Lead gen and biz dev services

As you’re on this Lead Generation for accountants page you’re probably interested in gaining more leads for your practice. Might I suggest that this is too broad an aspiration? You will need to be more specific.

The 3 Rs is a reminder of what most accountants really want: To be better Remembered, Referred and Recommended to the right sort of prospects.

At the headline level the accountants I work with want more clients who are willing to pay decent and fair fees. But for what work? The same old tax returns, accounts and compliance work you have done for years? Or do you want good leads who need something more than that?

Until you are clear about the type of leads you want you will struggle. You will waste time and money and you will probably be disappointed by promises of speedy results from people who don’t really understand the accounting profession.

Help and support

You can engage me to help you 1-2-1 or to work with your team to ensure they are capable of doing the necessary to generate and convert the type of leads you want for your practice. (More details at the foot of this page)

Avoid disappointment

Do not even consider paying someone else to generate leads for you before you are really ready.

There are loads of telemarketing and telesales companies out there as well as marketing consultants, social media ‘experts’ and other advisers who will promise you the earth.

I rarely see or hear accountants who feel that their investment in such services was worthwhile.  There are at least 7 reasons for this:

1. The advisers do not REALLY understand the accountancy market
2. They start work without first clarifying EXACTLY what type of clients you want to win
3. You expect them to help you win valuable clients without first clarifying what makes your practice special and different
4. They are only able to generate leads from people looking for a cheap accountant
5. You only want to pay for results – so they have no reason to invest in finding out enough about your practice before they start.
6. They have their preferred approach and this isn’t best suited to reach the type of clients you want to win
7. Their approach fails to attract the type of clients you really want.

Quick wins

Of course you want quick wins. Everyone does. Maybe you’ll get lucky.

In real life you need to take some key actions to maximise the prospect of success from your lead generation activities.

None of these are hard and no one can do them for you – at least not without your input.

Help and support

You can engage me to help you 1-2-1 or to work with your team to ensure they are capable of doing the necessary to generate and convert the type of leads you want for your practice. (More details at the foot of this page)

The 5 Ms

For your marketing or lead generation activities to be successful you must follow the 5 Ms – in sequence

M – Motive – Be absolutely clear what your objective is

M – Market – Focus on just one clear and specific target market at a time

M – Message – Convey one consistent message to your Market

M – Media – Select the Media that will best help you get your Message to your Market

M – Method – Adopt the tactics suited to that Media that will best enable you to get your Message to your Market

Social Media 

In some specific and limited cases social media may be appropriate. For example if your target market is very active on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

However, most of the accountants I work with want to win more substantial business clients. The social media and marketing people from those businesses MAY be active on social media platforms. But it is less likely that the owners and decisions makers will be.

Unfortunately many accountants get sucked into paying someone to do their social media for them without first checking whether this is a strategy that will deliver in practice, rather than in theory.

NB: Way back in 2012 I was first identified by Accountancy magazine as being the most socially networked accountant in the UK. Since then I am the only person to have consistently been ranked as one of the most influential accountants on social media. So I have a degree of authority when I point out that most accountants are wasting time and money and hope on social media activity as a lead generation resource.

Help and support

You can engage me to help you 1-2-1 or to work with your team to ensure they are capable of doing the necessary to generate and convert the type of leads you want for your practice. (More details at the foot of this page)

Linkedin

Linkedin is THE online business networking site. It’s quite distinct from the social media sites. And, in many cases, it is often the best way to secure leads to the clients you really want.

I have over 100 recommendations and over 11,000 connections on Linkedin as I have been active and experimenting with the platform since 2008. I don’t accept random connection requests and I rarely see any spam messages.

2010 was the first time I delivered a talk to accountants specifically about Linkedin. Since then I have advised and trained thousands of accountants how they could use Linkedin for lead generation.

If you would like my help, guidance 1-2-1 or a more formalised interactive online training session for your team, please get in touch >>>>