After developing five accounting firms between 1984 and 1994, I spent the next fifteen years helping more than 2,000 accountants develop and improve their accounting firms as a practice development consultant. This experience showed that many accountants had implemented many failing marketing programs.
The main reason most accounting marketing programs fail is because the accountant tries to treat their services like a commodity. Unfortunately, this often leads to very low response and poor quality clientele. There are volumes of accountants who have tried very expensive marketing programs offered by many companies lured by hard-to-enforce guarantees experiencing disastrous financial consequences. Most of these marketing flops are centered around programs that use commodity marketing techniques.
The accounting industry is not commodity driven; it is driven by trust and loyalty. Trust has to be established. It can not be sold. Consequently, if an accountant tries to sell his accounting services as a commodity or product, he will fail.
The first step for an accounting services marketing program should be to identify a business seeking the services of a CPA or Accountant. If a business is satisfied with its current CPA or accountant and does not seek the services of a new CPA or accountant, that business will not change accountants. Any attempt by an accountant using a marketing program to break that relationship through hard sales techniques will only diminish the company’s perception of the accountant and your business. The wise accountant will never turn an entrepreneur away from their current accountant if that person is satisfied with the accountant or CPA. Recognize the situation as good for both the company and the CPA Accountant. Never try to cut what is good for the business, neither the CPA Accountant nor the Accounting Industry.
Recognizing that a CPA Accountant’s marketing program must have the ability to identify a business seeking the services of a new CPA Accountant, the second step that the accountant’s marketing program must produce is to get the business seeking a New CPA accountant is interested in you and your accounting firm. If your marketing program has a company looking for a new CPA Accountant who takes an interest in you, meeting with the new client will be very similar to meeting with potential referred clients. They will be openly interested in you. You won’t feel in the position of having to sell them for use by you or your company. Remember, the accounting industry is built on trust. The key to your success in your marketing program is your ability to give yourself the opportunity to establish trust and demonstrate how you can help the prospect.
Once you have a company that needs bookkeeping services interested in you, the third step your bookkeeping services marketing program needs to take is to show them how to demonstrate your ability to help your prospect in their presentation. Too many accountant marketing programs fail because they rely on the CPA Accountant making sales presentations to potential new customers. Companies are not interested in being sold accounting services. Companies are interested in how the CPA Accountant can help them and their business. The CPA Accountant should provide examples of how you can help and apply those examples to your business. It is important that he or she understands and sees the value that you provide. Most businesses don’t understand the value that a CPA accountant provides. If your accounting marketing program centralizes its presentations about you and your company, it’s the wrong marketing program; the program should center its presentation around the prospect and your ability to help them.
Finally, the fourth step that your accountant’s marketing program should provide you with is techniques for pricing your services relative to the value you demonstrated in your presentation. Your goal is not to discount your company’s services to attract a new customer, but to price your service as a good value relative to the value you are providing. For example, if a prospective client could choose to spend $1,000 to have a CPA or Accountant prepare their business tax return, he or she may choose not to. However, if that same CPA or accountant showed the potential client tax-saving strategies that will save them $5,000 per year in taxes, the client will definitely choose to have that CPA accountant prepare their taxes for $1,000. He or she will perceive the use of that CPA or Accountant of great value. Notice in the example, the primary factor why the prospect decided to join was not the absolute cost of the service, but the value received relative to that cost.
In summary, there are four steps that an accountant’s marketing program must employ. Ought:
1) identify a business looking for a new CPA or Accountant,
2) generate an interest in that business by using you or your business,
3) show you how to demonstrate value in your new customer presentation, and
4) Price your company’s services relative to their value.
If your accountant’s marketing program does not employ any of the four basic steps or attempts to market accounting services as a commodity, it is recommended that you abandon implementation of that program. You will avoid frustrations and possible financial disasters. Remember, the key to the success of a CPA Accountant’s marketing program is never sales oriented. It is putting you and your company in contact with a company that has a need and is interested in meeting that need with you or your company.
