Networking on the Web? Or in Person?

Source: AICPA CPA Insider

The following includes excerpts, reproduced with permission, from an article by Jody Padar.

The future of your practice will lie with Gen Xers and Gen Yers. So the big question is: How do you network to capture this market? Yep, you guessed it, the answer is social media. Tools like Facebook and Twitter are simple and convenient. More importantly, cyberspace is where your Gen X and Gen Y prospects live.

It is very interesting to see so many CPA firms limiting their staff and managers in the use of social media. Partners are worried that staff will be misrepresenting the firm, or they don't see any return on investment (ROI). Here are my responses to these familiar arguments:

• If you are afraid your staff will misrepresent the firm via social media, what makes you think they won't misrepresent you at onsite events? It's really more a matter of hiring the right employees, not of where they socialize.
• You want ROI? Okay, but only if you can tell me the ROI of the last Chamber of Commerce Chicken Dinner you attended.

With client retention as the number one concern at most firms, it's time partners started thinking differently about how to attract new business. My firm has tripled in size over the past four years. How? Because I accept the shifts that are occurring and adjust my firm to take advantage of new trends by:

• Aggressively going after Gen Xers and Gen Yers, for whom the distribution of wealth is progressively shifting.
• Realizing that these prospects live on the Internet. I've implemented social media into my broad marketing strategy by making Facebook and Twitter a standard part of my workweek. I've also opened use of social media tools to my staff.

For the complete article, read “Reach Out to a New Pool of Prospects.”

From AICPA CPA Insider, May 11, 2011, http://www.CPA2biz.com.