So much chatter about why the percent of women on the earth isn't the same as the percent of women in this business or that industry or the boardroom down the hall.
Reach back and dust off something we were ALL told, probably sometime between ages 3 and 5:
Boys and girls are different.
When we were told this, we were NOT told that one was better. Because one isn't better. Just different. So what.
We can keep making a big deal out of how we are different and why we are different, and how to "fix" or "equalize" it (God help us) or we can accept and embrace the simple fact that boys and girls are different and SHOULD BE. Know why? Because PEOPLE are different. So what.
Love the differences. Work with the differences. Respect the differences. And quit obsessing about HOW & WHY people are different.
In a very vulnerable and real piece by my refreshingly unlawyerly friend Heather Bussing, I think you'll find the reasons to celebrate and love the difference.
"Being a woman is a million different things, and nothing in particular. Labeling work and life questions as women’s issues is at worst, a distortion; at best, a distraction."
Read her story: Personal Questions: Women and Work on HR Examiner.
Setting people up for success is something of an art.
Bob had it down pat; he was the consummate professional. He’s retired now, but his reputation of wisdom and effectiveness was earned over decades of consistently demonstrating both of these traits. In his role as a senior partner of his midsized CPA firm, he was kind but firm, and always sincere. Bob never said something unless he meant it.
Bob’s exactly the kind of guy you don’t want to disappoint. And exactly the kind of guy people want to hire.
It was almost noon and I stood in his firm’s lobby awaiting my lunch mates. As I waited, I witnessed one of the finest business lessons I’ve seen.
A somewhat shy new guy—a bright young auditor right out of college—stood near me. Let’s call him Dan. It was Dan’s first day so he’d been hurriedly introduced to everyone in the office. Now he was waiting for some of his team members to take him to lunch.
Bob entered the lobby from the interior offices right as a couple people came in the front door. Bob warmly greeted the clients who appeared to be meeting him for lunch. Always thoughtful, Bob turned and introduced the receptionist, then me. Then, he did something pretty extraordinary.
Without missing a beat, Bob took a couple steps positioning himself beside Dan and, in a fatherly sort of way, put his hand on Dan’s back, kind of behind his shoulder. Smiling, he announced proudly:
“And this is Dan! He is going to be on your audit team this year and you’ll be in excellent hands with him.”
Several great things had just happened.
First, Dan stood tall. He shook hands and learned the clients’ names. Running through his mind was something like: I’d better do a great job…Bob just personally endorsed me and made me look really good!
Through the clients’ minds went something like: If Bob says this guy is good, then by golly, he is.
Bob created both the strong desire in Dan to excel, and a reason for the clients to feel confident about Dan being on their team.
The introduction could have gone so differently and in most firms it would have. Dan had only met Bob that morning. It’s kinda remarkable that Bob even remembered his name. In some firms, the partner would have just left with the clients, introductions skipped. A huge opportunity missed.
Otherwise, a probable scene would have been for the partner to greet the clients, and indicate toward Dan: “This is our new guy. He’ll be on your audit this year.” In this scenario, you can almost feel Dan shrinking back a little. And clients might be thinking, Oh, great, another new auditor we get to train.
But Bob knew exactly what he was doing.
In a single moment, Bob created the perfect environment for a positive experience on both sides. He inspired Dan to want to impress the client and make the partners proud, to live up to his words, and to earn Bob’s advance expression of trust. Bob put his reputation on the line and Dan did not want to let him down.
A company’s reputation is always on the line when employees represent it, right?
To inspire the very best from people, we have to believe in them. Bob’s way is is the most effective way to get what we need from others. Conversely, when we hire someone and think, well, I sure hope she can do the job, or I hope he doesn’t embarrass me, it seeps through in our demeanor and we’re much more likely to create the very result that we fear.
Bob understood something that most of us never consider. What he knew was that people actually want to do great work. In fact, until or unless we give someone a reason not to, they will continue to want to. Anyone worth their salt, anyway. (This is intrinsic motivation, discussed in the book Drive by Dan Pink.) Bob got great results from people because he knew they would want to do their best not just for him and clients, but for themselves, too.
It’s our job, as owners and managers, to expect their success and to keep that spirit alive in them. If that spirit was there once and died, it’s probable that we somehow squelched it (certainly without meaning to).
In other words, if we believe people will achieve, we foster their success. And if we watch for them to fail, they will. Initially it's fairly easy. But over time, the key is in handling mistakes. Don’t give up on people when they make mistakes. Continue to know that they’ll master it after a few tries.
