Your accounting firm’s marketing will be the best it can be when your team is involved. Your clients and prospects need to see you, as the owner, are not the only person in the firm. There’s a team behind you who supports you and they are as much part of your firm, your brand and your culture as you are. Having your team involved in your marketing supports you in showing, not telling, this to clients.
Your team are the ones who have conversations with your clients every day, the ones who nurture and grow relationships with them and those whom your clients share trust with. To be able to appeal to more of the types of clients you and your team love to work with, your marketing needs to be as authentic as possible and show who you truly are as a team.
That’s not to say that every one of your team members need to be involved at the same level and this won’t be the case. Depending on their role, their level of interest and your marketing plans, your team will be involved at different levels and these levels will change as your firm and your team changes (you can read more about the different levels of involvement in this article).
If you’re someone who has worked through why it matters to have your team involved and are excited, you may also be feeling overwhelmed or confused. There’s so many things your team could be doing. Start with some easy ways you can involve your team which will help both them and you to show your true selves in your marketing.
As the owner of your accounting firm, you must lead by example
To get your team involved in marketing, even in the smallest or easiest of ways, you need to be involved too. You need to be consistent with your actions. Your team will feel more encouraged and inspired to be a part of your marketing efforts if they see you doing the same. If you aren’t leading the marketing of your firm, and aren’t personally involved in it, then you won’t be able to delegate it to other members of your team.
This is the same for any dedicated marketing person you either hire in-house or outsource to. Marketing is their main responsibility, AND you will need to collaborate with them on it. The best marketing comes from the heart of your firm: you and your team. It’s a reflection of you, your story and the way you do things. It’s not just for the leader, or a dedicated marketing person, to do all the work. It needs to be a full team effort if you want to create the most authentic marketing which shows your clients and prospects exactly who you are, who you serve and how you can help them.
First choose one or two people who are already interested in getting involved
When you start involving your team in marketing, you don’t need to have every single person immediately writing blogs, posting on social media, recording videos. They do have client work they need to focus on and that’s what you’ve hired them to do. Instead choose one or two people in the team who have expressed an interest in being involved in that side of the firm, or who you have identified would be particularly good at it based on their experience, their interests and their knowledge.
If you aren’t sure who’d be interested, then ask. You could include it in a check-in with them or add it to a team meeting agenda. Set their expectations for what it will be like to get involved in your firm’s marketing and give them the space and freedom to share with you how they’re feeling about it. You may have some team members who bite your hand off to be involved in that part of your firm, and there will be others who feel more cautious about and want to see others doing it first before committing themselves. Both of these are absolutely okay and you need to pay attention and lean into your team’s feelings on both sides so they feel heard.
It’s all in the planning: make marketing as easy and clear as possible for your team
Before you get started with any marketing for your accounting firm, you first need to be clear on your brand (your tone of voice, your culture, your style), your goals (both business and personal) and your values (those which your firm is built on). If you aren’t clear on these, your team won’t be either. And neither will your marketing. Marketing will be much more challenging for you, and your team, if you don’t have these things nailed down. If you’re unsure on whether you do have these things confirmed and documented, you need to address this and confirm before going ahead with ANY marketing. You can do this in Foundations by digging into and clarifying your goals, your brand and your website so your monthly marketing becomes the best reflection of you.
Once you’re clear on those, you then need to be clear with yourself as to how and where you need your team to be contributing (i.e. blogs, social media, emails, events) depending on what marketing you’re doing/want to be doing. As part of Foundations, you’ll get a detailed marketing plan and timeline for your marketing actions and you use this to identify where you and your team will be focusing their efforts. This planning stage is critical to having your team involved.
Here’s an example of how your marketing planning list would look like from Foundations:
For any team member who isn’t in a full time marketing role, asking them to contribute to your marketing is a different part of their role and requires them to give extra time and effort. It’s absolutely worth it AND you need to recognise the additional work you’re putting on them.
This is why the planning stage is so crucial. If you go to your team with half formed ideas and vague deadlines, they’ll only half focus on what you’re saying and chances are they’ll forget about it pretty soon after. Can you blame them? No. Their priority is to serve your clients in the best way they can, and this is where their focus will be. Without a well thought out plan with specific actions and deadlines, your team will default to doing their core work and they’ll forget all about your vague suggestions to involve them in marketing. To get the most support from your team with your marketing, you need to plan out exactly what you want them to do, and crucially, explain why it matters to them.
