Packaging Accounting
services into a highly desirable product
 In
terms of marketing theory, Accounting services are basically
just like any other merchandise.
Your service
is a combination of work, expertise, knowledge and advisory capacity,
all of which combines into a sellable commodity.
To sell
a commodity one must have buyers. To have buyers, one must have a commodity
that interests a sizeable group of potential buyers.
And to do that,
your service must be packaged accordingly.
Packaging is
basically the first of the two main parts of marketing. It's
also the more important of the two, albeit only because the second
part can't be performed without packaging.
The first part
is "creating something that's of high value and interest
for business owners to buy." You PACKAGE the service into
something that will create interest and WANT.
The second
part is to get it on the market, find a way to get business owners
to know about it and to understand its benefits, etc.
However, most
Accounting firms don't actually realise this and only concentrate
on the SECOND part of marketing.
They're so
intent on "taking the service onto the market" that
they don't see that WHAT they're offering is just totally non-desirable
and definitely doesn't create interest.
If you offer
basically an identical service that business owners are currently
receiving from their Accountants... why would it interest them,
what in it would create a desire to go into all the trouble that
changing Accountants necessitates?
Right.
Yet, by NOT
spending time to package the service into a highly desirable
commodity which would have natural PULL in that market, Accounting
firms are just wasting the money they throw at marketing.
They're only
really setting themselves up for a lifelong disappointment by
attempting the impossible. To get results in marketing, one must
first ensure that WHAT you're marketing is of high desirability
and unique quality as seen by those to whom you are going to
sell it.
Packaging of
Accounting services — the two aspects of equal importance
The art of
packaging can be divided into two subcategories or aspects.
l The
FIRST aspect
of packaging
involves the basic Accounting service itself. Now, with this
I really mean your BASIC service concept that is offered to every
client. Currently it probably consists of monthly accounts and
other compliance services.
Before you
can package your basic service, you need to find out what
your target group values and wants most. Finding out what
they would want but aren't getting from their current Accounting
is even more important as it gives you exactly the thing you
need to spearhead your new service (and the marketing message
presenting it).
Here, you also
use your technical knowledge to adapt what THEY want into what
they need (and what legislation stipulates, etc.).
l The
SECOND
aspect of packaging concerns the messages you're going
to use in advertising, presenting, selling and delivering this
unique service.
It involves
creating the "wrapping for the product."
This includes
NAMING the product and using very specific words, concepts, views
and messages in DESCRIBING what the product is and what benefits
if offers to that specific target group.
For this, you
need to find out the fears, feelings, opinions, fixed ideas and
preconceptions, realities, desires and goals in the subject of
Accounting and finance AS SEEN BY BUSINESS OWNERS. These concepts
need to be mapped out and MAJORITY VIEWS need to be found.
With "majority
views" I mean fears, feelings, considerations and such that
can be found to have a large following among your target audience...
those owners of small-to-medium sized businesses in your local
area.
Upon research,
it will be found that large numbers of them hold very similar
or even identical opinions about Accounting services.
This is especially
true of negative generalisations — what's wrong with Accountants,
what's bad about their services, etc.
In packaging
Accounting services, you must WRAP the new service with these
views. You must AGREE with them on what's wrong to DIFFERENTIATE
yourself from "all those Accountants..." and you must
offer them BENEFITS which come from "correcting those mistakes
all Accountants make."
I'm using quotations
hereto illustrate THEIR viewpoints and to differentiate them
from yours and mine.
The purpose
of this article is to show how you can get a lot more (and better-paying,
more appreciative) clients. I neither moralise nor defend the
Accounting industry on what it does and how it thinks as a big
aggregate on average.
You don't
have to be just a clog in a big machine. You don't have to conform with what
others think about marketing.
And you can't,
not if you want to package services so that business owners will
see yours as unique and infinitely more valuable than "those
identical basic services delivered by every Accountant."
Deliver what they want and describe its qualities
with concepts to which they assign value (and which they USE and understand)... and then make sure that it all works
The packaging
of Accounting services incorporates several aspects of marketing
and also goes into the technical side of Accountancy.
You find out
what business owners want from Accounting and kind of help or
service is valuable to them. You try to find something that they
AREN'T receiving from their current service provider.
You package
basic compliance services together with those special "most-wanted"
things, name the service and WRAP it with concepts THEY use in
describing those wanted benefits of high value.
You then do
a dry-run to see how this can all be put together technically
so the service DELIVERS what it promises and also conforms with
legal requirements of Accounting procedures.
You then PILOT
it for a while with live clients to catch the bugs and iron out
any stops and problems that surface once it's being tested in
real-life circumstances.
Next, you create
the system of bringing it to the market — making it known
in your area and ensuring the benefits are understood by those
who receive your message. Then test it, adjust and pilot it until
it produces contacts.
Next, you create
the way to PRESENT it in a standard way so that you can get the
majority of potential clients to sign onto the service. Test,
pilot, adjust... and so on.
And there you
have it — a unique, one-of-a-kind service concept that's
going to have enormous pull and bring all the benefits you could
ever imagine!
"Wonder
why Accounting professionals don't go for full packaging..."
If you began
feeling slightly exasperated during the "what to do"
list above, don't worry.
You're not
alone. In fact, if you do some research into what other Accounting
firms are offering, you'll notice that utterly few have ANY packaging
whatsoever in what they offer. If you could call these firms
to enquire about their services, you would find that they only
offer to perform mundane TASKS such as "monthly accounts"
and other compliance services.
