Many of the accountants I speak with ask me the same question. How can they best attract new clients? I will rarely offer advice however until I have found out enough about the accountant, their firm, their services, their likes and dislikes and what they have tried previously. The simple reason is
It seems I've not updated my generic advice on this blog about accountants' websites for ten years. This is because I routinely say pretty much the same things to almost every accountant I talk with. And few of my views have changed. If anything I was ahead of my time and others
Most general practitioner accountants I talk with (and I talk with a lot of them) are, obviously, generalists rather than specialists. They started out as general practitioners and stay that way as their client base has always been quite disparate. Many of those who specialise do so only because they originally trained
This blog post contains something I rarely do. It references a book I have read and want to recommend to accountants who are looking to the future. The Digital Firm is written by an accountant, Will Farnell, who also published it in 2018. The book is subtitled: How to change your accounting
When you are approached by a prospective new client it is tempting to simply give them what they say they want. Most often this will be a fee quote to help them with their annual compliance obligations. As this area of work becomes more commoditised so you need to distinguish yourself from other accountants.
As a teenager, before I started studying to become an accountant, I was a children's party entertainer - and I continued doing this for about 25 years. When I look back I realise that I quickly learned 2 lessons that now, many years later, inform my thinking and advice to accountants. Specialisation I was
A popular approach to getting your attention (and often your money) is to instruct you that there is 'one thing' you must do. What do they say? Many journalists, consultants and sales people assert that there is just 'one thing' you must do to remain in practice, to generate new clients, to increase your fees or
This was the headline to a question I was asked recently. I have summarised the question below and expanded on my reply and advice as this may help other accountants too. Question How can accountants use LinkedIn for marketing purpose? I have a company page, I have a profile, I am in some groups
This is the first of what I anticipate will become a series of cloud accounting related blog posts. Back in 2009 I disagreed with those commentators who were warning accountants about an urgent need to embrace cloud accounting technology. The alternative, warned these merchants of doom, was that accountants who failed to embrace the cloud
Everyone who knows me recognises my enthusiastic nature. When I was younger I may even have been a touch too enthusiastic. I now recognise that it can unnerve those around you if you are evidently more enthusiastic than everyone else. That was an important lesson for me some years back. So now, older and wiser,
I have referenced what I call the 5Ms of marketing an accountancy practice before. This blog post is related to the fourth M. That is, which Media should you use to get your chosen Messages to your chosen Market? The answer to the question depends on where you will find your chosen Market and
One of my talks for accountants, and much of the advice I share generally, concerns WHY it's important to STAND OUT from your competitors - and HOW easy this is to do when you put your mind to it. A related question I've never really addressed in detail is WHO do you need to STAND
I recently heard John Hardy the Founder of FASTER Health and Fitness introduce his business. He mentioned he throught there were similarities with accountants. I have taken what he said and adapted it to provide some lessons for accountants from the business side of personal training and fitness. 1 Personality John has noted that a
I have lost track of the number of accountants who tell me that they don't get good quality leads from their website. They generally either say that their website is a waste of space or that the people who come via their website are just looking for a low price. This then leads the same
In the days before email there were only 3 ways that clients could communicate with their accountants. In person, by phone and by letter. Now the list of options is much longer. Do you encourage, tolerate or refuse to accept communications by less conventional methods? How does this impact your client base? Email is perhaps
This week's blog post is derived from the response I received from a recent attendee at one of my talks. She had been very enthusiastic so I asked her what she had learned specifically. This is her reply: Things I took away from yesterday: That it’s OK to be on the quiet side at networking
This blog post was prompted by a tweet. It was posted by a top 30 firm of accountants: "Are you aware of the range of services we provide? We do more than just a set of books at year end. Take a look" There was then a link to a page on their website which
I still remember meeting Christopher Higenbottam at a networking event some years ago. I asked what he did and he told me he is an architect. (Indeed it transpired that he was the MD of Tempietto Architects). We talked for a while about his work. After a few minutes I think I asked him whether
I routinely encourage audience members to give me their business cards at the end of conference talks. They do so if they would like me to send them copies of slides and other materials I reference during my presentation. As many of my audiences are accountants this affords me the opportunity to compare and contrast
If you are a regular reader you will know I rarely include guest posts on my blog. In this tenth anniversary year though I have decided to stop being so precious. As long as the content is both directly relevant and useful to my audience and I agree with the advice and tips, why not?
After I'd presented a talk to a group of accountants recently one of them asked for my advice. Our brief discussion might be of wider interest. Q: I have a [huge] shopfront window at the front of my high street accountancy practice. 40,000 cars go past each day. Could we use the window to STANDOUT and
During 2016 politicians in both the UK (Michael Gove) and in the US (Donald Trump) repeatedly asserted that people have “had enough” of experts. Voting patterns seemed to confirm this as expert political and economic views were largely ignored. And yet, we also know it's patently not true. If you have a health problem do
This is a guest blog provided by Patrick McLoughlin. In it he explains how sole practitioner accountants can become really clear as to who is a premium fee playing client. And, having done that, how you can then clarify your future marketing and business generation activities. As Patrick's approach is much the same as mine I
Let's be realistic. If you did some work for a client but they weren't happy because you made a big mess of it, would you insist on charging them extra to correct your mistake? I hope you wouldn't even consider trying to charge extra to resolve a mistake of your own making. To my mind this
We know, don't we, that good communication is important in business. In my view, one of the most fundamental pieces of communication is how we talk about what we do. There are many challenges to be overcome here. We want to avoid sounding just like everyone else in the same field. We want our message to