Think of your baby learning to walk. When he takes those first steps, teeters, and falls, you clap in celebration and encourage him to try again. He grins in glee, pulls himself up, and repeats until he's a walker. When he falls, what you don’t do is declare: “Gee, walking is obviously not your thing. You should probably just stick with crawling." This is because you absolutely know that he’ll master walking. And your trust in this urges him on. This applies all through the parenting years.
And it applies just as much in business, too.
To make this work, trust has to be paid forward. And it has to be sincere. Words of trust must be heartfelt, they can't be faked. People can sense when you don’t trust them. Little things like eye contact, tone, and body language convey the truth. The small but meaningful detail of Bob standing beside his newest team member, literally “backing him” with the gesture of support on his shoulder, spoke volumes to everyone in the room.
It’s a lucky few who have a Bob around as they start their careers. But even for those of us who did not, it’s never too late to take a cue from this wise and successful nurturer of good employees and future leaders.
Whether you’re a man or woman, aspire to be a Bob.
*Bob's name has not been changed for this story. How can you do better than Bob??
(beautiful child image from flickr)
Law and accounting grads are consistently over 50% female, yet the percentage of female firm owners has just reached 20%, up from 19% several years ago.
It's easy to blame the mommy track for high female turnover. Or maybe discrimination. As a fix, firm owners and consultants strive to "retain women" and to make women more "promotable." To this end, they create women's support groups and development programs, both centered on the "unique issues that women face."
Despite the good intentions, I believe these women-oriented programs miss the mark. In fact, they hurt more than help. I'll explain why I think that, explore what it is that firms are actually trying to accomplish, and offer up some alternate solutions.
When you look at the topics of these women-only programs, you'll see that every issue or situation they address exists for men, too.
All the issues named as "women's issues"—save one—are actually just people issues.
The one unique-to-women issue? Nursing moms need a comfortable, private room at work in which to pump. Otherwise, men and dads today face the same difficulties—and the same balancing-act challenges—as women and moms.
Please... I invite you to name any other need that only women have in the workplace.
If you'd say that woman aren't as promotable, I'd say hogwash. Women's advancement potential is now no different from men's. Maybe you'd say that partnership isn't very desirable to women. But I know plenty of men who don't want to be owners either.
Both men and women defect from firms at an alarming rate—nearly 85% exit law and public accounting by their fifth year.
And of those who stay, do women actually need different professional skills than men?
Lawyers and accountants of both sexes generally lack management skills. It makes sense since they went to school to learn law or accounting, not management or business development—the themes of most women-oriented education.
Both men and women need additional skills and support. Every entrant into these professions now needs marketing skills. Most need management skills. And some need to become leaders.
Focusing on women's issues in the business world is actually divisive.
Since women's skill needs and life-work balance accommodations aren't unique, claiming they are unique is inaccurate and exclusionary to men. Especially to single dads. And it's insulting to women—as if we're incapable of succeeding without special accommodation or tailored skill development.
To make matters worse, some of these formal programs include wardrobe advice and shopping excursions. As a woman—even one who enjoys fashion—this horrifies me. People are supposed to take such a program seriously?
Yet firm owners feel obligated to support women's or diversity programs or they could appear insensitive. It's why these programs increase in number; a trend that doesn't solve the problem.
These programs widen the gap rather than close it. Divisive indeed.
We fret over fewer female employees and partners than male so, naturally, we seek to balance the proportion. What's our purpose in having more female leaders? Have we identified the right cause?
Are we worried about discrimination in promoting women?
I'm inside a lot of firms and I don't think that's it. I've not yet encountered a firm that failed to see the strengths that women can bring to the boardroom.
And discrimination isn't just a female problem—it occurs based on all sorts of impressions and biases from appearance (sloppy or sophisticated), personality and style (abrupt or shy), communication ability, education, age, size, race, and religion.
Besides, isn't promoting women primarily to equalize the numbers discrimination, too?
Are we seeking to correct too little diversity?
We know that firms pursue "diversity" to appear more attractive to current employees, certain clients, or future recruits as if to say: "See? Women can advance here!"
Sadly, this, too, misses the mark. When we seek diversity, the purpose should be to achieve diversity of mind—of thought—not quotas related to a person's color or body parts.
Diversity of thinking has to be supported or it ceases.
Interestingly, most firms aren't even prepared to support diversity of thought. To nurture diversity, firms must act on the ideas (the thinking) of their people. But firm leaders tend react defensively to new and different thinking, and often stifle it.
It's a lot easier to "look" diverse in a photo or statistically than to actually be diverse. Diversity is cultural, and we aren't there yet. Even when we fill quotas. (This will need to be another blog post.)
Diversity will occur organically when we empower people.
