However, it was just announced that my more than two hour delay will be shortened and my travel should resume soon.  Why is this important to professional services marketers?  Because when you under-promise but over-deliver your customers can’t seem to help but be a little bit happier and forget that they were so ticked off in the first place.  So, even though my flight is going to leave 1 1/2 hours later than scheduled I feel some joy that I will be in the air sooner than I had originally expected when they announced the two hour delay.  Under-promise, over-deliver – bring some joy into someone’s day today!

As you go through your day, week and year working with your partners, clients and prospects keep that little phrase in the back of your mind; under-promise, over-deliver!  Your life will be a little bit easier because of it.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you, my loyal readers!  I hope you get to enjoy some deserved down time away from the office and with your family and friends.

Thanks for reading my blog for the past year and a half.  I truly appreciate it.  If you would take a moment to leave me a message to provide me some feedback on whether or not you find my words and thoughts valuable I would appreciate it.  As always, I strive to provide you with value in every post.

For as long as anyone can remember public accountants’ schedules have been more than full between January and April 15th due to tax work.  For those of us who work in the marketing and business development departments for public accounting and consulting firms we know that this period is also a great time to market the firm, uncover needs and cross-sell services to clients.  That’s why I call it opportunity season instead of busy season.

It’s for this reason that December and early January tend to get crazy busy for marketers.  If you haven’t already, you should be getting in front of your partners and senior professionals to talk about how to uncover needs and have conversations with clients about their current and future situation.  Where do they want to go with their company?  Are they looking to retire, sell the business or pass it on to another generation?  Are there technology solutions that can make them more efficient and profitable?  What about financial planning or investment advice? 

These are the types of conversations you need to have with your clients if you truly want to serve them.  The advantage to doing it during opportunity season is that you are already having conversations with them about tax work.  You already have their attention.  This is a great time to really be their advisor that is looking out for their best interests.  Now, before you start trying to sell your clients everything but the kitchen sink I should mention that you really shouldn’t be selling at all.  You see, if you want your professionals to be truly successful they need to be adept at having honest, open conversations with clients and then trying to come up with solutions for their problems.  By having these types of conversations while you have the client’s attention you are positioning your professionals to advise and counsel.  Having that type of relationship will reap benefits long after “busy” season ends. 

So, the next time your partners and professionals complain about busy season, remind them that it is really an opportunity season to grow the practice and serve their clients.  Let them know you’ll be there to help and coach them as needed.  Ultimately it’s up to them if they want to focus solely on tax compliance or if they want to step outside the box a bit and use the time to uncover new opportunities.

Well, that’s an easy question to answer.  I took a new position with a great mid-sized accounting firm in South Carolina as their director of practice development back in June and my head has been spinning ever since with too many priorities competing for my attention.  You know what they say, time flies when you’re having fun! 

As a professional service marketer I’m used to juggling multiple activities and projects at the same time.  Anyone worth their weight in the industry is adept at this.  The one thing that has made my life easier is the relationship with my managing partner and the partnership in general.  Without their support and patience I would be up the creek so to speak. 

So, the message for all of you that are contemplating the move from marketing manager to marketing director and taking on the total marketing efforts of the firm is a simple one; keep expectations realistic and keep the lines of communication with the managing partner and partner group wide open.  I have spent a lot of time educating my partners and senior managers about what it is marketing and business development can and should do, and what activities we probably shouldn’t engage in at this particular time.  In addition I’ve made sure to keep them as involved as possible in everything my marketing manager and I do.  Again, if you’re working alone in a vacuum your life expectancy at the firm is a whole lot shorter. 

It’s an old cliche but it holds true; under promise and over deliver.  Yeah, I know you’re probably rolling your eyes right about now but it’s true.  Under promise, keep expectations realistic, keep the partners informed and fulfill your promises.  If you do that you’ll be just fine.  If you don’t……………….well, don’t come back to me for advice.  Welcome to the professional services marketing carnival!

That got me thinking about how that might apply to professional services marketing.  I am of the opinion that it has very strong application to what we do.  You see, in order to be effective marketers we need to be sure of who we are and what we’re good at.  It’s very difficult for a firm to be all things to all people.  That’s why so many of our firms specialize in certain industries or services. 

