I am a big proponent of strategy and having a purpose for doing something. I don’t generically tell my firms to do something because everyone else is doing it. However, regardless of your feelings about “tweeting” , I do think it is something to keep a close eye on. Why? Because if you are looking for more visibility online, you should be paying attention to Twitter.

Yahoo Partnership with Twitter

Yahoo recently announced its partnership with Twitter. While tweets showing up in newsfeeds aren’t new, they do change the importance and relevance this channel can play. Twitter’s partnership with Yahoo means that relevant and personalized tweets will be showing up alongside stories in search results. This partnership expands on Yahoo’s mission to personalize search results to the user.

Yahoo isn’t alone in moving to more personalized pages – Google has been doing this for years and I believe that we will continue to see more of this from all of the search engines.

What this means for Accounting & Professional Service Firms

You should be paying attention to Twitter as a channel to help increase your visibility online. Tweeting relevant content to your business and commenting on hot topics within the niches you service or services you provide can help get you visibility online that you otherwise couldn’t optimize for.

Along with opportunity also comes risk. Even if you aren’t ready to tweet, you should know what others (past and present employees and clients) might be saying about your online.

The post Why Your Firm Should Be Paying Attention To Twitter appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

I have been intrigued by the storyline in the recent blockbuster book and movie “The Hunger Games” since my daughter was tasked with reading it in the summer of 2010 before she entered her freshman year at Kansas State University.  The University asked each Freshman to read the book so they could all have something in common as they arrived on campus.  I decided I should also read the book so that I could join her in on the conversation – and I’m so glad that I did!  The foundational storyline is about Panem, a totalitarian nation that is divided into districts and the Capitol.  Each year two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games – a battle to the death for the 2 lottery “winners” from each district.  At first glance it is brutal and disturbing, but when you look deeper you can apply life lessons for almost every aspect of life, political, social, personal and today – the management of an accounting firm.   Let’s take a look at 4 aspects and people in the storyline:

The Districts

The book shows various districts that could easily be equated to firms throughout the country who are compared to each other by niche, size and economic diversity.  In the Hunger Games, individuals have no choice about where they live and what they must do for a living, but in your firm you do!   Are you happy with the niche your firm is working within?  Do you need to think deeper, or develop new services?  In our real world – the choice is yours. You can certainly create the “district” you want by planning, researching and developing the world that you want to live in.

Katniss Everdeen

The heroin of the story is a young girl who emerges as the person that everyone is pulling for.  She does not come from the most prestigious district, but her natural ability to lead, make decisions and stand up for what is right is impressive.  Do you have a Katniss in your firm?  Young, intelligent, bold and fearless in their quest to be the next leader in your firm.  In the book, they accepted Katniss as a volunteer for the games, without hesitation.  How do you react when that young talent in your firm steps up – do you kindly tell them “you are not ready” or do you encourage them to accept the challenge?

Peeta Mellark

It is a well-known fact that great people are only truly amazing if they have a team of people who surround them and make them better.  As Katniss’s counterpart for District 12, Peeta is one of the people who make Katniss great.   Peeta is not particularly prepared for the games, as he is not a hunter or predisposed to be aggressive, however he is strong and has a personality that is complimentary to Katniss.  He is quieter, she is louder.  He thinks through the situation and plans for the outcome, Katniss makes decisions quickly and comes up with new ideas as they pop into her head. Independently they are good, but the two together are spectacular.  Have you built a team that surrounds you in this way?  Collaborative teams who compliment and support each other will always produce a better outcome than one person independently.  Finding each person’s unique abilities and capitalizing on them will serve you well in our competitive environment.

