In the early 90’s we built an accountancy practice.
Generate 20 new leads per month.
That was the target set by the rest of the management team.
Fast forward several years we generated too much business so we started to pass on other leads to other Practices.
<< If you are looking to generate new face to face business meeting then please email guy@cloudaccountant.today >>
Here is how we did it:
We had a disruptive ethos,
‘Of course we can help, let’s find out what you want and need’.
In those times accountants hadn’t really changed for centuries; protected by legislation, clients got what the accountant produced when the accountant was ready, mainly an audit followed by tax.
The Ethos
We realised that small businesses would pay a premium fee for a service that made them feel like and become the entrepreneur they dreamt of being. So we gave them quarterly board meetings, in nice hotels with management accounts after the VAT return. Helping them set targets for improving turnover, reducing costs, driving efficiency, giving their small business a value.
So we helped mechanics, manufacturers, plumbers and furniture makers become business people. They were constantly flattered by our care for them and interest in their industry.
I’ll say that again. – They were constantly flattered by our care for them and interest in their industry.
Nowadays this type of client attention is given names such as Client centric, Client Listening Programmes and Client Centred Service Provision. But nothing has changed other than the means of understanding / listening.
Clients have ALWAYS responded best if you try hard to understand what they need and then give them service that goes beyond what they need to what makes them feel great, to be slightly cheesy you create fans not clients.
When we started our original busines in ’97 we helped accountants flatter their prospects.
We introduced sector based marketing, believe it or not back then very few professional service firms aligned their partners and marketing messages down sector based lines. It flattered the business people to find a professional who understood their industry enough to ask them deep searching questions about their business.
Questions that no other professionals were asking. Our clients started to challenge garages to get the most billing out of MOT bays, to consider footfall and average spend in small retail shops and outlets, various finance options for haulage and more.
I remember a campaign to the FDs of Haulage and Distribution Companies in Essex. The headline to close for a meeting about accountancy was
‘and he’d like to go through the merits of various bonded warehouse schemes available.’
This type of headline does not describe an everyday accountant, audit and tax, more a business advisor with the Haulage / Distribution client at the centre of his thinking?
So over the years we’ve got 80,000 face to face meetings based on understanding the market and either describing or creating services that match the markets requirements.
And here’s how you can do the same in 2018
To start with download the Digital Checklist – this will make sure you are up to speed on most technologies that are available to you and ensure you are preapred for Making Tax Digital and embracing online media.
Click Here To Download The Digital Checklist
And then consider:
What are your target markets?
- Healthcare including; GPs, Care homes & Domiciliary care
- Technology
- Construction
- SMEs
What are your main messages Q1-Q3 for those markets?
- Healthcare: (Q1)Increasing QOF points (Q2) GDPR how the accountant can help (Q3) Selling a healthcare business (how to get the best value).
- Technology: (Q1) The GDPR goldmine (where is it?) (Q2) Selling a technology business (what buyers are looking for) (Q3) Funding to grow a tech business. (your options with pros and cons)
- Construction etc.
Consier how are you going to get the messages to the target decision makers to create meetings.
Create a database of suitable companies to target in your chosen markets.
Create quarterly content / PDF’s around main messages.
Monthly blog . thought piece per sector distributed via:-
- Email, SEO, advertising and social marketing.
- Telemarketing – Very strong for Healthcare, Tech and Construction and will become more so as email starts to dwindle.
And finally pipeline management
Unfortunately accountants are pretty ropey at chasing down new clients but make sure to update your CRM and monitor accordingly.
The technology must ensure you are listening to your prospects across a wide range of channels allowing you to respond appropriately.
So to clarify
To create a lot of closable leads for 2018 you have to put yourself inside the mind of the business owners you want to target and then to answer the questions they are concerned with. Do keyword research to Identify what all the common queiries are online and use this to create relevant messages to send them.
Google’s keyword research tool is an excellent starting place and very easy to understand.
To automate this process as much as possible here is a step by step guide to replicate yourself.
The Starting Point:
0) Click Here To Download The Digital Checklist
1) Define the specific market you want to target.
2) Create a database of suitable decision makers within the companies that match your criteria. Include email details, LinkedIn groups and Twitter accounts.
3) Identify a message to take to them based on the questions they are concerned with. Performing keyword research is a great place to start.
Short term:
4) Email the database and push out the message through social channels.
5) Call the people that engage positively with your email.
6) Set appointments.
Mid term:
7) Open up Tweet deck and monitor all the companies on your database. Spy on them and look for easy openings.
8) Join LinkedIn groups / other online forums or places where they can be engaged and spread good will messages. Pay it forward so to speak. This can be outsourced either through us or to you existing web marketing team.
9) Set up Google Alerts for topical news in your sector to stay updated with ease.
10) Blog, regularly and publish links and snippets of content to your new articles in as many relevant places online to increase targeted traffic to your website.
11) Find influencers to connect with your audience to get your brand known.
12) Build landing pages on your website offering free advice on all the questions that they may have.
13) Upload videos on topical news to YouTube.
14) Create a scalable PPC campaign on Google, LinkedIn and Facebook ads driving traffic to your landing pages and blog posts.
15) Identify suitable companies to act as suitable referrals into your market and offer them an incentive to promote your practice to their clients.
16) Get your business listed on Google+ to show up as a local accountant
17) Ask current clients in your industry for testimonials and share online reviews.
Long term:
18) Focus on intense SEO and becoming number one in the search engines for all the phrases that owners of the companies you are targeting may ask on anything accounting.
19) Rinse and repeat in your next target market.
Again, to make a lot of this hard work seem easy Click Here To Download The Digital Checklist
