I changed my mind on marketing, now I get 5x the customers

Most of us think of marketing as a way to get in front of more potential customers. And to be honest, I thought that way for a while, too. But not that long ago, I realized I was wrong. And ever since I changed my mind, my business has about doubled, and my clients are making a lot more money, too. And so in this video, I want to show you why marketing is not just about getting in front of more potential customers. What it actually takes to scale your accounting firm. And then we'll get into three practical takeaways that you can take and hopefully go make more money in the next 90 days in your firm. If you don't know who I am, my name is Peter Vanderwaal. I'm the accountants marketing guy. I'm. I helped scale a tax strategy firm to about $3 million a year in just under three years. And now I'm working one on one with about 20 other firms across the country, helping them scale their businesses as well. And so what I want to communicate to you here is that marketing actually isn't about visibility anymore. It's not about getting in front of new people. It's never been easier to become visible today. It's never been easier to get in front of new people, but it's also never been easier to get ignored. Think for a second about the fact that we have apps and software on the Internet where you can go and you can pay $50 or $100 for this massive lead list with a bunch of names, email addresses, phone numbers. It's become so democratized that it's actually meaningless. Everybody gets a hundred emails a day that they don't even know what to do with. I get more than that. I get. I get probably a dozen a day that are like cold emails that actually land in my primary tab that are just worthless to me. I don't care. These people are technically getting visible. They're getting in front of me, who's a new person who's now aware that they exist. But I'm also aware that I them or I don't like them or I don't care about what they're saying. And so the goal of marketing today cannot be to just simply get in front of new people. It has to be to build trust and build a relationship that creates a positive impression of your brand in their mind. I'm going to talk about how to do this because I know that sounds trite. That sounds like, of course, Peter, duh. Obviously, I wanted to get this foundational understanding out of the way first, that marketing isn't about just getting in front of new people. Okay, so marketing's real job then? The real job of a marketing campaign is we call it middle of funnel. But just that trust building process, that relationship building process where somebody comes into your ecosystem and through some means or method that we'll talk about a minute here, they'll start to build an association in their mind between you and the thing that they want. And when they build this association, the stronger that association is, the more likely they are to buy. Essentially what we need to do with our marketing then is we need to give prospects a way to easily vet us before asking for the sale. Okay, so instead of getting in front of them and immediately asking them to buy, we're giving them a way where they can look us up. They can consume content from us on their own pace, they can read about us on their own pace. They can just look at our brand image. They can see the things that we're putting out at their own pace, on their own time when they want to. And that way, when they come to a point where it's time to make a buying decision, it feels like it's their own idea to say yes to that rather than they're being like pressured into it or you kind of force them into a corner with your sick objection handling skills. And this is where most accounting firms have a really hard time. Because what little online presence they have is not that impressive or not that enticing. It's not that sexy. And this doesn't mean, by the way, to go like hop on every trend and try to get the coolest looking website. It just means we need to communicate our value better. That's all this really means. So your website, for example, you're trying to build legitimacy by saying, we're former Big four, right? We used to work at Deloitte or EY or one of these big companies and so we can apply their processes to your business. I don't know, that's kind of cool. Maybe a lot of people aren't going to care about that. You might say we have a combined 250 years of experience. And by the way, that's between our three partners who each have 80 years of experience because they're a million years old. Essentially, you're fitting in with the stereotypes in the accounting industry, and that's not a good thing. Accounting is not something that most people are excited about or something that most business owners feel like they actually want to be investing into. Your potential customers are selfish. They don't care about you, they don't care about what you bring to the table or what you do, or your backstory of how you got into the business. All they care about is what you can do for them. They have these big picture goals, these dreams, these aspirations, these things that they're excited about in their business, these pain points that are like super annoying to them in their day to day and are holding them back from reaching those goals. That's what they care about. And so what you have to do is you have to communicate. You have to take the extra step to communicate to them how your service is going to get them to those dream goals, those big aspirations is going to help them craft this business that they're trying to build. And you can't just assume, by the way, what success looks like for them, because success for you as an accounting firm owner in your business is very different. More than likely, unless you're doing accounting for accounting firm owners, which I don't see that being a profitable niche. But what you have envisioned in your mind as success, quote, unquote, is very different from what your ideal customer