If we, as a firm, are good at providing services for financial institutions and manufacturers but not so good with real estate developers or non-profits why would we try to be like one of our competitors and attempt to serve these markets?  Do we try to do it just because we want to be just like our competitor?  Or, maybe it’s because we see them having large market share in these industries and we feel we’re missing out?  It makes sense to me that the reason our competitor is good with real estate developers and non-profits is because that’s who they focus on and leave other industries to someone else. 

The moral of the story is to really take a critical look at what you’re good at as a firm, what industry the majority of your clients are in and where you are getting the highest billing rates.   Using that type of information will help you focus on being a first-rate version of who you are and not a second-rate version of one of your competitors.  And for that your clients and prospects will appreciate you even more.

What do you think?  I’d love to hear your answer.

So, now that you’ve done the hard part and gotten them the opportunity to get in front of your ideal target prospects what comes next?  I hope the answer you formulated in your head was something about knocking it out of the ballpark and gaining new clients.  Good, I was worried there for a moment. 

Let’s back up and look at how not to knock it out of the park, how not to create a favorable impression.  Speaking and presenting opportunities are fantastic ways to reach  your prospects and/or referral sources but there are some sure-fire things you definitely want to keep in mind as you prepare to deliver the presentation.  I’ve outlined 7 things to remember as you get your professionals ready to step into the spotlight.

1. Practice, practice, practice – no matter how great they are or how wonderful your services are, if you allow them to get up in front of the audience unprepared they will flop.  They should practice their presentation in front of the mirror at night, in front of their spouse and definitely in front of their co-workers so that they get to the point that they can deliver it in their sleep.  Nothing’s worse than sitting through a bad presentation full of stumbles or having the presenter lose his or her way.
2. Be sensitive to the time you’re given – along with being able to present in their sleep, please make sure that if they’re given 30 minutes to present that their presenation lasts 25 minutes so that they have 5 minutes for questions.  Nothing might leave more of a negative impression on their presenation than going over on time. 
3. Make sure the slides are readable from the back of the room – need I really say more on this?  If the audience can’t read the slide you’ve lost their attention (and respect) before you’ve even started. 
4. Make sure the slides are clean and uncluttered – just as important as making sure the slides are readable from the back of the room is making sure that there’s enough white space on them so that they are easier on the eyes. Many people make the mistake of thinking the more info I put on the slide the more helpful it is to my audience.  Wrong.  Don’t fall into this trap.
5. Make sure you provide takeaway copies of the presentation - the audience will not remember 100% of what your professionals present.  That’s why giving them a copy of the presentation is a good idea that will help build that relationship and give them a reference point long after the presentation.
6. Make sure you provide multiple ways to contact you – along with a takeaway from the presentation, make sure that somewhere in the slides you give your audience a way to contact you.  You know, email address, phone number, website URL.  How are they going to contact the presenter if they have questions or have a need for their service?  I think you get the picture. 
7. Brand each and every slide – this is a great way to build that awareness of the firm in the prospects mind.  Not only should you have a title slide with the presenters name, firm name, firm logo and contact info, you should have the firm name or logo all the slides.

Presenting at conferences and other gatherings is a great way to show the expertise of your firm and your professionals.  You really want to make sure that those in the audience come away with a favorable impression of your firm.  Delivering a well-prepared and thought out presentation will reflect positively on the firm.  Likewise, delivering a bad or mediocre presentation will have a substantially more negative effect.

What?  You think that now that tax season is over it’s time to relax, recharge and enjoy the relative quiet of summer?  Think again.  Once you come out of tax season you are smack dab in the middle of prime marketing and practice development time.  This is the time to focus on filling your new business pipeline (if you haven’t already been focusing on it).  This is the time of year where you have to get out of the office and start prospecting.

Yes, by all means take some time to get away from the office and the business of work and recharge the batteries.  But, please make sure that when you come back you have made time in your day, every day, for practice development and marketing.  If you don’t focus on filling the pipeline and closing new business now during the late spring and summer, when are you going to find the time when life gets a little more hectic in the fall and winter?

