Marketing Via Differentiation: Music

ACCOUNTING SONGS

The Singing CPA, Steve Zelin, recently released a CD called No Accounting for The Holidays with tracks including:

• Most Deductible Time of the Year

• We Wish You a Great Big Refund

• Joy to the World (The Clients Paid)

• Dreydl, Dreydl, Dreydl (Taxes, Taxes, Taxes)

• Twelve Days of Taxes

• Go Home Ye Weary CPAs

Sounds like a lovely gift for your favorite CPA. He has two other CDs: Just Take A Sick Day and Magical Boxes, and he is available for booking. Might be perfect for a firm holiday party or end-of-tax-season gathering.

Through his music, he is definitely distinguishing himself! He's an alumnus of a Big 4 firm now in private tax practice.

This (similar to blogging) is an effective way to humanize oneself!

ACCOUNTING ROCK BAND?

Other musically inclined CPAs I'm aware of are The Accounting Crows (gotta love that name). Per their website:

The Accounting Crows are "Connecticut's only CPA Rock 'n' Roll Band." However, as auditors who recognize the importance of the rule called "full disclosure," they quickly point out that only 3 of the 4 members (or 75%) of the band are CPAs.

So who is the "other 25 percent" of the band? Mark Zampino, the Crow's keyboard player and only non-CPA, is the Public Affairs Director of the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants (CSCPA) and DNA-tested father of both the band and its name.

They are dynamite! My friend and AAM 2003 conference co-chair, Anne Angera and I booked them to kick off our Boston conference, the theme of which was "Revolutionary Marketing" which they epitomized.

They received a standing ovation.

While their band must be pretty good to have this many bookings, they exude fun, and they poke a lot of fun at themselves on their website.

Lead guitarist Alan Friedman, partner at Friedman Kanneberg in CT, has a practice that includes consulting in the music industry. And he leverages his band extremely well to benefit the accounting business as well as pro bono for important causes.

Their specialization claim is very nicely substantiated on their website, illustrated by his firm's membership in these organizations: National Assoc. of Music Merchants, Retail Print Music Dealers Assoc., National Assoc. of School Music Dealers, Percussive Arts Society, American Music Conference, and Audio Engineering Society. 

As if the memberships weren't support enough, this impressive list of representative clients clinches it.

The band has several other supporting cast members (Crows and Crowquettes) and are always looking for more, according to their (very cheeky) website:

Just read our band bio and you'll understand why we always need some heavy-duty musical stand-ins when last minute gig plans go awry. We never know when Reed is has not-for-profit audit overseas in Outer Slabovia, or Mike has to furnish his board of directors with a 50-page cost containment report requiring him to look up the word "containment" in the dictionary, or John has to be billable for a change, or Mark has to pretend to do something important for the CSCPA, or Alan has to go to the bathroom.

Accordingly, The Accounting Crows need either real CPAs or real musicians (as there's no such thing as a real "CPA musician") to be available when a band member's schedule conflicts with any one of the two important gigs we get each year.

 

All these CPAs deserve kudos and a closer look for gleaning ideas about how to successfully differentiate in a crowded marketplace.

Any other accounting musicians out there? How about rock-n-roll lawyers?

 

Hat tip to Greg Price for posting about Zelin on his blog From Greg's Head!

Comments

[Kirk Ward]

Michelle,

I couldn't agree with you more. Practice differentiation is the absolute key to success.

For all you folks who read Michelle's blog, think about it this way ... Do you think the local restaurant owner is going to be more impressed with the "banker" image projected by the big boys down the street, or the fact that you handle the accounts for twenty-six other restaurants there in town?

Specialization as a form of differentiation is powerful. You need to do it, and let people know about it.

Cheers

[Lisa Solomon]

There are quite a few rock 'n roll lawyers out there. Check out:

Bob Noone & the Well Hung Jury: Bob sings about what's on all of our—and our clients'—minds, in styles ranging from blues to Carribean, lounge lizard to rock.

The Bar & Grill Singers: the Singers spoof themselves and their profession with clever lyrics set to a variety of musical styles. They needle everything and everyone involved in the law, including clients, billing practices, legal ethics, bored jurors, and (gasp!) federal judges. The Singers write all of their own material, and arrange many of the songs.

Dan Klau: a piano-playing lawyer who sings about the trials and tribulations of being a young associate, lawyers who couldn’t give a client a straight answer if their life depended on it, the joy of bringing someone to the brink of tears during cross-examination, and more

Soulless, Bloodsucking Lawyers: it isn't an ad hominem attack: it's the soundtrack of an original Broadway-style musical by the same name written by Minnesota lawyer, speaker, comedian and playwright Toni Halleen.

Lawrence Savell: specializes in law-related holiday songs

Mikey Mel & the JDs (coming soon): hard-rocking songs about love, life and law school.

You can find CDs by all of these artists in the music department at The Billable Hour Company, http://TheBillableHour.com. You can find videos from some of these artists at The Video Venue, http://video.thebillablehour.com (in the TBH Featured Artists category).