121 Defining The Online Identity of your Accounting Firm

We all know websites are important, right? You gotta nail the website. But nobody just discovers you via your website these days. Like nobody is going to their address bar and saying, I wonder what is@bumpybuttons.com or SalemCPA.com, like people find you from other things now, from social media, from maybe sometimes from Google search results. But even in Google search results, how do you stand out in that crowd, in that feed of options? Especially now that the first organic search result is like at the bottom of the page, right? Cause there's so many promoted things above it. How do we hook people and do so in a not slimy way? This whole art form has changed a lot in the last few years. And particularly professional service firms, they're like, man, this stuff all just feels scummy, but it matters a whole lot. So how do we find a scummy, a not scummy way to hook people in an age of everyone scrolling algorithms and all that? Let's talk about it. Okay, so these days content consumption happens via algorithm, via recommendations, via people you follow and adjacent stuff to that. And actually increasingly not even due to people you follow, but more driven from stuff that you click on. So like TikTok was a huge driver of this. The notion that like, why do you even need to follow somebody when the algorithm can just figure out what you like next based on what you paused on last, what it looks like you read, what you watched, that sort of thing. And so this is just how information is consumed these days. There's more and more that is thrown at our eyeballs every single day. And so we develop this filter this way to throw things out. And it's like, how do you ever win in that reality, right? Like you've got people investing ungodly amounts of money to win in this sort of race to the bottom for everybody's attention. What am I gonna do? Like, what is my itty bitty wee little accounting firm gonna do to ever actually make a difference here? It's easy to forget that we're pretty unique in what we do and we solve a genuinely really, really painful, like collection of pains for people. And the bar isn't super high for accountants. Like obviously you've got some progressive accountants out there, but there are, I mean, 95% of entrepreneurs, if you dangled a really progressive tech enabled, forward thinking accountant in front of them that works specifically in their domain, they would be like, yep, yes, please can you work with me? Like most entrepreneurs are kind of just in a place of malaise or Dissatisfaction with the accounting help that they get and the tax help, for that matter. And we as an industry are so busy just trying to tread water for a bunch of reasons. Among them, the complexity that goes into every project that we already have keeps going up. So to service the same volume of clients, it now takes more time. And we're spending so much time trying to tread water that we don't really spend any time on mindful acquisition. Most of us, like, how do we identify the next better client? Right? And there's a whole lot of accounts that say, like, oh, we never market. We may not even be taking new clients because we have too much to do. But you should never ultimately close the door on a better client. Right? Sure, you have an obligation to the people who you're engaged to support, and that is what it is. But if somebody walks up and tries to trade you a hundred dollar bill for your $50 bill, you ought to consider it. You know, like, you should think about it. And there are really, really good clients who are clamoring to find somebody who's better for them. And they're out there, but you got to hook them. And there's this whole culture around hooks and how, like, scammy and clickbait this stuff can be. And like, you know, buzzfeed really kicked this whole thing off back in the day with what was, frankly, some, like, amazing social engineering to know. In this sort of new era, this is what people will click on and get excited about and actually read whether there's any value there or not. And this is like, the flip side of hooking, folks, is we've all been hooked on just, like, the most ridiculous things. And then you get in there and you're like, what in the world am I reading? What have I done with my life? Now I'm upset at this publication for, like, baiting me into reading this thing or more accurately, reading eight paragraphs of things before they said the thing in one paragraph that they could have just said in the beginning. And it all serves to sour us to doing any version of this in our accounting firm. And so we go, like, we go heads down on the super, super nuanced stuff. Like, we're up and up to our neck and just doing the really detailed stuff for our existing clients and building out a really impressive, like what you do page or something that will be impressive to a very specific type of person. But the fact remains, if you can't hook somebody, they're never going to see that cool stuff that you ever did in the first place. And this is kind of the paradox of attracting people on the Internet is you could spend the next year on this unbelievable article that is just gonna be transformative for people. It's just gonna be amazing. But if the way you market that article and the title that you use and the imagery that you use doesn't get a single person to click on it, then nobody's ever gonna know, right? Something, something, trees