…choosing what to stop doing.

Yes you read that right.

It’s not about what you start doing it’s about what you stop doing that most influences your firm’s success!

A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE…

Geppetto’s is a toy store which has clearly decided NOT to sell plastic toys, or toys with batteries. Their toys stimulate a childs imagination.

No plastic, no batteries instantly differentiates them from every other toy store including the ‘category killers’ Toys R Us. It is THE  reason behind their success. What are you going to stop doing?

A REAL LIFE ACCOUNTANCY EXAMPLE…

I recently visited a firm struggling to implement a well thought out action plan. A plan of things which would improve both the through-put of accounts jobs AND increase their conversion rate of new high-value prospects. Not until the two partners decided what to stop doing did they free up enough time to do what needed to be done to improve the firm’s results.

Complex this is not. But it is the issue that holds most partners and most firms back from the success they might otherwise achieve. What are you going to stop doing?

ACTION PLEASE…

Why don’t you sit back and identify three things you could/should stop doing? Work out who else could do them and – like Sir John Harvey Jones (of ICI fame) repeatedly says:

“Only do, what only you can do”

I’m choosing to stop everything for a few weeks now (holiday! ) and wish you a remarkable summer.

Tally ho

Paul Shrimpling

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

And let’s get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

Read our most recent blog here www.remarkablepractice.com

________________________________________________________________

Remarkable business practice requires strong business roots. Like the grass roots of bamboo that take up to 3 years to fully establish, and then help it grow to twice the height of a house in just one season.

Remarkable Practice helps you develop strong business roots so that your firm enjoys remarkable growth too.

To discuss what it is we do and how we can help you and your firm please email theteam@remarkablepractice.com or call 01773 821689.

If you’re at a loose end on Thursday 23rd June and want a serious injection of insight, inspiration and innovation you’d do well to be at the National Accountants Conference 2011.

If you’re already attending I look forward to seeing you there – please make yourself known to me or Kate or Karen.

You’ll be tapping into the experience, knowledge and foresight of some of the accountancy professions big thinkers:

- Paul Dunn – David Maister – Steve Pipe – Mark Lloydbottom

I’m proud to be also speaking alongside such illustrious company, on one of my favourite subject:

“How to get a predictable and sustainable flow of high-value new clients for your firm”

You can get more information here and conference running order here

You can get a booking form here

Warmest wishes

Paul Shrimpling

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

And let’s get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

Read our most recent blog here www.remarkablepractice.com

According to a rather large survey* the number 1 biggest source of new clients is…

…REFERRALS

I know! No shocks there!

*From a 2009 survey of 231 American buyers of professional service firms who spent, between them, $1.7billion on professional services (including accountancy) – by Wellesley Hills Group and Raintoday.com. I’d prefer UK research but this was survey too big to ignore.

What are you doing to maximise the number of referrals you get as a firm?

This survey confirms what we knew based on the 400+ 1-on-1 partner meetings we have been involved in over the last 9 years of working with accountants.

Yes it’s as old as the hills – but ask for introductions more often than you do now. Ask your clients and ask your contacts (bankers, solicitors etc) more often and guess what? You’ll eventually get more new clients (assuming you’re good at what you do).

EXAMPLE: One 7-partner firm we work with recently did! And the first time of asking the client ‘gifted’ 5 warm introductions. OK this won’t happen every time but it pays to… ASK! And ask more often.

So what EXACTLY should you do?

1. Create 5 or more mechanisms for asking for referrals from clients – AND MAKE THEM HAPPEN
2. Create 5 or more mechanisms for asking for referrals from introducers – AND MAKE THEM HAPPEN
3. Make it easy for people to refer your firm

To help you with this third point…

…And linking with the ‘BRUTAL TRUTH’ element from our last blog about the great business book – Good To Great by Jim Collins

To be successful at building greater referrals you must face three BRUTAL TRUTHS of marketing your accountancy firm:

1. Asking for referrals is not a short term project. Clients may have said ‘NO’ or not responded to your last request but keep asking.

EXAMPLE: One firm we work with systematically told a client at every quarterly management accounts review meeting that “he wanted to grow his firm and did they know anyone he should be contacting?”. At the fifth quarterly meeting the client stopped him saying it! He then handed him two names and contact numbers on an A4 sheet of letterhead.

Keep on keeping on. Ask with a smile and in good humour – it will eventually pay off.