probably has envisioned in their mind as success. Case in point, ideas. A big topic in the accounting industry right now is private equity activity, right? Private equity is buying up accounting firms. At least that's what people say. And so a lot of accounting firm owners are thinking along the lines of, okay, how do I build a sellable accounting firm? How do I get up to, you know, a couple million dollars a year in profit so I can sell and I can get that big, you know, 3, 4, 5x multiple on my EBITDA? But if your ideal client is, let's say, a consultant, right? Nobody buys consulting firms. Private equity isn't interested in that because the majority of customers at a consulting firm are therefore the owner and their expertise, right? In some way, shape or form, or at least the brand that the owner has created at the very least. And so really the game with a consulting business is make as much money as humanly possible, while you can put that cash flow into other businesses or other investments or whatever is going to be the long term thing that's going to build equity. Now, you understand that as an accounting firm owner, but your ideal client, the consulting business owner, may or may not understand that what we can say conclusively is that they're not thinking about how to sell this business or how to build a sellable business. And so that's not a talking point that you need to use with this niche or this demographic. So what's really important here is to get inside your ideal customer's mind. And if we're going to get inside their mind and we're going to be able to identify, like, the things that they're actually thinking about, the things they actually want out of their business, then we have to pick an ideal customer. And this is where picking a niche actually becomes super important. Now, does your niche have to be residential moving companies or real estate investors or marketing agencies or some specific like, industry of business? No, not necessarily. Although that can be really helpful. Your niche is actually that internal conversation. For example, there are a bunch of industries where business owners are trying to build a sellable business, where that's something that's on their mind. Maybe they're actively trying to sell their business in the next three to five years. Maybe they're just thinking along those lines down the road. And so if you're speaking to that desire and I can help you with that, and here's how, then you have a really valuable offer for that person. There's a bunch of different industries. They're all a little bit different. There's a Venn diagram with manufacturing and accounting firms and home service businesses and construction. Right. Any other industry where there's potential to sell the business. What's the center of the Venn diagram there? And this is really, really important to identify. So once you've identified this, then you can craft an overall brand message, which is just very simply. It's just, what are we communicating and how are we communicating it? Right. What are the talking points we're using in our marketing? What are the dreams and aspirations that we're speaking to that we're assuming our ideal customer holds? And that will determine almost entirely by itself, that will determine what type of customers you get in front of. So all that to say, the primary purpose of marketing your business is not simply to just get in front of more people and ask them to buy. It's to build trust, build a relationship, and give people a way to vet your business and decide if this is what they're looking for or not. By the way, if you want someone who's done this before for firms just like yours to come step into your business and just build all this out for you. That's exactly what my team and I do. So we step into your firm as your chief marketing officer. We tell you exactly what strategies you need to implement, and then we go build those systems for you. And if that's something you're interested in, then click the first link in the description. You can get more info there anyways. And so three practical takeaways that you can take from this and apply into your own business and hopefully start making more money in the next 60 to 90 days. Number one is you do need a top of funnel, right? You need a way to get in front of people. You need a way where new people are becoming aware that you exist, but chances are really strong that you already have this. Okay, so most firms that are, you know, somewhat successful and get referrals and have a little bit of word of mouth, they get traffic online, right? Simply because people are talking about you, people are referring their friends or their family to go work with you as well. And so most of the firms that I speak to who are, you know, let's say doing six to maybe low seven figures a year in revenue, they've already got traffic, maybe it's on their website, maybe they've got a few, you know, a few thousand social media followers. Let's assume you know your website, let's go to your website. And there's actually this tool you can use to check this called similar web. You can see how many visitors your website is getting. You should probably be able to see this on the backend analytics of your website too. But I'll use an example, right? There was a firm I talked to recently based out of California. They get like 1500 visitors a month on their website. And the owner had no idea. He figured nobody really goes to the website because they only book like maybe five, maybe 10 calls from it. They only get like five to 10 leads a month from their website. But I'm looking at this with him and I'm like, dude, you're getting like 1500 visits a month and you're only getting five calls from that. That's a terrible conversion rate. That just simply means like the percentage of visitors who end up booking a call. Right? The typical benchmark that we try to hit is like 2 to 4% conversion rate. And so if you're hitting 2 to percent on let's say 1500 views a month or 