falling in the forest. And recently as I've been doing more stuff on LinkedIn, you know, LinkedIn has these little kinda like one liner statements that it shows under everybody's name, which is kind of interesting, like kind of a cool thing LinkedIn does that's different. And traditionally this is like CEO Company Inc. Or you know, partner accounting firm name. And that's what 95% of people use there. But you know what that thing's never gonna do is like stop anybody in their tracks. Nobody's gonna scroll past and be like, ooh, this is a person that I need. This is a person that I wanna learn more from. Or this is a person that does something very specific to what I do. And I think every firm needs to have a one liner like this. What is like that one word statement that attracts the exact avatar that you want and highlights a goal of theirs, like a problem of theirs that you solve. Because our identities on social media. And like to be clear, this statement, I mean, this ought to be at the top of your website in the bios of your social media on that little, that little thing on LinkedIn. But this statement these days, in a world of social media where like discovery happens on social media, not so much on Google. And by just going to your website, these statements really matter for hooking people. Like they are being hooked by your bio on social media now or you know, whatever little tidbit they can pick up about your identity. Like, that is what causes people to stop and navigate to your profile page to learn more. And that whole navigating to your profile page like is almost the top of the funnel for the entire universe now. And it's interesting. All the social media platforms track this. You can see how many people click to see your profile page, you know, every month and that sort of thing. And it's, it's like your posts and your picture and your name are the first thing they see. And then going to your profile pages, like the very next thing thing that you see. Hey. This episode is sponsored in part by Canopy, the practice management system. Canopy unlocks the firm that you always wanted. Think about it. Think about it. Close your eyes. Lean back in that chair. What is the firm that you always wanted? Oh wait. Canopy unlocks it. And they do this by unclunking accounting firms with an end to end solution that makes your tech stack feel a little less stacky. Putting our customers first with world class user experience, support, education and innovation rooted in customer feedback. Working and working well anywhere and for any size or type of firm. Wherever you are now and wherever you're going, multiplying your efforts so your practice requires less proverbial midnight oil. You know, I Sidebar if you go to the conferences Canopy's got like they always do some like really good little like sorta you know the stuff that they use to like trick you into coming to the booth. Well this year they've had like Legos out there, maybe, maybe a double down on the midnight oil thing. You know, maybe like give away a little, you know, little actual midnight oil. I guess it would need to burn too, but that one's free. I think it's a good idea delighting your clients with a modern, easy to use portal that helps you get the info you need when you need it. That is kanopy. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more. Gang this episode sponsored in part by Teamup, who helps you recruit top Filipino accountants without any zero ongoing monthly fees. They can source accountants with experience working at US or Australian firms, people who are familiar with stuff like Xero, qbo, Dex. They can find them for you. They can also recruit specialist roles like a team lead, people with leadership experience, even US tax specialists. Wowee. The most talented and ambitious accountants in the Philippines want to work with you directly, not through an outsourcing company for two main reasons. One, they don't want to give a big chunk of their salary to a middleman, oftentimes upwards of 50%. And they want to build a long lasting relationship with their employer. Aww. These are the people TeamUp can recruit for you for a flat one time fee and then connect you with an affordable employer of record as well. If you need help with payroll and compliance, learn more at their site hireteamup.com and get on their newsletter for quick tips on managing overseas teams, stuff like cultural miscommunications, best practices, everything you need to know to get started hiring offshore. You already know I'm down with offshore hiring. Learn more@hireteamup.com and so how do you develop that one liner for your firm that will do kind of the bookshelf thing that we've talked about where if somebody's walking by it and they see it, it just feels so specific to them and their pains that they're gonna stop in their tracks and be like, I have to have this, I have to look into this immediately. Like that is the level of specificity that we're trying to get to. And virtually none of us are honestly living at this level of specificity that will get these people to stop today. I think you kind of got to change that narrative from like what you are to what you do for people. So you can say cpa, whatever firm that's not really actionable. The better thing to me is to say what problem you solve for what type of person. So I was doing poking around on LinkedIn, just looking at different examples and most people don't have anything like this, but. But