AccountingWeb

Practitioner's Diary: Who reads this stuff?

Our West Country general practitioner wonders if anyone ever reads what we send them.

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31 March - Just had that "indignant client" telephone call, you know the type - the client we wrote to in November with accounts queries, who we chased up a few times (possibly not hard enough, but that's another matter), and now on the day the accounts are meant to be at Companies House is bending my ear about leaving everything to the last minute and whinging about the late filing penalty. But not providing me with the information I need to finish the accounts!

Did he ever read any of those letters? Why do we bother sending them? And if they don't read important stuff about their personal affairs, how likely is it that they will read newsletters and Budget circulars?

I have heard of firms who send out year end reminders and the like by text message. Might be worth a try.

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28 March - Just to prove my point i have had two clients on the phone today asking me about Budget atx changes. Neither had read the newspapers properly, both had been sent our printed and email Budget newsletters. The trouble is, all these things are couched in accounting-speak, so no-one out there really understands them!

The only way to communicate effectively with clients is to speak to them individually, preferably face to face. That's the professional service challenge growing firms face - how to stay in touch with clients and make sure they feel valued.

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25 March - On a similar theme, our bought-in 2008-09 tax data cards arrived today. Now these ARE appreciated by clients, prospects and introducers so we'll be sending out more of them. We usually enclose one with the April tax return reminder letters for most clients, and I like to send half a dozen each to local bank managers and other introducers for them to give away on our behalf. I also keep a stock in our meeting room as they are handy to give to visitors and prospects - plus when a tax question arises during a meeting I can grab one and quickly check the IHT theshold or VAT registration threshold straightaway!

If you don't use these in your firm I would highly recommend them. Ditch the Budget newsletter and send all your clients one of these instead - much more useful.

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20 March - Back to marketing activity and I have a box of our Budget summaries on my desk this morning. As always, it's a bit after the event now. Anyone who was really interested will have read up about it online or in the newspapers. Still, it's good to remind people that we're here and I have to say these bought-in brochures look good (provided you haven't already received the same brochure from another firm, that is!).

There are maybe a handful of clients who will appreciate this, so that gets rid of a dozen or so. Otherwise I'll be using them as backup literature when meeting new clients, and sending out most of the rest to prospects and introducers, again just to remind them that we're here and to reinforce the message that we know what we're about.

Otherwise I agree with Mark Lee and others, that the overnight Budget summary is really a waste of money these days.

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18 March - Much excitement in the office this lunchtime. My junior returned from town in a fluster:

"That new shop on the High Street has a sign outside 'Watch batteries fitted'!", he announced, barely able to contain his excitement. "Next time I go into town I'll go earlier so I can go in and watch them!"

My mouth opened momentarily to explain the difference between nouns and verbs, but somehow no sound came out! I had to walk away before I spoiled his fun. Things don't get much better than this down in tne West Country at this time of year!

Mind you, it would have been funnier if half the office hadn't agreed with him and promised to join him. I blame modern English teaching methods myself ...

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17 March - Not raining today. Why does it always rain at the weekend and then dry up on Mondays? Seems there's no accounting for weather. Maybe the accounting standards people should try.

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14 March - That was a fuss about nothing then. I have shared my immediate thoughts elsewhere. I don't think I'll be rushing to get clients to take action before 6 April on account of anything in the Budget, but there looks to be some work to do on the 2008-09 Income Tax computation, especially trying to make Excel handle the 10 per cent band.

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11 March - I like to keep learning new stuff, I think it must be something to do with my age. When I was at school we were taught that learning was a good thing in its own right, and it seems to have stuck with me. So I was delighted to come across Mark Lee's excellent blog about rainmakers, or what he calls "finders". It was a timely thought on marketing, and identifying and training people in the firm who can go out and bring in new business. Many firms have their rainmaker, the gregarious partner with the gift of the gab who seems to conjure new work out of thin air every time he leaves the office.

But can you learn to be a rainmaker? Can we train up our younger people to be finders? I believe so. Some have a natural gift for it, and they are probably the ones who will excel, but I firmly believe most people can learn to represent the firm, to talk to new prospects, to make a good impression, to be effective networkers, etc. Self-confidence is useful, but practice can be almost as good! It's just a shame that this vital skill is not part of the accountants training - it ought to be part of the basic skill set for a newly qualified.

When most firms are made up wholly of what Mark calls minders, binders and grinders there's a whole world of new work out there just waiting to be found by the few finders. I want to make sure our practice is out there too. As a profession we have shied away from "selling", but the reality is that unless we manage to sell some professional services to clients we won't have an income!And in any event marketing and networking can be great fun too, not a concept we readily associate with bank reconciliations and trial balances!

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7 March - The Budget is almost upon us, another great opportunity to promote the firm to both clients and non-clients. I just can't decide whether to get excited about a printed brochure. We buy them in like many firms, but I never know what to do with them. I estimate that I give away about half a dozen copies each year to people who have specific questions about something in the Budget, or who show a genuine interest. The rest are despatched out into the unknown, and I have no idea if anyone ever reads them. All I hope is that they spot the firm's details on the cover and are impressed that we made an effort!

This year I plan to focus my energy on emails to clients and contacts. We havean email newsletter going out first thing Thursday morning, and I'll be emailing specific clients with individual articles that look particularly relevant to them. We will also have full coverage on our website so I can direct people there with a short email - just like AccountingWEB does: send an email with a link to your website, rather than putting all the text in the email itself. With any luck, the reader will linger on the website and find other stuff of interest.

Of course, all this is of no avail if we don't have clients' email addresses, so my team have been working on filling in the gaps in our practice management database. We almost certainly have most clients' email addresses in the office - someone has them, we just need to collate all those disparate lists! And they've got till Wednesday to complete the task!!

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5 March - Last year I resolved to share out the networking activity with other members of the team, but never managed to do it. This month there are free breakfasts going for those who will get up early and join me at events in the area. Groups like the chamber of commerce are holding the odd lunchtime events, while our local Ecademy groups tens to meet in the evening so we should be able to cater for most preferences. People seem to think that networking is a big deal. It's not, it's just talking to people, and that doesn't seem to be a big problem for most of my team!

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3 March - Start off as we mean to continue. This month is business development month here. While the workload is a little lighter I have the professional team working on our client and contact database to enaure we have all the email addresses in one place, and we're starting to populate the data fields that will help us with marketing - things like does the client have employees, are they VAT-registered, do they have wills, etc.

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Happy with your letters of engagement? Our practitioner had some suggestions to make them more practical in his February 2008 diary.