In this blog post I explain five key issues in the context of your competition as an accountant. I have discussed them many times with clients during mentoring sessions. Often I find an accountant's perception as to who is their competition is blinkered and limited. They are often shocked to realise they
Many accountants appear to approach the idea of finding new clients with conflicted emotions. If you do this you are probably making life harder for yourself than it needs to be. On the one hand your website and marketing activities try to promote you and your firm as able to act for
Regular readers will know that I am both very active on social media and highly ranked for my online influence (such as it is!) Equally you will also know that I do not routinely encourage accountants to use social media for promotional and marketing purposes. And I challenge the apparent evidence and
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 3 key lessons that now, many years later, still inform my thinking and advice to
Do you ever think about how your practice and your client base might be impacted by changes and developments over the next few years? Historically most clients stay with their accountant for many years. They generally move only when they feel their accountant doesn't care enough about them, puts their fees up
Do you consider yourself to be a confident person generally? What about in terms of your ability to attract and win over prospective clients? And to keep clients happy and willing to pay you the fees you deserve for the work you do? Whilst many accountants I work with have a fair
When I ask accountants what they would like to be different in their practice, one theme is more common than any others. They frequently express the desire to have better quality clients, to increase their average fees and to be doing more interesting work.One sole practitioner accountant I was mentoring expressed this quite
Over the years I have worked with hundreds of accountants. I have also judged hundreds of entires for multiple accountancy awards. Having completed the judging process for a recent competition I reflected on what it takes to win and to be successful generally. Let me be clear here. I am talking about
Not everyone who calls me for my input becomes a client. I sometimes offer some simple advice to accountants who are not yet in a position to need or afford my mentoring services (even though these are much more affordable than you might expect). One of the accountants I spoke with recently
The following observation on Facebook reflects a common perception. ‘It’s a shame that nowadays it isn’t enough to just be good at what you do. You need to be good at all this other stuff (marketing etc.) otherwise you don’t get anywhere.’ My response was as follows: — It has NEVER been
Too many accountants struggle to distinguish themselves from their competition. This is a shame as it is what makes each of us different that makes us memorable and the reason why we are referred and recommended. And then why we are engaged by clients. Challenge this if you must. Tell me that
No one is 'just an accountant'. And you know that already. But how clear do you make this on your website, your online profiles and when you are networking? Lots of accountants make the mistake of assuming they only need to evidence their credibility as an accountant. And it's true that sometimes
Because of the subjects I write about, the blogs I read and how many accountants write to me, I see loads of Accountants' Pay per Click (Adwords) adverts. And most of them are evidently a waste of money. If you use Pay per Click (PPC) you’re hoping that your advert will catch someone’s eye.
I was asked recently for my top five marketing tips for accountants and so I had a quick look at the marketing related posts on this blog. In so doing I realised how much has changed over the years. When I first started mentoring accountants I had to avoid the M-word (Marketing).
When I ask accountants about the level of fees they would ideally like to earn from new clients, they often struggle to give an answer. Some can't even agree as to the minimum fees they (and their colleagues, if any) would charge for each type of new client work they might take
These days it typically takes a lot to get me cross. But one thing that really winds me up is the continuing wave of advice to accountants generally, telling them to do stuff that doesn't work for everyone and is especially inappropriate for most sole practitioners. This is quite different from the advice that
I have lost track of how many sole practitioners and two-partner accountancy practices pretend to be bigger than they really are. Some overtly claim that their firm is bigger than it really is by adding words like “and associates” to the name of the firm. Even though, in reality, it is only
Sometimes a post on Linkedin can start a conversation that runs and runs. This was the case just after the Budget when I posed the question “Is it really worth everyone producing a 'me-too' morning-after Budget summary?” I suggested these were typically simply a re-hash of information already in the public domain
This relates to another question I was asked recently by an accountant who gets lots of leads but finds that he doesn’t want all of them as clients. Too many are time wasters. He wanted to know how he could weed them out - or even better, avoid having to spend any
Now that January 2021 is behind us, perhaps it is time to consider any resolutions or promises you might want to make to yourself. Certainly you should have more time now than you might have done at the turn of the year. Here are ten resolutions that I think many accountants should
During our first mentoring conversation a mature accountant told me how they had been struggling to replace clients who had retired, died or gone bust. The practice was well established and he had never previously needed to spend much time or effort on marketing or promotion. He had done the basics. He
There's a simple equation: More leads = more clients = more fees = more profits. At least that's the theory. For the equation to work the leads we generate need to be those we want. Typically that means people who need our services, can afford to pay for them and who we
In some respects this post addresses many points I have addressed previously on this blog from the opposite perspective. There are links at the end if you want to read more. I would stress that I do not design or supply websites. But I do get asked to help accountants who want
l am regularly approached by accountants who want to know how they can get more clients. They want to know if social media is worthwhile, where to advertise, what marketing activities to pursue, what networking activities might be worthwhile, how to get more traffic to their website and much more - along
Which result would you rather your marketing efforts generate? A or B? A = 50 calls and emails from possible new clients who ask loads of questions but who have no intention of paying you the sort of fees you charge; and probably don't want you to do much more than their