Haymitch Abernathy

As a former District tribute and winner of one of the past games Haymitch is now tasked as the mentor and coach for Katniss and Peeta.  I’ll say up front that Haymitch is quite a character and he is not the most likeable fellow in the beginning, but in the end I find myself drawn to the fact that he has intellectual capital that is imperative to the success of his charges.  Katniss and Peeta seek to learn from Haymitch all of the tips and tricks that will protect them and help them come out of the games with a positive result.  That does not mean that they always LOVE Haymitch.  They argue, push back and sometimes question the tactics that Haymitch brings to the table, but in the end they use his valuable council to help them on their sometimes torturous journey.  I hope you are smiling right now, knowing that this is describing how leaders of the firm are perceived by their staff.  Fight the good fight – and continue to teach the lessons that our up and comers will need as they move to leadership positions within the firm.

As they say in the book (and movie) “Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Sandra Wiley is a shareholder with the firm of Boomer Consulting, Inc. Her passion is helping firms work at a higher level by developing people, plans and processes for success.

The post Is Your Firm like the Hunger Games? appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

This post originally appeared on Accounting Tomorrow, where Inovautus Consulting regularly contributes articles on marketing and sales for accounting firms.

Marketing and sales are time-consuming but necessary to getting more business. For most CPAs with whom I work, time is always a challenge. Most think doing more is the answer, but not always. Instead, I focus on how to help firms and partners get more mileage out of what they are currently doing before adding more to their plate. Here are three ways to get more from your efforts:

1. Speaking

Speaking is a great way to gain exposure and build credibility. We spend so much time preparing, but very rarely do we think about how to leverage that information after the fact. A few ways to get more mileage from your efforts are:

•  Deliver the presentation again. If one group is interested, it’s likely another group will be, too. Most topics can be tweaked slightly to appeal to general audiences. For example, a topic on bookkeeping can be easily modified to apply to different industries and redelivered in other venues.
• Record your presentation. Whether you deliver this online or not, you have already spent the time to prepare the presentation. In your preparation for the event, record a version of this you can turn into a video to post on your website or shorten and upload to SlideShare.
• Write an article. You already have the content. Writing an article or two on the same topic is a great way to leverage the content. Don’t have time? Take your recorded presentation above and give it to a writer or another staff member to listen to and draft an article you can edit.

2. Internal Training

Internal trainings are often a great jumping-off point for articles and blog posts. They most likely will need a little tweaking to be more prospect/client friendly, but if you’re addressing it with your staff, there is a big likelihood it would also be beneficial to your clients.

3. Converting Written Content

Most CPA firms have a newsletter and many are now blogging. However, most aren’t doing much else with their content. Consider repurposing that content into:

• Articles for publication. Often much longer than a blog posts, articles for publication can include a couple blog posts. You can also reverse this if you have long print articles by turning them into short blog posts.
• SlideShare presentations. For those really hot topics, consider turning these articles or blog posts into a SlideShare presentation.
• Update previously written content. Have articles from a couple years ago? Rather than write something new, simply review and update it.

The final piece of advice is to promote, promote, promote. Once is not nearly enough. Don’t be afraid to share your content or bring back more evergreen topics periodically. We all consume content differently and most people won’t remember what you wrote a year ago.

Want more ideas for repurposing your content? Check out these 19 tips for reusing and repurposing your content.

The post 3 Easy Ways to Get More From Your Marketing appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

A good email list is part of a strong marketing program today; collecting business cards and loading them into your CRM system isn’t enough. Most firms are leaving many opportunities to capture permission based marketing information behind in their everyday marketing activities. Here are 6 ideas on how to grow your permission marketing lists.

1. Hand out a survey at all speaking engagements that asks people how they want to stay in touch with you. I find that giving people options significantly enhances engagement. It can also help you generate more business.
2. Build your mailing lists. Not everyone may want to receive your newsletter, but they may want your due date reminders. Make sure you have multiple email lists set-up. Examples for different lists might include: due date reminders, client communications, newsletter, legislative updates, or industry-specific lists.
3. Encourage connecting on your social profiles. I like to drive people to my social profiles. This is a low risk option that allows me to stay connected with people without requiring them to share too much personal information.
4. Convert your social followers by running periodic campaigns that drive people to sign up for one of your permission based marketing lists (like a newsletter).
5. Handout social cards with QR codes and your social profiles at conferences, sponsorships, and other events to let people know where to connect with you.
6. Include specific calls to action in all articles that you write. Every article or piece of content you write should have a call to action. Many times, that can be as simple as “subscribe to our newsletter” or “connect with us online”.