You would also
find out that they don't have any FORMAT for handling enquiries.
They don't have any form of a prepared, in-depth interview to
encourage YOU to form positive opinions on their expertise or
on the unique qualities of their service.
If you would
ask for their fee, they would tell you — and yet, it's the
CARDINAL SIN of sales to give the cost before ensuring the prospect
fully understand WHAT it's for... what HE gets in exchange, what
benefits are on offer from the service, and so on.
So, nothing
is packaged and every little part of the marketing, presentation
and sales keeps changing over and over (as none of it is standardised
and documented into a finalised tool). In other words, it's all
very much like groping in the dark.
With some firms,
you'll find "self-originated packaging."
With this I
mean that they HAVE formed unique service concepts, named these
and try their best to explain the benefits of each to their potential
clients... but they've done so based solely on their OWN
views on what they think business owners want
and need.
While I applaud
the effort, I'm afraid it's not going to bring many clients despite
the hard work and countless thousands spent on marketing.
Since it's
all based on their SUBJECTIVE views on the subject, such packaging
has practically no chance of hitting the right buttons with
BUSINESS OWNERS.
(Their packaging
will greatly impress YOU since it's created by a colleague who
shares many of the same views as you do. Both of you are in the
SAME TARGET GROUP, see?)
Essentially,
there are about 100 different issues involved in packaging.
For you (in terms of getting YOUR service sold) these 100 steps
form a safe path through the minefield of ignorance, disinterest
and disappointments of business owners.
You just can't
GUESS your way through a minefield of this size and extent, no
way.
It would be
a feat similar to guessing several telephone numbers correctly
one after another. If you could do that then you would have been
a billionaire for years... for any game of chance would be free
pickings for such psychic powers!
To go about
packaging the right way, a lot of time and work are needed.
You need to
interview a sizeable group of business owners. You need to test
and develop ideas for services and then survey the desirability
of these with business owners again (explained in lay terms,
of course).
Next, you need
a sufficiently large TEST GROUP of clients to try the service
with. One hundred will do, provided you get to work with each
at least a year (preferably two).
You need to
keep accurate statistics on how they react to it, how they like
it, what types of problems emerge and how these are solved...
a whole host of things. In between these things, you must implement
changes to your service and also follow through these on your
marketing (advertising, presentation, sales).
It's a lot
of work and I've only given you a very modest part of the tasks
required to finally come up with the package that is CERTAIN
to...
|
- |
be extremely INVITING
for new potential clients (have a strong PULL for the
market) |
|
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have the tools
of presentation which guarantee that the majority of potential
clients actually sign onto the service |
|
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offer you a totally
UNIQUE service concept based on what the majority of
business owners fervently WANT but aren't getting from their
current Accountant, thus creating a strong incentive for business
owners to CHANGE over to you |
|
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give you the freedom
to price it at will since no competitor can offer this same
service and, as no-one else has it, clients don't have a COMPARISON
for your pricing |
|
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deliver value
for money beyond the expectations of those signing onto the
service |
|
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greatly lengthen
the time that the average client stays with your services so
that each client actually brings you more income because they
stay longer, further increasing the viability of your firm |
|
- |
increase your
profit margin simply because of the law of supply and
demand — yo can name your price as no-one else has this
service and because clients are so satisfied with it... |
...and this
is not a full list here at all. A correctly packaged service
concept is a major factor which directly governs the success
of an Accounting firm.
The importance
of having a superior service to offer simply cannot be
overstated. With it, marketing is full of opportunities and even
mediocre attempts can bring results in form of new clients. And
without it, no amount of money will bring results...
Unfortunately,
because the task of creating a packaged service is so HUGE, few
Accounting firms could ever really hope to have the needed RESOURCES
to do it properly.
That's the
bad news.
And here's
the good news:
Luckily, you
don't HAVE to do it on your own. Such a packaged basic service
already exists.
We call it
Monthly Financial Consulting Service.
It is the world's
ONLY basic added-value service that's fully packaged according
to the wishes and needs of business owners.
It's also the
only packaged service whose functionality has been piloted
with more than 50 Accounting firms and thousands of clients for
a period of three years BEFORE it was published
in form of a course.
Therefore,
it works. And, when you employ this system in YOUR practice,
the results are s something to behold....
A packaged
service is the only way to provide business owners with a sufficiently
substantial reason to CHANGE Accountants.
Without such
a starter service, you're hard put to get results in marketing
since they'll see your service as "exactly identical
to the one they're already receiving from their current Accountant..."
and that's just not inviting.
See. That's
how THEY think... and if you want clients, you have to go by
what they believe right now.
If you want
business owners to start considering a change of Accountants
— and they think it's a huge undertaking, by the way —
then you must give them a powerful REASON to do so!
And that's
what Monthly Financial Consulting Service can do for you.
Click
here to read more about the world's only packaged basic Accounting
service — Monthly Financial Consulting Service!
Click here
to read the presentation of Modern Accountancy Marketing Course
that gives you this packaged Accounting service along with proven
tools to market, present and sell it to an ever-increasing clientele
in your area!
Best wishes
Harry Kafka
HDK
Consultants Ltd
32 Manning Close
Richmond Square
East Grinstead
West Sussex RH19 2DR
United Kingdom
Tel. (01342) 328 116
CONTACT
FORM
E-mail: info@accountancymarketing.co.uk |