Marketing:

Means to Enlarge Your Business

There are tons of resources out there, from books to articles to consultants, to provide you with good ideas and advice for your marketing plan. However, there are three basic and main objectives that should definitely be a part of any marketing plan. If the following objectives are missing from your plan, it may be time reevaluate your marketing strategies.

• Acquisition of new clients
• Retention of existing clients
• Expansion of service to existing clients

  Seems rather simple, huh? The hard part is actually implementing the above ideas in the development of your own marketing plan successfully, the operative word being successfully. There are several reasons why marketing plans end up being unproductive and do not succeed.

  • Partners become impatient and quit or give up if immediate results are not seen
  • The plan consists of unrealistic goals
  • Partners do not believe in the plan and therefore do not carry their part in helping to make it work
  • The partners do not have the skills and/or experience to accurately implement the plan

  In order to make your marketing plan successful, you need first and foremost to achieve the three major objectives mentioned above. To help ensure that you reach the objectives, you need to be able to incorporate many of the beneficial aspects that all successful businesses have.

  • Quality of work product - your work product should be top-of-the-list, the best possible product you are capable of delivering to the client. Since your two most basic products are tax returns and financial statements, then these are what you should focus on.
  • Timeliness in delivery - Are the financial statements and tax returns of use to the client at the time they are delivered? Should you possibly prepare and delivery preliminary drafts to the client?
  • Value - Does your client find the services you provide necessary to the functionality of their business? Does the client feel you are worth the costs they are incurring for your services? What can be done to make your work more valuable to your client?
  • Partner/director activity - Make sure that everyone knows what is going on with everybody else within the firm. Meetings should be held to inform each other of what has been going on with each major client. Through these meeting, you will more accurately be able to monitor the relationships between the client and the partner and to assess the communication.
  • Training - a series of meetings and seminars should be held to develop a firm-wide marketing culture among the partners and staff.
  • Client referrals - There is not a better source for additional future clients than present or past clients.