Nine Sins

Source: Practical Accountant

Allan Boress, a consultant in Eustis, Florida, lists the following reasons that marketing fails:

1. No goals. Without goals, any growth is accidental. The firm should have goals for the next three years and they should be communicated throughout the firm. If members of the firm are aware of the goals, they can contribute to them.
2. No personal goals. Those who participate in marketing should have personal goals that in the aggregate exceed the firm goals.
3. No action plans. The members won’t achieve their goals without plans. It is a good idea to have small group meetings where people help each other refine their plans.
4. Failure of management to motivate. CPAs often think people should be assigned tasks and execute them without any guidance, support, or feedback from management. People won’t go out of their way to contribute if their contributions are not acknowledged.
5. Ineffective training. To ensure success in personal business development, the people doing it must be trained. One successful firm brings in an outside trainer three times a year and hosts “lunch and learn” sessions every month with a speaker from either outside or inside the firm.
6. Failure of management to control the business development process. This means review and evaluation of progress toward meeting goals and carrying out action plans, and should involve the director of marketing. The director of marketing must have frequent communication with the partners, and with the managing partner to enlist his/her help, and to obtain his/her insights into the strengths and styles of the individual partners.
7. No accountability. There should be a reporting system that is not too burdensome (it will be ignored if too burdensome). The report should include:
   1. Incoming referrals—helps reciprocate.
   2. Outgoing referrals—helps build leverage in marketing.
   3. New business—helps keep focus.
   4. Proposals lost—helps in training and coaching..
   5. Marketing events participated in—there is a correlation between this effort and new business results.
8. Failure of participation. Many CPA firms were founded by rainmakers who surrounded themselves with good technicians. Eventually, these technicians take over the management of the firm. They don’t believe in marketing and don’t want to participate in it. They often hire marketing professionals and are disappointed when new business doesn’t come in. Young people in the firm don’t have role models who support them in marketing. So they don’t do it either.
9. No agreement on expectations from the marketing director. The role of the marketing director, and his or her goals, must be clearly delineated and agreed on.

From Practical Accountant. For the complete article, click on the following link:
http://www.webcpa.com/article.cfm?articleid=13023&;pg=pracacc.