I had a great reminder of this last week in Accelerator. I had asked one of our content writers, Daly, to record a 1 min reel for Instagram on her concept of “on-demand marketing being like on-demand accounting.” When I briefed the task to her I shared these details:
- The message I wanted the video to convey
- The format of the video (portrait orientation for an Instagram reel)
- The length of the video (no longer than 60 seconds)
- Where to upload the video (Google drive link)
- How long to spend on it (I encouraged her not to spend any longer than 15 minutes total)
I hadn’t realised Daly had never recorded a reel before, but because the details of the task were so specific and easy to follow, she stuck within the 15 minute timeline and recorded a great video (you can watch it here!). She shared that making a task she’d never done before so easy, was more important than what the task actually involved. The result was a great video from a team member which we had to share on social media, and it took her less than 15 minutes to complete.
Here’s another example. Your website needs to show it’s more than just you behind your firm and you can do this by including videos from your team on your website. Here’s the process we followed when preparing the team to record videos for our new PF site:
Step 1: I gave the team notice that I would be asking for their help and input with videos for the new site and I explained the reason why: to show clients and prospects we’re a team, not just owned by Karen, and how collaboration sits at the heart of all the work we do at PF.
Step 2: I gathered content from relevant articles the team had written and collaborated with Karen to confirm the message we wanted each video to include. I then wrote out the key points for each video and included a summary sentence of exactly what message we wanted to share in the video
Step 3: I recorded a video for every team member which included:
- A reminder of the purpose of the video
- The message we wanted the video to communicate
- The key essential points to include (this is crucial for helping your team to not waffle in videos)
- How we wanted to share the message (referencing PF ‘s tone of voice and values)
- How the video was going to be used (i.e. it will be included on the philosophy page, the services page etc)
- What to do with the video once they’d recorded it (upload it to a specified folder in our Gdrive)
Step 4: I wrote out technical guidelines for each person for their video so when it came to recording it, they had all the details they needed. These included:
- Keep it natural and specific to the points we want to share
- Look at other people’s points as well and make sure you’re familiar with them so we don’t overlap
- Wear PF branded t-shirt or hoodie
- Keep it to 3-5 minutes – no longer than 5 minutes (no rambling or waffling)
- Roughly 1 minute per point
- Record the video in landscape orientation
- Really good audio & lighting – read Katie’s blog about to do this as best you can at home
(The team have shared with me details like these make it MUCH easier for them to be involved in creating content for our marketing.)
Step 5: The team sent me their raw videos (i.e. unedited, without subtitles) and I worked with our video editor to get them ready for sharing. When it comes to video editing and getting videos ready to publish, I recommend you either do this part yourself, or outsource it, rather than asking your team to do it. It’s detailed work like this which makes a small task feel much bigger, and it can be harder to get them recording videos or creating other content which you need them to contribute to.
For us, this preparation work resulted in several videos from our team on our new website. (You can check them out on our philosophy and services pages). Having these videos helps our buyers to get to know PF as a full team and build relationships and connection with individual team members. An accountant recently shared with us how helpful it was to see all the team’s videos when she was reviewing our website and consider what step she’d take next. (Spoiler: she’s in the next Accelerator group!)
By making a task as easy as possible for your team, you’ll find it easier to ask them for their contribution, and they’ll find it easier to contribute. Give them as much information as they need, and all the tools they need to do it, so all they need to think about is actually recording the video. It’s a win for both of you: you get content from your team and they feel involved, and not burdened by the task.
The same step by step process can be applied to lots of different things in your marketing; it’s not specific to video. The main principle remains the same: plan the heck out of it and make it as EASY as possible for your team to get involved.
Start with asking your team to contribute to content, and build their involvement from there
Getting your team involved in marketing will take time. It’s not something you can achieve overnight and you will need to be patient with it. It’ll be worth the wait.
Start with some small easy ways to get them involved and then you can build involvement up from there (or maintain it if it’s enough for you). Here’s some ways you can get started:
Explain to your team how it helps THEM to be involved: your team wants to work with clients they love. That’s what helps them love the work they do, and live a better, happier life. In order to work with clients they love, your marketing needs to appeal to those people. The best way to do this is to show why you love working with those people and how you can help them. It’s full circle for your team. You all want to work with more people you love, so use their passion and enthusiasm for these people to get more of them. And then your team will enjoy their work more which is one of their main priorities.
Use their words in your marketing: Be intentional about listening to what your team is sharing in team meetings, in emails to clients, casual chats around the coffee machine and use their words and phrases in your marketing (with their permission, of course). Some of the best phrases I’ve heard our team share have come from random chats on Slack, or quick brainstorming sessions about a client. I’m constantly listening for “marketing gold dust” which the team shares, often without even realising they’ve done it. One of my favourite ever phrases from the team was when StephieG shared “I believe creativity is a muscle. It needs to be worked on and built up and practiced.”
Take 10 minutes at the start of your next team meet and ask the team 1 super easy question they can answer which you can then use the content from. For example, what client do you love the most? What do they do which you love? What book have you read recently you’d recommend? Using content like this really helps to show your values to your ideal audience.
