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special articles covering the AAM Summit. More articles are featured
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Why Clients Chose You (and Why They Don’t)
By: John Kmetz, Ph.D.
In addition to his role as CMO for Holtz, Rubenstein and Reminick, John Kmetz holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. Noting to the audience that he was not a consultant and had nothing to sell he wove his knowledge or Renaissance art into his presentation by introducing the audience to a portrait of a Hanseatic Merchant, Georg Giese, painted in London in 1532 by the artist Hans Holbien the Younger.
Using Humor to Enhance Marketing
By: Mark Miller and Melissa Brogan
Just because accountants take their business seriously, doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to take themselves seriously. Being personal and personable in the marketplace can be a fierce way to stand out among your competitors.
Rainmaking Essentials
By: Julie Harman, Hertzbach & Company, P.A.
“Rainmaking Essentials” presented by Andrew Dietz covered the difference between a standard linear sales process and a non-linear client development system.
What Recruits Want Most to Hear From You
By: Pat Davidson
If you thought “schmooze” was something you only do to get clients, think again. With the numbers of accounting students and public accountant candidates decreasing, it may now be that recruiting is the most over-the-top schmoozing you will ever do. Tim Noworyta and Linda Watson of PDI Global presented some reasons why and lots of practical ideas on how.
Practice Made Perfect: More, Better and On Demand
By: Joe Walsh
Why doesn’t anyone read practice descriptions? In this session, Joe Walsh spoke on the subject of
content that connects with the user, using numerous real life examples to support this issue every
accounting firm marketer has faced. Mr. Walsh compared professional services firm content to the
Magna Carta, discussing the fact that people don’t have time to read pages and pages on content. At
this day in age, we must write and provide content for people who scan. This can be accomplished by
using charts, tables, maps and lists along with the text. Research shows that buyers want to know who
you work for and what you did for them, prospects aren’t looking for a definition of a specific service in
paragraph form.
Firing on All Cylinders: How to Energize Your Firm
By: Pat Davidson
Your accounting firm could be just like an old car. It still runs every day. It has all the bells and whistles so it feels comfortable. But suppose there is a problem in the engine. Suppose the serpentine belt is failing and one day it will break altogether. You can choose to stop and fix it now, before it completely breaks down, or you can just keep running it as long as possible. Melinda Guillemette encouraged accounting marketers to help fix the problems by being leaders in their behaviors as well as marketing programs.
Managing Difficult Conversations Successfully
By: Michelle Bacca, Convergence Coaching, LLC
It’s not you. It’s me. At least that’s how Michelle Bacca helped us to understand the world of conflict. It makes sense, in any given disagreement, there is only one person we have control over…ourselves. Michelle’s presentation focused on recognizing in ourselves how we behave in times of conflict and to leverage that against how it may make others react around us.
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
By: Robert Fortunato and Mindy Danna
Uncovering your skills to manage and lead critical initiatives at your firm is key to thriving in difficult situations with your managing partner, clients and peers. In order to prosper in your firm’s environment, you must be able to understand what makes a leader a leader and the importance of a leader’s connection to learning and education.
Born to Be Wild: Unleashing Your People’s Latent Marketing Power
By: Linda Kranz, PDI Global, Inc.
Internal marketing is important as it aligns, motivates, and empowers all employees at all levels to consistently deliver results.
“Outbehave” Your Competition
By: Gregg Lederman
A firm’s success begins with their employees. Is your brand strategy invisible to your employees? Do your employees know how to deliver on your company’s brand to potential clients? Outlining and building behaviors employees will adopt and use to deliver improved profitability, loyalty and sales is the goal of any firm, however most do not successfully encourage their people to relay their brand strategy and promote services that set their firm apart from others. Typically, it is the firm that is responsible for the lack of defining their brand and educating their own employees on how to deliver that brand to potential leads.
The Proposal is Not a Sales Event
By: Julie Harman, Hertzbach & Company, P.A.
How many marketers have had a partner walk into their office, throw a business card down and tell you to send a proposal out as soon as possible. Well, this has not only happened to me, but has happened to many of the marketers who attended “The Proposal is Not a Sales Event” given by Gale Crosley.
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
By: Robert Fortunato and Mindy Danna
Uncovering your skills to manage and lead critical initiatives at your firm is key to thriving in difficult situations with your managing partner, clients and peers. In order to prosper in your firm’s environment, you must be able to understand what makes a leader a leader and the importance of a leader’s connection to learning and education.
Future Forward – Redefining Practice Growth
Tracy Crevar Warren
Tracy Crevar Warren was excited. The President of the Crevar Group, former Chief Marketing Officer of Dixon Hughes and past President of AAM told a packed session that she felt we wer “getting ready for one of the most exciting times in our profession.” And she wanted to show us a map to how toe becom “Practice Growth Architects.”
