Topic: Technology and Growth
Reprinted with permission from Accounting Today
Pathways to growth through technology
Part one of this article addressed the power of digital tools and practices to fuel CPA firm growth. Impelled by the constraints of the coronavirus, firms got on board the cyber train in 2020 at varying speeds and with varying levels of success, mostly on the operational side of the firm. I noted that realizing the full potential of using digital to fuel growth will require integrating individual tools into a strategic whole, and serving up customized offerings that solve uniquely identified business problems by buyer group.
Part two expands on this potential of tech to grow firms in key ways—by adding sophistication to sales and marketing initiatives, removing geographic barriers and enhancing services. Let’s dive in.
Get Out Ahead
In sales, a key concept is that the buy cycle precedes the sell cycle, i.e., a buyer has typically embarked on a search for a solution before a provider is aware of the buyer’s search. However, technology, properly deployed, permits a CPA firm to reach a potential client at the beginning of their buy cycle, instead of the beginning of your sell cycle. The advantage is your ability to influence the buyer before they’ve been approached, maybe even bombarded, by other suitors.
Here’s an example. A company in the food truck business is seeking to outsource bookkeeping and finds its way to your website, offering a “downloadable” – a white paper on considerations in outsourcing bookkeeping in their industry. It advises looking beyond factors such as speed and accuracy, to benchmarking profitability and performance against other food truck businesses, a capability your firm has developed.
The food truck company has had annual growth of about five percent. That might feel pretty good to the owners, until the metric is benchmarked against comparable food truck vendors, realizing year-over-year gains exceeding 10 percent. What you’ve done is educate the buyer, enabling better decision-making, and building preference. It’s a powerful, tech-fueled pairing of sales and marketing.
Compare that scenario with the experience of a buyer who stumbles on your competitor’s website, boring them with the technical aspects of their offering (this is standard for most firms), and where the most exciting offering is a “contact us” form. By the time a response appears in the buyer’s inbox, the buyer has already downloaded your white paper and begun, based on what you wrote, seriously considering your firm. Bottom line, the odds of winning are higher when you seamlessly integrate digital tools to attract, influence, and capture a buyer earlier in the process.
But only if you have a very clear view of where you want the buyer to end up can you sprinkle the breadcrumbs effectively through their digital experience. And this is where an integrated digital strategy and execution is so powerful.
Everywhere You Need to Be
Another game-changing plus of a digital approach is it removes geographic barriers to firm growth. This is important for many reasons. Specializing, the strategic imperative in mature and commoditized markets, necessarily shrinks the size of any specific market within your geographic parameters. However, where once your firm was known for serving dental practices in Boston, technology opens up your geography and increases market size. Cloud and digital assets even more than ever make it possible to offer that same expertise to dental practices from Hahira, Georgia to Honolulu, Hawaii.
Last year made it abundantly clear, even to those firms lagging behind, that geography is no longer an obstacle to growth. Digital tools let us win clients, develop services, and deliver work of the highest caliber, without physical proximity to clients. It’s a game-changer in our business model. For buyers of our services, it’s a realization they can partner with the nation’s most in-demand food truck market CPA firm, despite being located on opposite sides of the country. Conveying that message through digital communication platforms can motivate buyers who formerly believed that a close zip code was required for a close working relationship.
Your team and the technology you rely on for client-facing and backroom operations is likely no longer in the office. Your team is at home and the technology is now (or in your future) up in the cloud. Go big into that digital future. But go soon. Your competitors are already on their way.