Ask them for their opinions: book 20 minutes with each team member and ask them how they feel your current brand/blogs/social media/emails are reflecting your firm. As a team member, they’ll be living out the values of your firm every day, and will have valuable feedback on how they feel that’s being shown in your marketing. It’s an opportunity for you to show your team you care about their opinions, and they’re being listened to.
Here are some things you could show them to ask for observations on:
- Your social media platforms – can they see brand consistency across your posts? Is what you’re sharing a true reflection of what is happening at the firm?
- A recent blog you’ve published – do they feel the tone of the blog fits with how your firm speaks to clients and each other?
- An email you’ve recently sent to clients – does the content fit with what they are sharing with clients, and is it shared in a way which fits with your firm’s values (i.e. straight talking, kind, honest)
Give your team education opportunities first: Your team doesn’t like not being good at something and if you rush them into contributing to your marketing before they are ready, they’ll feel like you’ve let you down if they don’t do it “right”. Start by investing in their learning and education so they feel more confident about pushing themselves outwith their comfort zone. You can bring your team into our Accelerator coaching group and invest in their learning the principles of content marketing first, and how they can apply them to your firm specifically. Bringing your team into Accelerator is another example of how you can show your team you’re invested in your firm’s marketing, and you’re willing to invest so they can be too. Joining as a team helps them to feel safer as they’ll have the comfort of you and their colleagues, who they know and who they feel familiar with.
Ask them to supply images for social media posts: encourage your team to look out for your brand colours anytime they’re out and about and ask them to take a quick picture of it. Again, set out clear and easy to follow instructions of where to upload the photo. This is back to making it as easy as possible for them.
Here’s an example for our PF Instagram:
View this post on Instagram
And one from Fearless Financials:
View this post on Instagram
The next step up from this will be setting aside time for the team to take branded pictures. You could ask each team member to take 10 pictures of objects/themselves/scenery which fit in with your brand. All they need to do is take the picture and upload it/send it to you. Done. The result? If you’ve got 4 team members, that’s 40 photos you have to use as you need for social media, blog headers etc.
Ask them to help build your ‘They Ask You Answer’ list: This is a list which summaries the most common questions your clients ask you, in five different categories. Your client-facing team are the ones with the most insight into these questions and they’ll find it the easiest to contribute to your list. As the leader, it’s your responsibility to create a system which makes it as easy as possible for them to take note of these questions.
For example, we have a channel in PF’s Slack called ‘#theyask’ and anytime a client asks us a question, we post it there. We can then refer back to the questions and decide which ones need answered in which priority, depending on how often we get asked it. You could do something similar if you have Slack or Teams for your team, or you could create a simple Gsheet and consistently remind your team to add any questions clients ask them. It will only take 1 minute of their time, and will be very powerful when you reach the stage of them contributing and writing your blog posts.
Ask them to contribute to blog posts: The ideal will be one day your team will be writing and publishing blog posts for your firm. You can’t rush there though: there is a process. You can start by asking your team to contribute to blog posts you’re writing. Choose a topic from your TAYA list and create the blog structure. Once you’ve outlined your key points, ask the person best placed to contribute content (based on their knowledge and experience). At this stage, you’ll still write the blog post but having them contribute to it, helps them to see the process and get used to sharing their knowledge in blog posts. Once the blog post has been written and published, share any results with them from it (i.e. bounce rates, average time on page etc) and SHOW them what they’ve helped achieve.
Invite them to join you at a live event: Invite one or a few team members along to an industry event with you (i.e. Xerocon, Accountex or Quickbooks Connect). This gives them the opportunity to meet people, build connections and feel included in more than their day to day work. By inviting them to represent your firm at an event, you’re showing you trust them and want them to be involved with how your firm is marketed. Once they’ve had some experience of attending events with you, you might invite one of your team to exhibit with you or be a speaker at a speaker event. Again, you don’t need to rush to this. This will happen at the right time.
Invite them to co-lead a client training/coaching session: If your goal is to scale your firm and have your team leading more, you need to be often thinking about new and different ways to help your clients and build relationships with them. One way is by running client training/coaching sessions which teach them a very specific thing. It could be a software demo i.e. Xero, Quickbooks or it could be more coaching style, whereby you identify a common problem your clients have with running their business and run a session specifically on this problem. There’s a difference between having your team present at these sessions, and having them co-lead. Contributing to leading the session shows your clients you trust your team to look after them. This is a significant message to send to your clients and will help you when it comes to scaling your firm. It also supports getting your team involved in your marketing by showing them how they can use their skills and experience to help your clients.
