Why do we need to market when we can barely staff the work
we have?
Perhaps you don’t.
Marketing to increase business volume so you can work harder
doesn’t sound appealing if you’re already at
capacity. However, even if you don’t want more work,
if you want to increase your firm’s health and improve
morale, beefing up the marketing function can still help
you.
One way to tell if marketing will benefit your firm is to
ask yourself these questions:
• Are we meeting our profitability goals?
• Are we in heaviest demand by our ideal clients?
• Do we receive frequent referrals from our clients?
• Is the work we do stimulating and enjoyable?
• Is our personnel retention above average?
• Are we attracting personnel whom we trust to succeed us?
• Are we attractively positioned for acquisition?
If you answered “no” to any of the above,
marketing can help.
• Do we serve too many problem clients?
• Are we doing too much low realization work and not
enough high realization
work?
• Do we ever set (or reduce) the price after we’ve done the work?
• Are some partners eager to market while others are content, or even complacent?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above,
marketing can help.
What is the difference between “marketing” and “selling?”
Marketing is the on-going process of appealing to potential
clients and ensuring repeat business from existing clients.
Marketing:
• identifies appropriate prospects
• effectively communicates image and capabilities of the
firm
• creates/emphasizes an appeal—a differentiation factor—about
the firm
• perfects customer service
• requests feedback from clients on a regular basis
• anticipates and meets needs
Marketing often necessitates cultural changes at every level
in the firm. Ultimately, marketing strives
to make all interactions with your firm (aka “moments of truth”)
into positive experiences.
Selling is:
• proactive seeking of prospects
• interacting to qualify prospects
• effective acknowledgment of the prospect’s concerns
• closing the sale—getting hired
• following up and staying in contact when not hired
Successful sellers use active listening skills and demonstrate
the ability to meet the prospect’s needs by conveying
competence and confidence.
Sellers rely on public perception
of expertise and/or excellence—a product of marketing;
therefore, they feel obligated to meet these expectations
and to follow through impeccably.
As with marketers, successful sellers also create positive
moments of truth, even if they are not hired, by representing
the firm well.
Marketing and sales overlap slightly, and depend on each
other, but they are distinctly different.
Can I expect a marketer to generate new business leads?
Some marketers are skilled in “sales,” but most
are not. Selling requires a unique skill set—some marketing
professionals possess it and some do not—just the same
as accounting or legal professionals.
All marketers should be able to identify ideal prospects
and introduce them to the capabilities of the firm. Many
marketers are adept at coaching partners/team members on
conducting sales calls and critiquing sales techniques. Some
marketers can handle sales calls personally, but most don’t
want to do this full time—it usually isn’t their
core competency or deepest desire.
If you want a person to focus on delivering qualified leads
to you, closing the leads, or teaching you how to close the
leads, you will probably want a sales professional instead
of or in addition to a marketer.
Many firms hire both marketing and sales professionals (see
below).
How should sales and marketing functions be aligned?
If you hire both a marketing professional and a sales professional,
involve the first hire in the process of selecting the second.
Structuring them as laterals works best. Though effective
salespersons often to receive higher overall compensation
(base plus commissions), don’t assume you must structure
according to pay level.
One reason to avoid positioning the sales person over marketing
(aside from the difference in skill sets) is that the sales
person should not be spending time managing the marketing
function—s/he should dedicate full-time to securing
new business.
Partners tend to get very excited about the rapid bottom-line
impact a salesperson promises and they sometimes over-glamorize
this position. Be careful not to alienate an existing marketer
in the process of bringing in a salesperson.
Recognize that rather than contributing to bottom-line profits
overnight, the marketing professional’s
initiatives usually take 18 months or more to affect revenues.
In the
meantime, whether there is a salesperson or not, marketers
can receive intense and undue pressure from partners to justify
their presence in the firm.
Since the sales and marketing functions rely heavily on each
other, it is critical to cultivate a strong rapport between
the two. Discourage an adversarial or competitive atmosphere;
do everything you can to create a team.