2. Accountancy is viewed more and more as a Commodity – so demonstrating value and proving real ROI becomes a vital part of your efforts.

What evidence can you share to prove your firm’s value? Low-priced competitors increase the doubts in clients minds – so demonstrating value, proving your value is critical. And when you do, you are more likely to get referrals because clients are CERTAIN you deliver for them and can be confident about referring you.

3. Your Competition Is Working Hard too – so standing out from the crowd matters. If your firm’s offer is indistinguishable from other firms’ offers you’ll be lost in the crowd.

You Must Be Different. Being different is ‘worthy of attention’ (the oxford English dictionary definition of ‘remarkable’). You make it easier for people to talk about you if you are different. If they talk about you you’ll get recommended.

The more you tackle these three elements the more you’ll get referred because your clients will recognise the value you deliver.

This blog is my attempt to prove to you I’m thinking hard about how you can better market your firm and get more leads more often for your firm.

I hope you get some value from it? Let me know your thoughts by leaving your comments below…

Every success

Paul Shrimpling

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

Want to get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

Maybe you feel a natural resistance to asking for referrals?

Maybe not?

On my travels to various accountants around the UK I’m exposed to many different responses to the prospect of asking for referrals and recommendations.

1. Some are violently opposed – and don’t ask
2. Some are unsure – and don’t ask
3. Some are up for it – and don’t ask!
4. Some are up for it – and DO ask!

Asking for referrals works.

A conversation this week with a partner looking to grow his firm substantially over the next 18 months has just jumped into category 4 (above).

He asked for feedback from his client about the firm’s performance as well as the clients satisfaction.

He got a big thumbs up, then…

He swallowed hard and told the client he was looking to grow his firm over the coming three-six months and wondered if he knew any business owners who might be interested.

He got 5 names in about 60 seconds and the client was pleased to help.

You and your firm are already getting natural referrals – recommendations without you seeking them. But when you send a message to your clients and introducers you are growing and would like to have more referrals nothing will happen! Nothing will happen the first time but the second, third or fourth time it probably will.

Asking for referrals is a habit. And, as with all habits, it gets easier the more you do it. So do it more often.

There will be clients who are uncomfortable with you asking for referrals. But you won’t know who they are till you ask them (and they are rare). Keep your antenae alive to the possibility and when you find one, apologise for asking and promise them you’ll never ask them again, there’ll be no harm done.

Given you’re reading this you might be pleased to know… 

“I’m looking to grow the readership of this blog so if you know of a manager or partner of an accountancy firm who would enjoy reading my thoughts on remarkable accountancy practice, please forward this to them or drop me a line at paul@remarkablepractice and I’ll invite them. Thank you.”

You ready to ask for referrals?

Go on then.

Paul Shrimpling

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

And let’s get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

Read our most recent blog here www.remarkablepractice.com

The Valentines theme is love.

And love is a remarkable business concept worthy of your business attention. Try this for size…

Love your clients.

            But love is just a word.

                        And words are cheap.

And I can’t see your clients welcoming you on bended knee, waxing lyrically about your undying affection for them.

So, words are cheap.

            But actions aren’t.

                        Actions are real.

Actions PROVE you are serious about the relationship you have with your clients, your actions prove your customer-love is real.

So what actions are you taking to prove, to demonstrate, to genuinely care for (if not love) your customers?

Stephen Covey in his book – The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Families – suggests ‘love’ should be seen entirely as a doing word. A verb.

So what should you be DOING to demonstrate your customer care (love)?

Here’s three suggestions on Valentines day:

1. Surprise them – be spontaneous – the thing about spontaneity is you got to plan it in.

What are you doing to surprise them or surpass their expectations every month not just on Valentines day!  

EXAMPLE: Turn up unexpected at their office with a book for them or biscuits for the team.

Alternative strategy don’t surprise them, be predictably boring and see what happens over time to the quality or your relationship.

2. Make ‘em look good or feel special about being with you.

Perfume, chocolates (enclosed), flowers or a hug works for your significant other. But your business clients want value from you so they can look and feel good about working with you and your firm.

EXAMPLE: share competitor insights, expert comment from a web site or an article from their trade press.

Alternative strategy, don’t make your best clients feel special, make ‘em feel just like all the rest! Then see what happens.

3. Check in often. Regular contact and communication is at the centre of all great relationships.

Regular feedback is important too.

