(And why your brand voice matters more than ever)
Recently, I ran a session for a group of independent accounting firm owners – people who are either handling their own marketing, or guiding internal teams. Most were already using ChatGPT or dabbling in Claude or NotebookLM. But here’s what became clear very quickly:
They’re not using AI like a team member.
They’re using it like a vending machine.
This blog builds on the session I ran with them—what landed, what changed minds, and what might shift how you use AI for your own firm.
Oh – and we’ve built a custom PF Strategic Marketing GPT which will act as a marketing strategist for you and ask lots of questions about what marketing you’re creating and why. You’re welcome to access it free here.
1. AI Isn’t the Boss. You Are.
If you drop a half-formed idea into ChatGPT and copy/paste what it gives you, that’s not marketing. That’s abdication.
Unless you guide it, AI doesn’t know:
- Who exactly your clients are
- How to write in a way that sounds like you
- Why your firm exists (and what makes it different from the others)
- How you think
- What makes something “you”
It doesn’t know anything. It just predicts what someone like you might want. That’s powerful—if you lead it. If you tell it about you, and about your firm.
Your job is to direct, correct, question, and teach it.
If you were bringing on a new accounting team member, you wouldn’t simply throw them at the desk and say “here’s a bunch of info: generate a set of accounts!”
You’d set them up properly. Give them an email address, introduce them to the team, show them your systems, provide access to all the apps you use.
You’d explain who the clients are they’re working with – what kind of business they have, what kind of people they are, how much they spend, what they appreciate or don’t appreciate.
Just like onboarding a new team member, if you’re going to use AI to help your marketing show who you truly are, you’ll need to give it training, feedback, and examples. When you do that, it performs way better.
2. The Golden Rule: Never Accept the First Output
This was the most repeated takeaway from the group.
One firm said:
“I’ve just been using it to create lazy content. I realise I need to push back.”
Here’s how to do that in practice.
🧠 Example: From flat to focused
Say you’re an accountant who works with landlords, and you want to write a blog titled:
“3 Things to Know Before You Buy Another Property”
Start by giving AI the full picture:
“Act like a 44-year-old landlord who already owns two properties. You’ve got an accountant who seemed great at first but now isn’t replying quickly, and you’re worried things are set up wrong. You’re nervous about changing firms—what if it’s worse? You like working with someone who gets property but don’t want jargon or sales-y language.”
Then prompt it:
“Now, based on that, how would you rewrite the opening to this blog?”
You’ll get a draft that doesn’t just list tax rules. It speaks to that human.
AI works best when it has context and is pushed beyond the default. Start sceptical. Stay specific. And always dig deeper than the first suggestion.
Remember, AI’s job is to praise you. Big you up. “What a great idea, John!” “That blog post will be perfect, Maria.” And it feels really good at first. Wow, I’m nailing this marketing thing. Until you realise every single other accountant who is throwing the same kinds of things into GPT is getting the exact same responses.
Which means your prospective client is getting the exact same kind of content.
3. Upload Your Brand – Or Expect Bland
If you’re not uploading your brand materials into AI tools, you’ll keep getting generic, copy-paste content. The kind that says “We help small business owners” and “Save time and money” and sounds like it came from … well, from AI.
🧭 The #1 thing to upload: your brand voice
You need all the core pieces—ideal client, services, approach—but brand voice is the number one foundational brand piece we find accounting firms don’t have documented.
If you had it, you’d share it with AI: so get that thing created.
We use this Brand Voice Checklist to help firms define their tone in real words—not just “friendly” or “professional.” (Or use the PF GPT to get it to walk you through that.)
🧩 Example questions from the checklist:
- What does “professional” mean to you? Give examples.
- Do you use humour? What kind? Sarcastic? Dry? Warm?
- Are contractions like “you’re” and “we’ll” part of your voice?
- What words do you never want used?
- Do you speak in “we” or “I”? Or both?
You could even share this checklist with your team to get their input—especially if you want to involve them in the marketing.
Brand voice isn’t fluff. It helps AI stop sounding like a robot, and start sounding like you.
🔍 Brand Voice in Action: Follow the Wolf
Take Follow the Wolf, a Greenville-based accounting firm serving professional service business owners (as well as several other industry niches). We helped them document and define their voice using statements like:
“We are: Clean, simple, direct, and knowledgeable.
We are not: Forceful, brash, blunt, aloof, or rude.”
“We’re confident in what we say. We don’t ‘think’ something — we say it.”
“We work with clients, not for them.”
Their voice is pragmatic, expressive, and confident. So when AI creates copy for them, it asks questions like:
- “Is this direct enough?”
- “Does this sound like we’re showing off?”
- “Would this make the client feel safe and seen?”
That’s the point of brand voice: it becomes the thread which weaves through everything you write, and everything AI writes with you.
4. Involve Your Team (Even If They Hate Marketing)
Getting the team involved in marketing – especially when it’s team members of an accounting firm – can be really tough.
