What a public relations professional learned from accountants and business advisors

I recently was a presenter and attendee at the RAN ONE annual conference for accountants and business advisors where I learned more about my business than I have at some conferences that focus on public relations and marketing.

These firm leaders are in the trenches during a distressed economy, offering information and guidance to their business clients every day. RAN ONE helps accountants and business advisors become more successful and increase quality of life for themselves and their clients by providing advanced online and training resources, research, analytics and business connections.

These accountants and advisors are working on the leading edge of the entrepreneurial economy, where businesses succeed or fail on the basis of the decisions made and advice taken. These CPAs and CAs (Chartered Accountants, as they’re known in Canada) are leaders in learning all they can to keep their skills at the level needed to be their clients’ most trusted advisors.

They are more aware than ever of the importance of business development. Several of the attendees said they had recently hired business development or marketing specialists in the past year. They realize that professional services are no different from any other high-end product or service. They know they must develop their brands and communicate their values clearly and consistently to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

It’s about the relationships. These advisors said personal connections are the most important factor in creating referrals and that relationships take time to cultivate and nurture. One advisor said, “I went through my client list and discovered that the best referral sources were those who also were dependent on referrals: lawyers, bankers and insurance brokers.” Another advisor created a “wall of referrals” in his office on which he displayed in a visible location the business cards and brochures of his referral partners.

Promote by giving away your value – but not necessarily all for free. In the marketing roundtable I facilitated on the last day of the conference, several of the members discussed their success with offering seminars for clients and potential clients. One of the firms partnered with banks in offering financial planning seminars, for which they charged a small fee. They found that these seminars had higher attendance than those offered for free. It seems people are more likely to attend an event for which they’ve RSVPd if they’ve made even a nominal financial commitment. This firm always gave attendees a valuable takeaway, such as a white paper on the topic.

Social media is important for professional services – but the skeptics are out there. One of the younger attendees said in response to a few skeptics regarding the value of social media to the accounting and business advising profession, “It’s not about your current clients. It’s about your future clients.” The current 30- to-40-somethings will be buying and running businesses in the next few years. That client is searching for resources online (average age of Facebook users = 38.4; LinkedIn = 44.3). Professional service providers may be a bit late in joining the social media conversation, but the ones who are contributing on blogs and social communities are finding new ways to communicate their unique value to their current and future clients.