Golden Practices Blog

When You Look at These Future CPAs, the Future of Accounting Looks Bright!

Gotta hand it to McGladrey! I was just hopping around the web and came upon a post to McGladrey's Success Starts Here blog.

They've posted about their 2009 Summer Intern Capstone Conference and, you know what, this video speaks for itself. It's upbeat and exciting. Just makes me feel good all over. :)

Watch it!

FAQ Pages for Accountants or Lawyers?

FAQs--the sort found on software or product sites--might not be the most effective approach for marketing a service firm, but what can we learn from them?

If most firms set about to add a general FAQ page today, without thinking it through, it would end up being more like a QWWYWA (Questions We Wish You Would Ask) page. This would be where the firm would regurgitate its brochure and proposal "all about us" language yet again.

But it's proven. That doesn't work.

LESSON ONE: PURPOSE

You don't sell a product that has finite function, limitations, or usage. The FAQ was first created for that. You sell knowledge. So what should your FAQ contain? Be certain of your purpose before you build it. See below.

LESSON TWO: TRANSPARENCY

If your FAQ is going to cover "why buy from us" or "how to buy from us" then be transparent about it. Some ideas about that...

I love how transparent the CEO of Zappos was yesterday in his email to employees about the Amazon / Zappos deal. A great letter, BTW, I commend Tony Hsieh on every aspect of it.

About 1/2 way down the letter begins a "Q&A" section, and 3/4 of the way down is this:

Q: I'm a business/financial reporter. Can you talk like a banker and use fancy-sounding language that we can print in a business publication? (where they used their canned marketing jargon)

And below that is Q: Can you talk like a lawyer now? (where they obviously put that requisite legal stuff)

If an accounting or law firm were to throw in some self-serving info in a FAQ, I would hope they would do it with this sort of transparency (and humor).

LESSON THREE: CONTENT

Who is an FAQ gonna help sell?

• Traditional FAQs are probably not going to close a $10K+ accounting/audit service or big piece of litigation to the C-suite.
• Bookkeeping or basic tax work, sure, but last time I checked, firms over $3-4 million in revenues aren't interested in doing more of either of those services.
• Bankruptcy, estate administration, or estate planning for an individual, perhaps.

For complex issues, some accountants and many lawyers have GREAT FAQ pages, and they are usually called blogs. If you really want an FAQ page, use a blog approach even for a static website.

Make an FAQ topic specific. Not an FAQ "about the firm" but about "estate planning" or "trusts" or "probate." Break a complex issue down into pieces and tackle each piece separately.

A blog is a better tool to accommodate this content style, though.

These professions are so complex that a good FAQ page is a discussion of meaningful issues--a fluid discussion because issues are fluid.

Here is a blog by a small but powerhouse firm who does public company audits aptly titled "Gray Matters." Does it get more complex than SEC compliance? This is meaningful, useful advice, and theoretical concepts (and not always towing the party line!) that keep CEOs, CFOs, and board members reading, and it substantiates the firm's level of knowledge. Big 4 folks subscribe to the blog, too. It's that good.

LESSON FOUR: EFFECTIVENESS

When your competitors read you, and media reads you, you know you are on the right track. When clients or prospects comment on how helpful the site was, or they actually contact you because of it, you are doing it right (assuming these are your goals).

If you are a professional service / knowledge firm, then my recommendation is to skip the all-about-us FAQ and give people evidence of your knowledge. Blog being your tool, or not.

Just, please, don't recycle your brochure language anymore, no one cares about it. Instead, answer questions real people have about real issues.

Show WHAT you know, don't just say you "know a lot of stuff." How, after all, does that make you any different from the person in the office across town?

100 Accounting Practice Blogs!

Having just updated the Accounting Blog List again (seems like every week or two) I am delighted to report that we have just crossed the 3-digit count threshold.

The 100th blog has now been entered on the list!

To qualify in the count, a blog must be authored by a licensed and currently in practice accounting practitioner (CPA, CA, etc) or public accounting firm (group authored is okay).

If you have a blog and are not on this list, please drop me a note!

Our Fave Website Design Yet!

Today is a great day! We are super excited to launch our newest site & blog. Rowling Dold & Associates is a firm of CPA types who are primarily financial/wealth advisors.

A really cool thing about RDA is how they let us pretty much run with our ideas and designs. This is pretty rare and we savored every minute of it.

The other really cool thing about RDA's website development is the theme.

Sheryl Rowling, RDA's managing partner, took a long, well-deserved trip to Europe last year with her business partner Cheryll Lurtz right after launching their product Total Rebalance Expert (a very cool rebalancing software for advisors who use Schwab Portfolio Center) at the big Schwab conference in Atlanta.

Sheryl & Cheryll included us in their email photo-journal of their trip: almost daily recaps of their escapades with a couple select photos of the day. The photos were exceptional and we (the recipients) lived vicariously through them for a few weeks as they gallivanted across Europe.

When we started on their web design, we hadn't thought about using those photos but when conversation turned to imagery, their goals were: artful, professional, and more scenic than stock people. A San Diego based firm, our thoughts naturally turned to ocean-related scenery.

Then we remembered the photos.

Big believers in personalizing a website to the degree that you get a feel for the personalities comprising a firm, we wanted visitors to have a feel for Sheryl's trip the way we did. 

So we wanted it to be really obvious that these were home-grown photos. Each photo links back to a photo credits page.

Hope visitors enjoy looking as much as we enjoyed building. This one was a joy!

Sheryl, Lisa and team, thank you for letting us help you with this fun project!

And congrats on having what I think might be the first Financial Services blog by a CPA!

I'm Afraid it's a Terribly Unfortunate Problem When We're Negative

Got an unsolicited email about negativity in speech. Don't normally read my junk mail, but SO glad this item escaped my ruthless delete stroke so that I could share the gem with you:

Negative Vocabulary: Say what you will do, not what you can't do.

We can change people's perceptions of a situation by changing the words we use to tell them. Being negative is one of the most common bad habits we all seem to have! Why are we so negative and specialise in looking on the dark side?

We seem to specialise in telling people what we can’t do, not what we are able to do, however small.

Many people go through life pointing out things about themselves, their houses, [and] their cars that they do not like and then telling people not to take any notice of them. Notice is only taken because we point them out.

We then compound this with using negative vocabulary.

Negative words like "unfortunately" "I'm afraid" "The problem is..." "I'm sorry but..."

The situation doesn’t change, but the way the other person feels about it, changes totally. For example, which is better received?

"Unfortunately we close at 7.00pm"
OR
"We are open every day until 7.00pm"

"Unfortunately we’re going to disconnect/repossess if you don't pay"
OR
"Mr Smith, we need a payment today to prevent disconnection/repossession"

In my many years of experience the negative is the most widely used! If you think you can, or if you think you can't, you're absolutely right.

This Marketing Tip of the Week was provided by Ann Nobbs of Telmark Training who concentrates on working with people to improving telemarketing results.

With her negative example of "I'm sorry but..." ... the simple change to "I'm sorry and..." makes all the difference in the world.

This "and/but" thing is VERY helpful, too, if you are disagreeing with a colleague -- especially in a meeting where you don't want to come across as a jerk. After someone says something you wish to counter, or add a differing opinion on, try, "I hear what John is saying AND I'd like to add..." as opposed to "John thinks that BUT I..." 

This simple change is far more respectful and far less confrontational.

The word "but" should pretty much be removed from any customer relations conversation. It will only get you in trouble.