Many CPAs that I talk to like the idea of setting up systems in their practice. BUT, they are put off by the seemingly monstrous task of getting started?

It’s actually quite simple – just follow these steps:

*Organize the various procedures that need to be documented into functional groups. Set up physical and electronic folders to store the procedures once they have been drafted.
*Decide what tasks need to be documented. Consider everything that is done in your practice – especially those things that you find often have recurring problems or are inconsistent amongst staff members.
*Prioritize the list of tasks that need to be documented.
*Delegate the documentation of these tasks to the employees who actually perform them regularly.
*Get the working procedures written. Pool all necessary resources such as forms, information, checklists, etc. that you currently use and attach them to the procedure if relevant.
*Store your working procedures in the physical and electronic folders, together with any relevant attachments.
*Start doing it!
*These documented working procedures are never completely finished! You will need to be careful to regularly monitor their effectiveness, and to create new ones where required.

By having everything within your practice able to run independently and smoothly, you’ll be ensuring that your practice is capable of running well both now, and as it grows.

You will be also be able to avoid many of the breakdowns that cause a lot of practices to fail if they grow ‘too big, too fast’.

Best of all, you will actually feel more in control of your practice and know that you can spend your time on growing your CPA firm or other income-generating CPA firm marketing activities rather than dealing with day-to-day issues that are easily handled with the aid of a working procedure.

To learn more about CPA marketing tools and accounting marketing techniques, go to: www.CPAmarketingGenius.com.

I don’t know what it is about CPAs that makes us such poor delegators. Perhaps it’s because we are simply “control freaks” and don’t want to let go of the technical aspects of our practice.

Or maybe it’s because we believe that no one else in our firm can do it as well as we can.

Whatever the reasons, lack of delegation WILL get in the way of building your practice.

Delegation is a prime management skill that will allow you to allocate your time and energy toward other projects. It also helps to develop employees for advancement.

The best way to understand the cost of not delegating is to look at it from the standpoint of “opportunity cost”.

That means the real question is what type of work are you NOT able to do because you are tied up with the technical work?

One practitioner I spoke to told me he spent most of his time doing the accounting and tax work because he was so good at this type of work that it just didn’t make sense to delegate it to anyone else.

So I took him through a process of thinking about it differently.

I explained that he needed to understand the opportunity cost of being fully engaged in the accounting and tax work. This meant he did not have time to bring in new clients through teaching, speaking and other client-generating activities that he actually loved to do.

Once he saw the opportunity cost in dollars, he brought in some help so he could devote a few mornings and evenings to speak to local groups.

When I last talked to him, he shared with me that he had already signed up a few monthly business clients thanks to his speaking activities, and that this had also rekindled his enthusiasm and energy to take his practice to the next level.

For more CPA marketing ideas and strategies to grow your CPA practice, go to www.CPAmarketingGenius.com.

Let me give you an example so you can better understand what I mean by “marketing incest”. David Smith, CPA, starts his own practice and quickly realizes he needs to market and advertise to get new clients.

However, since no one in college ever taught him how to market, he does the “traditional” thing and looks at John Carey, CPA, up the street, who “appears” to have a successful practice. He notices that John Carey, CPA is running an ad in the local newspaper with a list of his services, his credentials, and the number of years of experience he has.

So, David Smith, CPA, goes out and does the same thing. Little does David Smith know that John Carey’s advertising and marketing DOESN’T work and never will. So now you have two CPAs doing terrible, horrible, wasteful advertising and marketing.

It’s called “Marketing Incest” because, if you look at 99% of CPA marketing, it’s all the same. (By the way, a really instructive exercise I suggest you do is to get hold of your local Yellow Pages directory and open the “Accounting” section. The similarity of the various ads you see is SCARY.) The way it is being done just doesn’t work.

Earl Nightingale, author of “Lead The Field” and “The Strangest Secret” said, “The secret of being successful in any business is to look around you and observe what everyone else is doing… AND DO THE OPPOSITE .”

There is magic in the quote…. One of the main reasons I began to have such success in my CPA practice when I started studying the best marketing minds outside the accounting industry is that I was bringing fresh concepts to marketing my accounting practice; I was doing things differently.

Since most CPAs out there have no clue how to market, once you understand the secrets to attracting quality clients, you can easily dominate your market and turn your CPA practice into a high paying cash cow!