for example, Jerry Williams has up there business owners move from the UK to Dubai with my help. That's super specific. Right. It's even actually it's kind of interesting to me and I don't know how many people are poking around online who are accountants, like actively helping people do that. So that like, that's so specific to where if you're like, you know, I've kind of thought about that before, you're absolutely going to stop. Heather Elkington on LinkedIn has. I help leaders craft high performance teams to 10x their earning potential. It's actionable. It can probably be more specific, but it's definitely actionable. It's not here's like my job title and where I work, because that's just kind of pointless. Now some of this, my thinking on this borrows from $100 million offers, which we've talked about quite a bit. A great book for thinking through how to build your firm around an offer rather than just services. You bring them in on an offer, you solve a painful problem for them and then they want to be ongoing clients and will happily pay way more than if they just walked in. Correct. And so some of this is borrowing from like, how do you build a grand slam offer as it's described in that book? But to me, this one liner statement, it's gotta have two things. It's gotta have like a goal of theirs, you know, what is that thing that you're solving for them that they haven't yet achieved? And it's gotta define the avatar. So let's start with the goal within this client specific domain. What are the problems that are specific to them? And I'll be honest, like here I kind of shy away a little bit. From the generic dialogue of I make your make your tax problems go away and, and this and that because it's not really specific to them. And any accountant that does tax stuff like, they will say the same thing. I don't know. I don't care if you operate, you know, hot air balloons, if you're a professional badminton player, if you run an Etsy shop, every account that does tax stuff is going to tell you like, yes, we're going to take the pain out of your taxes, but what's a problem that's specific to them and it could still be a tax thing, but what is something that is very specific to them that you can solve for? And this is getting into the nuanced pains of that type of client. And then second, so that is like the goal. What is a goal of theirs that you can speak to at the beginning of that statement? And then second, who is the avatar that you're looking to speak to? Industry is usually the obvious option here. And don't do E Comm, do something more specific than that. You probably want to hit on size here because everybody within that industry, you may not want. That being said, I think oftentimes it's worth still trying to attract the entry level folks in a, in a domain to like a course of yours or a newsletter or something like that. Because those ones that aren't big enough for you yet may very well be a great client down the road and you may still want to get your fingers into them, your hooks into them. That's the expression, get your hooks into them, but you can even get more specific than that. So thinking through like, what this could actually be, what's an example, let's say you want to work with farmers and they especially struggle for whatever reason with like cyclicality around making tax payments. Even though that's something the tax law kind of makes some accommodations for. That can be, I help farmers better time their tax payments. Maybe that's it. I help farmers better time their tax payments. But you need to get more specific about the avatar. So I help farmers generating or earning over a million a year better time their tax payments. Like something just very specific like that. Now anybody that fits within that avatar that has felt that pain, they're going to be like, sweet, this is for me. And like they will stop and they will look at your profile. They'll probably then go even deeper and go to the website. And I know this is hard, but I'd even like really encourage you to go further. Like you could build on that avatar further by defining a region like Pacific Northwest, a state, Australia, you can even add like an adjective modifier to that avatar. So maybe they are successful farmers, maybe they are stressed farmers, overworked, confused. You can even go demographic there, like moms. It's worth trying to get back to like what that one statement is for you and for your firm, and then trying to build around that because the reality is that's how like that is the top of funnel for finding people these days. This is something I really struggle with on YouTube. And it's the exact same on YouTube as it is literally everywhere else. And it's happening hundreds of times a day without you even realizing it. On YouTube, you attract people with a title and a thumbnail. Like, that's just what you do. And so we've seen how just like awful titles and thumbnails can become. Cause people will do anything and everything to get you to click on that video. But ultimately what keeps people is the value of the content. But again, your content could be phenomenal. But if you don't give people a reason to click on it, it doesn't matter how good it is. So like, you have to take both those things into account. And the best social media algorithms now, like, they do take that into account. If you have a super clickbait title and thumbnail, but everybody bounces in the first 20 seconds of a