An effective way to align the roles could be to provide a
split incentive for new business generated by the team. Since
the sales person is probably a commission arrangement, perhaps
the marketer could receive a 1/2 percent for their involvement
in the sale. This arrangement creates a cooperative team.
Even at the height of success, marketers can rarely take
sole credit for specific sales (and seldom bear sole blame
for non-sales) because others are involved in the sales process.
Be sensitive to this and factor it in when measuring the
marketer’s performance.
What does a marketing person do?
Marketers do all kinds of interesting things, but their job
descriptions vary substantially by level and by firm. Job
titles alone are insufficient for gauging the skill level
of a marketer.
We can help with detailed job descriptions to suit your firm’s needs.
Following is a general guideline of duties by level:
Chief Marketing Officer
• A key member of the firm’s management group, may
become a partner
• Lead creation of firm’s vision & strategic plan
• Ensure all marketing initiatives are in line with vision/plans
• Secure all resources necessary to achieve vision/plans
• Account for and present results
• Strong community presence
• May consult with firm’s clients (yes, chargeable)
• Facilitate retreats and meetings
• Orchestrate internal and external communication
• Oversee all functions below
Marketing Director
• Assist with strategic planning
• Create industry specific or service specific marketing
plans
• Provide/outsource team member training
• Perform/outsource market research, summarize findings
• Handle/outsource advertising and PR: plan, launch, evaluate
campaigns
• Develop proposal strategy, pricing issues, etc.
• Edit collateral materials, supervise/outsource design
• Client satisfaction program: audit or interview clients,
evaluate quality of all “points of contact”
• Develop/outsource surveys, interpret findings
• May consult with firm’s clients (billable services)
• Oversee all functions below
Marketing Manager
• Write/edit copy (may even ghost write articles for technical
persons)
• Guide industry or service teams
• Prepare/monitor marketing budgets, foresee problems
• Draft and edit proposals
• Place articles and advertisements
• Implement client surveys and resulting action plans
• Oversee all functions below
Marketing Coordinator
• Research and draft copy
• Support industry or service teams
• Desktop publishing
• Proposal preparation and tracking
• Database creation, reporting
• Event planning: facilities, materials coordination
• Internal newsletters
• Web maintenance
Marketing Assistant
• Distribute press-releases
• Some desk-top publishing
• Finishing touches to proposals (production and bindery)
• Execute mailings
• Database maintenance
• Tabulate survey results
• Event planning: RSVPs, name badges, other details
Marketing is complex and
different initiatives require different skill sets.
No single
person is an expert in every aspect of marketing. This should be expected and
understood by partners,
and not held against the marketer.
One person can certainly do (or oversee) many of these things but, if you have a fairly high-level person, be certain that he or she has authority to obtain additional resources (temporary or permanent) when needed.
It is highly likely that every marketer will need to outsource
some projects, at one time or another, to round out his or her talents; especially
if your marketer is a lone soldier in your firm.
Outsourcing
is an efficient way to maximize your solo marketer.
If you have a diverse marketer who can do most everything
listed above, count yourself lucky and appreciate your marketer even more!
How can I tell if our firm needs an in-house marketing person?
Marketing has been formalized in some CPA firms for
upwards of 20 years. Those early experiences weren't all good ones for the firms or the ground-breaking marketers brave enough to step into firms never before exposed to marketing. Yet it's still far too often that we hear horror
stories about “the marketing person we used to have.”
Partners still say, “We had a marketer and it just
didn’t work,” or “We didn’t get any
results after a whole year!” They sometimes confess
they weren’t sure what the marketer was supposed to
do and that there has been no formal marketing plan or
budget. This is the fault of the firm, not the marketer!
Marketers can only succeed to the degree that the partners and firm dynamics
enable them.
Partners often squelch their own marketing success and usually
don’t even realize it.
Marketing on the fly (without distinct intentions and goals)
is not much more effective with a marketing person than without
it. The key to increasing results when adding a marketer
is to be committed to planning, hiring the right person for
the level of sophistication of your plan, and allocating
the budget to support the plan—in advance…not
on a piecemeal basis.
