Category: strategic advice

Before I offer my ten linkedin tips for tax advisers let me first share 3 key observations:

• For our purposes Linkedin is best thought of as an online business networking platform. And recognised as being quite distinct from other (so-called) ‘social media’.
• Even if YOU don’t intend to be active on Linkedin, some simple housekeeping cannot do any harm.  You want to be sure that your Linkedin profile and headshot are up to date and enhance the prospect of you being contacted by someone looking you up online.
• Some people tell me they are concerned about increasing the amount of spam and sales messages they will get on Linkedin – if they change anything. All I can say is that I have over 11,000 followers on Linkedin and receive barely any spam. I’m choosy about who I connect with and have opted for the security settings in Linkedin that limit the facility to send me spam. And I’ve turned off all notifications I don’t want to receive.  You can do the same.

Ten tips

1. Update your settings – via the ‘settings and privacy’ area of the site – accessed via the drop down menu by the little photo of you at the top of the screen when you are logged in to the site. Check out each setting and revise them to reduce the spam messages you get on each of the 4 pages:  Account, Privacy, Ads and Communication. It might take 20 mins to do this in total.
2. Review and update your profile  – Ensure it projects an appropriate personal ‘first impression’ to anyone who looks you up on line and to anyone who is recommended or referred to you and who themselves uses Linkedin a lot (as I do for example).  Think about who do you want to positively influence? What first impression do you want to give them? Prospective clients? Introducers? New partners? New staff? Suppliers? Colleagues from your international association? The list goes on and on. Here is my list of Linkedin profile tips from 2012!  Little has changed – beyond the number of people now using Linkedin!
3. Refine your home feed – if you are seeing nonsense here, click the 3 dots at the top right of each post that you don’t want to see. This will help educate the algorithm that decides what appears in your home feed.
4. Unfollow strangers – especially those who post stuff that is of no interest. You can do this via their profile page and also whenever you see a post you don’t like. Unfollow is one of the options available when you click the 3 dots at the top right of a post in your home feed.
5. Educate the algorithm – like, react and comment only on posts that are of real interest.  For example, the more tax related posts you engage with the more the algorithm will show you – as it learns what you like.
6. Comment on relevant posts – Let your expertise be revealed through your comments and avoid treating this an opportunity to overtly self-promote whenever you comments to anyone’s posts. Again, your activity will help educate the algorithm. Obviously it helps us all if you also comment on those I write which mention the Tax Advice Network.
7. ‘Ignore’ random connection requests – I have long been choosy about how I built up my connections (now 11,000+). I have concluded it is no longer worth me spending time on personal messages to check why a random person (or accountants from Asia) want to connect with me. And my approach also means I rarely get any spam.
8. Use the ‘search’ facility – You can look up both specific people and also your ideal clients. Then send personalised connection request messages. It’s like saying hello at a networking event.
9. Network online as you would offline – You would never walk into a room and start out by telling everyone how great you are, before you had first introduced yourself and started to build a relationship. Linkedin works best if you adopt the same approach online.
10. Follow the Tax Advice Network business page – and add your membership of the Network to the list of your experiences and to your list of memberships further down your profile. For example:
    Proud to be a member of this leading network of independent tax advisers. The website helps people who are looking for someone with my tax expertise to find me, contact me and engage directly with me.

Mark Lee – July 2020

You have probably heard plenty of people encouraging you to use social media more to promote your tax advisory practice. Speaking as someone who has been highly ranked as on online influencer of the accounting and finance profession since 2011, my views may come as a surprise. 

Before we start, let me be clear. Effective use of social media can be very helpful for some accountants and tax advisers. But the two key elements of that statement are ‘effective’ and ‘some’. It is not a panacea. It is not a quick and free way to promote your services and to secure leads.

Having said that, I do promote the Tax Advice Network on twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin. But I do so largely on the back of my own personal reputation, contacts and connections (of which I have over 11,000 on Linkedin alone – despite being very choosy who I connect with!)

