’re not going to say well, you know, my friend john recommended me and then i went and looked at these things and honestly, it just didn’t seem that urgent. i thought i’d do it later. that’s a sales objection that you never had the opportunity to address or you didn’t take the opportunity to address correct myself. so when your website and your socials and your marketing all of it addresses those fears, and wonderings and confusions and what ifs, then the marketing matches the sales matches the business and everybody’s happy. and i’ve seen this personally in our own sales process, when we say, do you have any questions? and they maybe have one or two? and you say, is there anything else? is there anything else? and you ask that until you have gathered all of the questions, and then you answer them at one fell swoop? and they go, oh, okay, i see how all those things fit together? and they say, is there anything else? and usually there is, because one thing leads to another and they have more wonderings? and more questions. and that’s great. every time somebody asked me a question in our sales or marketing process, i say what a great question. thank you so much for asking it. and probably 50% of the time, i would like this to be higher, but we’re working on it. we have a video or a blog post or a resource or something that answers that question. but every time it’s asked, it’s one of two things, it’s either an opportunity for us to say, oh, we could create a resource about that. so that next time they don’t even have to ask they can have their question answered. or we just say they want to have that question answered and be reassured, maybe they already read the blog post, but maybe they want to ask it again, and see if the answers the same and see if they vibe with you. and if they connect with you, and if you’re their kind of person. so yeah, it’s that honesty, in marketing, that points out at times, either that you have a business problem that you need to address, or that you don’t have a problem that needs to be addressed. but it needs to be shared in a better way.
liz farr 36:59
absolutely. you know, and, and i was at firms where there was really a solid disconnect between the marketing, slogans, all the really wonderful things that they said they did, and how the firm actually operated. and i always thought that was really sad.
karen reyburn 37:23
it is sad, it’s sad in any business. i mean, it’s sad, especially in accountancy firms, because that’s who we’re talking to. and those are who i know best. but i find it really disappointing when you come to any kind of business and and your greatest fear as a potential client, a prospect of anything. so if you are buying a house, or a pair of shoes, or a coffee machine, or accountancy firm services, your greatest fear is that you are going to make the wrong decision and waste your money. and you don’t want to do that, which is why you do the research. now everybody’s different. some people worry about this a lot. some people worry about it a little, some people make snap decisions, and then change them. some people research for years before they decide. but everybody is wanting to make sure that they’re spending their money or whatever money time etc, in the right place for the right result. and in the back of their mind, there’s always a fear a wandering or a doubt that this will deliver. so this is why the better the marketing and the client experience, the less of the doubters are the faster the doubt is removed. but if the doubt is there, then it’s wiped away, and then it’s brought back, it’s very hard to recover from that. so this is why your marketing needs to address those fears and pains and worries. so instead of saying we are an accountancy firm, and we do these services, and we do management accounts, we do bookkeeping, we do payroll, and we, we, we, we, this is all about us. if your website says, are you worried that whenever you’re spending time with your family, that you feel like guilty that you ought to be spending time on your business. and wherever you’re spending time in your business, you feel guilty, because you’re not with your family. and if somebody sees that and goes, oh, my word, i was literally just feeling that you’ve made that emotional connection. and i’m using this example is one of our clients who has that on their website because they work with people who own businesses and have families of whatever definition family is they might have children, they might have siblings that, you know, whatever their family is, they’re feeling that, that whatever the word is, back and forth, of up and down the teeter totter but you’re going back and forth and that addressing that is so much more powerful than and saying we are an accountancy firm who do accountancy firm services, because i’m gonna guess that your prospect has figured that out by nature of the fact that they’ve landed on your website, and it’s of an accountancy firm. and if they’ve been recommended, that is even more likely the case. so somebody said, go talk to this accountancy firm, they’re great. so that’s what they’re coming to. so this is what i’m always encouraging our accountants to think about the human person and the way they would say something, don’t try and over professionalize it, don’t try and put it into accounting is or if you’re putting into accounting these without thinking, read it out loud. and say, would i say that? would i say the most strategic direction for your cash flow statement is, you know, is that how i would say it? or would i say actually, the best thing that you could do would be to look at your cash position every month, every week, every day. and i would do it in this way, if that’s how you would say it, say it that way. and that fits back in with your tone of voice and your style, some firms are going to be very chill and very relaxed. and the owner is going to be on video with tattoos all over great people who love that will love that. and then other people go, oh, i couldn’t possibly do that. i’ve got to be on perfect. professional video was soon too great. if that’s you, and that fits, do what fits do what’s real, so that they don’t come like you said, so they don’t come to this amazing website and go this is incredible. and then have an experience that doesn’t match. yeah.
