
Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.
It’s a struggle to find ways to stand out in a crowded market. Sometimes you need to resort to unconventional tactics to get noticed and draw attention to your business. The trick is to do so in a way that gains you the right kind of attention and success. That’s leadership.
Doing the business is a well-known phrase about doing things well and it is perhaps never more appropriate than when running a business.
It’s a fact of life that clients leave for all sorts of reasons and they have to be replaced. That’s when you need to show leadership and do the business by offering an outstanding product.
Know your audience
It then becomes a question of what you can offer potential new clients, what value can you offer them? What kind of client are you looking to attract, is it a small number of larger high-value targets or a larger number of smaller clients?
Identify what works for you. I believe you should regularly take time to step back and analyse what your team can offer. What is your USP?
Don’t promise the world and make sure you deliver what you offer. Otherwise, that’s a failure, which brings to mind an old saying: ‘Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.’
Understanding your clients’ needs is key, whether it be advisory support, self-assessment and compliance or specialist advice.
Marketing your product
Getting your message out is so important and this can be done in several ways. Staying in touch regularly with clients and delivering a good service can often lead to referrals. Turning that referral into a new client then becomes a new challenge.
What can you offer? You can attract them with offers like flat fees, vouchers or product shots or other imaginative offers.
Once on board, the challenge is to keep them happy, potentially leading to even more referrals.
Looking professional
Whether we like it or not, we live in a digital world and as such our presence online says much about us.
I believe a badly constructed website is not worth having. It should be a shop window into what you can offer, so you should invest time and money in making sure your website is professional.
It needs to be open, attractive, accessible and able to showcase what you do. It becomes a kind of virtual brochure for your business. It is an easy area to promote any special offers. Treat it like a first date and make sure it looks good enough to woo potential clients. It’s also a great place to highlight testimonials.
You can also use it if you wish to team up with other accountants to network ideas and pool skills. You can incorporate social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, and Pinterest.
If you use videos on the website, the same advice about professionalism applies to videos as to websites. Make sure it is professional, looking amateurish will turn people away.
Community engagement
Finally, don’t lock yourself away from the world. Get out in the community in the physical sense, meet people and make yourself known.
Promoting your business is a must if you want to stand apart from your competitor and meeting your clients face-to-face can make a difference.
Seek out business events and network, host your own open day and sell yourself to the local community. This is where you may be able to attract business from the opposition.
According to recent research, 70 per cent of all clients are looking to change their accountant at any one time. That is both a challenge to retain clients and an opportunity to acquire new ones.
Once a new client is on board, the rest is up to you. Roll out the red carpet, make them feel special and communicate regularly. Once you have them, don’t let them go.
That’s leadership.
Contact our UK-based team of account managers today to find out how we can help your firm.