To accelerate the success you have in your practice and learn about CPA marketing secrets that have helped me to dominate my area, go here: www.CPAmarketingGenius.com

Virtually all practitioners, no matter what services they provide, make two crippling mistakes when marketing:

1. They say the exact same thing as their competitors; and
2. They try to be everything to everyone.

In essence they have commoditized themselves.

You will know you have commoditized yourself when you hear yourself uttering things such as how long you have been in practice, listing the qualifications you have, detailing the services you offer, or making vague statements such as “the client comes first.”

The big danger when everyone looks the same and sounds the same is that the only way for your would-be clients to differentiate one firm from another is by fees.

Price shopping and commodity pricing aren’t things the market does to you. They’re something you unknowingly do to yourself by virtue of having nothing unique to say, no message that communicates to your ideal client that, “Yes, my firm is what you’re looking for.”

The truth is, most clients are willing to pay premium fees for things they desperately want. They just don’t know if yours is the business that is worth the fees. So you have to tell them.

The way to handle this is to take a step back and approach this strategically before rushing into marketing tactics. To develop a successful marketing strategy, you need to master the 3M’s of marketing:

• Market: Who buys your services.
• Message: Why they buy from you.
• Media: How you get your message across to them.

Most CPAs don’t take the time to work through each of these elements and few understand that the sequential order of looking at them is very important.

That’s why so many practitioners have problems with their CPA firm marketing. They end up buying advertising based on which ad rep calls them the most, or they spend a fortune running ads that have no clear message.

The key to getting this right is that you must work through them in the order just mentioned.

You must begin the process with a good picture of your ideal clients; then define a clear message to communicate with this group and finally decide which media you want to use to get it across.

I am a big movie fan and get to watch my fair share of films in the theaters. However I generally try to stay away from the television, other than an occasional show, as I feel TV is a big time zapper – and it simply doesn’t thrill me.

However, recently my mother-in-law – with whom I get along really well – was visiting for a few days and I made an exception by watching an hour-long cooking show, “Dinner Impossible.”

Being the marketing addict I am, of course I watched the show from a
marketing standpoint!

If you are not familiar with this show, Chef Robert Irvine serves stunningly
creative dishes for both intimate gatherings and huge crowds, all without
warning and at a moment’s notice.

On this episode, he has cooked on a desert island, in an 18th-century
kitchen, in an ice hotel, for cowboys on a cattle drive, for master instructors
at the Culinary Institute of America, and at the inauguration of Pennsylvania’s
governor.

What I observed as I watched the show was that, at the end of the day, it
was a cooking show presented in a very interesting and entertaining way.
Irvine was required in this episode, to cook a gourmet, seven-course,
fundraising dinner for forty-five guests who had each paid $15,000 for this
meal.

The extraordinary key that elevated this show from just a run-of-the-mill
cooking program into an intense one-hour drama was that he had to cook
this meal in these difficult conditions:

He had only five hours to deliver; he had to cook using camping gear; there
was a severe thunderstorm while he cooked; he had to catch his own fish,
and one of the assistants hated to cook.

So why would the producer go to all this effort and expense? The answer
is that they must create something extraordinary to attract the viewers and
keep their interest for the entire one-hour show.

The lesson from this is that we have to ask ourselves what extraordinary
things we are doing in our practices to get the attention of our prospects
and clients?

Most practitioners don’t do anything…hence the opportunity for you.

A number of years ago, I stumbled across the following saying that has
stayed with me ever since:

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

What it means for you is that you don’t have to be a superstar marketer to
excel in your CPA practice.

Your competitors (other CPAs) are doing such a lousy job in marketing
that any improvement you make in marketing your practice will make it
stand out by a mile.

There has never been a more challenging time for CPAs to grow a successful practice, with clients doing more in-house, using pre-packaged software and looking everywhere for ways to cut costs. But many CPAs are having their best results ever. In his brand new book titled: “The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy,” Salim Omar, practicing CPA and marketing coach, reveals detailed examples and steps “Genius CPAs” are using to buck the trend and create a CPA practice that doubles the revenue in half the time.

These strategies are proven to work for any CPA, whether they are just starting their practice, an established practitioner looking to reach new heights of success, or are working as a partner or professional in a larger firm.