liz farr 41:41
yeah, yeah, i always thought it was really sad. and i was actually at the point where i couldn’t even in good faith, recommend those firms to people were looking for accountants, because my experience was terrible. i bet your experience won’t be either.
karen reyburn 41:59
yeah, that is hard. because team and culture is such an important part of a firm and of the marketing. you know, i think you were mentioning that like right from the beginning, in my book, i’m saying you’ve, the more involved your whole team is the better. and that’s because your team is involved in delivering the services. now this doesn’t mean that every accountant in your firm has to be involved in marketing in the same way. some people will be involved by saying, i had a client ask this question, i am going to put it on the questions list there, i have done marketing, great success. and somebody else will actually write a blog post or record a video or do something of that nature. but if your marketing is coming from a generic, you know, box, oh, accounting topics, that’s not going to be as useful as coming from the heads of the account managers and client managers who are talking to the humans everyday and getting emails from them and saying, well, i talked to jack today. and he was worried about this. bam, there’s your blog post title, there’s your video, because of one clients worried about it, probably 100. others are as well. and they haven’t told you.
liz farr 43:15
i agree, you know, involving the team really makes it more powerful. because not only does this unite the team around the process of marketing, and who are our best clients, and how do we serve them best. but it also lets their own little flavors and what they bring to it be expressed.
karen reyburn 43:40
yes, which is another beautiful part of brands like you can have a tone of voice or values for the firm. and everybody in the firm expresses them a little differently. one of our clients said it in a beautiful way. she said, i love all the accents of pf. so we have a lot of people with different languages that they speak. and i say, oh, that’s, that’s really interesting. that’s a great point. and we love that diversity of all these different accents. and she said, yeah, but i also love that like everybody at pf, lives out these values, but with their own accent. so both physically with the actual spoken accent that are written accent that they have. but it’s like saying we all are going along the same road, but in our own style. every person is unique and human. so this person is not exactly like me. i am not exactly like them. and we’re all grateful for that. like, we need the variety of all these humans. but there’s a common theme. and this is another thing that comes out in marketing often is the more you start digging into your marketing and asking yourself those hard questions about who we are and what we stand for and do we really stand for it? or do we just say it on a website page or on a mural on our wall? you know, the team are the one who knows that, as you said, like there’s team members who think, really, do we have that value? and if that happens, that’s an opportunity. you can look at it one of two ways. you can say, oh, no, it’s terrible. we have to quash this. and we have to make better marketing to pretend that we have it. no, you need to sort out that issue. and either say, that’s not the right value for us to say or use, right? make it that value. and if that takes you three years to do it, so be it, get the problem solved at the core. so then your marketing is easy, because you just say what it is. you don’t have to make people have this fun, positive creative mindset, because they’re fun, positive, creative people. if that’s who they are, then that will flow out.
liz farr 45:57
absolutely. yeah. and one of my favorite, that’s a perfect segue into my next question, which is about mindset, which, you know, i love that thread of mindset that runs all the way through it. you know, and it used to be that accountants thought marketing and selling, were not some of the skills that they need it. but i think that books like yours can help accountants learn that, you know, i can be a marketer, i can be good at sales. yeah. and it’s just part of the whole business. so how, how are you seeing some of those changes?