My biggest tip for you is to stop worrying that you’re missing out if you’re not active on social media or that you must start promoting your practice on social media. The concept has been vastly overhyped and is widely misunderstood.

You should only be thinking about becoming active on social media if you have clearly defined objectives and would be able to measure the return on investment of your time (and any money) you invest here.

By the way, the clue is in the word ‘social’. You can’t expect someone else to be successful ‘doing your social media’ for you. That would be like them ‘doing your networking’ for you.  Social media is like online networking. People want to get to know you and your personality and it takes time to build real relationships.

You wouldn’t expect anyone to win work by attending a networking event and simply talking about themselves. Even less so if someone showed up and pretended to be their boss.  Regardless of what you may have heard or been promised, exactly the same is pretty much true online too.

Success factors

Here are some key questions to clarify whenever you hear about an accountant or tax adviser talking about how they’ve been successful using social media:

• Which platform(s) do you focus on? (This will vary but the most valuable work typically comes via Linkedin)
• For each platform, how much time do you spend on it each day/week? (You may shocked by how much time some people devote to this)
• Were you posting as an individual or using the firm’s social media handle? (Invariably the response will be as an individual)
• When did you start investing time on that platform?  (In other words, how long has it taken them to start getting a good return on their activity here?)

And also:

• How many new clients has your activity generated?
• What type of work are you doing for those clients?
• How much have you so far earned in fees from those clients? And over what period?
• Do those clients share any similar characteristics? If so, what are they?

The reason I advise you to clarify these issues is the number of times I have heard about social media success which is not easily replicable.

You may be looking for a different type of new client, a different type or level of work for them (eg advisory rather than simply completing basic SA tax returns), you may charge higher fees, you may have less time available to post and engage on social media platforms, or you may have different ambitions for your firm.

And, sometimes the apparent ‘success’ we hear about is very recent and has yet to result in any significant fees being received by the accountant.

Rarely will you hear about anyone generating high value fees simply from their activity on Twitter or Instagram for example. It is also rare to hear about anyone being successful posting on social media using their firm’s name rather than as an individual.

Facebook pays off for some but plenty of accountants and tax advisers don’t like the idea of engaging on that platform and/or want to target the owners of larger businesses than are typically accessible via Facebook.

Where to start?

You won’t have the time or ability to be successful across multiple social media sites. But don’t make the mistake of starting with the easiest or cheapest.

Your starting point should be to think about who you want to influence and target through social media. This is probably the same focus as for your more marketing and your website too.  The more specific you can be the easier it is to attract their attention.  This is one of the reasons why we encourage you to be clear as to which areas of tax you have special expertise in on your profile here on the Tax Advice Network.

If your targets are in business then Linkedin is probably the place to start. It’s quite distinct from other social media platforms. It’s better thought of as an online business networking platform.

If your targets are small home based businesses then Facebook MAY be worth a try.

Despite all the hype, Twitter is unlikely to help you generate any material tax related business – and I say this as someone with many thousands of followers on twitter where I have been actively posting 5-20 tweets a day for years!

Time

Most tax advisers I know do not have the time or inclination to be regularly active on any social media platform or even on Linkedin.

I frequently suggest that you just ensure your profile there works for you rather than against you. In the same way you profile on the Tax Advice Network website can work for you and once you’ve set it up and tweaked it – you don’t NEED to do anything else here.  The website’s function is very much to drive relevant leads and tax enquiries to the adviser most suited to help. You don’t have to do anything to make this happen beyond ensure your profile is up to date.

This is all much simpler and less time consuming than trying to be active across multiple social media platforms and hoping that somehow, somewhere, when someone needs your expertise they will remember, find and contact you.

You can leave the social media activity to us.