In many of the cases above, we are suggesting you drive engagement from offline to online. In those cases, a landing page will serve very useful here in helping you connect.

The post 6 Ways to Build Your Permission Marketing Lists appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

Landing Pages are an important part of any online strategy. Geared at getting a visitor to take a very specific action, landing page strategy and optimization can impact your conversion rate in a positive way. Here are 5 ways to improve your landing pages.

1. Use strong headlines. Headlines play an important role in landing pages. Visitors can come from any number of sources to get to your landing page, but the one thing they all want is to find exactly what they are looking for. One of the first things they should see is your headline. The headline should be direct, clear, and link to the language that drove them to the page. For example: if you are offering a newsletter subscription, the page headline should indicate they have arrived at the newsletter subscription page.
2. Strip your website navigation. True landing pages shouldn’t have the same navigation that the rest of your website pages do. The more options you give someone to leave the page, the higher the likelihood they won’t see the path you actually want them to move down. By removing things like website navigation, you focus the visitor on the one action you want them to take.
3. Keep your copy focused. Landing pages are about one thing you are asking your visitor to do. Make sure you copy is focused on that one thing. Talk about the benefits and don’t forget to include credible information, like testimonials or video previews on the page.
4. Keep your calls to action above the fold. Your calls to action (CTA) should be clear and stand out. They also need to be  what is called “above the fold”, or in the first half of the computer screen before your visitors have to scroll. People naturally read left to right in an F pattern, so those CTAs also should be placed in the upper left or right corners.
5. Emphasize your CTAs. Make sure your CTA stands out. Including graphics and color schemes that don’t blend in with the rest of your website theme will help draw the visitors eyes.
6. Keep web forms simple. The amount of information you ask for should be relative to the action you’d like people to take. Signing up for a newsletter should require no more than a name and email address, while registering for a free consultation should require more information.

Truly optimizing your landing pages will requires a little testing. Play around with your headlines, web forms, graphics and copy to see what works best. Some landing page platforms offer A/B Split Testing. If this isn’t available to you, simply pick one variable to test over a period of time to see which results in better conversions.

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Guest blog: Tamera Loerzel

We love coming into firms and asking partners, principals, managers, staff and administrators this simple question: “What’s special, unique or different about your firm?  Why would I work with you instead of another firm?”

In our experience, this question is a stumper for most! Yet, this is the question on the mind of every prospect, most of your clients and many prospective and existing staff, too. While it can be challenging to differentiate your firm, services and team from other accounting firms, it’s critical that you identify what makes you special, unique or different. And, it doesn’t have to be a long list — because people’s attention spans are short and they’ll decide if you’re different off a few ideas.

When you really look, you will find something truly special or unique about your firm. Find those two or three things that set you apart or that you’re proud of.  To do so, form a committee charged with defining your firm’s positioning and ask them to assess your firm’s strengths and answer the following questions:

• What makes us special or unique (that our target audience will care about)?
• What difference do we make in our clients’ lives?
• How do we compare to others?
• What do we most strive to be or do?

Some of the answers will be “dogs,” but this is a brainstorming exercise – you have to really work at it to get the right ideas together. Then, your committee can identify the top 10 or so “themes” and create potential positioning statements to validate with your team and clients.  Be careful not to end up being like everyone else in your quest to be different and refrain from using old clichés such as “trusted business advisor,” “not your average accountant,” or “small firm feel/big firm resources.”