- “I’m not a marketer, I’m an accountant!”
- “Why would I want to post on my LinkedIn? What would I say, anyway?”
- “I don’t want to write a blog post. I don’t have any time for that.”
Here’s the secret though: your team members already know a lot which can help them be part of marketing (and help your clients to be better clients).
To involve them, start with what they already know.
Ask questions like:
- “What’s a client question you’ve answered more than three times this month?”
- “What frustrates you when clients make the same mistake again?”
- “What do you wish people understood before they called us?”
AI can help turn those answers into blog posts, help guides, email tips, or even short videos. And that gives the team confidence that they’ve contributed to something useful—not fluffy.
Best of all, when you have your brand voice documented, a team member can gather information and research, enter the copy of a few emails they’ve sent to different clients, upload the brand voice, and voila! A much better blog post than the generic rubbish you’d get by saying “Give me a blog post about cash flow”.
👉 We’ve written more on this: How involved should team members be in your accounting firm’s marketing?
“If your team won’t give you a LinkedIn post, ask for a question. Or a frustration. Or a client win. That’s all AI needs to get started.”
5. Custom GPTs: Not Just a Nice-to-Have
One of the biggest mindset shifts from the talk was realising how much a custom GPT can streamline marketing for a firm.
Most attendees weren’t even paying for ChatGPT-5. (One joked, “My girlfriend pays for it, and as the owner of an accounting firm I still don’t.”)
But once we explored what a custom GPT could do—store your brand voice, ideal client summaries, preferred tone, and even ask qualifying questions—they were in.
Why bother?
“What’s the point of setting up a marketing GPT?” one of the accountants asked.
Great question. When you upload everything about your firm to a marketing GPT, then everyone is playing from the same field. You don’t have one person out in left field, one up in the bleachers, two out in the forest, and seven others wandering around at random.
- Your team uses the same trained GPT instead of starting from scratch
- It asks before it outputs (“Who’s this for?” “What’s the call to action?”)
- It can reject off-brand ideas or flag inconsistencies
- You spend less time repeating yourself, and more time refining
Imagine having a team member who always starts by saying: “Who’s your audience? What’s the tone? What are we trying to achieve?”
That’s what a custom GPT does when trained well.
You can literally use the existing GPT to do this – just go to ChatGPT (make sure you’ve upgraded to the Business version), then GPT’s, and then Create.
Start telling it who you are!
In case you’re wondering how much this costs, we asked GPT itself, and it said “You don’t need the Business plan to create a Custom GPT — the Plus plan (US $20/month) is enough.
But if you want to share it across a team, manage it centrally, or collaborate more deeply, ChatGPT Business (US $25–30/user/month) is your best bet.”
Honestly, given how much you spend on other apps (like Fathom or Vinyl for note taking, or Fathom or Float for cash flow forecasting, and so on and so on), this is a no brainer.
Your AI Prompt Pack
One of the things we talked about was how to prompt AI better so you get better results. Here are five specific prompts we tried out:
1) Interrogator (start here)
“Before you produce anything, ask me up to 5 questions to clarify why we’re doing this, and who it’s for.”
2) The sceptical prospect
“Act as a cautious, uncertain potential client. Challenge this draft. What’s unclear, missing, or too slick? What would stop you from reaching out?”
3) Brand voice checker
“Use this brand voice: [paste summary]. Flag any phrases that don’t match and rewrite them in our tone.”
4) Channel switcher (start with blog)
- “Rewrite this blog into a LinkedIn post”
- Then: “Turn the LinkedIn post into an Instagram carousel outline”
- Then: “Now rework it into a 3-sentence email with a call to action”
5) Evidence builder
“Ask me questions about the proof and evidence we have about this topic. Ask me questions about real, live clients with examples, numbers, and tangible outcomes. You don’t need to include specific names or companies – just get me to tell you some stories, and include those.”
What Accountants Said They’re Changing
When we asked the accountants what they took away from the session, here’s what they said. Which one will be yours?
“Look into doing custom GPTs—we only use the free ChatGPT which has limitations”
“Use AI to get the team more engaged and involved in marketing”
“Make AI work harder instead of accepting the first output”
“Upload brand details into AI to get better outputs”
“Use AI to attract ideal clients, not just post content”
“Use it as a tool, not a crutch—human connection still matters”
“Focus more on brand voice and spend time challenging and refining AI outputs”
“Commit more time to really challenge and refine the AI outputs instead of rushing.”
Your Next Step
If your AI-powered marketing still sounds a bit… meh… it’s not AI’s fault. It’s about the inputs.
🟡 Take the PF Brand Assessment
This helps uncover gaps in your messaging, tone, and client experience. You’ll get a free Loom video from a PF team member reviewing your website.
Even one practical insight from this review could help unlock your next best client!
Oh – and here’s a Loom video walking you through how I used GPT to help compile this very blog post you’re reading!