We like you because you’re ambitious. You are enthusiastic about marketing and you want to do more NOW. Your enthusiasm is an asset – a business opportunity that you can make use of. Marketing when you’re excited about it gets the results you want, so let’s get you going now.
You get out what you give to marketing.
Your marketing needs you to be involved in it, collaborating with your marketing team. The reason for this is that marketing ultimately belongs to you. So the more you give, the more it becomes “you”, giving a true and full picture to those who don’t know you yet.
You and your team are the key to what brings clients in. You and your firm’s story, the personality and culture of your firm, the way you work, is what will attract your ideal clients. The best marketing simply builds relationship with people. They aren’t building a relationship with your marketing team: they’re building a relationship with YOU and your business. That’s why you need to be reflected and involved in every bit of your marketing, collaborating with your marketing team.
If you try to just hand off the marketing to someone else, you’ll have a longer, less effective journey towards getting the clients you love – and only the clients you love. It might even backfire and bring you clients who are difficult, frustrating, and unprofitable: because it doesn’t reflect you. It’s generic or boring, and prospects don’t understand what they’re signing up for.
So for those of you who have (or are just about to)sign up for a new project with us, you’ll know the process involves some level of waiting. That can feel like you’re going backwards, but the process has actually been crafted to move you forward at the pace which will get you the kind of results you want (not just random ones). Better, not more.
And while things are being prepared and set up and you’re being onboarded (and doing a little waiting), there are still many ways you can get started RIGHT NOW so in the long run you’ll be getting those results you’re looking for.
Start reading and learning.
Having a base level of marketing knowledge helps you recognize good marketing and put it to work for your firm. You may have tried lots of things or worked with other agencies and nothing seemed to work – or didn’t work as you expected. It’s time to make sure you know up front how marketing works and understand what is good vs. bad marketing.
There are a couple of ways to start doing this. Check out our Top Five list for marketing books. Purchase them all and read. It’s okay to take your time, and if you aren’t sure which to prioritize, just ask us. These books will give you ideas while preparing you with the base knowledge you need to make sure you’re taking your marketing in the right direction.
For small doses of inspiration and education on a regular basis, sign up for our Friday marketing tips and REALLY read them. Schedule ten minutes each Friday to just read through and process. They’re full of deep marketing knowledge and will help you level up your marketing.
The absolute best way to apply this base knowledge you’re getting from reading is by getting in-person accountability in our 12-week coaching and education course or our monthly accountability group which includes regular one-hour trainings on specific topics.
Start writing down what you wish your marketing would deliver.
The first and most important step to getting a steady drip feed of clients you love is figuring out what you want.
You might think you know this (“of course I know what I want! More leads!”), but the more you look at it and think about it, you may discover what you want is a little different than the typical generic marketing statement. Do you ACTUALLY want lots more leads? Do you really want ten times as many people getting in touch? Do you know exactly what kinds of people and businesses you want to work with?
As soon as you define who you want to work with, you have a clear audience to structure your marketing around. Good marketing divides. It attracts the people you want and sends away the people you don’t.
You may be feeling like you don’t know where or how to start doing that and you might not even know what you want. That’s why you’re asking for help, right?
Right! And we love it! Good news is you can make progress towards figuring it out, though. If you’re already in a live Accelerator group, you will get the accountant marketer workbook and you can begin working through that. Even if you don’t have that, you can start doing these two things:
- Choose your favorite clients and start writing down what qualities they have which help you like working with them
- Choose your least-favorite clients and write down what makes it difficult to work with them.
We’ll talk through this information with you during the brand session of your Foundations workshop. If you’re already in Accelerator, discuss this in the group Slack channel, or during your one-on-one session.
Start getting ready to write content.
Now that you’ve read They Ask You Answer, start writing down the questions you get asked a lot. What do clients and prospects constantly want to know? What do you and your team get tired of answering? What questions could you answer in your sleep?
Create a system for keeping track of these questions. Here are a few ways our clients have done this:
- Create a Gsheet and listed each question in a column. They then had more columns where they could prioritize questions, categorize them, or assign them to team members or writers. You can use this Gsheet as a template.
- Create a Slack channel where the entire team can drop questions when they are asked.
- Create an email address like taya@yourURL.com and then BCC that email address every time you answer a common client question.
Start thinking about how to involve your team.
The burden of marketing doesn’t need to fall all on you: and indeed you don’t want marketing to reflect only you personally. As the leader of the firm, you’re at the center of your marketing, but your team will need to have varying levels of involvement.
You might find the team is initially reluctant to add marketing to their accounting duties. They’re working hard (and were hired to be an accountant or bookkeeper, after all!) so marketing seems like one more thing they have to do – and one they don’t understand or are nervous about. So, the process of educating your team about marketing is going to take time.
Talk with your team about what you’re learning about how real marketing works: how good marketing brings more of the clients they love working with, and allows you as a team to identify the clients who are frustrating, and not take them on in the first place. Sign them up for Accelerator or PF lab so that they can learn alongside you.
After providing opportunities for education and training, start talking (and keep talking) with your team about ways they might be interested in being involved. What are their strengths? What are they interested in? Where will they take initiative and responsibility?
One member of your team may be more active on social media and can contribute there. Another may interact more with clients and can manage your list of questions.
Any member of your team who interacts with clients can help with developing blog ideas by keeping track of the questions that clients ask.
Start practicing video.
Video is an important part of your marketing. Your marketing is set apart by video that lets people connect with you personally – not vague statements by a “company”. People do business with people, still.
Start getting comfortable with video. Yes, even if you think there’s no way you could.
Start small, start safe and just get that first one recorded.
Here are a couple of ways to start practicing:
- Answer client questions via video, just for clients who already love you.
- Send explanations or feedback to team members via video. Use Loom!
- Record something just for yourself. Just practice knowing no one else will ever see it.
- Post something in Instagram stories. It’ll be gone in a day anyway.
You don’t need to wait to make use of your enthusiasm. Get going on each of these things, and do the homework your Client Marketing Manager assigns you at each stage of the process.
You may be surprised by how quickly you get results. One recent client in Accelerator started getting leads before Accelerator ended, just by implementing what he was learning. Another recent client was getting a slow drip feed of perfectly qualified clients one month after he launched his website.
Lean in, be patient, and keep that excitement because good things are coming! And we’ll see you for the first session of your Foundations Workshop sooner than you realise!