These are very sensitive subjects and I've been pondering this post for years.
I'm publishing it now because something really nice happened this month. I was named among 25 accomplished people as "Most Powerful Women in Accounting" by CPA Practice Advisor magazine.
It's truly an honor to be recognized among peers for thought leadership, and as a role model. I owe an extra debt of gratitude to CPA Practice Advisor for pulling these people together because reading the award recipients' insights has inspired me and I see important themes.
But I'll let you in on a secret. I feel squeamish about the "women" part of this recognition. Imagine the uproar if we recognized "Most Powerful Men in Accounting."
"Powerful" is a pretty amazing word, and I think herein lies a key to success for men and women alike.
Powerful—to me—is the sense that nothing can hold us back from what we want to accomplish.
Some of the other Most Powerful Women honorees seem to agree with this perspective (not necessarily the rest of my post).
CPA Practice Advisor posed questions to the honorees about perceived limitations to women in advancement and opportunity. Their answers unapologetically reflect their power.
Dawn Brolin, to the question, "Do you think being a woman in the accounting profession has made career advancement more challenging than it might have been for a male in the same situation?" answered: "As a strong woman, I would have to say no."
Stacy Kildal says: "I have honestly, not for one minute of my life, ever considered that being a woman would ever make advancement in my career more challenging. My gender doesn’t have anything to do with my ability..."
Geni Whitehouse said: "I didn’t feel that I was given unequal treatment at any time in my career. The accounting profession rewards hard work and results."
And honoree Gail Perry tells firm leaders: "...my advice would be that the firm regard its female employees just as it would any employee—judge on merit, not gender. Don't provide preferential treatment based on gender..."
Is it coincidence that "powerful" women don't see femaleness as a limitation? I think not.
What they all have in common is personal drive. Personal drive is power.
To those who say women face advancement limitations, I say nonsense. Being a business woman in no way hinders me if I don't let it. Similarly, being a parent in no way hinders me unless I let it.
Of course it wasn't always this way. Initially, it was indisputably difficult for women to advance. But due to the courageous first, the promotion path is well-forged. I commend and thank those brave women. Their efforts paid off.
And the pendulum has now swung. With the increasing number of dual-income families and single-parent households, men have significant responsibilities at home and face the same struggles as their female counterparts. We're all in the same boat.
Women simply don't need special treatment to be successful in business. To be successful requires personal drive.
If women (or men) want advancement, then advance!
If women (or men) don't like the culture in their firm, then change it. Or leave.
If women (or men) don't want to be owners in a predominantly male firm, then start a new one. It's easier than ever to do, and many people are.
"Women's issues" are falsely named. Certainly everyone benefits from support and skill development.
We mustn't keep the "women's issue" mantra going. Things that we continually call attention to become our realities, even if they aren't real.
Morgan Freeman's interview with Mike Wallace provides perspective on the problem of paying too much attention to distinctions between people:
It's time to neutralize the entire discussion of gender in the workplace. How do we end women's issues?
How about we just stop talking about it.
The chatter everywhere in the accounting world surrounds what a hostile selling environment we're in. It was bad 2-3 years ago and it isn't any better today. Hand-wringing CPAs are convinced there's nothing they can do.
But there is.
You really can break free of the low-price wars. But there are a few things you'll need to do. And they take practice. To get started, check out this article (shared with AAM's permission).
PDF: Selling Profitable Work When the Fee-Squeeze is On
It's the Oct feature article for Association for Accounting Marketing's Growth Strategies magazine, and it is a nod to the type of content in my next book: Pricing to Win. Landing the Right Work at the Right Price.
Would really love your feedback and your questions. They'll help me know what to address within the pages of the book! Thanks!!
I wrote these FAQs several years ago for my original website and, when renovating that site, I posted it on a magazine site I used to contribute to. But I just discovered this content is no longer online. Yikes!
It's evergreen material and lots of partners and marketing professionals have said that it's useful so I'm happy to share it again for your reference.
Why do we need to market when we can barely staff the work we have?
Perhaps you don’t.
Marketing to increase business volume so you can work harder doesn’t sound appealing if you’re already at capacity. However, even if you don’t want more work, if you want to increase your firm’s health and improve morale, beefing up the marketing function can still help you.One way to tell if marketing will benefit your firm is to ask yourself these questions:
If you answered “yes” to any of the above, marketing can help.
What is the difference between “marketing” and “selling?”
Marketing is the on-going process of appealing to potential clients and ensuring repeat business from existing clients.
Marketing:
Selling is:
Successful sellers use active listening skills and demonstrate the ability to meet the prospect’s needs by conveying competence and confidence.