karen reyburn 46:40
yeah, it’s a great question. because i’ve been working with accountants for over 20 years. and i’d say in the early days, there was a lot of like, oh, do i have to do marketing, i guess, okay, do some marketing for me. and even from the very beginning, when i set up pf, and that was 11, 12 years ago. now, my approach and the approach we still have today with the whole team has to do marketing, collaboratively, we don’t do marketing for people, we do marketing with them. but again, back to this authenticity we draw from your ideas and the words that you say, that’s always a really fun part of like a website project. somebody will, it’s almost a throwaway comment or a phrase on one of our strategy sessions. and we’ll use that phrase in the content that we’re creating, like, wow, that’s such a great phrase, you’ve put that so well, when i actually, you put it well, you’re the one who said that, and you said it multiple times. so we pulled that out and used it so that it matches. and, and i think that progression, that movement from accountants saying, well, marketing, something i guess i have to have, well, actually, if i back up even further, there was a period of time where a lot of accountants were saying i don’t need marketing, by which they meant actively seeking out leads, they, they recognize that they word of mouth referral, but they didn’t consider that proper marketing, or they considered it easy. and for some of them, it was easy. you know, it just sort of happened. and then we went through a whole phase where people are going, hey, just not happening as much as it used to be, i guess i better pay attention to it. and then we went through a phase where we’re kind of starting to see the benefit of foundational areas like brand and website, and messaging and tone of voice and having a marketing partner, whether it’s, you know, an agency like pf or an internal team member, whatever it be. and now i do see so many accountants who are excited about marketing, they’re trying stuff with chat gpt and ai and virtual reality and all the socials and videos and they’re playing with stuff and they’re trying stuff and they’re moving fast and breaking things and, and they’re looking at other businesses for ideas. and that’s the biggest shift that i love. and i’m excited by and i encourage any accountant to do is, you know, fine if you want to be inspired by some other accountant that you’re like, wow, i think they’re doing so great. but equally or even more. so how great is it to go that coffee shop did something really cool. i wonder what it’d be like if we did that in our firm? or that i bought a pair of shoes and the client experience was like this, how might we do something like that in our firm? and that’s so beautiful because your stop when you do that. you’re stopping thinking about marketing as this one off thing where you tick little boxes, and you’re connecting it to the human experience. and you’re feeling like a prospect you’re saying how might our prospects feel or a new clients feel if they got a welcome box that had these things in it or had this book or had this email that they get from us or a phone call or whatever? how might they feel shall we change our process or our structure or whatever it is that we do a little bit to appeal to that feeling or that situation or that experience. that’s such a beautiful thing. and that is what results in the kind of marketing that other accountants look at, and maybe a little envious job and go, oh, we don’t have a pool table in our office, or we don’t, you know, send people this massive welcome box. you don’t have to do what everybody else does. and ideally, you don’t do what everybody else does. but you get ideas, you borrow them. austin kleon has a book called steal like an artist. and i love that concept about, that’s what all of us creative people do, we take an idea. and then we get curious with it, and we twist it around, and we play with it, and we make it our own. and then we do something with it. there’s there’s really very few original storylines, or pieces of art. but every one is also unique. because every human is unique. every accountancy firm is unique. every accountant in the accountancy firm is their own unique person. and you’re just as, as the owner and leader of the firm, you’re looking for those patterns to connect. so you can say all of us here at this firm are like this. and you will see it in different ways and with different accents.
liz farr 51:26
i love it. i love it. i was just at engaged last week, and went to a panel with blake oliver and david leary. and one of the things they said was, you know, prospective clients and your clients are comparing the experience of working with you to amazon. yes. so, you know, clients are not just comparing an accounting firm to other accounting firms, but to every other company that they do business with.