In order to be successful at building your practice you must build time into your day or week to create those new relationships, to discover those great new opportunities and to earn the trust of new clients.  I can assure you that your competitors are not sitting back and resting on their laurels.  Nope.  They’re out there prospecting and networking.

A recent study I ran across indicated that 36% of accounting clients, your clients, are likely to switch accountants this year.  That means you have tremendous opportunity to gain new clients.  It also means that your competition has a great opportunity to pull your clients away from you.  This is the time to work on your practice, to strengthen your relationships with your clients and to take on new relationships.

So, what are you waiting for?  Get out there and get building.

A couple of interesting points he made revolved around why clients leave CPA and law firms.  The number one reason clients leave a CPA firm is the firm’s failure to keep up with clients needs.  Clients’ needs.  That doesn’t seem so difficult to comprehend does it?

Looking at law firms the number one reason clients switch is cost and billing issues.  Followed closely by lack of communication and responsiveness, incompetence and not understanding clients needs.  Hmm, I’m sensing a pattern here.

Where does this type of information leave those of us who work in professional services marketing and practice development?  Apparently it leaves us with a lot of work to do.

How do we help our professionals keep up with their clients’ needs?  How do we help them be more responsive and better communicators?  I would propose that the best way to do that is through internal education and formalized practice development.  We, as marketers and practice developers, need to continually reinforce to our professionals the need to listen to clients, to interact with clients, to ask specific questions and really listen for the answer.  It’s so much more than the obligatory quarterly “touch base” or the annual tax-time discussions. 

We need to keep them on track with providing valuable and timely information to their clients.  We need to impress upon them the importance of being responsive, of being educators and advisors.  Because at the end of the day, if they’re not doing it someone else will come along and do it instead of them.  According to the data this individual provided 36% of business clients are likely to switch CPA firms in 2011.  That’s more than one-third of your client base. 

Regular practice development meetings can help professionals stay on track.  Building in some sort of accountability to these activities is a great way to keep them engaged.  Once they are committed to truly developing their client base and engaging their clients in meaningful conversations focused on solving problems you can implement some tangible tactics to help them. 

Get your professionals to truly understand their role with respect to their clients, help them get inside their clients’ head and learn what keeps them up at night, help them understand their clients’ pain and then show them how to demonstrate expertise to help solve those problems.

There are many ways to demonstrate expertise and results.  Help them build client case studies to showcase favorable outcomes.  Help them gather referrences and referrals, client quotes, etc.  Facilitate the development of some industry-specific thought leadership papers, get them out in the public eye with some speaking engagements, get them quoted in the industry press or newspapers.

Help them understand that sometimes it’s the little things too that build that relationship.  Get them to be cognizant of articles that may be of interest to their clients.  Get them to send hand-written notes for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  Have them invite clients to events that they would benefit from, either personally or professionally.

There are so many things you can do to help them stay engaged and involved with their clients and make that relationship sticky.  The hard part is getting them started down the right path.  Using the busy or “opportunity” season to start the conversation with your professionals is as good a starting point as any.  What are you waiting for?

To me, it seems evident that you need to have a clear marketing leader.  Someone who has the skill and experience to see the big picture as well as how all the pieces fit together.  In a professional services firm that may be the chief growth officer (CGO) or marketing director.  However, you also need the folks to do the day-to-day “work” of marketing.  Someone to actually take care of the mailing list, advertising placements, webinar invitations, etc.  Can that person be one in the same?  Yes, if the firm is small enough and the person is competent enough.  More often than not, though, in larger firms it makes sense to separate the two. 

Where am I going with all of this?  It’s pretty simple really.  To me you need to have the visionary, the strategist and the implementor.  You need someone who is able to “see” the future and where s/he wants the firm to go.  Of course we all know that without a solid strategy the vision means little.  So you need to have the strategist who can take the vision and align goals with it.  Someone who can then break the goals down into actionable steps and activities that seek to accomplish those goals. 

Again, without the actual implemented activities the goals don’t mean very much either.  That’s where the implementor comes in. You need to have someone who can turn those activities into reality. 