Sellers rely on public perception of expertise and excellence—a product of marketing; therefore, they feel obligated to meet these expectations and to follow through impeccably. As with marketers, successful sellers also create positive moments of truth, even if they are not hired, by representing the firm well.
Marketing and sales overlap slightly, and depend on each other, but they are distinctly different.
Can I expect a marketer to generate new business leads?
Some marketers are skilled in “sales,” but most are not. Selling requires a unique skill set—some marketing professionals possess it and some do not—just the same as accounting or legal professionals.
All marketers should be able to identify ideal prospects and introduce them to the capabilities of the firm. Many marketers are adept at coaching partners/team members on conducting sales calls and critiquing sales techniques. Some marketers can handle sales calls personally, but most don’t want to do this full time—it usually isn’t their core competency or deepest desire.
If you want a person to focus on delivering qualified leads to you, closing the leads, or teaching you how to close the leads, you will probably want a sales professional instead of or in addition to a marketer.
Many firms hire both marketing and sales professionals.
How should sales and marketing functions be aligned?
If you hire both a marketing professional and a sales professional, involve the first hire in the process of selecting the second. Structuring them as laterals works best.
Though effective salespersons often to receive higher overall compensation (base plus commissions), don’t assume you must structure according to pay level. One reason to avoid positioning the sales person over marketing (aside from the difference in skill sets) is that the sales person should not be spending time managing the marketing function—s/he should dedicate full-time to securing new business.
Partners tend to get very excited about the rapid bottom-line impact a salesperson promises and they sometimes glamorize this position. Be careful not to alienate an existing marketer in the process of bringing in a salesperson.
Recognize that rather than contributing to bottom-line profits overnight, the marketing professional’s initiatives usually take 18 months or more to affect revenues. In the meantime, whether there is a salesperson or not, marketers can receive intense and undue pressure from partners to justify their presence in the firm.
Since the sales and marketing functions rely heavily on each other, it is critical to cultivate a strong rapport between the two. Discourage an adversarial or competitive atmosphere; do everything you can to create a team.
An effective way to align the roles could be to provide a split incentive for new business generated by the team. Since the sales person is probably a commission arrangement, perhaps the marketer could receive a 1/2 percent for their involvement in the sale. This arrangement creates a cooperative team.
Even at the height of success, marketers can rarely take sole credit for specific sales (and seldom bear sole blame for non-sales) because others are involved in the sales process. Be sensitive to this and factor it in when measuring the marketer’s performance.
What does a marketing person do?
Marketers do all kinds of interesting things, but their job descriptions vary substantially by level and by firm. Job titles alone are insufficient for gauging the skill level of a marketer.
Here's a general guideline of duties by level:
Chief Marketing Officer
Marketing Director
Marketing Manager
Marketing Assistant
Marketing is complex and different initiatives require very different skill sets.
No single person is an expert in every aspect of marketing. This should be expected and understood by partners, and not held against the marketer. One person can certainly do (or oversee) many of these things but, if you have a fairly high-level person, be certain that he or she has authority to obtain additional resources (temporary or permanent) when needed.
It's highly likely that every marketer will need to outsource some projects, at one time or another, to round out his or her talents; especially if your marketer is a lone soldier in your firm. Outsourcing is an efficient way to maximize your solo marketer.
If you have a diverse marketer who can do most everything listed above, count yourself lucky and appreciate your marketer even more!
How can I tell if our firm needs an in-house marketing person?
Marketing has been formalized in some CPA firms for upwards of 20 years.
Those early experiences weren't all good ones for the firms or the ground-breaking marketers brave enough to step into firms never before exposed to marketing.
Yet it's still far too often that I hear horror stories about “the marketing person we used to have.” Partners still say, “We had a marketer and it just didn’t work,” or “We didn’t get any results after a whole year!” They sometimes confess they weren’t sure what the marketer was supposed to do and that there has been no formal marketing plan or budget.
This is the fault of the firm, not the marketer!
Marketers can only succeed to the degree that the partners and firm dynamics enable them. Partners often squelch their own marketing success and usually don’t even realize it. Marketing on the fly (without distinct intentions and goals) is not much more effective with a marketing person than without it.
The key to increasing results when adding a marketer is to be committed to planning, hiring the right person for the level of sophistication of your plan, and allocating the budget to support the plan—in advance…not on a piecemeal basis.
If you want your marketing to choke, just skip the above steps. Hiring the RIGHT person is critical.
Firms will bring in somebody with heavy desktop publishing skills and become annoyed the person doesn’t go out and find leads. This is sort of misalignment between expectations and skill sets is something that we see ALL THE TIME.