If you want your marketing to choke, just skip the above
steps.
Hiring the RIGHT person is critical. Firms will bring in
somebody with heavy desktop publishing skills and become
annoyed the person doesn’t go out and find leads. This
is sort of misalignment between
expectations and skill sets is something that we see ALL
THE TIME. Don't make this common mistake.
Your firm is only ready to employ a marketer if your firm
understands the differences in levels of skill and what your
marketer should be expected to achieve—and if your
firm is willing and able to support the marketing function
properly.
To guarantee a successful experience, your firm must be committed
to each of these:
• provide a clear job description, including mutually agreed-upon
evaluation criteria
• seek the best level and fit for your firm
• make sure your marketer reports to the right person (seldom
is this a “committee”)
• provide guidance, direction and prompt feedback regarding
proposed initiatives
• unfailingly support your marketing person and your marketing
plan through the stages of acceptance and culture change
(resolve any disagreements privately)
• require everyone’s participation in marketing activities
and compensate accordingly
• undergo formalized training programs for all professionals
• budget at least 3-5% of gross revenues (3% for maint. level, and 5% or more if you're serious about
growth) for funding your marketing initiatives
(not counting marketing salaries/consulting fees)
• hire/allocate appropriate support personnel for the marketer
These elements ensure an experience with minimum frustration
and maximum results. Anything less spells trouble.
Be honest about who you are and what you will and will not
do. Know what you want, and be committed to participating
in marketing initiatives—the marketer will not be able
to market in lieu of you.
What
level of “marketer” does
my firm need?
A match between skill sets of the marketer and agreed-upon
expectations of the firm is imperative. Polling comparably
sized firms, and firms whose success you admire, is a
good idea to get a sense of the number and level of their
marketing personnel. Of course, firm culture is a huge
factor—a more progressive firm will need more,
and higher-level, marketers. A firm whose politics will
limit a strategic go-getter ought to find a more task
oriented person.
A cost-effective solution for a firm starting a formal
marketing process is to outsource the strategic and other
high-level marketing functions, while providing the support
to carry out resulting initiatives from within the firm.
Officer/Director
Some firms simply don’t need of a full-time Chief
Marketing Officer or even a Marketing Director; this doesn’t
mean the firm isn’t healthy or growing.
First, this
level of expertise does not come cheaply. The salary is
just the beginning. A seasoned marketer will expect to
launch and/or oversee a full-fledged marketing program.
The marketer, by the act of the firm hiring him or her,
should be safe in assuming that the firm is committed to
moving forward aggressively and willing to monetarily support
such a plan.
Beyond the marketer’s salary, the firm should expect
to establish a minimum marketing budget approximating 2%
of gross revenue. When firms hire a high-level marketer
and subsequently realize they are not prepared to act upon
the marketer’s recommendations, the under-utilized
director becomes discouraged and leaves.
Such an experience can leave a firm with a bad perception
of marketing in general. But the firm is at fault for misleading
themselves and the person they hired.
Manager
A Marketing Manager will be a good fit for a firm that
wants to give the marketer a good
amount of authority and autonomy, and will respect the
Manager’s budgetary,
personnel, and procedural recommendations. A firm that
won’t micromanage their marketer will be pleased
with a manager level hire.
Coordinator/Assistant
Most firms with 30 or more people need, at minimum, a Marketing
Coordinator or Marketing Assistant. A Coordinator will
be somewhat proactive in making suggestions and recommendations
to the partners and practice groups of a firm, and will
meet deadlines without being reminded.
A Marketing Assistant will be mostly "responsive" to partners' direction and requests and will need guidance with regard to
prioritization and should not be relied upon to make recommendations
about the firm’s marketing plans.
If you have an
Assistant who is on top of projects, has many new ideas,
and adds value to the firm’s programs, he or she
needs a promotion—this person is a Coordinator!
To whom should the marketer report?
