An accountant who just opened his doors needed help and guidance to begin to market his services to other businesses. He has all the subject-matter qualifications required to hang up an accounting services shingle and get started. His office was stocked with desks, chairs, computers and coffee.
He was only missing one thing. Customers.
He connected with me asked, “where do I begin to market my business?” He told me he doesn’t want to be one of the 80% of startup firms that fail every year. He knows that he doesn’t understand marketing fundamentals, so he hired me to be his guide and to help him get started. He said, I wish I could run an ad that says, Customers wanted for accounting business.
The process we followed may be helpful to others in start-up mode. Consider it like a marketing audit that got us started. We talked about…
- The Point of Difference: What makes your service different than other accounting services that you compete within your territory? Is there something that fits the ONLY WE message? Only we do ___________ for ___________ customers. Your marketing efforts need to put this point of difference front and center, so it isn’t a trivial matter. Whether you call it your value proposition or something else, you must have a message that gives you a hook to hang your marketing activities.
- Inventory of communications assets: What do you have in place that can tell your unique story? Have you named your business? Do you have a brochure, website, whitepaper, FAQ, newsletters, email lists or other communications materials? Where exactly are, you starting – with nothing or with some basics? Do you have a network of people you know and can you access their contact information easily? (Hint: this is a big asset to leverage).
- Inventory of personal assets: What are you good at doing? Are you a good writer? Can you do public speaking? Are you comfortable making cold calls to prospect? How about your technical skills with computers, software, and systems outside of your area of experience? Have you ever managed people or are you used to doing everything on your own? Are you active on social media? Do you understand the basics?
- Precisely who are your targets: As you define your target, how precise can you be? For example, you may want to communicate with small businesses with at least five employees and no more than twenty-five who have revenue of at least $250,000 to $10,000,000 who work within a twenty-mile radius of your office. This description is a good start. But do you want to speak to the owner or general manager or both? Getting this as clear as you can help you with your market.
- Lead Generation Efforts: Have you ever been involved in a lead generation campaign? What are your expectations of how many people you need to reach, over what period to get a lead to connect with you? And, what do you expect to convert to every 100 leads that come toward you? Do you have a process in mind for taking the lead through your sales funnel?
- Tactics: There are many ways to reach your target to generate leads. Each requires a different set of skills and disciplines.
- Will you be buying mailing lists and doing email marketing?
- Do you have a database of connections like LinkedIn that you can use as a starting point to market your brand?
- Are you familiar with social media use for business? Is this a direction to consider?
- Are you going to have a website with useful content that prospects can download?
- Is there a place for campaigns with direct mail (postcards, physical mailers)?
- Are you considering podcasting or webinars to reach your audience?
- Is your approach focusing on cold calling businesses owners?
- Are you going to knock on doors?
- The value of a customer: You want to have a dollar value in mind for the lifetime value of a new client or customer. If you are in a B2B segment, and each client is worth $20,000 per year in revenue, and you expect to keep them for five years, then their lifetime value is $100,000. This number matters because what would you pay for acquiring a new customer? $5, $50, $500, $5,000?
- Expectations: It helps to align your expectations with reality. How much will you need to spend and what type of results can you expect to receive? Will every effort show an instant effect or is this more like gardening and planting seeds that take the time to nurture, feed and fertilize to reap fruit?
- Budget: How much are you willing to spend each month on your ongoing marketing effort? Whatever your budget, you must spend some money to generate leads. If you can do it on your own, then you can keep your costs down. But in the case of the accountant, he needs to spend his time focused on doing tax returns and other financial analysis for business. Once he finds a few marketing lead generation approaches that work, he can hire or contract to get the work done. Most important, you can’t let up and stop. Companies like McDonalds and Wal-Mart are always advertising and marketing their brands even though they are multi-billion dollar businesses.
With such a high failure rate, the most often-quoted reasons that businesses fail is that they are unsuccessful at solving a particular problem for customers and attracting a regular, growing list of customers and clients. Without a marketing plan, you may end up with the 80% of businesses that fail within the first two years.
Do you need help creating a marketing plan for your business? Text me and we can talk about your specific needs and how I can help you effectively reach new clients. 919 720 0995 or email me at jeffreylynnslater@gmail.com
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