More…

I will post more specific tips and advice re the use of social media here in subsequent articles. I have been writing, speaking and advising on the subject for years and, if you can’t wait, you’re welcome to check out my previous articles, mostly written for accountants – but with many replicable points, on the blog for successful accountants at my website: bookmarklee.co.uk >>>

Mark Lee – June 2020

So you’re good at tax. You enjoy studying tax. You understand the rules and you can give advice that clients understand and appreciate. Well done.

This is all important of course but none of it is enough – especially if you want to be successful as an independent tax adviser.

To be a success you need to conquer the 4 Ps of tax advice. These are four essential skills you will need to master:

Promoting – You will need to be good at promoting:

• your tax advisory service itself, ie: what you will be doing;
• why clients should engage with you (rather than anyone else); and
• how they will benefit from your service and advice.

Whilst you may have done all this to a degree if you previously worked in a larger firm, you probably also benefitted from colleagues and the firm as a whole doing much of the promotional work.

One of the benefits of being a member of the Tax Advice Network is that you can benefit from the promotional work that we do, our reputation and longevity (and thus our high ranking Google juice).

If you have previously focused on tax return compliance services, do bear in mind that these often sell themselves. Many people seek out an accountant because they need help to satisfy their legal obligations to file accounts and tax returns.  You will need to adopt a different approach if you want to successfully promote non-compliance tax advisory services.

Pitching – This becomes relevant once a prospect expresses an interest in your services. Now you will need to have a compelling, streamlined and speedy ability to win them as a client. This means finding out what they think they need, what they really need and satisfying them that you are the right person for the job. Thus you also need to be able to promptly summarise what you will be doing for them and the terms on which you will work. You are likely to lose out to others if your process is too slow or confusing. Think ‘Amazon vs retail shops’.

Pricing – Whether you are quoting for one-off advice or recurring tax advisory services you will need to be able to quickly set commercial fees that adequately reward you for your service and advice. This means developing the skill to be more confident and precise when quoting fees for tax services that perhaps you used to be in the past when you might have been able to get away with quoting wide fee ranges and/or hourly rates.

Providing – Clearly you should not offer tax advice on any subject unless you have sufficient relevant knowledge and are adequately equipped and experienced to do so. [NB: You can always find any additional support you might need through the Tax Advice Network.] You will discover that there’s a world of difference between a practice built on the provision of recurring compliance services and one that is focused on ad-hoc or niche tax advisory services.  The sooner you start adapting the more stable will be your foundations as you move forwards.

The reality

If you are like most accountancy, law and tax advisory firms, your website includes reference to tax advisory topics that rarely crop up in practice. You have included them in a list of ‘available’ services, but it’s rare for anyone to request them. And you rarely talk about them when you’re out networking.

In effect, you’re not promoting  your tax advisory services for those topic areas. So, inevitably, no one is asking you to provide them.  Including them in a list on your website is rarely sufficient to effectively promote such services.  Fortunately you do get to identify specific areas of expertise in your profile on the Tax Advice Network website. So you can assured that the leads you get are by reference to the expertise you have identified.

On the odd occasion someone does approach you via your website and wants advice on one of those rarer topics you may not yet be adequately prepared to explain and to ‘pitch‘ your advisory services and skills so that prospective clients are sufficiently engaged.

Even if you manage that, are you able to price them quickly enough that prospects will sign up – and do you make the on-boarding process simple and quick?

Having sufficient experience, insights and technical knowledge to provide the service should be a ‘given’. It’s typically your starting point. But it’s rarely enough.

The better you plan for the 4 Ps of tax advice, the more likely you will make a success of your tax advisory services for clients.

Mark Lee – June 2020

Did you enjoy attending networking events before the lockdown?

One thing you learn pretty quickly when you start networking is that it’s really hard to find a new clients at networking events. It’s hit and miss. And most often it’s a miss. Quite simply no one goes to a networking event in the hope of finding a tax adviser or a new accountant.

This can be quite frustrating if that was why you forced yourself to attend an event with a bunch of strangers.