Don't make this common mistake. Your firm is only ready to employ a marketer if your firm understands the differences in levels of skill and what your marketer should be expected to achieve—and if your firm is willing and able to support the marketing function properly.
To guarantee a successful experience, your firm must be committed to each of these:
These elements ensure an experience with minimum frustration and maximum results. Anything less spells trouble.
Be realistic about who you are and what you will and will not do. Know what you want, and be committed to participating in marketing initiatives—the marketer will not be able to market in lieu of you.
What level of “marketer” does my firm need?
A match between skill sets of the marketer and agreed-upon expectations of the firm is imperative. Polling comparably sized firms and firms whose success you admire might be a good idea to get a sense of the number and level of their marketing personnel.
Of course, firm culture is a huge factor behind success or lack thereof—a more progressive firm will need more, and higher-level, marketers. A firm with politics that limit a strategic go-getter ought to find a more task oriented person.
A cost-effective solution for a firm starting a formal marketing process is to outsource the strategic and other high-level marketing functions, while providing the support to carry out resulting initiatives from within the firm.
Officer/Director
Some firms simply don’t need of a full-time Chief Marketing Officer or even a Marketing Director; this doesn’t mean the firm isn’t healthy or growing. First, this level of expertise does not come cheaply. The salary is just the beginning.
A seasoned marketer will expect to launch and/or oversee a full-fledged marketing program. The marketer, by the act of the firm hiring him or her, should be safe in assuming that the firm is committed to moving forward aggressively and willing to monetarily support such a plan.
Beyond the marketer’s salary, the firm should expect to establish a minimum marketing budget of at least 2-3% of gross revenue. When firms hire a high-level marketer and subsequently realize they are not prepared to act upon the marketer’s recommendations, the under-utilized director becomes discouraged and leaves. Such an experience can leave a firm with a bad perception of marketing in general. But the firm is at fault for misleading themselves and the person they hired.
Manager
A Marketing Manager will be a good fit for a firm that wants to give the marketer a good amount of authority and autonomy, and will respect the Manager’s budgetary, personnel, and procedural recommendations. A firm that won’t micromanage their marketer will be pleased with a manager-level hire.
Coordinator/Assistant
Most firms with 30 or more people need, at minimum, a Marketing Coordinator or Marketing Assistant. A Coordinator will be somewhat proactive in making suggestions and recommendations to the partners and practice groups of a firm, and will meet deadlines without being reminded. A Marketing Assistant will be mostly "responsive" to partners' direction and requests and will need guidance with regard to prioritization and should not be relied upon to make recommendations about the firm’s marketing plans. If you have an Assistant who is on top of projects, has many new ideas, and adds value to the firm’s programs, he or she needs a promotion—this person is a Coordinator!
To whom should the marketer report?
Your marketer should report to the managing partner or the most influential partner. The role of the person to whom the marketing person reports is important to the success or failure of the marketer and greatly impacts the results the marketing department can produce. The partner should have the ultimate authority to be able to solely approve or decline any particular initiative.
This is what an effective partner will be able to accomplish:
If the person to whom the marketer reports cannot do these things—if politics are such that no one can—then you can expect to burn through marketers every three years or so because your environment is too hostile for them to thrive or succeed.
I'll talk below about what a huge problem this is in the accounting industry.
When can we expect to see marketing results?
Marketing takes time. Influencing the public and building a reputation can occur more quickly now than ever before, but still isn't achieved overnight. Remember, it takes a lot longer to convince people you are good than to convince them you are not.
The marketing professional’s initiatives usually take a minimum of 18-24 months to affect revenues. Most initiatives take two to three years to reap results. Be patient and don’t go “back to the drawing board” for a new marketing plan, or a new marketer, too soon.
Marketers in CPA firms are often under pressure by partners to constantly justify their existence. Yet their success hinges significantly (see above) on partner support and participation—frequently inadequate.
Frustration mounts quickly on both sides: on the partner side when results aren't promptly visible, and on the marketer's side when partners fail to plan, support (monetarily or philosophically, or both) and implement appropriate initiatives.
[Warning: old stats. But they haven't changed much.] According to Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) 2004 Member Survey, only 49% of responding marketers have been with their current firms for over 3 years. 56% of the marketers indicate they are not their firm’s first marketer.
Fallout of marketers across all professions is far too high and the benefits a firm should reap from longevity—consistency in applied marketing techniques—suffers.
What you can do to make your marketing program successful:
How might marketing’s “cultural changes” affect my firm?
