Why do we continue to shoot ourselves in the marketing foot?

Stuff comes in threes so they say and given that today I’ve riffed some questionable research on saas and asked why ICAEW isn’t providing more online help for the downturn, it is only fitting that AccountingWEB’s Any Answers should come up with a perfect example of why the profession is in so much trouble. Weilin Yang asked:

I am a chartered accountant with industry experiences. Thinking of setting up a small accounting practice working from home. Only want to take on small clients for now but lack the necessary practice experience.

Can anyone help? Are there any services out there to help you start up? I am in South East London area.

Bob Harper of More! waded in and transparently talked about pricing for services his business is offering. Anything wrong with that? Judge for yourself:

We can offer mentoring (including developing sales skills and an entrepnerial attitude) and I’d be interested in finding out what budget you have in your mind to launch your practice?

We can help you develop a practice strategy which includes a corporate identity, packaging and pricing bundles plus support with all offline and online promotional tactics including a Website and sales and marketing training.

Over the last four years we’ve engineered a proved business development program for accountants and if you have £30,000 I’d be interested in having a chat.

The way we work is that if you build your practice on our software we don’t look to generate profit from the mentoring and supporting services. However, if you don’t want to use our software we can still working with you by working a pricing plan that works for you under our new marketing brand just about to be launched.

Following comments added almost no value except to deride Bob for the £30K figure. To his credit, Bob didn’t raise the temperature but offered advice about where Weilin might look but more importantly why it is important to pay attention to the marketing side of running a practice.

Lee and Dave [who scoffed at the figure] – the £30,000 assumes Weilin is going to work full time building her business, has no clients on day one and will draw a good wage before breaking-even with cashflow from revenue.

I’m also assuming she’s going to build a business, not a job. A business requires investment to lay the foundations and the biggest cost in lack of revenue so the quicker fees are generated the better.

Rather than have a £30k annual marketing budget the idea is to win £30k and then invest again quickly so you win another £30k. It’s possible to get this in 6-9 months so you turn £30k cash into £60k share value.

There are other approaches and one option is to sub-contract and earn some money while you build up your practice. But, this slows you down and pushes you into the technician’s role. You can employ someone full-time and keep your job. We’re working with an accountant who during her pregnancy and beyond hasn’t worked much but is still building a business because she employed someone full-time.

Most accountants approach business as an accountant rather than a business person and that’s why the thought of investing £30k is difficult for some to get their heads around.

Firm’s we are working with are committed to a strategy where they make at least £150k net and don’t end up working in the business doing accounts and tax. An investment of £30k seems reasonable good value to me and we only take a little bit of this.

Weilin – my advice is to apply to buy a TaxAssist franchise. I believe they start at £20k.

The conversation then descended into a circular argument about whether Bob was offering the right advice and the so-called value of the Chartered brand. I have commented at Any Answers directly on this. In essence, the fact someone is Chartered doesn’t mean a thing to most SMBs and is of diminishing value in the marketplace. If it did mean something then the profession would not have to contend with so much strong competition from successful, firms where the lead partner is not qualified as a CA.

A great example is SJD that has won awards galore for customer service and satisfaction. It has one CA out of the 8 person leadership team. They clearly know something the Chartered bigots – because that is the only  word to describe them – do not. Yet commenters insist on pounding away at those who are trying to add a valuable service into the market, designed to help the new practice. Most often, the naysayers do so in a graceless fashion. Such is the bankruptcy of their arguments.

As I have said elsewhere, the US has a lot to teach us They’re not afraid of talking about marketing. Michelle Golden for instance frequently talks to professionals about the topic and has a blog at AW’s US sister site. Check what she says about iPod and social media. Or the link to another professional discussing the topic. So what’s our problem?

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Tagged as: Accountancy, Chartered Accountant, ICAEW, Michelle Golden