Marketing Is Not a Department

In small businesses, marketing is what YOUR business is all about. That's right, there is no such thing as a marketing department in a small business.

Yes, I fully understand that marketing is not your forte and most accountants hate marketing. However, marketing is the heart of every successful business. And if you do it well, your business will grow easily each and every year despite the overall economy. Quite frankly, marketing enables you to continuously improve the "quality" of your practice and grow at the pace you desire.

Marketing is the responsibility of each business owner, regardless of the industry. And when done well, shrewd business owners turn their employees into marketing evangelists, to spread the word and generate word-of-mouth advertising and referrals.

To give you a classic example of grass roots marketing, think about Harley Davidson in the early 1980's and the phenomenal turnaround they accomplished against competitors like Kawasaki, Honda, and Yamaha who were underpricing Harley and providing higher quality motorcycles. While Harley made enormous investments to improve their manufacturing operations and product quality, they were facing the fight of their lifetime to stay in business. Their advertising budget was zero from 1984 to 1996. However, they created a groundswell of support by creating the Harley Owners Group (HOG) and creating a sense of community. Using newsletters and club magazines, they managed to grow from one HOG chapter in 1983 to over 1,300 chapters around the world (over 750,000 members).

Keep in mind, I don't ride a motorcycle but this is truly a classic example of using grass roots marketing to help a company turn around their business.

To improve the quality of your accounting practice, embrace marketing holistically and turn your employees into evangelists. Marketing is what YOUR business is all about!