video, YouTube's not going to put it in front of more people. But those rules really don't apply on social media. Take LinkedIn for an example where you've got that one kind of little sentence statement under your name, if that's a killer hook. And then people go to your profile page and they're like, oh, this stinks. I don't actually want anything from this person. That doesn't make it any less likely that someone will not or that someone, that the algorithm will not present you to somebody next. In fact, people clicking on your profile from a post greatly increases the likelihood of that post being displayed to more people. Like, that's actually the top engagement metric. So if people hover on something when they're, when they're scrolling by, that's going to increase the likelihood that the algorithm shows it to more people. If they engage with it, if they like it, if they repost it, something like that, that's going to greatly increase the likelihood that more people will get that in their algorithm. But if they click through your profile, that's actually on the Twitter one on the Twitter algorithm. That's how it works. I assume that is on the others, it is like the biggest, like most point scoring thing that can happen to a post that will then boost the likelihood that it's presented elsewhere. And we get trapped here trying to play like the numbers game and be appealing to everybody. But that level of genericness, like just, it just doesn't work. And the algorithms can actually handle that specificity these days. So if you've got, you know, beekeepers that are super into your post, the algorithm's gonna put that in front of other people who like similar things to those beekeepers who are into your post. So that specificity is where you wanna live. And the specificity, like, is the only way to cut through the noise. You think your software vendors are leaning into AI stuff? Like, real talk? Let's level on this one. Do you think the people you're working with today are really like staying up at night going, ugh, how can large language models make my users experience better? Well, if they're not, you gotta take a look at this episode's sponsor, Client Hub. Because a client Hub. Hang on, I can't remember what the line is. I found it. Because at Client Hub, AI is not the future, it is the present. It's the now. It's here. In fact, they've already shipped some pretty cool AI stuff, but they got a whole like manifesto on their landing page, your firm, on AI, about their entire vision for how they are building AI into their platform. And you know what? Gosh darn it, good for them. Because what I'm afraid of is a bunch of people have these big systems already and they're not going to make the necessary, like, infrastructure changes to lean into AI in a meaningful way. But tell you who, you don't have to worry about that with Client Hub, buddy. To learn more about the cool stuff they're doing with AI and what their roadmap looks like, check out the link in the show notes gang. I get it. Choosing a practice management system that is big, that is high stakes, that is quite possibly the sweatiest decision you will ever make around software in your accounting firm. And I know that because I've got it wrong. And the reason is because these tools want to do anything and everything all inside of one tool, right? But what if I don't like this part of it or that part of it? Hey, could be a great reason to carve out that client portal, huh? Like today's sponsor copilot lets you do. It is a client portal only solution. It's not gonna tell you how to do your work. It's not gonna start mucking around in all aspects of your firm. All it's gonna do is give you a super flexible platform for managing the client facing aspects of what you do. You can still roll your own tools for workflow. Everything else you just can use Copilot for the client facing bit. Recently they sponsored a video on my channel where we did a deep dive like a hands on demo of copilot on the YouTube channel. Let me show you some comments on that video. These are real live from human being comments on this YouTube video. Wow. I love. They opted for flexibility essentially allowing us to embed other tools like calendly forms, et cetera, rather than trying to create their own subpar version. Truth. Thanks. I was looking for a portal that linked to other places and is more flexible than your out of the box portal. Very interesting. I'll have to take a deeper dive into this tool. Okay. I love this. Those are all actual humans. Actual humans said those things. Wanna learn more about it? Check out the link to Copilot in the show notes. I wanted to do an exercise to like run through some practical examples of this just to get you some ideas around like the vernacular and like we're not good at this stuff. Like honestly I'm not good at this stuff. I hope this kind of just gets you to like start thinking about this. Gonna be way smarter people than me at like crafting the perfect version of this for you. But I just wanna jam on some ideas and see if we can get you to a place where you're like, oh, here's something that actually makes a lot of sense for what I do. So I just had ChatGPT generate us another 10 micro niches. We got online vegan bakeries, independent ebook publishers, drone photography for real estate, augmented reality app developers for education, ecom for sustainable women's apparel, mobile vet clinics, subscription box services for DIY