Once you’ve agreed on your positioning statement based on the two or three things that make you different, you’ll be ready to develop supporting words and phrases that you can weave into your marketing copy on your web site, marketing collateral and sales proposals, and recruiting materials. Be sure to incorporate WIIFM (what’s in it for me) – or benefits – in your positioning statement so that you clearly articulate the difference you will make in the lives of your clients and in their businesses.

Realistically you won’t be able to incorporate your positioning statement in all your marketing vehicles at once, so develop a plan to do so over a 6-12 month period.   Create a communications schedule and calendar that includes both internal and external constituencies:

• Start with those “closest” to you – your team
• Then, tell your clients about your new positioning, letting them know they’ll begin to see it in different places starting with your web site
• Issue a press release about your new positioning
• Incorporate it into your recruiting and orientation materials
• Update printed materials or premiums as they need to be replaced

Provide regular updates to your team so they are aware of changes as they occur and find opportunities to explore how you “live” your positioning statements in team meetings and in other team communications, such as client success stories.

What action can you take today to begin to define – or refine – your differentiators to make it easier for your prospects, clients and team members to choose your firm over your competitors?

Tamera Loerzel is a partner of ConvergenceCoaching, LLC, a leadership and marketing consulting and coaching firm that helps leaders achieve success.  Learn more about the company and its services at www.convergencecoaching.com.  

The post What Makes You Special appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

By: Sarah Johnson

We work with a lot of professional service firms. The one thing they always want is to generate more leads. Many of them have more leads than they realize at their disposal, they are just making some common mistakes.

1. Failure to convert traffic on your website

Many firms spend a lot of time and money developing a website only to expect nothing from it. They create a well-designed site, focus on the launch of the site and then leave it. A website can be so much more than static collateral. Many firms have lots of people visiting their site, but they aren’t converting any visitors into leads.  Conversion requires more than a contact us form. It requires highly optimized landing pages that guide your visitors down a pre-defined path.

 2. Failure to leverage events

Events, whether offline or online require a lot of effort and time. However, many firm’s fail to give attendees ways to engage with them. They assume the attendees will know. Consider encouraging attendees the opportunity to engage with you after the event through a simple evaluation form. Or, you could provide them with free tools and resources. If this is a client event, direct follow-up from a partner should be a requirement.

3. No Lead Nurturing

Not all potential buyers are ready to buy at the same time. If they were, we would be reinventing ourselves yearly.  However, most marketing fails to capture leads into a process where they can be nurtured until they are ready to buy.

4. Failure to leverage speaking and writing opportunities

Most people think if they speak or write that people will come flooding in the door. Just like online, people needed to prompted.  If you want to get more from your speaking and writing, you have to encourage (aka tell them) how they can interact with you. Keep it reasonable and relevant- a contact page of information won’t cut it. Ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, connect with you on LinkedIn. When you are speaking in person, always include a brief survey with options to engage with you.

5. Driving the wrong visibility

Not all traffic is created equal. In order for you to generate more leads, you need to be in front of the right audiences that can buy from your or influence your purchase. Quantity isn’t always better than quality. Make sure the visibility you are getting is targeted and aligns with your strategy.

The post 5 Lead Generation Mistakes You Might Be Making appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

By: Sarah Johnson

Inovautus Consulting celebrated it’s 2^nd year in business last month. We are super grateful to all our fans, clients and supporters. Nothing is more important to us than helping companies grow and we are excited to be growing too. In honor of our 2^nd year in business, we thought we would share some of our most well received blog posts over the last 2 years.

Building business through boards on LinkedIn

3 Ways to grow your prospect list

What every professional should know about copyrights

Measuring your marketing and sales activities

7 Tips for a better LinkedIn Profile

When Do I Hire a Marketing Director

How to Choose a Design Agency for Your Rebranding Effort

The post 7 Ways to help you grow your business appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

Guest Blog: Rita Keller

Attention CPA firm marketing directors, firm administrators, HR professionals, IT managers and managing partners – take some time out of your busy schedule to look inward at your firm.