No matter what the firm’s size, certain changes will begin to occur when a firm implements a defined and structured approach approach to marketing. With an experienced marketer’s influence, some of the things a firm might expect to see are:
Just had an interesting experience with my daughter and my "very highly trusted" dentist.
My phrase is in quotes because CPAs and lawyers frequently tell me their clients don't mind their surprise after-the-fact hourly bills because their "clients trust them." I'm sure they do. Just like I have always trusted my dentist.
I've trusted my dentist because a) he's a really good guy, b) his office staff is nice, and c) he has always priced me fairly. Sound familiar?
He's not the cheapest in town, but he's reasonable, especially in light of my being a private-pay patient whereas other dentists sometimes charge inflated (as they would for insurance) prices even for private pays.
This recent experience has caused my past unquestioned level of trust to shift to a more skeptical trust. It's because I was surprised with a post-treatment bill that was about 50% higher than I thought the visit was worth.
I don't want this to be seen as one of those gripey, sour-grapes posts. Rather, I want to illustrate how someone whose bill I've never, ever questioned became someone whose prices I will now inquire about in advance—how someone who hasn't been a price-sensitive buyer, is now going to behave like one.
And the irony is that this check was the smallest one I've ever written to them.
At the root of the problem (sorry, couldn't resist) is that I disagreed about the "worth" and I had reason to question the "need."
A simple conversation with me before proceeding would have prevented my shift from very trusting to skeptical. Discussion could have clarified need, created context for me and my daughter (risk, comfort, peace of mind, convenience), and solidified the worth to me of his price. Or it would have given me the ability to choose: "not today...let's give it a week or two and we might be back."
CPAs and lawyers, it's the same for you! Just because clients seem to trust you even though you've surprise billed them in the past, it can all change on a dime.
Have you ever quickly jumped in and fixed a problem, and then decided to bill your client later for the fix, confident it'll be obvious to them it was worth it? Don't be so sure. It's pretty high-risk behavior.
Think: what's the right thing to do here?
Buyers deserve control of their purchases. Very key is that we, as buyers, also need context to gain a sense of true value—to decide "is it worth $x?" My daughter's visit might have been worth even more than they charged if they'd discussed it with me. But that's not what happened. I felt held captive. And underinformed.
A really awesome example of context is found in this little story "What a Dead Squirrel Taught Me About Premium Pricing" from Fast Company today. (Paying $125 sounds awfully good next to $20K, or next to not using your beloved porch.)
Keep the trust high. Provide information. Provide context. Provide choice. Giving the gifts of personal control and sense of worth to your buyers will keep them trusting you forever.
(Image courtesy of waldenpond on flickr. And hat tip to Chris Farmand for the dead-squirrel story)
I found this article about Gen Y and financial planning (and social media and web research) pretty interesting: "Firms Must Embrace Social Media to Reach Gen Y."
I don't know that I agree that financial advisory firms (or other businesses) MUST embrace social media, per se, to reach Gen Y. But it's a wise approach for exposure since social media dramatically increases your ability to be found online, and Gen Y peeps most definitely turn to the web to find ideas and solutions. And as the article's author Hannah Wu points out, the ability to communicate with your advisors using alternative channels can be perceived as an added benefit.
I think my friends (and past clients) Michael Goodman and Annette Clearwaters, when they co-founded Clarity a few years ago, created a brilliant approach with their DIY-and-as-needed-assist approach geared for exactly the folks Hannah describes. Check out their Glossary, for instance. For beginning investors, the ability to quickly define terms that are new to them is extra comforting.
Annette worked with Michael in his wealth-management practice Wealthstream Advisors which, like most financial-advisory practices, serves people of high-net worth and has higher investment miminums than most people who are starting out will have. Wanting to also help beginning investors who aren't a match for Wealthstream (yet) and both understanding and appreciating the DIY approach that Hannah describes, they launched Clarity.
How helpful might a DIY or start-with-research person find your website or blog?
Back to Hannah's article, using social-media channels to get the word out about financial-advisory (or any other) services is beneficial, but the bigger issue is making sure the service offerings are matched to the people who use a given channel.
High-net-worth Boomers are definitely online, but they tend to run in different web circles than Gen Y, wealthy or not. Boomers are on Facebook to see pics of their grandkids and reconnect with their childhood and college friends. Gen Y are also on Facebook, but Tweet a lot as well. Boomers and Gen X are on LinkedIn, Gen Y not so much.
Facebook has amazing advertising potential when you know the demographics (education level, career, social, political, geographical) of your audience. LinkedIn, too. Twitter is not so great for isolating any group, but has massive viral power. LinkedIn is sort of in the middle.