Salim says “When I see CPA firms struggling, they’ve simply become another commodity just like the rest of the competitors. They haven’t positioned themselves as different and unique.”

There are 3 common mistakes CPAs make when it comes to positioning themselves and their firms:

• Trying to be all things. Most practitioners hesitate to specialize in one area because they are scared to close off other options. But no one can be an expert at everything. The secret is to find an area that is broad enough to appeal to a wide range of people and which keeps open the opportunity to work with them to meet their other needs.
• Waiting for permission. Some CPAs are too shy or modest to position themselves as an expert. It’s almost like they are waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay. They don’t realize the value they can and do provide through their knowledge.
• Not focusing on the audience. It’s tempting for a professional to get bogged down in the technical details. However, to build a personal brand, one must think about their clients and their problems. People are interested in solutions to problems, not the technical steps.

Salim Omar is an accountant with a passion for helping other small business owners and CPAs succeed. In addition to helping his clients build profitable businesses, he is committed to teaching other CPAs how to attract more clients and increase their income, while enjoying their lives more.

His articles have been published nationwide in prestigious industry publications such as Accounting Today, The CPA Journal, and Financial Advisor. Contact Salim Omar for an interview by calling 732-566-3660. More information on Salim’s new book: “The Ultimate CPA Practice in the New Economy” can be viewed at www.CPAmarketingGenius.com.

Happy New Year!

One of my mentors for the past 15 years has been Stephen Covey, author of the bestselling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His ideas were instrumental in helping me turn my practice from struggling to highly successful.

One of the seven habits that Stephen identifies is “To Begin with the End in Mind.” What he means by this is that being able to create a clear picture of where you want to go will help you get there much faster and more easily.

It’s rather like embarking on any journey to an unfamiliar destination.

Imagine you were driving to Alaska for the first time. Without a map or clear directions, you’d end up taking many wrong turns or driving in circles for hours and perhaps not even getting there at all.

It may seem a fairly obvious error. But that’s the way many CPAs attempt to run their practices or their careers. They have no clear picture of their desired destination and no map of how they plan to get there.

The end results can be the same – a great deal of wasted time and even failing to get where they want to go.

A Strategic Objective can serve as a clear picture of your desired destination and can be your road map for getting there.

A Strategic Objective is a one-page document that describes your practice at its best and addresses the following big questions:

• This is who we are.
• This is how we operate.
• This is who we serve.
• This is our competitive advantage.

To create your Strategic Objective, you need to sit down and develop a clear vision of where you want to go with your practice. Envision in your mind exactly what it will be like at some stage in the future – perhaps three, five, or ten years down the road.

Creating the first draft will take you a few hours and then you’ll spend a bit of time over the next few days refining it.

Here are some crucial questions that will help you develop your Strategic Objective:

• What is the big picture for your practice? Think of your practice
as a product and specify what the end product will look like in the future.

• Who are your employees? How many? Describe them.

• What will your gross billing be? $200,000; $500,000; $1 million;
or several million dollars?

• What services will you provide?

• What types of clients will you be attracting? Geographic areas?
Industries?

• What is your Unique Service Proposition (USP) ? What makes
you different from the competition? What is your reason for
existence?

• How many days/hours will you work each week (during tax
season , in the off -season)?

• What is the legacy you will leave behind?

As soon as you have a clear Strategic Objective for what you want your practice to look like in the future, you will be much closer to making it a reality.

Warmly,

Salim

You can’t run a CPA practice in today’s world without having an effective website. That is the place where your prospects will go to see ‘the face’ of your firm, who the people behind it are and read about the experiences of others who have dealt with you. Not having an effective website that is not updated regularly is like telling your prospects and clients that you don’t care about your firm.

I have observed that a large percentage of CPA firms purchase a website from a service provider that sells generic website templates that simply don’t work in the real world. You want to advertise you are unique in your field, don’t you? But if your site is nothing but unique and looks cheap to boot – you will turn prospects away. Distance yourself from the crowd and be different from your competitors.

Here are the most common mistakes I see CPAs make with their website:

Too Much Information
Your website should not be like a brochure with technical information written in small letters. How many people really read those? Same goes for you site. It has to be built with the client in mind, as if the client is sitting in front of you and you are telling him/her about your practice. Cluttering your site with a lot of information will only tell them you have an information dump.