EXAMPLE: Monthly client care programme and regular customer satisfaction feedback are common sense (but not common practice). Have you got monthly feedback from some (or all) your best customers?

Alternative strategy contact and communicate rarely with your best clients and see what happens!

Love is a verb – it is a doing word – what are you doing for your clients so they know you love them?

You know you’ve done enough doing when they say “I do!”

Thing is you gotta keep ‘doing’ to prevent them saying “I don’t” and divorce you – join another firm! so keep on ‘doing…

            Keep on loving your clients.

                        Hope YOU enjoy lots of love this valentines day

                                    Happy Valentines Day

                                                Lots of love from Paul and the team at www.remarkablepractice.com

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

And let’s get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

Read our most recent blog here www.remarkablepractice.com

The scale of Ebay’s success is self evident.

(Can you believe I refused to take a punt on ebay shares back in 2002 despite some serious hint dropping by the head of the New York Stock Exchange who I was sharing a course with!? No worse than the record company exec who turned down the Beatles I guess!)

So. Ebay reportedly have 9 principles on which their success is based.

Here they are for your consideration with my thoughts on how they might apply to your accountancy firm…

1.         Know your user

- Categorize your clients (clear criteria that segment your clients into Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc) and use these categories to dictate your work-flow, your priorities, and your customer care programmes

2.         Keep the main thing the main thing

- Beware of being side-tracked by the next bright shiny object. Your core business pays the bills, pays your people and is responsible for your personal earnings too. Give it 80% of your attention and time.

3.         Keep it simple

- Complexity confuses people. It confuses your people, it also confuses your clients. Plain English. Plain speaking. Crystal clear benefits of what you do will stand you in good stead.

4.         Don’t make the user work

- Imagine trying to suck a milkshake up a straw that’s partly blocked! It’s hard enough with a clear straw. So it is in business – you need to allow your clients and prospects the cleanest, easiest, quickest way of doing business with you – remove any and all blockages.

- If your competition insist on putting hurdles up for clients to jump over you’ll win every time if you have removed them and your clients can sprint to your door unencumbered.

5.         Be consistent

- Inconsistency of customer care or speed of delivery or quality of final accounts packs tells a story about your firm. It tells your clients that you have not got your act together. This does not inspire confidence in a so-called trusted advisor.

- Systems should be a fundamental part of your customer care AND your technical accounts work.

6.         Provide a well lit path

- A bit like point 4. This is a pointer to using pointers. Direct your clients what to do next, make it obvious what is needed so that you can do a great job for them

7.         Optimise for the 80%

- Whatever you do, make sure your firm is remarkable at looking after the 20% of clients that provide you with 80% of your profits.

- Never ever ever let the 20% of clients that generate 80% of the hassle and grief sidetrack you from those that are both profitable and enjoyable to work with.

- Become world-class at providing the 20% of services that generate 80% of your profits. The worlds fastest. The worlds most useful. The worlds best value for money.

8.         Make it personal

- Accountants have a tendency to want to focus on the technical work of accountancy. This is necessary but not at the expense of the personal relationship. If anything the personal relationship is MORE IMPORTANT than the technical work you do.

- Whatever you do, do not be seen to provide a mass-produced service to your biggest and best clients. Make it personal.

9.         Help should be helpful, but not necessary

- Design your services and processes so that you minimise the need for clients to ask for help. For example if clients are regularly ringing in to enquire about the filing of their company tax returnor the status of their P11D’s then you should improve your communications to remove these calls – become pro-active rather than reactive – make these calls ‘not necessary’

Not surprisingly there is no rocket science here.

You are aware of EBay’s phenomenal success, so you could do worse than build your firms strategy around these nine principles. They might not be an accountancy firm but these principles seem well suited to improving the focus, the management and the results of most of the accountancy firms that I have worked with.

Wishing you remarkable success

Paul

Author of ‘Bamboo Marketing For Accountants’ – the route map to marketing success for accountants in practice

Creator of ‘WHAT’S POSSIBLE in your business’ – cultivating a greater flow of new clients for your accountancy firm through profitable word-of-mouth…

And let’s get LinkedIn  http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulshrimpling

The latter half of 2009 had me experimenting with twitter, facebook and linkedin to see what it can do to support the marketing efforts of accountants.

LinkedIn seems to have the most potential and given it has become one of the most successful sources for recruiting team members in the states – chances are the same will happen here.

