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How do accountants market their business?

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4th Oct 2005
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Dawn-Marie Dart Staff PhotoBy Dawn-Marie Dart

A recent Any Answers posting provoked a debate on marketers in accountancy. "Am I alone in thinking accountants tolerate marketers within their practice as a necessary evil for communication & profile?" asked John Crowder.

More than 500 people tuned into the debate to disucss howaccountants market their businesses. What are people's experiences with external marketeers?

I caught up with some of the members who took part to get more of an insight.

Crowder explains: 'As someone who has worked within a practice and now as a marketing consultant for partners and practices, I know at first hand that accountants are very frustrated with marketing their services.'

Harry Kafka, co-ordinator and creator of the Modern Accountancy Marketing System says: 'Marketing within accountancy is a moot subject. While there's plenty of willingness for collegial advisement in technical matters of accountancy and all accountants possess knowledge in the field, the subject of marketing accounting services is very different.

"Very few accountants have mastered marketing. And none who have mastered it are willing to share this hard-won knowledge with their colleagues who are, after all, competitors in this respect. Thus, most of the comments in regards to marketing on accountancy forums come from those who don't believe new clients could be acquired purposefully at an accelerated ratio.'

Long-time AccountingWEB member Phil Rees describes himself as "very saddened by the pollution of our noble profession by marketing and management training pseudo sciences".

If practices are going to progress into the future, they perhaps need to be more proactive with their marketing approach. A fresh perspective on their business could provide the impetus needed to be more competitive and move with the times. The new approach may result in a broader portfolio of services being offered.

Kafka comments: 'No industry remains stagnant for long. In accountancy, there are those firms who are on the up, expanding because they're advancing with the times... and there are those who will inevitably wither away due to fixed ideas in trying to maintain the status quo with each accountant staying on their own turf.

"Don't kill the messenger but times are changing and businesses are not content with mere compliance services any longer. They want the expertise of the accountant in planning finances and making timely decisions based on month-to-month developments of their fiscal performance.'

Crowder comments: 'You either learn how to do it yourself or get in the expertise. Either way, firms see marketing as a cost in time, money and effort instead of an investment.'

The reluctance of some members to share their marketing knowledge shows that the subject is still very delicate - people don't want to offer a solution to a possible competitor. Others are happy to remain stuck in their ways and maintain a traditional approach to their services, without the fuss of active marketing.

Kafka says: 'Personally I found that most responses to the question were from those who wanted to prove it is impossible to do anything effective for acquiring new clients. Perhaps there's an undercurrent of vested interest there, who knows? I could well understand if those who don't want to do any marketing would dearly want everyone else to sit on their hands also so everyone gets to keep their share.'

Whether you are for or against the use of more accelerated marketing tactics within the profession, it can't be denied that increasing competition does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. It might give accountancy a long overdue shake up and present the profession in a new light.

Add your thoughts to this important debate by posting your comments below this article.

Dawn-Marie Dart

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Replies (7)

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Dennis Howlett
By dahowlett
05th Oct 2005 00:00

Floggers and....
Isn't it interesting that those who are making the most noise are the marketers - blaming in succession on the firms or marketers. depending on their blinding logical argument. Get real. This is nothing to do with either side being right or wrong.

This is about a profession that associates marketing with selling in the most aweful sense and which is constrained by outdated methods of communication with the people it already knows are its best assets - its clients.

This is no-one's 'fault.' It's about the way professionals are 'supposed' to behave. The unwrittten code of behviour. The distance between client and advisor on so many levels. It's about the lack of shared, 'smart conversations' between the two...

So before you marketing flacks start flogging snake oil, understand where these guys are coming from. Not where you want them to be.

We talk about this quite a lot at: http://www.accmanpro.com Unlike the marketing flacks we guarantee if don't like what we say, have an alternative point of view, whatever, you won't be censored. Unless you're profane or libelous.

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By stevehun
04th Oct 2005 12:15

Marketing is not new
The article cites the long-standing accountant moaning about the introduction of marketing to the profession. He may well have repeated the story to a client while on the golf course!

If you view marketing as an item of expenditure on the agenda at a partners' meeting then you don't get it.