How Are You Different?
That is something you should pay attention to. Why will the prospect be better off with your firm instead of others? Your website needs to accentuate your strengths and uniqueness, not copy what your competitors have done.

You Talk Too Much About You
Too much “we” and you lose people because you talk about yourself too much. That is why people go to websites – to see how they can be helped. Talk about how your service can make their lives easier or faster and better.

Your Site Hasn’t Been Updated
You have to show that there are people behind your site, not just electronics. You can do that by updating your site and making it current. Your site needs to reflect the industry’s standards and be up to date on new technology and information.

There is No ‘About You’ Page
This is very important. People who are looking to hire a new CPA firm want to know that there are real people behind it. You have to establish a sense of trust, and you can do it in the ‘About You’ page. Make that page as personal as you can, never generic.

No Endorsements
One of the most important things is people’s endorsements. Anyone can say his/her firm is the best in the world, but can you prove it with clients’ feedbacks? Prospects want to know what other people went through as they consider to hire you.

There is No Real Address
People want to do business with other people, not with logos. Not having a physical address on you site feels like it is a company that can disappear overnight. Street address, phone number, e mail address and even a Google Map embedded in your site with driving directions, will tell your prospects you are not afraid to look them in the eye.

It’s Hard to Navigate
People’s attention span is pretty short these days. If the navigation on your site is not intuitive and easy to follow, you will lose prospects that are frustrated with the process.

These are the most obvious trust breakers that drive people away from websites without the practitioner realizing what they are doing wrong. Make sure you are not guilty of any of them. More information on how you can create a killer website can be found here: www.CPAmarketingGenius.com

Last month, we talked about time management techniques and I shared with you a couple of my time management techniques. Let me share with you one more:

3) Manage your time in blocks.  In other words, cluster your client appointments. Many CPAs make the mistake of scheduling their appointments whenever the client is available, as opposed to thinking about when it would be BEST to schedule their appointments for efficiency and time off.

What I do for myself is to identify the things that are important that I accomplish and those are blocked on my calendar.

Let me give you a few examples:

• If I have my quarterly meetings with my business clients, those are first blocked off, back to back.

• Any client projects that I am working on get blocked off.

• Staff meetings get blocked off.

• Time assigned to marketing and meeting with prospects gets blocked off.

Try that and you’ll probably find, like me, that there is little time or space left free.  That leads to the conclusion that we have to conserve time that is normally wasted, which is why I believe firmly in this next practice.

Each of my projects and activities has an amount of time assigned to it. So, for example, for my staff meetings I will assign 20 minutes and I want to be done by then…that means we have to be efficient and to the point.

Allocating time towards marketing your accounting services is one of your most important responsibilities. If you follow the regimen I have prescribed in this blog post and the prior one, you will find yourself with several hours you previously didn’t think you had. This is time you can now allot towards marketing your CPA firm.

In my work as a consultant helping other CPAs to market their CPA firms, one objection I hear often is “But Salim, I just barely have enough time to do the work to deliver my services to my clients. I simply can’t spare a lot of time to think about marketing.”

My first answer is that if you want to grow your CPA practice, you don’t have any choice: you simply must make time for your CPA firm marketing.

My second answer is that I know you’re busy. But, as we all know, having time for high-priority tasks is a matter of managing your time. Here are two time management techniques that have worked well for me in my practice:

1) Don’t be a slave to the phone. I don’t answer the phone. I have administrative staff who do that. They screen my calls and either take a message or transfer them to voice mail. I block time on my calendar to return phone calls from 12:30-1:00 pm and 4:30-5:00 pm every day. My clients know that I will respond to their calls during these times. I also encourage them to send me an email for faster response. The benefit of emails is that I can forward them to the appropriate person who can handle that email. Most questions from my clients, my staff can handle. That frees me up a lot. I believe that if you apply this one strategy in your practice, you will easily free up several hours in the week just with proper handling of the phone.

2) Make and use to-do-lists. It is very important to maintain those. A daily to do list, a weekly to do list, a monthly to do list and a yearly to do list. That is crucial for maximum time productivity. I have been using these for several years and all my staff members use them too.

In next weeks post, let continue this conversation.