And twitter has given me this brilliant little article on ten technologies to watch in 2010 - an article you might want to share with your list of customers too?

I’m still formulating my thoughts and on the hunt for sites, info and materials to help reach my conclusions – just reading a brilliant book ‘six pixels of seperation’ which is providing some powerful insights – I’ll be reporting back on this stuff during 2010 and suggesting ways you fold these into the ideal marketing model for accountants.

Good hunting in 2010

Paul Shrimpling

ATTENTION ALL ACCOUNTANCY FIRMS…

You can keep your clients, keep your fees and keep winning new ones by listening to Hula Hoops…It’s blatantly obvious when you know how…

It’s a cold day in December and I’m sat on a train oppposite a 50-something year old lady who’s reading The Daily Mail. She’s also eating a large packet of Hula Hoops and on the back of the packet – top left hand corner – this is what it says, bold as brass:  

 ”Our promise to you is…”

A simple yet profound example of making a blatant promise.

Something accountants, and other professional service firms, seem to want to avoid. They prefer to make their promises subtle, implied or at best gentle.

Why? Because:

- “isn’t it obvious what accountants promise?”

- “being subtle is more suited to who we are and what we do as accountants”

- “why would we make a rod for our own back?”

I have heard these reasons (and many more!) and can appreciate these reasons but these reasons are all POPPYCOCK.

Your opinion does not matter…

Your clients’ opinion matters most…

When a business owner is weighing up whether to stay with her existing accountant or join your firm they don’t want subtle.

They don’t want implied or gentle insuations of what you can do for them.

On the contrary…

They want to make the best decision for themselves and their business.

And to do that they NEED overt, in-yer-face and bloody obvious promises that they can trust.

No ambiguity….

…Just concrete promises, rock-solid benefits and sound reasons to choose you rather than stay where they are or choose the other firm that is courting them.

There’s no room for subtlety. You need to be blatant.

Action required…

Make crystal clear commitments. Make blatant promises and you make it easier for prospects to buy from you and you make it easier for your existing clients to stay with you.

1. Here’s a subtle promise that initially looks concrete:

“We’re chartered accountants with a commitment to high quality work and a proactive approach to your personal and business needs.”

Oh dear!

It sounds good but…

It sounds like so many other firms’ so-called promises.  Therefore it’s rendered bland.

Plus it’s meaningless to a business owner because they typically have a limited idea of what constitutes ‘high-quality work’

And when it comes to the crunch what does proactive mean? Neither the business owner nor the accountant has this one worked out – but they should (that’s another subject for another time)

2. Here’s a blatant promise that works:

“You will receive your draft accounts no later than 21 days after you submit all your relevant books and records. Just one day late and we’ll complete the work but you’ll not be charged for it.”

Here’s another:

“If any other accountant can clearly demonstarte that you can save more tax than we save you, then we’ll pay you the difference.”

However difficult they might be, can’t you see how these two blatant promises make it so much easier for a business owner to choose you or stay with you?

And before you rail against such outlandish commitments be aware that promise one is real – two firms I know use it. And I’m helping two other firms launch the second one on their local market place… watch this space!

Yes but… yes but… yes but…

I know you have to re-organise your firm to fulfill such blatant promises and this is not easy. I accept it is hard and it is time consuming and requires a great effort.

But I like the idea that these are difficult to carry off. I like it for four reasons:

1. It is so far removed from where most firms are at it gives you an immediate and powerful competitive advantage
2. It means that you must become a remarkable firm to carry this off – and you’ll become worthy of notice as a consequence
3. It can provide you with a sustainable competitive advantage - it’s very hard to copy because it requires substantial commitment, effort and energy to make it real
4. You will give your existing clients and your other industry contacts great reasons to talk about you and generate a fabulous flow of referrals that will grow your firm to undreamt-of heights

Hula hoops make a blatant promise. So shouldn’t you do the same?

Please let me know what you think

Paul

PS Alternatively do what me and my kids do with Hula Hoops round our kitchen table. See how high you can stack ‘em! Joe (14) is winning with 12. Michael (11) and I have got up to 11! My other two kids get frustrated quickly and just eat ‘em!

“Six things to improve when times are tough” is a pithy little article from the Professional Pricing Society in the States. Here’s my slant on four of the six things that can work for your accountancy practice here in the UK:

1. Be inspired by - ’I want to be a millionaire’…

When money gets tight you can imagine your clients saying to themselves “Is that all I get for this price?”. It’s not a big stretch for them to then consider one of the other accountants that are regularly asking them to consider switching!

