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Turn Off The Faucet– It´s Tax Season!
Back in the good old days, when we didn´t know a great deal about marketing, and when we thought that marketing was something we might want to try sometime – but not now – many accounting firms and some law firms tended to turn off the marketing spigot during tax season. "We´re too busy," they said, "and don´t have time for it."
We´ve learned a thing or two since then. Many firms learned it only after their competitors learned it first. What have we learned? That tax season may well be the best time to accelerate marketing efforts, not to set them aside.
Experience gives us several reasons for that, the most significant of which is that for the competitive firm – which means any firm that wants to survive and grow – marketing is no longer an incidental thing to do. It´s now an integral part of any practice, and is a management tool as much as staffing, financial management, or recruiting. Like any management tool, it´s not so easily turned on and off at will. Other reasons. . .
- Peter Drucker said it best – the purpose of a company is to create customers. That translates easily into "…the purpose of a firm is to create clients." No, the purpose of your firm isn´t to practice accounting or law, because without clients, all your skills and training and experience are nothing. You exist only in accordance with your ability to get and keep clients.
- Your more successful competitors are marketing during their busy season, and if they do and you don´t, they´re going to get your clients, sooner or later.
- For accountants, there is rarely a time of the year when you´re in closer contact with your clients. Yes, you´re doing taxes, but you are still in a face-to-face context – or should be. That means not only an opportunity to cement relationships, but to learn of opportunities to increase per client business.
- Tax time is the one time of the year that most people think about accountants and tax lawyers. The ground is most fertile, then, to give prospective clients a reason to think that perhaps your firm is better able to serve them than their current accountants do. It´s the best time, as well, to find new ways to serve existing clients.
- Marketing is a dynamic. It´s like a hoop – the more you hit it with a stick the faster and farther it rolls. If you stop hitting it, the hoop falls over, and it makes no difference how far it´s gone. You´ve lost momentum and have to start all over again.
Tax season, as busy as you may be then, is virtually a marketing carnival for the astute professional.
But as busy as you may be, how then can you continue a marketing effort? What can you do while you´re working furiously on a client´s taxes?
- Be sure you have a marketing director or outside consultant whose professionalism you trust, and who can perform a great many marketing activities with a minimum of your supervision or participation.
- If you can, prepare for the season beforehand. Write articles to be placed while you´re working on taxes. Prepare tax tips to be distributed to the press by your marketing director during the season. Plan promotional activities that don´t require your intensive personal participation during that busy period. Prepare direct mail pieces that can be sent out during your tax season.
- In the pre-season, plan activities for the immediate post-season. Personal follow-up. Seminars or articles on what you found out during the season that could help clients save money next time out, or ways to improve internal accounting systems. Merchandise what you´ve learned and what you´ve done during the season.
- During the season, many of these activities can be initiated for you by your marketing director, with very little participation on your part. The point is to maintain visibility without losing momentum.
- With the help of your marketing director, take the time to chat with your client. By asking the right questions, you´ll find many ways in which your business with each client can be increased. (See The Mine Beneath Your Feet for explicit technique).
"Too busy to market during tax season" is one of the most harmful myths in the professions. Opportunities are lost, momentum is lost, growth potential is lost. In today´s business and competitive environment, there is no place for mythology in running a business or professional firm.
Bruce W. Marcus can be reached at http://www.marcusletter.com/.
Bruce W. Marcus is the author of twelve books, including COMPETING FOR CLIENTS -- THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MARKETING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES (Probus, 1986, Rev. 1991); NEW DIMENSIONS IN INVESTOR RELATIONS (Wiley, 1997); COMPETING IN THE NEW CAPITAL MARKETS (Harper Business, 1991); and THE NEW PROFESSIONAL FIRM -- COMPETING FOR CAPITAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY (Haworth, 2000), as well as numerous articles, studies, and position papers on business, finance and marketing. His writing has appeared in major business, professional, and financial publications, and he is a regular columnist for several Microsoft industry pages. He has been a speechwriter for many of the Fortune 500 companies, and major national political figures, including Robert Kennedy and Senator Jacob Javits, and was the author of a major report for President Carter. He is on the advisory boards of Accounting Today, Partner-to-Partner, and Practice Development for Solo & Small Firms and writes regularly for these and other publications.
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