Defining Your Competitive Differentiators
By André Mazerolle and Michelle Class
Message the heck out of your competitive differentiators was the advice from a former BDO marketing and sales director, Tamera Loerzel, now, a senior consultant with ConvergenceConsulting, LLC, a nationwide consulting firm dedicated to helping CPA and IT firms achieve success.
Crisis Communication Made Simple – or at Least Manageable
By: Katie Tolin
Benjamin Franklin once said “Take care of your reputation. It is your most valuable asset.” That saying is even more imperative today then when he said it. As a result, it is essential that you control how your business is viewed in the court of public opinion.
Developing Revenue-Focused Leaders
By Melissa Farmer, Somerset CPAs, P.C.
There are four components of revenue-focused leadership including culture, planning, implementation and communication, according to David H. Freeman, J.D., CEO of David Freeman Consulting.
Developing an Effective Sales Organization
By: Sarah Johnson
Successful sales organizations need to have four key components working together in order to be effective, according to Larry Bildstein of the Whetstone Group. Those components include:
 Strategic marketing
Marketing & sales support
Sales people
Sales manager
From Marketing to Practice Growth – Becoming a Director of Practice Growth
By: Sarah Johnson
Directors of practice growth are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Becoming a director of practice growth requires specific skills and strategy. According to Gale Crosely, Crosley + Company, here’s how one becomes a director of practice growth.
Gain Credibility with Your Partners
By Kristen Ludwig
Bridging the gap between marketing and accounting mindsets in one of the chief struggles marketing directors face. According to Lyne Noella and Jill Joffrion of Stonefield Josephson, while there are differences in perception between the two groups, there are ways to improve communication.
Getting Things Done: Personal Productivity Strategies
By: Kim Cooley
Jocelyn Coverdale was a very effective speaker – straight and to the point, easy to understand and follow. She opened the segment by asking each attendee to complete a self-assessment test designed to help us determine “where we are” as far as our organizational skills go. For those who scored low on the organizational skills chart, Coverdale offered encouragement and stated that becoming organized is a process – it’s never a “once and for all” thing.
Jump Start Your Sales Process with Telemarketing
By Kathy Lombardino
Having just hired outside telemarketers for a very successful lead generation campaign, I was interested in how I could continue to use telemarketing as part of our overall practice growth strategy. After attending Jump Start Your Sales Process with Telemarketing at the 2006 AAM Conference, I learned not only how to effectively use this tool, but more importantly, why telemarketing should be an integral part of practice development and how it is a catalyst for growth.
Killer Advertising and Marketing
By: Kim Cooley
To develop your firm’s most killer advertising, you must focus. And, focus starts with a message – but most firms relay the same message: we are big, we are old, we represent everyone, we do lots of things and we do all of them the best. The advertising includes the obligatory photos of people in conference rooms, handshakes, money symbols, etc.
What’s a Marketing Plan Look Like?
By: Vicki Lock
Planning the Plan
The first step is to determine the firm’s strategy by interviewing your managing partner and other leaders within the firm and gathering information about the long term direction and goals of the firm, industry niches, firm services and strategic emphasis and what makes your firm and your firm’s people different from the competition.
Sales as an Art and a Science
By: Vicki Lock
Good salespeople follow a strict process, and they also possess the natural ability to sell. The sales process, a series of steps that are carried out in order to achieve a predictable result, includes:
The State of the Profession
By: Kristen Ludwig
Veteran marketers from a diverse slate of firms share their thoughts on the state of the accounting marketing profession. Mitch Reno, Director of Sales & Marketing for the Rehmann Group; Edmund Russ, Chief Marketing Officer for Grant Thornton; and, Carol Schraeger, Director of Marketing at Friedman, LLP have all seen their firms double in size over the past two years. In a question and answer format, these professional share their own perspective on trends in the accounting industry and address issues including capturing market share, the changes Sarbanes-Oxley has brought to their firms, and defining sales and marketing roles, among others.
Strategic Planning 101
By: Becca Davis
There is a difference between being “strategic” and “tactical.” A strategy, according to Sally Glick Chief Marketing Officer of Sobel & Co. LLC, is a plan for action, whereas tactics are the “actionable steps that will accomplish the strategy.”
Using Technology to Market Smarter
By Melissa Farmer
Firms should use technologies including customer relationship management (CRM), web presence and blogging to market smarter, according to two true authorities on technology and marketing, Joe Rotella, SPHR, CTO of Delphia Consulting, LLC, and Anne Stanton, MVP-CRM, MBA/ACC, Presi
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