electronics, cool craft beer breweries, artisanal coffee shops and niche fitness centers. Let's go with mobile vet clinics, man. ChatGPT gives you some killer micro niches. Let's go mobile vet clinics. And I've got another ChatGPT conversation that will list 20 very unique to them. Pains a business owner in this industry could feel. Focus on pains related to regulation, software systems integrations and accounting classification. Okay, a few options under regulation here. Compliance with local laws. If you're in like a big market like New York City or LA or something like that, and there's a business to be built just around very local compliance, environmental regulations, interstate trade, obviously that's Huge. What's it mean when I take the old mobile vet clinic across borders? Licensing and certification, that's got to be a mega pain when you're on the road. Software system pains, system downtimes, addressing system downtimes when you're in the field, like you don't have an Internet connection. Software adaptability, finding software tailored for mobile operations including appointment scheduling, routing, medical record management. Ooh, imagine appointment scheduling if you're a mobile vet clinic that ain't your old vanilla calendly setup integration panes, mobile payment integration, real time inventory tracking, accounting classification panes, revenue recognition, tracking by tax jurisdiction. So managing different tax jurisdictions when operating across different cities or states, including sales tax, income tax and other local taxes. So what is a very specific pain within this domain that we can be a solution for and like build this kind of one liner around? Let's say I'm a tax firm and my mobile vet clinics are usually on the road. So the goal, the problem I can solve for them is like interstate tax regulation sort of problems. So that statement could be I help mobile vet clinics with interstate tax compliance or mobile vet clinics over a million dollars. Mobile vet groups, I got to think there's like groups that have like all sorts of, you know, mobile clinics out all over the place. I don't know the right thing to call that. I just asked it to do the same for drone photographers. That was another one of the micro niches it gave us give us 20 very unique to them. Issues, issues with data, managing data in the field, but a lot here around like regulations, working in different places. So maybe your avatar there is traveling drone photographers. So maybe you're taking the stress out of local tax compliance for traveling drone photographers. If you can try to get it back to like ultimately what is the goal? What is that really painful pain you're solving? And two, what is the specific avatar when you think an avatar? Think probably industry, think probably size, maybe tag an adjective on there, maybe even tag a region on there. If you're only helping people within a specific like tax jurisdiction, that sort of thing. I don't think most people have thought this one through. And I can tell you what, I sure haven't. This is like the number one thing I always get from like the big brain groups that want to come in and manage stuff for you is they're like, oh, we're going to streamline and simplify your online identity. And I'm just bad at this. And it's for all the reasons that I know accountants are bad at doing this. With your firm is like, the fear and the struggle of getting really specific. I think Lazannis is actually really good at this. Let's see what Lazanna says. LinkedIn statement is helping accounting firms earn more and work less. Meh. I don't know. That's not very specific. Part of my problem right now is I'm like, there's too many different things, and I probably need to hone in on, like, helping accountants launch, you know, more sustainable accounting firms for the first time or just some, like, more specific kind of subset within there. I'd encourage you, as you are, as we're all engaging with social media more these days. How are you hooking people on social media? It's not enough to be an accountant. And then as you are trying to hook people, is the statement that you're making specific enough? Is it specific enough to stop them in their tracks and be like, oh, my gosh, I finally found somebody that is just for me. You want to have that level of specificity that is, like, so direct to them that when they learn about you, they can't imagine working with anybody else. And at that point, gang, like, you are bringing in people and clients who appreciate you so much more, who will happily pay so much more for all the work that you already do because you have developed this really nuanced understanding. And it's not a forever thing. Like, we worry about, oh, what is? This is going to somehow define what I always do. And it's like, no, But I can tell you the generic version that you got right now is, I'm doing squat, so what's the harm? Right? That's kind of how I approach it. You may want to do something different 12 months down the road. You may find that you actually don't want to go further into that domain. But any direction is better than that generic version that is directionless. If you got a, like, a statement that you feel like you've had good success with, or if this gave you some ideas for what that statement could be, man, pop it in the comments. Give folks some ideas to get their wheels turning on what theirs could be. That's all I got today. I'll see you tomorrow, Sam.