1500 website visitors a month, then you're going to be booking like 30 to 60 calls. And so this business owner, he's getting five to 10 calls a month. He could immediately, at the very least, he could immediately triple get 30 calls a month and that would triple his new sales. Crazy, right? And the reason he's not already getting 30 to 60 calls is not because he's not getting in front of enough people. It's simply because people are seeing what he has to say on his website. And they're seeing, you know, what he has to offer on his website, and they're like, this isn't really what I'm looking for. And they bounce. And so simply by better communicating his value on the website, he would start to book more calls now, is he? We'll see. This is an ongoing conversation, but. But the point remains. And so the solution, the practical takeaway here is I want you to go to your website, see what kind of traffic you're getting. And if you're getting more than a couple hundred hits a month, then you need to implement what I call an application funnel. We've got a separate video walking through exactly how this works. I'll pin it in the comments beneath this YouTube video so you can see, like, exactly what an application funnel needs to look like. But the way you can think of it is it's just an upgraded contact page. Okay? So somebody lands on your website, they go to the contact page, and right now, like, you've probably got either a calendly embed on there where they just directly book a call, or you might have a contact form where it, like, sends you an email with the form response. Either way, that's basically just directly asking them to come speak to you to buy. Like, implicitly, we all know that that's the purpose of getting in touch. And so for those people who are seeing you, who are thinking, maybe I'm interested, but they're not there yet. They're not ready to book a call. What's going to get them ready to book a call? You have nothing else to allow them to vet you. Well, this application funnel will help solve that. So go check out that video after this one is done. But practical takeaway number two here that I want you to implement. And this is probably even more important than the application funnel. The nuts and bolts, like upgrading your contact page and all that kind of stuff, is that your messaging is actually more important than your funnel. Period. Full stop, end of sentence. Your messaging, AKA what you say in your marketing, is more important than your funnel, AKA the nuts and bolts of your marketing, the landing pages and the email sequences and all that good stuff. So if we've established that good marketing is actually not about getting in front of as many people as humanly possible, getting in front of the most people humanly possible. It's actually about precise language, describing what you do in a way that resonates, in a way that's interesting to your ideal customer in a way that makes it seem like something that they actually need, a way that they can look at this as somebody who's completely uneducated, uninitiated, knows little to nothing about accounting. That's why they're coming to you. They can look at this as an uneducated buyer, and they can say, this is actually going to solve the problem in my business that's been bothering me for forever. And so the first step to this is just to stop selling features, right? So most accounting firm websites, they focus on, you know, maybe they've got a thing going through your packages, right? Maybe you've got that on your contact page. I know a lot of people do that. And so it shows, you know, here's what's in our packages. And you get, you know, monthly reporting and you get call with your bookkeeper or if your tax offer, you know, you get three calls throughout the year with your tax planner. And we'll put together a comprehensive tax plan to make sure you're maximizing all your deductions. That's all accounting jargon. That's something the uninitiated, uneducated person looks at and goes, I don't know what this means. I don't know exactly how this applies to me. They don't take action, right? Because it's not clear that this is what they're looking for. Like, if I went to a car dealership and the car salesman starts telling me about, oh, it's a V8, and it's got this, this Dolby sound system in here, and it's got this XYZ heating and air conditioning system in there. And none of that would mean anything to me. What I care about when I'm buying a car is, is this going to be comfortable for me? Is this going to have space for when my wife and I start having kids and we need to start toting kids around in the car, does it have enough trunk space for the stuff I need to carry around with me? And honestly, for most people, the biggest determining and why they buy a car is what are other people going to think of me because I drive this? Like, we all know the stereotypes around cars. Like, the car you drive says something about the person you are or the person you think you are inside your head, right? And the same goes for your accounting service. So you stop talking about those features of the monthly reports and the, you know, calls with your CPA and, and all this stuff, and we start talking about the outcomes that we're going to help them achieve. We're going to help you build a sellable business. And it's through, you know, Our, our three part strategy, we're going to help you max out your cash flows so that you, for your future, whatever those big picture goals that your ideal client has, we're talking about those, we're going to help you do that. A great example of this is I've got a client who's a cfo and a big talking point for him is like, we're going to be a number two in your business. It's lonely being an entrepreneur. Especially as you get more and more successful, there's fewer and fewer people you can actually relate to who have the same problems you do, who are trying to, you know, create the same thing in their life as you are. And so I'm going to come in and I'm