karen reyburn 52:01
yeah, we all do that, like, positive and negative. we, i mean, i recently had some of my i take photographs, i mostly do it on my iphone now. but this is a beautiful thing about an iphone, i can take a beautiful photograph on my phone and have it printed on a big canvas print. and i had a couple of them arrived today. and the experience was with this company i use was really good. that’s why i keep using them. i upload the photo, they show me what it looks like has a little wrap around, i click the buttons, i pay the money, it arrives to my door, it actually arrives earlier almost always arrives earlier than they say it well. you know, they’re like, oh, i might take this on. oh, great news, we’re sending it out. and that’s what we do with every experience we have we go. how did that feel? how do i feel about that company? how might i, you know, mention it. and circling back to the experience of the buyer. if we have a positive experience, we might tell one person, we have a negative experience, we tend to tell 10 people because we want to protect them and help them. but we don’t want anybody to go through the experience that i had with that pair of shoes or that bookcase or whatever it is. and we tell people because we’re warning them of the danger of that doubt and fear. you know, we talked about the deep down, we’re worried we’ll make a bad decision. and when we have a bad experience, we say, if you do this, that is going to come true. and i don’t want that to happen for you. so i am here for you. and i’m gonna go around and tell everybody. if you have a good experience, you go well, that was good. because you’re hoping that it’s good every time and then when it’s good. all as well. so in order for them to tell 10 people how great it is it needs to be phenomenal needs to be next level you need to amaze them and blow them away. but bringing that back to where we all are today. some of you may be going and i don’t even know if it’s good, much less amazing. just start with good. just get to peter shankman is written a couple books about nice companies finished first and the whole raving fans sort of concept, right? and you said, you know, really, when it comes to customer service, all you have to be is one level above crap. because we sort of expect bad service from so many, especially the big companies. so he’s a start there. you know, if you’re not even at good or amazing, that’s fine. just get one level above crap. and then get better and then better and then better and you can get to amazing. and honestly, the levels of experience that we have had bad experience. you’ve had them i’ve had them and we remember them for a lifetime and it prevents us ever buying from that company again. so fix the little things one at a time. start small start safe, do the little things and then do the next thing and then do the next thing. and just keep going.
liz farr 55:02
that’s right. that’s just keep going. yeah. now for my last big question, i have a question i asked almost every one on this podcast, and i get really different answers, depending on the person. what should accountants stop doing immediately?
karen reyburn 55:24
stop immediately, i love the urgency of this one. so this is if you’re doing this stop. now, i think in line with what we’ve been talking about with creativity, i would say stop telling yourself, i am not creative. if there’s even the tiniest flicker of that, in your mind, stop it. because that negative self talk becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. so if there’s any of that, and and i think it’s good to dig into your mind, because some of you listening and think, oh, actually, i know i am creative, i’ve been leaning into my creativity in this way. and that’s great, that’s wonderful. use this as an opportunity to say is there anywhere and maybe not leaning into my creativity, and telling myself that’s not my area, or, you know, somebody else is better at that than me. that’s the whole beauty of creativity is trying something new, being curious, being open considering problem solving. and, and then the positive flip side of that would be recognize that since creativity is a combination of problem solving, and curiosity, and i borrowed that concept from ed catmull, who’s the author of creativity, inc, about pixar and great book, our whole team read it for a team retreat. and that was one of the principles that he was saying about creativity that, you know, when you consider those two elements, and i just connected those two accountants straight away. so the flip side is that you can say, if you’re struggling to say, i am creative, if that feels off, then recognize those two elements, problem solving, and curiosity. and if you can see those both in yourself, then you are creative. and if you’re struggling to see either one of those, that’s an opportunity as well to lean into it. how might i lean into my curiosity? is there a problem that i could give my, my mind to and give some creative thought to?
liz farr 57:28
that that’s, that’s fantastic. yeah. and i think that accountants are really too hard on themselves for being so analytical.