Your marketer should report to the managing partner or
the most influential partner. The role of the person to
whom the marketing person reports is important to the success
or failure of the marketer and greatly impacts the results
the marketing department can produce.
The partner should have the ultimate
authority to be able to solely approve or decline any particular
initiative.
This is what an effective partner will be able
to accomplish:
• Successfully influence the other owners to support
important ideas for the firm’s progress
•
Be able to, when the other partners undermine or fail to
cooperate with initiatives, stand firm that the behavior
is inappropriate and sabotages the firm’s progress
• Convince partners to realize when they are blaming marketing
for failure when in fact they should be blaming themselves
(such as failing to make decisions, approve plans/budgets,
or cooperate timely when initiatives require their involvement
to stay on schedule).
If the person to whom the marketer
reports cannot do these things—if politics are such that no one can—then
you can expect to burn through marketers every three years
or so because your environment is too hostile for them
to thrive or succeed.
See below for statistics that indicate what a huge problem
this is in the accounting industry.
When can we expect to see marketing results?
Marketing takes time. Influencing the public and building
a reputation can occur more quickly now than ever before,
but still isn't achieved overnight. Remember, it
takes a lot longer to convince people you are good
than to
convince them you are not.
The marketing professional’s initiatives usually
take a minimum of 18-24 months to affect revenues. Most
initiatives take two to three years to reap results. Be
patient and don’t go “back to the drawing board” for
a new marketing plan, or a new marketer, too soon.
Marketers in CPA firms are often under pressure by partners
to constantly justify their existence. Yet
their success hinges significantly (see above) on partner support
and participation—frequently
inadequate.
Frustration mounts quickly on both sides: on the partner side when results aren't promptly visible, and on the marketer's side when partners fail to plan, support (monetarily or philosophically, or both) and implement appropriate initiatives.
According to Association for Accounting Marketing’s
(AAM) 2004 Member Survey, only 49% of responding marketers
have been with their current firms for over 3 years. 56%
of the marketers indicate they are not their firm’s
first marketer.
Fallout of marketers is far too high and the benefits a firm should reap from longevity—consistency
in applied marketing techniques—suffers.
What you can do to make your marketing program successful:
• Work with the marketer to determine the best ways to
measure the ROI (return on investment) of marketing initiatives
so you can help to position your marketer for success in
the early years.
• Guide your marketer to tackle some high-visibility projects
early on, even if the projects aren’t the highest-priority
goals of the firm. This will help satisfy impatient partners
allowing the marketer to focus on building infrastructure
to achieve the firm’s long-term goals.
• Managing partner should promote the less tangible results
of marketing such as increased morale, feelings of progress,
improved community recognition, etc.
• Be sensitive to pressures the firm puts upon the marketer
for rapid results.
• Read sections above and take heed.
The keys are to work with your marketer and to be a part
of your own marketing plan.
How might marketing’s “cultural changes” affect
my firm?
No matter what the firm’s size, certain changes
will begin to occur when a firm advances from having
no specific
marketing approach to implementing a defined and structured
approach.
With an experienced marketer’s
influence, these are some of the things a firm might expect
to see:
• Increased sharing of information among partners and team
members. Both team marketing and excellent client service
necessitate keeping everyone in the loop. Use of contact
management systems, even the routine use of e-mail,
makes this possible in an efficient manner.
• A feeling of unified direction, giving everyone confidence
in the firm’s future. With each additional achievement,
this feeling is strengthened. Reinforcement of progress
keeps morale high, and makes the firm more attractive
to mid-level professionals.
• A more loyal and higher-quality client base. Bottom line:
when employees are happy, clients are better served. When
employees are informed and well-managed, they are most
confident about their role in client service and their
advancement potential in the firm. Employees’ energies
will be focused on improving the firm’s products
and delivery of service. Write-offs will be reduced,
A/R will improve.
• A change in compensation’s focus on “billable
hours.” When requiring people to market, it is critical
to compensate accordingly. A first step is to include certain
direct marketing time in “productive” hours
and realize this is a critical investment in the firm’s
future.
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