Most important is to simply be online at all. Then, to be most effective:
If you want people to trust your financial advice, they have to feel comfortable with you. Not intimidated, not overwhelmed, not underwhelmed. Conveying confidence without arrogance, and listening thoughtfully and respectfully are as important online as offline.
Since 2005 (for years and years) I've raved about the effectiveness and amazing coolness of sharing your intellectual capital in order to build business.
It's still one of the most effective and affordable means of marketing out there for professional firms. Today I came upon a recent(ish) post on Mack Collier's blog called "5 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Marketing and Start Teaching." Couldn't agree more.
To take Mack's post a step further, there are a handful of problems or missed considerations I see in execution, or things that I am asked about when professionals want to know how to get started. Here goes:
"Bill and duck" is a term I coined a few years ago.
In the case of CPA firms, billing and ducking is the process of proposing a price (as with an audit), and later billing an extra amount that the client didn't preapprove. The "bill and duck" practice is acting on a temptation to capture result of scope creep combined with a lack of communication.
The scope creep can take a couple forms. Either the original (usually time-based) budget for the work was higher than the price a firm proposed (to get in the door, the firm reduced their price to some amount below budget—probably a number close to the prior-year auditor's fee), or else "other issues arose."
Most commonly, these "other issues" are pinned on the client for not being ready when the job starts. And further blamed on "staff not telling partners before proceeding with the work." (These are actually both the firm's fault, which I discuss in "Retraining Clients When You've Taught Them to Abuse You.")
Billing and ducking is just ugly. So are write-offs. There are better ways.
When a firm wants to get in the door, a low price will often do it. But do yourself a favor and make sure of two things:
The scope needs to be the specific definition of what is included your work at each price. And even what isn't.
The typical hours budget is internal and inadequate for scoping. What we're looking for in pricing is scope definition that matters to the buyer. The generic "scope" or "approach" section found in most firm's proposals is so canned and vague that it is usually inadequate. Clarity is important, and by presenting options side by side, buyers can easily see what is not part of your lower prices.
This perspective was challenged in a post on Accounting Today written by Edwin Kliegman called "Value Billing versus Low-balling Your Competitors." In it, he refers to an example in a prior article I was quoted in called "What Price is Right?"
In the context of what I've written above about better scoping and offering options, I'm sharing a clarification of the example mentioned in the "What Price is Right?" piece. It expands on detail that space didn't permit in the article. I also posted this as a comment to Mr Kliegman's piece:
My point in the article is that firms are presently just proposing (for example) a $19K fee knowing that, internally, their budget for the audit will be $24K. They are presently low-balling and fully intend to do the $24K (or more) of work. Or worse, they are bidding the work at $19K to get in the door, and then later turning around and billing the client extra for scope creep (partners often say they don't even know about it until they see it on the WIP).
This happens more often than not. I call this "billing and ducking," which significantly destroys your client's trust in you (even when they do pay the surprise bill) and, in many cases, is downright unethical because clients should approve the work before it's done or not be billed for it.
Instead of the firm going in knowing they will be losing money on that work, or practicing a bill-and-duck method of attempted cost recovery, what I am recommending is that firms more wisely scope and price their work--to not take a loss, yet still be able to offer an in-the-door price.
When stripping out value from the original scope (in other words, create an economy-class offering), the firm can prevent a loss on the low-cost work. Value stripped might not even mean less auditing, it might be the timing or the method of payment (pay in advance, for instance, and receive the lower fee).
The firm, side by side with that, can also offer other options. The original scope and terms might become the midrange option, and a premium option might be added as well.
I assure you, clients never "laugh their heads off" at choices. They like them. It puts them in control which is right where they belong. Further, it changes your conversation with them from "will I do business with XYZ firm?" to "how will I do business with XYZ firm?"
And behavioral economics shows that people tend to go with the middle option or up. That's why three options are better than two.
As an aside, in my comment on Edwin's article, I also clarified two other common misunderstandings that I observed reflected in the articles. One is the difference between a "fixed price" and a "value-based price." The other is the use of the term "value billing" which needs to cease because there's no such thing. Here's why:
It's important to note that none of this approach is "value pricing" at all. It's merely "fixed pricing."
Fixed pricing is when you commit to a certain price for a certain scope of work. A "value price" is never based on the seller's inputs that include time, efforts, or costs.
Value prices are based on the tangible and intangible results or outcomes for the buyer, and should only be employed when the buyer agrees that the worth is there for them to pay that price and when the seller agrees that the worth is there for them to do the promised work.
Lastly, some consider this semantics, but we (at VeraSage Institute) never call it "value billing" because billing is done in arrears whereas "pricing" always occurs in advance and is quite intentional.
