We got asked last week: how much time we thought was spent on the planning of a video vs. actually recording it. Our first instinct was to say 70:30.
70% planning the video and 30% actually recording it.
When you plan for a marketing action (recording a video, posting on social media, drafting a blog post), it will take you significantly less time to actually get whatever it is done.
Because it’s all in the planning.
As accountants you understand this entirely. One of your main priorities is helping your clients to plan their finances better so they can build better businesses and lives for themselves and their clients.
It’s the same for your marketing.
The more you plan, the more you’ll get done and the better it will be. Being intentional and specific with your planning helps relieve that feeling of marketing being a burden. When you take the time to prepare a task, you’ll see how much quicker you can get things done.
This month we’re sharing ways you can plan better in your marketing. Starting with planning to attend the Accelerator taster session next week and Karen’s talk at Accountex the week after!
Free LIVE Accelerator taster session!
When you’re thinking about joining a coaching group, or a training session, you’d like to first know what it’s actually going be like. How does it feel to be part of the group? How do the sessions run? What experience are you going to have?
We hear you.
You can join our free LIVE Accelerator taster session on Wednesday 4th May at 3pm BST!
Karen will be running the session and will be joined by one of our current Accelerator members, Alex, who will enter into the “live coaching” element so you can get a sense of how it feels to be a part of the group.
Here is the link to register for the session.
The focus of the session will be on CHOOSING YOUR AUDIENCE which includes:
- How to know who your audience is (i.e. a specific industry, a type of person…)
- Good marketing divides: why and how you do not accept everybody who comes to you
- The three requirements for choosing your audience (i.e. the most profitable, the most likeable, and those for whom you can show results)
You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions relating to your firm’s audience, or marketing, or anything else you’d like to ask about. There’s no pressure to do this, you’re welcome to just sit and listen and learn! The choice is yours.
See you there!
P.s If you do decide to join Accelerator after the session, we’ll give you the FREE bonus stuff (which you can also get when you join before 29th April). You can read all about the bonus stuff here!
PF Team Retreat
This month the whole PF team enjoyed a 3-day team retreat! With our team being so spread out across the world, we were able to do a mix of online sessions and regional meet ups. We’re hoping for a full team in-person retreat later this year!
One of the biggest learnings we had from this retreat (and previous ones) is the more you plan the sessions, the better they go and the more you get out of each one.
With this in mind, ahead of our book discussion session (this time the whole team read Atomic Habits), we identified themes from the book which we felt were most important for PF and for helping our clients.
During the session, we then broke out into breakout rooms and each went through a particular thing we wanted to address at PF: a system or a rhythm we want to improve on.
We all agreed it’s amazing how much you can achieve in 30 minutes when you’re intentional and specific about what you’re working on and what you want to get out of it. It’s all in the planning.
Some of the team were able to get together for day two and it was full of creativity, laughter, delicious food and a culture night lead by Ash, who lives in South Africa. Ash had instructed us all to get South African wine or tea and chocolate and then we all painted areas of South Africa which are important to Ash.
We all started with the same two pictures… and as creativity goes, we all ended up with very different results!
On day three, the UK contingent went to a whisky distillery and learning how the principle of “the right way is the long way” applies to both whisky and marketing!
Jamie and Kendall from our US team met up in Chicago and enjoyed museum trips, delicious tacos and lots and lots of laughter!
StephieG in Argentina and Ash in South Africa enjoyed some #creativitypillar time and took some PF photos for our new website!
Every team retreat helps us learn new things about ourselves, about each other and about PF as a team and as a company. And about our clients who sit at the heart of why we do what we do.
We’ve been planning our September retreat for a few months now… as the more planned it is, the better it will run!
If you’re thinking of running a team retreat for your firm, Karen shares how in this article: ‘Planning and executing a team retreat which helps your business to be better’
Hear Karen speak at Accountex on 12th May
More leads means more clients. Right? And so you’ll grow your firm to where you want to. Easy.
Or… what if more leads are just more leads? More leads which turn into clients who aren’t a values fit or who challenge your fees or who don’t understand your value. (Or all three).
These leads are costing your firm more than money.
Instead of more leads, you want better clients.
Karen is going to be speaking at Accountex of this concept of “Better client, not more leads” and how you can use your marketing to draw in clients you LOVE working with (and send the wrong ones away!)
You can listen to Karen speak on Day 2: 12th May at 10:15-10:45am. You’ll find more details here!
Watch Karen’s 5 minute video ahead of the day to hear more about what you’ll learn from the session:
Next Lab action session: 6 May 2022
Our first “actions” sessions ran in the PF Lab this month and here’s what Lab members achieved in the 40 minutes:
- “Started to build a landing page on my website for after people have filled out my discovery form”
- “I went through 42 existing resources we have and picked out which bits I want to use in our marketing. I’ve identified some changes I want to make to our proposals, I’ve created a new team meeting agenda and case study template.”
- “I worked on a skeleton plan for an event we’re running next month and got a lot further with that I thought I would.”
- “I’ve planned my social media for May and half of June. I’ve got the ideas planned and then I’ll write the post at the time.”
- “I got a reasonable amount done on my blog ‘What can I expect when my accountant completes a VAT return for me?’. Now it needs finished off and edited.”
We asked each of these Lab members one week before to share what they intended to work on during the session. By having this planned ahead of time, it meant everyone could get stuck straight into their action, rather than spending the time planning what to do.
The same will happen for this upcoming session: you’ll be asked to share your intention for the marketing action you’ll take (if you’re not sure of your intention yet, you can share some ideas and we’ll help you chose one!).
The session is about making progress on that ONE item you really do need and want to finish.
The next actions session is on Friday 6th May at 1-2:15pm BST.
These Lab actions sessions are all about getting marketing things done which:
- You’ve put off
- You “never seem to have time for”
- Feel overwhelming (“where do I even start?”)
- Feel confusing (am I really doing the right thing? Is this worth spending time on at all?)
You can either join the Lab with a monthly or annual membership, or sign up for this one off action session!
That’s it for this month! If you’d like to receive these monthly rounds up straight to your inbox, you can sign up here!