Are you feeling that there’s more competition than ever this year? Perhaps Intuit’s QB Live announcement has you reeling. Here are some strategies you can use to “become a category of one,” as they say in marketing.
- Build your brand. In accounting, tax, and advisory services companies, our brand is our name. We can build it up by building our reputation for delivering results to clients and becoming a thought leader in the profession. Do this a number of ways: write articles, make speeches, offer webinars or podcasts, post your testimonials and case studies, get interviewed by the press, serve on a committee or board of directors, and become a well-respected business leader in your community, to name a few. When you build your brand, people will come asking for you by name and won’t consider others.
- Make clients money. Offer your services in a way that not only provides the compliance work that clients need, but that has them saving money or making more money so that your fees pay for themselves in the client’s eyes. This is best done by being clear on how your services provide a return on investment for a client. Often clients don’t even know how much you’ve saved them, so sometimes you need to overtly communicate this. When you turn your final deliverable over to a client, add a report that summarizes how much you have saved your client. This will go a long way toward getting great testimonials, more referrals, and increased client retention.
- Stop hourly pricing. It’s far too easy to have a prospect ask your price and compare you with someone lower. Which is totally ludicrous, because no one can know how fast you are compared to someone else. So if you do hourly pricing, you have to let prospects know you are faster (if you are). The best way to get out of the whole price conversation is to bundle your services and develop fixed fee packages. Clients love the certainty of a fixed fee, and you totally sound like you know what you are doing when you have a package.
- Become more client-centered. Listen. Develop your services at the intersection of your skill set and your client’s needs. You will benefit from constantly rolling out new products and services, and your client will think you can read their mind.
- Learn marketing. If you are a great accountant and a lousy marketer, you’re a best-kept secret. If you’re a great marketer and a lousy accountant, you’ll have a lot of customer turnover. You need both skill sets to succeed in this economy. If your competitor is better than you at marketing and is an average accountant, they’re likely to do just as well as you if you are a lousy marketer and a great accountant. Sad but true.
- Put some fun into your products or services. One year, I took our top tier clients to a fancy resort in Phoenix. People are craving to have a little fun in their lives; so especially if you offer tax prep, it’s a great idea to make it as fun as possible. Figure out what your clients will like, and add it to your service package.
Try these ideas to differentiate yourself from your competition so that you’ll stand out and get more clients.
Want to learn more about marketing opportunities from Sandi Smith Leyva? She will be presenting a free webinar with Insightful Accountant on May 1. Click here to learn more about it and how to register.
Sandi Leyva
Author Bio: Sandi Leyva, CPA, CMA, MBA, and founder of Accountant’s Accelerator, has helped thousands of tax and accounting professionals earn more, work less, and serve their clients better through her innovative marketing, training, and coaching services. Author of 30 books and hundreds of CPE courses, Sandi has won 12 awards for her thought leadership. Visit her at accountantsaccelerator.com and acceleratorwebsites.com.