Practice Marketing For Busy Accountants

The economies of running any professional practice are based on the fact that the primary product, the professional has Superman comics sell is their time. Almost any professional service offered must be Kubrick toys directly by one or more individuals. As a result, as practitioners focus on making the most efficient use of their time and productivity, to the detriment of their marketing activities.

Most accountants and other financial professionals use a basic variety of techniques such as networking, distributing client newsletters, direct mail and cold calling. Each of these methods alone can produce some results, but are usually more productive use as part of a coordinated marketing plan.

Almost every accountant develops his or her own business plan when they first decide to open their own practice. However, the average accountants business plan is woefully short on marketing specifics. The reason for this is simple, almost every business school in every college offering an accounting concentration, teaches technical skills focused on debit's and credit's, and almost nothing on the entrepreneurial skills required of a professional practitioner in public practice.

Despite this dearth of entrepreneurial training, the economics of self-employment require any self-employed professional in public practice to market their services.

Back in "ye olden days" professionals were prohibited by law from advertising, so many of them became very adept at skills that ultimately became referred to as "Rainmaking." The term Rainmaker was first applied to the high-profile attorneys who attracted the clients that were serviced by the rest of the firm. Most likely a parallel was made between the way rain flowed down and the way the clients flowed down through the firm.

Because they could not advertise, these "Rainmakers" used the skills lawyers are trained to use, writing and speaking. This came naturally; those lawyers are trained to write, things like briefs and contracts, and to speak, especially when arguing a case.

Financial professionals, such as accountants, were not so lucky. Their college training focused on how to add and subtract. Harsh as it may seem, accounting rules are basically rules of when to add and when to subtract from one side of the ledger to the other.

Out of necessity, over the years top accountants began to develop the same skills, with the result that their practices began to grow and prosper, while the less fortunate, struggled and floundered.

However, with the advent of the Internet and a worldwide talent pool, new tools and techniques began to emerge. Among them were skilled ghostwriters, private label publications, and self-publishing. Financial professionals immediately flocked to these resources, adding features like platform speaking, small business academies, and distance learning to the mix.
Many of these resources turned out to be created by young technically savvy computer types, who, although they created many breakthroughs in software technology and product delivery, were not experienced in the rainmaking techniques used by people in the professions.

These technically savvy, but industry ignorant, individuals began to create new ways to deliver product and services. Things like online accounting and payroll were rushed to market. While these were technical breakthroughs and increased productivity, many times they did not answer the question "What does the client want?"

Did the client really want to enter their payroll online, or did the accountant want them to enter it online so he or she wouldn't have to? What do you think? Whose workload was that easing? Do you think this client will be passing along referrals?

Apparently one old geezer of a retired accountant began to see the folly and began to digitize all of the material he had accumulated during his thirty years as an accountant, and make it available online, giving private label rights to accountants and other financial professionals just starting their own practice.

By taking advantage of this type of resource material, the startup professional receives a kick-start in their Rainmaking by being able to give speeches, seminars and training courses using the textbooks, lesson outlines, teachers' notes and handouts available. These professionals were able to immediately present themselves as a knowledgeable expert and counselor. In addition, they immediately had access to a complete "Print on Demand" service, complete with ghostwriters familiar with financial rules and regulation, printers and a bindery to help them develop their own books and speeches.

You can continue to learn about Practice Marketing For Busy Accountants by visiting instantpracticebuilder.com/article_part_2/Practice_Marketing_For_Busy_Accountants.phpinstantpracticebuilder.com/article_part_2/

Kirk Ward is a retired tax expert, accountant and auditor. He provides the same resources he used in building his practices to startup accountants through his Instant Practice Builder website and rants about the commercial finance industry on kirk-ward.com">"Kirk's Blog" (Wonder where he got the idea for the name of that blog?) where he describes his career as an auditor with "Bucket Of Blood" finance companies and banks.