If you’re an owner of an accounting firm of 5 or more employees, you’re serious about growing your business, and you’re interested in marketing, then QuickBooks Connect has some exciting news for you. Damien Greathead, a specialist in business management and accounting firms, will be presenting the session “More Clients Please: Building the Next Generation Accounting Practice,” where you’ll be able to learn and apply very useful information to help with the marketing for your business. Some of the things you’ll be able to learn are:
- the difference between Outbound versus Inbound marketing (an explanation of these concepts and which one is more beneficial)
- best marketing ideas around the world (with 300 member firms in the United States and 2500 member firms around the world, you’ll be provided with the top 14 best marketing strategies)
- how to start marketing for your business (you’ll be provided with an action plan to help you get started)
Damien Greathead is the Director of Operations at 2020 Group USA where he works with hundreds of small to medium-sized public accounting firms all around the country (and around the world) where he reengineers them, streamlines their processes, helps them implement technology, and helps them develop their marketing plan. He said, “Sometimes an accounting firm doesn’t know how to market so we go in and show them how and actually set up a marketing department for them so that someone can take the reins once we step out of the business. It’s the same thing with the technology and the efficiency and productive workflow. We go in and roll up our sleeves and identify where they are being inefficient and where they are wasting money so that when we leave they’ve got some good workflow and they’ve got some good processes in place. We’re improving the margins and the profitability of the accounting firm.” To demonstrate how he’s helped accounting firms with their marketing, Damien provided an example:
Damien Greathead, Vice President, Receipt Bank
He said, “We recently worked with a Fresno accounting firm and helped them with their marketing by:
- Recruiting a marketing and communication major for them
- Training the employees in marketing and giving them marketing activities to perform (such as managing the website, working on social media, or working on company branding)
- Coaching them throughout on those activities and answering any questions they had”
And this was beneficial because there were major changes to the firm after they received this help with their marketing. Some of those changes were:
- more people in the firm were interested in marketing (networking, running seminars, writing articles, working on websites, and managing social media) as compared to before when there was no or little interest
- more website traffic due to social media impact
- more satisfied clients because key word search terms focused on the services clients were looking for
Damien, as part of 2020 Group USA, is also no stranger to speaking to accountants. He said, “I travel around the country running seminars and educating accountants on how to be better business people and how to better service their clients. I share best practices and some of the best resources that help market and manage small to medium-sized accounting firms, which is what I’ll be doing for this upcoming session as well.”
The first part of Damien’s session “More Clients Please: Building the Next Generation Accounting Practice,” will be about “the most successful marketing strategies and what the best firms are doing”. The second part of the session will be about “the key pieces of infrastructure that every firm needs regardless of their size: the key marketing activities that you’re going to do, how you’re going to implement them, and how you’re going to measure your success.” People that attend this session will learn:
- why marketing is critical to the ongoing success of the business and why it needs to be a core function of the firm
- what the components of a marketing plan and infrastructure are and how to understand both of those for successful marketing
- what the key components/ key activities within a marketing plan are
The three major takeaways attendees will get from this session will be:
- That marketing activities don’t have to be expensive just specific
- How to make marketing happen when it has failed all the other times
- Three things to do to get started with your own marketing development plan
This session will also be beneficial for attendees because it’ll be taught in an easy to understand way with the use of case studies and practical and applicable information in the form of tips and tricks. Damien said:
“The content of the session isn’t difficult. It’s keeping things in perspective that you have to watch out for. These things can be put into practice quickly, but the key thing is managing your expectations. If you’ve never done any marketing you can’t just send out 100 letters and expect to get 100 phone calls. Marketing takes time and it takes consistency.”
When asked to share one of these marketing strategies that’ll help accounting firms, Damien provided us with an example. He said:
“It may not have been this particular strategy, but more of a combination of all of the strategies. So a key example would be seminars, which is consistently one of the most successful strategies we’ve seen that produces results. When firms put on seminars for their clients or perspective clients we see that this is the biggest lead generator for an accounting firm. So generally seminars around QuickBooks like “Top Ten Mistakes Made in QuickBooks and How to Avoid Them” are usually the most successful. Topics like this give clients an insight into how the program (QuickBooks) works. They show clients that the firm cannot only answer their question, but also has the skills and expertise behind them to help in other ways. So it becomes ‘Look at what we’ve shown you in 60 minutes. Now think of what we could help you do if you become a client of ours.’”
Damien’s session will provide more of these great marketing strategies and can help you learn the most important things you need to know about marketing to create your own marketing department plan for your firm.
Register to attend QuickBooks Connect by clicking here