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Making it easier for new clients to choose you

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18th Mar 2014
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While some accountants win new clients through the force of their personality and reputation, more and more are reliant on their website and social media activity, explains Mark Lee.

As ever, the importance of such resources depends on who you see as prospective clients. And the more new clients you seek the more important it is to make it easy for them to choose you.

Years ago someone looking for a new client might ask around their friends or look up local accountants in the Yellow Pages. There are more resources available now and prospects will often form a view of any recommendation or search results when they check out your website.

Another argument for having an effective online presence is that this can boost the number of people who could recommend you or choose you as their next or first accountant.

Inevitably we form a view and maybe judge people by reference to what we read online – just think about some of the personalities who regularly comment on AccountingWEB. When you have not met or even spoken with someone it is human nature to build up a picture and to decide who you take seriously, who you are prepared to help and whose views you will spend less time considering.

Thus we should expect prospective clients to form a view of accountants once they engage with you online. If not you then it will be someone else. They simply start by checking out what you say about yourself in your online profiles. This extends to what your firm’s website says about you too. Those accountants whose websites do not identify them as individuals would probably get more enquiries if they allowed visitors to find out something about them.

Beyond your website it is clear that being active in discussion forums (including AccountingWEB) on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn means you are sharing more information and insights that can work for you, or against you. 

Those who do not engage online where they might be seen by prospects might be working from the premise that it’s safer not to engage on social media at all. If you are not involved you can’t say or do anything that will be off putting in the eyes of prospective clients. Equally however you are not making it easy for them to find or choose you. And if other accountants are doing this…?

It is all too easy to assume, as some accountants do, that as long as you do a good job, all will be well and you will generate all of the recommendations and referrals you could want. Maybe that works when you have a long established reputation and little client turnover.

More and more accountants are however keen to generate new clients through their website or online, typically ‘social media’, activity.

We rarely choose to engage anyone to provide a service if we have already chosen a provider whom we trust more. Sometimes this is simply due to a recommendation from someone we know. Other times it comes from the ‘social proof’ built up online or a combination of the two when an online friend recommends someone they only know online.

Interactions rarely happen with people we don't trust. What is it that someone sees on your website or your social media presence or your email that makes them chose to interact with you? Beyond your photo (or the absence of one) there are a range of factors that will impact the speed with which someone will decide they are willing to get in touch with you. Seth Godin suggests that the following list is most relevant:

  • Word of mouth
  • Direct interaction
  • Graphics
  • Tone of voice
  • Offer
  • Size of leap
  • Fear
  • Social ranking/metric
  • Tribal affiliation
  • Perception of transparency
  • Longevity
  • Mass acceptance

I have incorporated my own comments into each of the explanations below:

Word of mouth: Few accountants would disagree that this is the most effective factor, by far. If I’ve heard good things about you from people I know, the entire relationship changes. You get the benefit of the doubt from the off.

Direct interaction: Have you previously interacted with me in some way beyond producing articles and blog posts that I have read? The way I feel about our first ‘touch’ will impact how I feel about you. Inevitably an email message that is perceived as spam is read differently to a message that follows a mutual introduction.

Graphics: What do you look like? What does that photo remind me of? With so few clues online, we read an enormous amount into the absence of a friendly smile or the use of an inappropriate social photo.

Tone of voice: Even in print our writing implies a tone of voice although this is more obvious on video or audio recordings of course. How often do you trust ‘urgent’ offers that you read about online or receive in email messages?

Offer: What’s in it for me to listen to what you have to say? Does your email or online message focus on what you want or what might be of interest and value to me? Inevitably I will be more interested in the latter.

Size of leap: What are you asking me to do? It’s significantly easier to earn the trust that is required to follow you on social media than it is to get me to give you my credit card details. When you hook your new idea to an old idea I already trust, you benefit.

Fear: This is related to the leap. Big leaps are scarier, requiring more trust, and thus more scepticism.

Social ranking: Results on the first page of Google are more likely to get clicked on than those on later pages. People with a lot of Twitter followers (especially if this is significantly greater than the number they follow) are probably more genuine and worthy of following than those who simply game the system.

Tribal affiliation: Are you one of us? Can prospects relate to you beyond the fact that you are an accountant? Do you have something in common?

Perception of transparency: When I can see the metrics, or understand your intention, or when the message carries with it the hooks to those ideas, I’m more inclined to trust you. (This is a cultural, not a universal, bias).

Longevity: How long have you been showing up? Thus it is generally easier for established practices to win new clients who pay good fees than it is for start-up practices to do so.

Mass acceptance: When I sort of hear of you from my friends, when I recognise your name or logo from local business sponsorship, when I recognise your name from articles and interesting newsletters I am more inclined to listen to what you have to say. This also explains why, love them or hate them, when TV celebrities walk in to the room they instantly have a lot of trust.

The bottom line

As Seth Godin points out: “You will be judged, best to plan on being judged in the best possible light.”

Mark Lee is consultant practice editor of AccountingWEB. Beyond this he facilitates The Inner Circle group for accountants, is a regular speaker on professional business development related issues and is chairman of the Tax Advice Network of independent tax specialists.

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By guyletts
25th Mar 2014 11:56

More practical ways to be easier to choose

Mark

These are excellent points. It's also true that whatever the source of prospects, we all routinely check out a company's website to get a feel for what they're like to do business with. The website itself may or may not generate huge numbers of new clients, but it can kill leads if it's poor.

Just a couple of points to add from my experience working with accounting practices on client satisfaction:

1. How to be 'recommendable'. I will only recommend a company (accountant or otherwise) if I am confident they will do an exemplary job because my personal credibility is on the line. I don't want to let my friends down. So every aspect of how they conduct business must be beyond reproach - from how good their advice is to how good they they are at returning calls promptly. As an accountant there may be things that clients won't say to your face which are not enough for them to leave personally, but are an obstacle to them giving an unreserved personal recommendation.

A systematic (and client-friendly) process for collecting feedback is the only way to discover and remove blockages and unlock personal recommendations.

2. How to harness 'social ranking' and 'transparency'. In nearly all spheres now we make a judgement based on what other people say. Even if I have a personal recommendation, it can be amplified if independent reviews corroborate it.

Having the courage to display your unvarnished client feedback (rather than hand-picked testimonials) is very persuasive. It also makes you a less risky choice than the other accountant you might be compared with who doesn't display their feedback. And my customers tell me that it definitely helps them win more business.

Hope that helps.

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By guy_pearson
28th Mar 2014 02:38

Using your digital medium to create a presence

I can totally back up everything that has been said above. 

As a founder of an accounting firm (www.interactiveaccounting.com.au) that's grown from strength to strength in the last 4 years to the point I've exited the day to day, I can say that it's possible due to 2 things:

 

1. An awesome team that practice what they preach in our messaging;

2. Great messaging that's rememberable and easy to pass on. 

 

To further capitalise on this, I've moved into a software role at www.practiceignition.com to digitalise (in the long run) all the methods that accountants use to increase value per client, automate referrals and encourage deals to your existing client base with my new startup. 

I'd love to see more of the above and would love to take all of the discussion points a little deeper as practice growth through client acquisition and retention is a major passion of mine and is the blood of all accounting practices. 

Make sure you have digital upgrade in your budget as your mum probably google's you now....Mine does. 

Cheers.

Guy

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