Mark Wickersham presents a short, practical framework for building a marketing strategy for accounting firms: (1) define and write down your ideal client profile, (2) ask your best clients what they truly want (surveys/interviews), and (3) choose from those needs the services your firm can deliver exceptionally well.
Tell me, what's your marketing strategy? You don't have one? Oh, you should have. But when I started my accounting firm way back in 1996, I didn't have one either. So you're not alone. Very often we don't have a marketing strategy because it seems like it's something really complicated. After all, there's marketing degrees and marketing qualifications, but sometimes people way over complicate that stuff. I like to keep things simple. And really, marketing strategy boils down to just three components, three things. These are what you need to do to build a great marketing strategy. Number one, who is your ideal client? You need to know who that is. It needs to be in writing. So go and think about. Look at your best clients. What, what are the characteristics of them? What sort of clients do you want to work with? What size are they? What sort of level of profitability? What industry are they in? Where are they based in the world? Are they local? Are they international?
What sort of age are they? What sort of personality are they? Think of the characteristics of the best clients, the ones that you want to win more of. You need to make sure you have an ideal client profile. The problem for most accounting firms is we don't do this. We take on anybody. We think it's all about winning as many clients as we possibly can. And then what happens is we realize we've got way too many clients. We're working crazy long hours, we are stressed, struggling, not making enough money. And that's because you cannot build a successful accounting firm just acting for anybody. We have to have clarity over who is the right client for us. That's the first step in our marketing strategy. Number two, the second thing we do is find out what is it that those ideal clients want? What do they want from their accounting professional, their bookkeeper, their accountant? What do they want?
How do you find out? Well, you hopefully have some A class clients already. Go and ask them. Go and talk to your best clients and say, we're looking to improve the services that we offer. You tell me, if you could wave a magic wand and anything were possible, what would you want us to do for you? What services? What would you want us to help you with? Do some surveys, talk to your clients, the best clients, find out what they want. And then step three in the process is having found out what it is that ideal clients want. Look at that list of things, those ideas, and say to yourself, which of those things can we deliver on and be the best in the world at?
And that's your strategy? It might be that you decide that based on your ideal client profile that you love working with the medical profession, and perhaps the medical profession tell you they want help with a particular type of tax planning and then you decide to become the best at that. If you're the best in the world at delivering that particular solution to that particular audience, you can charge premium prices and you will start to become known as the expert and will attract many other of that type of client from around the world. You need to have a marketing strategy. If you found this video valuable, then please let me know by hitting that thumbs up button. The like button. Feel free to share it. Feel free as well to subscribe. And if you found it valuable as well, look below for some links to some other free resources. Thank you so much for watching.
Effective Pricing Training: Mastering Software Settings for Optimised Pricing
Can Pricing Be Done in Writing? How to Handle Value Conversations Without Calls