The accounting, auditing and tax professionals along with most of the administrative team are always very busy focusing on serving your clients’ needs. As a firm, you are continually aware of the importance in providing the type of client service thatdifferentiates your firm from the firm down the street. While the focus on great service continues, all accountants must also continue to market to new clients and cross-sell to current clients. 

While all of this is going on and everyone seems to be continually busy, it is very important for the firm management team, the managing partner and the internal, support professionals (the people mentioned in the opening paragraph), to stop, take a deep breath and set aside some time to look inward at the firm. These internally focused professionals are responsible for identifying things that need to be improved and for developing action plans based on new ideas. It is time to get things done before another busy season rolls around again.

Have you been:

• Wondering about your recruiting process?
• Noticing that almost everyone seems bored with your performance evaluation process, maybe even dreading them?
• Thinking that your firm’s brand no longer seems relevant?

To help explore any troublesome areas, have the area leader do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) on their specific area. For example, the HR director could focus on your recruiting process:

• How are the firm’s relations with the college professors?
• How does your recruiting collateral material look?
• Is the career section of your website awesome?
• What is your competition doing?

Do you, as an internally focused professional, wonder about your own performance? Reflect on your own performance and do a personal SWOT. Share it with a peer, a supervisor or friend and ask for their feedback.

Rita Keller is the Founder of Keller Advisors, LLC, the Co-Founder of SurveyCPA and a widely respected voice to CPA firm management. Through her presentations and workshops, she interacts with thousands of accountants annually. Named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting, she acts as an advisor and coach to CPA firm leaders across the country. She can be reached at rkeller@ritakeller.com.

The post Looking Inward At Your Growing CPA Firm (And Yourself) appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.

This post originally appeared on Accounting Tomorrow, where Inovautus Consulting regularly contributes articles on marketing and sales for accounting firms.

If you are like many firms, at some point you will hit a roadblock in your growth. Individual partner participation in business development won’t be enough to reach and sustain your growth goals. Individual selling is important, but there is only so much time each person has to identify, build and pursue opportunities—even if those opportunities are coming from referrals.

Sustaining growth rates requires more than just getting partners involved in business development. It also requires a strong inbound marketing strategy that can help the firm develop more opportunities than it would have the time to develop otherwise.

How inbound marketing works

Inbound marketing can seem overwhelming and a little scary. Just like business development or an audit, there are some clearly defined steps and a process. Below are the six key steps every firm needs to get started with inbound marketing.

1. Create/maintain a powerful website

Your website is critical in inbound marketing. It is a centralized hub for the rest of your marketing and business development efforts. It needs to be scalable, easily maintained and mobile-friendly.

2. Create content
If you aren’t creating your own content, you need to start. Inbound marketing in CPA firms needs some sort of content. A landing page with a “contact us” form will not cut it.

3. Generate traffic
Once you have developed your content, you need to generate traffic. After all, people can’t buy what they don’t know exists. Today, many inbound marketing strategies are rooted in digital channels to generate traffic (or visibility). However, we find that CPA firms should also consider offline channels that drive people online for increasing visibility.

4. Convert traffic to leads
The next critical step, and the one most firms fail to do, is to convert your traffic to leads. Marketing efforts often generate high visibility and brand awareness, but fall short of turning this into leads.

Converting traffic to leads requires more than a generic web page. It requires optimized landing pages that help your visitor take the next step by clearly telling them what to do. (For example: “Download this white paper.”)

5. Convert leads to sales
Once a visitor engages with you and takes an action you have clearly defined, you can then begin to convert them to sales. Most inbound marketing strategies outline behavior to their buying process so they have a clear indication of where someone might be. Once a potential buyer is in buying mode, they enter the sales process, which is where the partners step in.

The process doesn’t stop here, and it is by no means as linear as we have presented it. There are many things that will impact success with inbound marketing, from your content and social strategy to your landing pages and understanding of your markets buying process.

The post Sustain your growth: Inbound marketing 101 appeared first on Inovautus Consulting.