Building a website takes time and money and then you are hoping that people searching online will find your website and get in touch.

This is partly why advertising has its place for tax services. Sadly most such advertising is, of necessity, of the ‘spray and pray’ variety. And it’s typically quite expensive too in terms of the ‘cost of acquisition’ for a new client. The cost of acquisition tends to fall if you can afford a targetted, focused and sustained advertising campaign – but this tends to require a hefty up front investment.

I am seeing an increasing number of accountants and tax advisers attempting to market themselves on Linkedin and on other online platforms. Such approaches are free from a financial cost but take a lot of time and effort before they really pay off and generate business. I have written plenty on this blog about the myths and misconceptions surrounding social media and Linkedin. This is why so many accountants and tax advisers struggle to generate business through these media.

There is another option of course. One with a low cost of acquisition, that requires no ongoing time and effort and which only generates leads from people who need your expertise. I’m thinking of this Tax Advice Network website. Maybe now is the time to register so that you can be found when people in your area are looking for help with their tax issues, challenges and problems. Or you can continue doing what you’ve always done and hope that things will get better. Except that ‘hope’ is never much good as a business strategy.

Mark Lee – May 2020

I was asked this question by a tax adviser who had started her own practice a year or so ago.

She had seen other people being criticised online for pitching for work. We’ve probably all seen the messages containing overt sales pitches. And others that include ‘special offers’ but which still come across as crass, unthoughtful and opportunistic.

Especially in these unprecedented times, none of us wants to damage our credibility through the way we promote our services.

Still though I would say that is fine, in principle, for you to try to win new clients at this time.

I would suggest however that your primary focus should first be on helping your existing clients. This is especially the case if your pitch to new clients is to offer the help that their current accountants have not provided. You need to practice what you preach!

As regards trying to win new clients I suggest you think about how you react to others who are trying to sell to you at this time. Or indeed, at any time. Few of us like it. Even less so when we have other important priorities. And we probably all have even more of these at the moment than ever before.

Now, the question I was asked was not: Is it ok to try selling my services at this time?

If that had been the question I would say, NO. Not if your focus is on ‘selling’ as such.

Of course it does depend on how you define selling. I prefer to think about it more as being of service. The process often starts by gaining an understanding of someone’s needs, problems, challenges and difficulties. This process includes clarifying the negative impact (financial, strategic, emotional etc) of these problems etc and then discussing potential solutions and the positive impact that could flow from these. Being of service in this way is way of helping people, not selling to them.

When you approach people with genuine interest and positive intent you are not exploiting or taking advantage. You are helping. If it doesn’t come across that way, you’re doing it wrong! Effective communication is never defined by your intentions but by how well it is received. If others misunderstand you then YOU have to change the way you communicate. You can’t force anyone to listen differently!

And of course, it’s even easier if they are approaching you because they want help with a specific tax issue, challenge or problem. And, of course, that’s what happens when they search online and find you via this Tax Advice Network website.

Mark Lee – May 2020

Is it worth paying to advertise on LI, facebook, Google or elsewhere?

Clearly it depends on who you’re targetting and where you can best reach them.

Also whether you’re prepared to invest sufficient in a campaign rather than in ad-hoc adverts.

But there’s another key point that is often overlooked.

Even if you know WHO you are targetting and even if you can focus your adverts to appeal to such people. There is a key factor that probably limits the outcome of your advertising efforts in a way that many marketing people seem to overlook.

This is whether your target audience are the sort of people who will respond to an advert for a service when they could ask for referrals, follow natural search results or ask their connections.

Over the years the Tax Advice Network website has remained consistently close to the top of Google for many tax related search queries. This is partly due to our longevity and the hundreds of back links to our site. This is also why so many tax advisers and tax accountants remain members of the Network. It’s s pretty cost effective route to securing relevant leads and new business.

Mark Lee – May 2020