As part of your onboarding process at PF, every new team member will attend multiple Accelerator sessions. After they’ve been with us for around 6-9 months, they’ll be invited to co-lead a session. There’s various stages of prep work to be completed ahead of the session. As a team member at PF, I love being involved in our coaching group. It shows us as a team that Karen, our leader, trusts us to lead our clients through the session and share our knowledge and expertise. It shows our Accelerator members that PF really is a team and we’re trusted with the responsibility of helping to deliver our coaching group to accountants and bookkeepers. Showing your team you trust them goes a long way in helping involve them in your marketing.
Get the balance right between encouraging your team and setting boundaries
You might have some team members who are excited to get involved in your marketing, start and really love it. This is great! Others won’t feel this way and they’ll need a little more help. You need to be aware of both.
For those who aren’t as initially interested or excited about the prospect, encourage them and make it fun for them. You don’t always need to call it “marketing” when you ask them to do one of the easy tasks above. In the end, it’ll all contribute to your marketing and you can help your team enjoy it more by removing the pressure “marketing” sometimes brings.
It won’t work to keep telling your team “you need to be involved in our marketing.” You need them to know why, and make it appeal to them by combining a marketing task with something they want to do and they enjoy. For example, if you want your team to be sharing more content on LinkedIn, and they prefer Instagram, let them do both. Let them play a little and have fun with it. Or have them post on Instagram and use the content from their post for the firm’s LinkedIn. Let them play a little and have fun with it. It will go a long way in building up their involvement and enthusiasm to be a part of your firm’s marketing.
You may have some team members who can’t wait to get involved. They’re got loads of great ideas and they’re enthusiastic and excited to get going. This is where you need to be able to set healthy boundaries with your team. You don’t want team members getting excited and running off and doing all the things without any structure, guidance or consistency. If different people start sharing different things in your marketing, it could cause harm to your brand and confuse both your clients and prospects. You’ll make it harder for your buyers to buy and if you slow them down or confuse them, they will go elsewhere.
This is why you need someone, or an agency like PF, who manages all your marketing for you. Someone who plans it out and makes sure both you and your team’s time is being used most effectively for the firm.
It’s a tricky balance between trying not to dampen any ideas from your team (which you definitely don’t want to do) and not rushing to do all the things all at the same time because people are excited. You must be consistent in your marketing, and have a plan. It doesn’t work to try all the things and see what sticks. Good marketing is intentional, well thought and planned out.
I’ve learned a lot about the balance between these two since starting at PF. As a creative agency who supports accountants with their marketing, our team is bursting with creativity and ideas for our marketing. This is amazing and it can be hard. One of the most difficult parts in my role as Marketing Manager is setting expectations with team members that we won’t jump and do every idea they suggest while still showing they are being listened to. I love hearing the team’s ideas, many of which do become things we do in our marketing. But we do them in a timeline which fits with all the other marketing we’re doing: events we’ve got coming up; our coaching group start dates; speaking engagements the team have; partnership webinars we’re running. If I let the team go ahead with every idea we ever had, our marketing would be chaotic. There’d be a lot going on, but it wouldn’t be structured and planned out.
It can make you feel pretty bad about it. There’s been times where I’ve really struggled with feeling like the “party pooper”. The one who’s shooting down the ideas and saying “yeah that sounds great BUT……”. It’s still a work in progress for me, and I’ve made a lot of progress recognising the importance of being responsible for our marketing which includes being consistent and planned. The team has really helped me by responding well to my clear direction of what it is I’m looking for from them. We’re in a great rhythm of me sending them everything they need to create the content (as explained earlier in this article) and them being able to do it efficiently and really well.
Your team needs to feel they’re being listened to. That you are genuinely interested in their ideas. You also need to set those boundaries that you won’t do everything they suggest straight away. Maybe you won’t do it ever. You can show them how their ideas are used and built upon and combined to create your great marketing. It’s a balance and it’s one you’ll always be working on.
No matter how easy the task, your team will over time lose interest and momentum
As you start to slowly introduce these easy ways for your team to be involved in your marketing, you’ll likely gain momentum pretty quickly. Often people love doing new and exciting things, especially when it’s different from their day to day role.
This excitement and enthusiasm will fade over time. Guaranteed. Your team will get busy with client work, and other priorities and the interest levels will decrease.
The best way you can handle this is to plan for it. Plan for there to be a time where your team is less active in your marketing. Give them the space to focus on their own work and start on your plans for when you’d next like them to contribute something. It all comes back to planning. Within your plans, you need to build in time for your team to have a breather and feel they’re able to give their full attention to their core role. On the other hand, you don’t want to lose momentum altogether. I’d recommend having at least one marketing task per month which involves a team member and you can adjust their involvement depending on what else they have going on.
When it comes to involving your team in marketing, you need to start small and start safe. It takes time and you need to pay close attention to it. If you need support planning out your marketing actions so you can better involve your team, join the PF Lab and come yourself or bring along a team member to show them how you’re investing in their involvement.