I was trained in sales before I became a partner in a firm of chartered accountants and I feel that there is no hope for accountants to try and learn to sell and to market. If they were that way inclined they would have been car salesmen, or lawyers!

Marketing in accountancy is more like a shop than a car lot. We must be aware that there are good or bad ways to arrange our windows and a visiting customer can have a good or bad experience once inside. If a shopkeeper goes further and tries to drag customers into the shop off the street, he is likely to get a bloody nose. However much is spent on the shop, its reputation is the thing that is of most value and this cannot be purchased with pretty shop fronts.

Marketing for an accountant should be aimed at doing the job well, but making sure word gets round. This is not that revolutionary but it does require an outward and progressive attitude. Good clients want you to be their accountant and general professional advisor. The strongest of these relationships starts by personal recommendation followed by good working relationship. A client that is acquired by telemarketing is one who will leave when the next telemarketer rings.

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By tomtrainer
04th Oct 2005 12:23

Phil Rees's Comment
I interpreted Phil's comment differently: in the past, your success depended solely on your professional competence, whereas now it depends largely on your ability to give someone a particular image of your service. An academic discipline has been, at least partially, supplanted by a less-easily-regulated, salesman type approach.

Unfortunately, I think marketing is necessary for accountants, particularly as we do not benefit from the closed shop that doctors and lawyers are quite rightly allowed to operate.

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Nigel Harris
By Nigel Harris
04th Oct 2005 12:36

Networking works!
As my recent article - https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=145799
- showed that serious networking is being used by some firms as the primary, sometimes almost the only, marketing strategy for the practice. It clearly works for them, and also helps to build a marketing awareness within the firm.

We are talking about serious regular networking strategies such as BNI, not the odd game of golf with a bank manager or a Chamber of Commerce lunch.

The well-worn BNI slogan is that 98% of businesses rely on referrals to gain new business, but only 3% actually have a strategy to get referrals! Presumably the other 95% just sit around and wait for something to happen.

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By AnonymousUser
04th Oct 2005 14:05

There is extrapolation and then there is fantasy.

How Mr Miles can get from my comment to his assertion is perhaps beyond fantasy. I have said nothing about my attitude to my clients.

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By AnonymousUser
05th Oct 2005 08:26

The point of marketing is what clients want, nothing else
This article and the conversation it is based on appear to consider that the most important issue in accountancy marketing is what practitioners feel about marketing or marketers.

In reality, it matters very little what practitioners THINK about marketing or marketers. Hate or like them, it makes no difference to your own success.

The only meaningful issue here is what CLIENTS think, need and want from accounting professionals... and what practitioners do about this.

Having worked with more than 50 practitioners over a period of three years, surveying more than ten thousand clients prior to launching our system, I can say that if you know WHAT to offer and HOW to offer it, there will be no shortage of new clients.

Not only that but these new clients will pay you far better and appreciate your knowhow to a whole new degree. For instance, one of my clients has a small client who pays him £9,000 per annum just for this additional basic service (delivered by phone once a month) on top of his compliance services.

I well understand why a practitioner dislikes being told what to do with their firm. Nobody should override the practitioner’s power of decision over his own creation.

And I agree that nobody should tell him what to do, whether openly or by using “reverse psychology.” We can only give information and let the practitioner decide what he does with it.

The impulse to do something about expansion has to come from the practitioner alone. And the skill (and tools) to acquire those new clients have to be in the hands of the practitioner so he isn’t dependent on anyone.

IF you KNOW what clients want and then provide that systematically, you cannot lose. Your “profile” is not built through grandiose announcements or advertising. It’s built with each client by offering them what will truly help them and delivering that.

Presenting what will benefit them most, doing it so they can realise it on their own and then delivering that will position you at the very top in their eyes.

Like it or not, a practitioner is exactly in the same boat with the marketer. Both have to MAKE their client the money with which he then pays them. And the trick is to do it in abundance. Now, I don’t mean you should (or could) SELL it like that. I’m merely talking about DELIVERING it that way.

Best wishes
Harry Kafka
http://www.accountancymarketing.info

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By nickmiles
04th Oct 2005 12:02

Re Phil Rees comment
Phil Rees would appear to not be keen on treating his clients as a value added asset of his business but rather as a tiresome but unfortunately necessary part of his bottom line. Or do I misunderstand his comments????

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