Episode 10
Proven Strategies for Accounting Firms Looking for Growth
Patrick McLoughlin is the founder of the practice growth agency, Accounting for Growth or A4G. He’s spent the last 20-years helping accountancy firms grow by Patrick is working with more of their perfect clients. He writers on new business development for the AAT’s magazine: Accounting Technician, and runs the LinkedIn group, Marketing Professional Services, with over 12,000 members.
If he has any spare time, he keeps busy with 12-year old identical twin daughters. He also carries the lifelong burden of supporting Derby County FC. All of Patrick’s work focuses on ROI for accounting firms. He’s passionate about putting right the many marketing budgets that are wasted by ignoring ROI.
In just 24 minutes, you’ll hear all of these great accounting growth goodies:
- Patrick quotes Steve Pipe on the difference between sales and marketing: “Marketing is everything you do to get the meeting. Sales is what happens during and after that”
- Accountants take note – you can’t attract your ideal client unless you are the ideal accountant for them
- The role of service in setting apart the good accounting firms from the great ones
- How integral are you as an accountant to the business clients you serve?
- The key ways accountants have changed the way they win work over the years
- Being good used to be a differentiator but now it’s just a qualifier
- Dinosaurs – there are still large accounting firms winning work on price, doing 100% compliance work
- Many accounting firms don’t want to change because compliance work is still lucrative
- Research via Thomson Reuters: “30-35% of accounting firms will go out of business in the next few years”
- To get into the top 100 Club of accountants, you don’t have to be that big or even good
- The culture of winning work in large firms comes down from the top
- Marketing is largely disconnected from putting money ‘in the bank’, even in large accounting firms
- Few top 50 accounting firms have clear, well thought out growth plans
- ROI on marketing and BD activities is not just about first year income but lifetime value
- To win work, you need touch points and face time in front of your ideal clients
- You don’t have to stick to one route or pillar to build your accounting firm
- Accounting firms can’t differentiate easily by selling accountancy services
- Which clients do you really love to work with – the stuff you’re really proud of?
- A great positioning script to use before submitting proposals more expensive than the client currently pays
- What an over-emphasis on sales skills does for accounting firms
- The kind of things win-loss research can give you to grow your accounting firm
- What should be the hiring policy for progressive firms who want to grow?
- Where the real value is for accountants in coming years
- The default position for many clients is ‘my accountant doesn’t understand me and my business’
…and much more!
To contact Patrick: 01509 210067
Twitter: A4gonline
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www.a4g.co.uk
Patrick’s personal mission statement: “Most successful firms have Business Development represented at most senior level. Yet in many 50+ employee accounting firms, marketing is handled by marketing assistant or a partner’s p.a. The big problem for large accounting firms is that they can’t differentiate themselves. They don’t dig deep enough to understand who benefits most from working with them – their perfect clients. They don’t just fail to specialize, they actively generalize their firms – forcing clients to differentiate on price. This is what all of my work is about.”