In essence, you need a three-headed monster that consists of vision, strategy and implementation.  Can one person do all of those?  Yes, it’s possible.  However, I would argue that those three components need to be shared between at least two individuals, maybe three.  In most firms it would be a partner leading the vision, the CGO or marketing director formulating the strategy and then a marketing coordinator or manager implementing and monitoring the activities. 

So, what happens when that doesn’t happen?  You end up with a disjointed, inefficient marketing effort that more often than not does not allow the firm to reach its goals.  Sound familiar?  If it does then you need to work to change it.  Whether it’s in the strategy or the implementation you need to find those areas that need improvement and work toward fixing it.  If you’re a partner in the firm that likes to “do” marketing it might make sense to look at hiring a dedicated professional marketer to help with the strategy and implementation and spend your time on client activities.  If you’re a professional marketer but struggling with the vision for the firm, seek out a champion, someone who can provide that vision for you.  If you don’t  you’ll end up frustrated and that leads you no where.

First of all, in order to be an effective networker you need to overcome your fear of “public” speaking.  In order to do this you need to practice and build your experience.  Where do you get that experience?  You get it from doing it.  No, seriously, you’ll never be good in this type of social situation without having to attend and participate in this type of social situation.  So, dive right in and get going!

Start by getting more comfortable with offering a good firm handshake, get comfortable with making eye contact with people you’re speaking to, get comfortable with who you are and why you’re there.  Yeah, it’s awkward at the beginning but you’ll get more comfortable as you get more experience. 

I know you’re asking me, “Tim, what if I’m just not good with remembering names, faces, etc?”  There are some tips you can use to help you with this. 

1. Make sure you introduce yourself first.  That way you can really concentrate on the person you’re meeting for the first time and it will also put you at ease as you break the ice. 
2. When the person you meet gives you his/her name, make sure you repeat it at least three (3) times.  Something like, “John, nice to meet you.  John, tell me a little more about your company.  John, it was great meeting you.  I look forward to getting to know you and your company better.”  Now, maybe it’s not obvious but you might want to throw in a few more sentences between those three so you don’t come off sounding a bit odd. 
3. Get a business card if you can.  Use that business card to put a face with a name.  Go over those cards after the event so that you can improve your memory. 
4. Follow up.  I’ve said it before but it bears repeating.  Follow up with everyone you meet after an event.  Maybe it’s an email or, for those that make sense, a personal note or letter.  This will help you build your network but also help you remember who is who.

Again, no earth-shattering insight here but it never hurts to have a reminder every now and then. Let me know if this works for you and be sure to keep me updated on your progress.  If you have more tips that you use, please feel free to share.  I’d love to hear them!

I would think that segmenting your clients and aligning Holiday gift giving with the quality of your clients makes more sense.  For those top 10, 20 or 50 clients (depending on firm size) you may want to take the CEO/CFO/Director to lunch and tell them personally how much  you appreciate their business.  Maybe it’s taking them and their spouse to dinner or a show?  Whatever “it” is, make sure it’s personal, of high quality and sincere.  This is a very good opportunity to “touch” your client in a meaningful way.  Don’t blow it.

For those middle level clients I would think that sending a small gift and handwritten card would make perfect sense.  Maybe it’s a gift basket or bottle of wine.  Whatever you send make sure it’s appropriate for the client and of sufficient quality.  You might even think of delivering it personally if you can.

For your bottom 10, 20 or 50 clients (depending on firm size) a nice handwritten personal note or card is appropriate.  You want to take the opportunity to let them know that you appreciate them and are thinking of them at this time of year.  A word of caution is needed here, you don’t want to let them know that you view them as being at the bottom of your importance list. 

Just like in prospecting, some clients are better than others.  We all know within our firm or practice which clients are stars and which are a pain in the rear-end to deal with.  Why would you spend equal time and money on different clients?  The last word of caution is to make sure you look at the client list closely and see where there may be connections between clients.  There are always some sort of connections between your clients and they do tend to talk.  So, be careful if you are going to segment your client Holiday list year.