We believe these definitions provide important distinctions that are helpful in clarifying the obvious confusion surrounding pricing practices.
Veteran CPA firm marketer Katie Tolin had posted an article on the need for a social marketing audit in a LinkedIn group I manage a while back and I just spotted it (yeah, I know, my bad).
I commented there with some specific recommendations and thought I'd share them here with you, too. Here's what I wrote, slightly modified for this blog...
I think it's important for the marketing departmant to have their arms around who in the organization is doing what online (only relevant to the org, of course) and to help those individuals learn the best, most effective ways to interact on the Interwebs.
Knowing where people "are" is a good start, but we (as their marketing educators and supporters) want to help them focus their efforts and be aware of signs of true success so they become increasingly encouraged when they occur.
The signs can be quite subtle and might go unnoticed!
Side note: For the individual versus company promotion trade-off, you might like to see my blog post "Why Social Media Rock Stars Are Good For Your Firm." (Sometimes CPA- or law-firm partners get frustrated about the attention an individual "supposedly representing the firm" starts getting when their online visibility increases. This article helps explain to those partners why they should encourage the individual "fame" and not squelch it.)
As the marketing audit article says, the audit isn't just about assessing where we stand at the moment, but this is an important part of ascertaining success when you're using multiple channels to market.
You can rarely truly know exactly where a lead is generated anymore (unless it's from a specific campaign) and that's OK. We are looking for overall growth. This is all the ROI that you'll need.
To accurately assess growth later, I recommend taking these broad baseline measurements now:
Then it's wise to plan for the right types of outcomes from online interaction. Some very specific sample objectives (besides the obvious $ in the door) might be:
These are very attainable goals with social marketing. Having goals like this (rather than just "tweet often") might help reshape how you or your colleagues are using social-media tools.
I also think it's important to track the right things. Just # of followers or visits or likes or RTs is pretty useless. I like the marketing department (or individual) to keep track of mentions:
Ultimately, we're looking for an increase in mentions that are positive and made by increasingly influential people in the right spaces.
Sound like a lot of work? Maybe. No one ever said marketing was easy! Also, what do you want from a basically free marketing channel?
You don't have to do any of these things to be successful...you might luck out.
But if you're not having success, or if you really want to ensure it, you've got to be able to recognize it when it happens. Like I said, social marketing success can be very subtle, but never confuse that subtlety with lack of importance to you and your organization. It's similar to—and deeply tied to—the level of subtlety and importance as your brand. And it merits the same level of forethought and attention.
These days, our brands are often defined by our most recent interactions.
A Facebook friend said today that she misses her hour. (I miss mine, too.)
It got me thinking about billing by the hour and what someone actually does when he or she works into the wee hours on one of those Saturday nights when an hour is lost (or gained).
I then remembered with great fondness a terrific blog post I read years ago by The Anonymous Lawyer:
Saturday, April 02, 2005
This is a terrible day. Every year it frustrates me. For no good reason, tonight at 2 A.M. we lose a billable hour. Daylight savings time is ridiculous. Individually, it's not a big deal, but think of it on a firm-wide level. That's hundreds of billable hours. Gone. Without a trace. And don't tell me we get them back in October when the clocks turn the other way, because by October everyone forgets about the debt they incur back in April, and just uses the extra hour to sleep. It's a useless waste of valuable time, and I hate having to tolerate it every single year. Definitely on the list of things I will change when I become chairman of the firm.
Jeremy Blachman's satirical blog about life in Big Law is a riot. You can read about The Anonymous Law Firm here. Is it really fiction? You decide. I think he left law and went on to write books. It's easy to be happy for him...
Changing workforce mentality, evolving customer/client needs, and transparency of service are shining big, scary spotlights on many of the flaws in the professional-firm business model of old.
Some problems inherent in the traditional business model are:
If you'd like to learn how to break free of these and many more symptoms of a business model that somehow survives (definitely not thrives!) despite its detriments, join VeraSage Institute's educators at one or more of these upcoming events!
Details and tickets available at this special event website for dates as follows:
The events are organized by VeraSage Senior Fellow John Chisholm (John Chisholm Consulting) along with five enlighted friends of VeraSage: Matthew Tol (Mta OptimaChartered Accountants), Michael Bradley (Marque Lawyers), Michael Stewart (Integrity Wealth), Matthew Burgess (McCullough Robertson Lawyers) and Steve Major (Trusted Authority Partners).
Immediately following the AICPA's PS/Tech & AAM conference (10-13 Jun) VeraSage will host 2 separate but related programs in Las Vegas at the Aria! (The AICPA hotel room rates will apply)