going to be that number two, that person that you can go to, just somebody you can relate to, somebody who knows what they're talking about in your business, somebody who you respect as an expert and somebody who can give you qualified advice and qualified strategy to grow your business and to make that next big move because you trust them. And here's how I'm going to do that. That's how he does it. And it's, it's, I mean, he's, he's speaking with seven and eight figure businesses every single week. So practical takeaway number two is you need to get inside that ideal customer's head, figure out what their big picture vision is, what do they want for their business, and then how do I communicate the way that bookkeeping or tax strategy or CFO services fits into that big picture. This is something that for most of our clients takes about 30 days to go through. If you're diying it, it might take 60 or 90 days, but either way, this is something that you can implement in the next, you know, two to three months here max, and you can actually make more money from it because you're communicating your value better. People see more clearly what your value is and it's easier for them to say yes at the end of the day. And by the way, if you want the notes from this video to help you implement any of this, there's a link down in the description to get access. Takeaway number three, and this is a fun fact, not a lot of people know this, not a lot of people recognize this. And I think if more people recognize that, more people would do this. Your customers who are already paying you money or already have paid you money, they cannot tell the difference between something that you provide to them specifically because they pay you money, and something you provide to them simply because you provide it to everybody. The big example here is organic social media content. All right, so let's say you've got a YouTube channel or a podcast, some kind of long form content that you put out there, and your prospective clients are seeing this. They're watching a couple YouTube videos or they're listening to some podcasts and they're saying, oh man, this guy really knows what he's talking about. He really understands what I'm looking for and what I'm trying to do. I should probably get in touch with his firm and see if they can help me. Okay, so that's, that's benefit one of content. Benefit two, though, is your customers who are already paying you money, see this content. They get value from the content. It speaks to them and it helps them, even though you're already working together. And that creates a more positive impression, more favorable impression of you in their mind. And so they say, oh man, I'm getting so much value from Joe over at my CPA firm, I would never leave. None of these other CPAs or bookkeepers are as smart as the one I'm working with because they see that from your service, sure, but they also see it from your content. You're reinforcing the value after they've bought. Okay, that's the important thing here. I've got a client who has a podcast. He's in the real estate space. He does tax strategy for real estate investors. This podcast has probably put out 150, maybe 200 episodes at this point. And yes, he gets people booking calls and, you know, coming to become clients of his firm and pay him money because of the podcast. People find him through an ad or through his social media content. They see his podcast, they're interested, and so they, they listen to a couple podcasts, they see the value he gives, and then they go buy. By the way, the leads that we get coming through the podcast are like the highest quality leads. Like it's almost a guaranteed buy. But also, a lot of his listeners are existing customers, people who have already paid him money. They're already enrolled in his service. They're having their tax strategy calls with their cpa, they're getting their books done by his team, all that good stuff. But they also listen to the podcast and they get value out of that. And so not only do we get the highest quality leads from the podcast, but also the people who listen to it, who are existing customers are the most likely to re sign up year after year. They're the most likely to retain long term. And so if you're investing any sort of money into marketing your firm, then that money is basically you're paying one time to get the customer in the door. Whatever your, your cac, your cost to acquire a customer is, and this is, this is math that you can calculate. I've got videos showing how to do that. Whatever your cost to acquire a customer is, is a one time expense. But you can make, theoretically you can make a lot of money off that customer over their lifetime. And that's mostly determined not by how much you've spent to get them, but actually by how long they stay at your firm. And so by creating helpful content that's highly valuable to people have paid you money. A, that means you can probably get more customers like them because if they're interested in it and they like the content, then people who haven't paid you money yet will probably like it and it'll motivate them to come and pay you money. But your existing customers get value from it and they're more likely to stay long term and they're more likely to continue paying you money years into the future. And the biggest thing here is they don't consciously think about the fact that this content is something that they could continue getting even if they stop paying you money. All they know is I paid you, I got a ton of value from you. They don't separate it out in their heads. And so that's takeaway number three is to create some sort of valuable content that A new prospective customers can use to vet you and get a sense for who you are and what kind of value you bring to the table. And B, your existing clients can use to get value from beyond the scope of your service and ideally stick around longer than they otherwise would. That's it for this video. I'll see you in the next one.