What Accountant Has Time for MARKETING?

While most accountants want to grow their accounting practice so that their practice is worth more when they decide to retire, they typically lack the time, skills, and desire needed to grow aggressively.

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• Lack the Time – Most accountants get sucked into the operational side (back end) of their practice by staff and demanding clients. We all know that the squeaky wheel gets greased. As a result, accountants typically lack the time to aggressively market and generate enough leads.
• Skills – Let’s face it, accountants are technically proficient but not marketing savvy. The road to becoming proficient at accounting and tax has nothing to do with lead generation, reputation management, and branding.
• Desire – And worst, most accountants simply don’t have the desire to peddle their own wares. They enjoy operating in a consultative manner but hate working a crowd.

Why Is Outsourced Marketing growing within the accounting industry?

For most accountants, the market value of their accounting practice is the most important component of their retirement plan. That’s right, the value of their accounting practice on the open market is the linchpin to how prosperous their retirement years will be.

Here are some of the other reasons why more accounting firms are outsourcing their marketing function to companies like Build Your Firm:

1. Marketing is not a core function of the firm and not what we excel at.
2. It is less expensive to grow with marketing than buying another firm. That’s right, outsourced marketing is approximately 50% cheaper than buying someone else’s practice.
3. Outsourced marketing is more sustainable, 365 days out of the year. As a result, the annual new business acquired is higher with a sustained marketing approach than binge marketing for short periods of time.
4. Partnering with marketing experts yields better results. By partnering with marketing gurus, my practice will become easier to sell, more profitable and worth a higher multiple. It’s not about doing more of the same thing, it’s about improving our profit margins, hourly realization rates and obtaining a better balanced lifestyle.

Core Competency

While some accountants understand marketing and take the time to learn certain aspects, it’s not what they excel at. Realistically, it’s like the doctor client you have who thinks because they are bright with a pedigree from a highly respected university thinking they understand accounting and tax. They don’t. They simply don’t have the time to stay on top of the finer points nor the fundamentals. It’s not their core competency.

Marketing guru’s who truly have a core competency in marketing have a specific set of skills and production techniques that provide synergistic value to the hiring firm and it opens doors that would never present themselves to an amateur.

Build Your Firm has been providing Outsourced Marketing since 2006. And several of our first clients are still in the program.

Cheaper to Build Than Buy

In some industries, like dentistry, it’s cheaper to buy someone else’s successful practice than build one yourself. However, the inverse is true in the accounting industry. Typically, the average market value of a small business oriented CPA practice is 1.2 – 1.3 times gross revenues. In Build Your Firm’s Outsourced Marketing Program, the new business acquisition costs are typically 0.5 – 0.7 times gross.

Outsourced Marketing is More Sustainable

Marketing and lead generation for an accounting firm is more like a marathon than a 50 meter sprint. To maximize the amount of new business acquired annually, you want your marketing and lead generation to operate 52 weeks out of the year, 365/24/7. Assigning this task to a single point of accountability makes measuring your progress more trackable.

Partnering with Experts

Partnering with a company like Build Your Firm will provide you with the training, coaching and system to ensure success. And yes, you will be nudged, prodded and pushed to execute things that you might ordinarily kick the can down the road too. Build Your Firm has a vested financial interest in your success.

Given their experience within the accounting industry, Build Your Firm will guide you down the path to operate your practice at higher rates of efficiency, higher hourly realization rates, and gradually improve your profit margins. After a couple years in the program, you will see how the valuation of your practice will gradually improve too (above 1.3 times gross).

What Are the Next Steps?

If you’d like to learn more about Build Your Firm’s Outsourced Marketing Program, then call us at 888-999-9800 x1. This program will provide you with the coaching and mentoring needed to acquire new clients, market your practice consistently throughout the year, improve your reputation locally, and dramatically increase your hourly realization rates so your practice commands a higher multiple on the open market. It truly is a complete practice development system for your accounting practice.