The classic solution to this is adding things of high-perceived value but that cost you very little. However what’s clear from my recent conversations with accountancy firms in these turbulent times suggests a simple solution…

…PHONE A FRIEND… this has massive appeal and value to business owners… Why?

Because, when times are tough, they need reliable reassurance. And as an accountant you can provide this better than anyone

NB This involves you taking action.

Pick up the phone and call your most valuable clients in the next few days to check on how they are holding up and give them a shoulder to cry on if necessary, support if necessary, help if necessary.

2. McDonalds provides the inspiration…

Chances are you’ve heard a server at McDonalds say “Do you want fries with that?”

What they are doing is offering complimentary services that you may want to buy. If you were selling cameras you’d be offering batteries, a protective camera case and fancy strap.

As an accountant you could be offering board meeting support with your management accounts service and possibly book keeping too. With payroll you’re offering a free Financial Services consult to all your clients’ staff, or perhaps access to an HR service you have sourced.

3. McDonalds provides the inspiration again…

Bet you recognize this phrase – “Would you like to go large?”

McDonalds have increased their average order value on a healthy percentage of their worldwide sales by asking this simple upsell question.

It’s one you can adapt and adopt for your accountancy services. For example:

Because your clients need to get closer to their numbers in these tumultuous times they should perhaps consider moving from quarterly management accounts to a bi-monthly or monthly service? Perhaps they’d value a debrief from you with trend analysis to help them make some important decisions in the coming months?

Why wouldn’t you offer upgrades in service that are relevant and timely. McDoanlds have done for years, so can you and build greater value into your client relationships. Value for them and value for you.

4. The 400m hurdles is torture… but it’s unnecessary…

Sprinting and also jumping the full length of an athletics track always looks so damned tough to me. So why do we ask our customers to do something similar when dealing with us?

If you shorten the race and remove the hurdles your customers (and prospects) will love you for it.

What I mean is…

Make it easy for them to buy from you by:

A. Create guarantees that remove all (or most) of the risk associated with using (buying from) you

B. Create offers that allow your clients/prospects to ‘try b4 they buy’. Why wouldn’t you encourage a long standing client to trial your management accounts service monthly for three months instead of quarterly to see if they like the more immediate insights and results?

Action is always the key…

If you’d like even more insights into how to market your firm in a remarkable way you should look at Bamboo Marketing For Accountants

You can read the original but more general article if you  Click Here

If you were being proactive you could  forward this link to all of your clients – or allow us to do it for you through our BusinessBiteSize service

Wishing you every success

Paul Shrimpling

PS To leave a comment on this article please click the comments link below

This is a ‘stating-the-blatantly-obvious’ sort of juggernaught. 

But it is a juggernaught that so few accounting firms fully embrace.

I think this is such a shame, see what you think… 

What business owner wouldn’t change accountants if she was certain that the new accountant would help her increase profits?  

Contrast this with the message most accountants broadcast to their clients and prospects:

“We do what your existing accountant does but better”

Get on with you.

Does this ever really work? Unless they are desperate to move accountants?! Does anyone really believe you?

A reputation for helping businesses substantially grow their profits every year might work though!

- Such a reputation would make new client acquisition, of the right sort of clients, much easier don’t you think?

- Such a reputation would be great for team moral (what a worthy job you’ll all be doing)

- Such a worthwhile reputation would give existing clients good reason to check out your other services too

- And such a reputation would have you jumping out of bed every morning eager and proud to embrace the day ahead 

What business owner wouldn’t change accountants if he was certain that the new accountant would help them increase profits?

Imagine how easy it would be with a reputation founded on proof, demonstrable, unequivocal proof that you can deliver meaningful and measurable value.

This is so dramatically different I can almost feel the difference it would make. But then all I’m doing is stating the bloody obvious!

So what are you doing to influence your clients’ success? 

Perhaps a better question… 

What are you proactively doing, or unexpectedly doing to regularly help your clients reach new heights in their businesses? 

Worthy of some of your attention, time and resources don’t you think?

PS     What gets measured gets done they say. And they’re right…  So what if there was but one measure that would help you and your team focus on building this sort of reputation, and the results that follow it, a reality?  One to work on don’t you think?