karen reyburn 57:38
yes, because those are the very skills that often make you such a great accountant. so and i feel this, i was telling one of the team, like i studied accounts at university, i became a qualified accountant became a cpa. and for the four years, i was at university every time somebody said, oh, what are you studying? and i said accountancy, nine times out of 10. they went eww? you know, that was the response that i got. and, you know, i started fighting for accountants, even at that young age, i was like, hey, you may not like to do it, but i’m not asking you to, nobody is asking you to study it. this is my choice. i actually kind of i mean, full disclosure, i sort of had you feeling myself when i was like, i don’t think i want to study accountancy myself, i went through that. and then i realized that all my accounting courses and classes were the ones that challenged me the most, and all the there was some management courses and some of these other things that just bored the life out of me, and i didn’t get anything from them. but i looked forward to my accounting classes, because they made sense. and they connected the pieces together. and we had case studies about big companies like pepsi and, and looking at their annual accounts and figuring out debits and credits, and there was a challenge to it. so i went through that, and by the time i decided to study it, and then i was faced with people saying, oh, no, that seems really boring. i’m like, first year, nobody’s asking you to do it. and secondly, this is an amazing skill to have. i didn’t even intend to be an accountant when i studied it. i just wanted to understand these things. because i thought surely this will serve me well. if i become business owner, whatever i end up doing, and lo and behold, it has. so yeah, i would say if there’s any part of you as an accountant that is kind of putting yourself down a little bit or are dismissing yourself because of these great skills you have, turn it round and say these great skills are what make me a great accountant. and if there’s some areas that i can lean into a bit more, this is my opportunity to do so and be a well rounded business person and entrepreneur. but these are the very skills that enable me to help people because the accountants we work with, that is what they love. do they love to be able to help people with the problems that they have, then they feel lost and they feel confused. and they blaming themselves or, or just thinking that’s just the way it goes, i guess i just have to pay these massive amounts or whatever. and the accountant comes in and says, actually, we can do it this way. and it gives them hope. and it helps them do what they love. that’s a phenomenal thing. and it’s, it’s a thing that you can, as an accountant, be proud of yourself, for the way that you help businesses, be a part of this community and whatever community you’re in, in the best possible way. so they lean into what they’re best at you lean into what you’re best at. and both of you grow together.
liz farr 1:00:45
absolutely. you know, i worked with a firm owner, who actually came up with the plan for a profit-sharing program for employees in a dream. oh, lovely. yes.
karen reyburn 1:01:03
yeah, that is amazing. i love to hear where people come up with their ideas. i’ve had that before, too. i woke up in the morning. what if we did this? you know? so yeah, yeah, we’re on walks. that’s where most of my income from my morning walk. that’s where i’ll be like, what about this now? probably eight to nine times out of 10. i come back. and i’m like, hey, team, i’ve got the best idea ever. and they’re like, karen, we already tried that idea. we’re in the middle of trying that idea. we thought about that idea. last year, you know, there’s often a reason that it’s just this new thing. but i enjoy it because it’s a place for the ideas to swirl around. and you know, fly around, and then come back and settle. and everybody’s got a different way of doing that. and that’s, that’s part of our innate creativity.
liz farr 1:01:51
that’s right. well, i want to thank you so much, karen, for taking the time to talk to me. now, if listeners want to connect with you, where’s the best place to find you?
karen reyburn 1:02:02
it’s a great question. i mean, i’m on all the things. the pf website is wwe rpf.com. my own website is karen l rayburn.com. but i’m on all the socials, i would say linkedin and instagram are the two, that would be the fastest and best way to get me and those are all connected on my on my website, or you just look up my name, and you’ll probably find it. so i’m on insta and twitter and linkedin and all the things. but i tend to be on linkedin and instead the most linkedin, because that’s where the accountants hang out, can send a like linkedin, and i get it. and instagram because on my creative side, i love the photos and the videos and the visuals. and i used to be a photographer, i still am a photographer, but i used to be a photographer is a paid thing. and now i do it out of the sheer joy of it. so i like connecting that visual. but that’s just a great way to drop me a quick note. and i love like, you know, speaking about marketing and connecting with humans, like if you want to work with me and pf, you can go to the pf website, and there’s a form to fill in. but if you just want to say hey, i listen to your podcast, and i like this, or i had a question about this or wondering or i did this, you know, just share that let’s just share those human things and connect as people. and there isn’t that. i think that’s the thing i like about socials. there’s not that pressure of okay, i’m inquiring, i’m setting off on the sales journey. you don’t necessarily have to do that. just connect as a human and i love meeting people. so i’d love to hear from any of you.
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