For many marketing and client communications activities, you don’t need to be a partner or a ‘marketing specialist’, just being well organised and a good communicator can help. Below are some suggestions for business development activities that all staff can get involved with.
Creating lists of target clients
Ask your staff (technical and admin) what businesses they know that would make an ideal client for the practice. Get them to add these business’s details to a list/database, noting relevant contact names, addresses, email and phone numbers.
Having a clean database
Whatever internal system you use to log client and prospect information (spreadsheet, CRM, practice database etc), how up to date is it? Everyone in the firm has a part to play in making sure that this information is kept up to date.
Sending mailings
Whether you want to send topical information to your clients or offer a free tax clinic to prospective clients, your admin staff can help you to implement this. Ideally, send any mailings out in small batches, say 15-20 at a time. This makes it more manageable to fit in with their other work, but also makes it manageable for partners/technical staff who have to make any follow-up calls to the mailings.
Posting updates on social media
Ask if anyone in the practice is interested in being the firm’s social media administrator(s). They would be responsible for posting relevant content about the firm, how it’s helping clients, areas of expertise etc. Anyone in the firm could then like and share these posts on their own social media platforms to help raise the profile to a wider audience as possible.
Networking
Do any members of staff want to accompany you to networking events or attend events on their own? Staff can automatically assume that only partners go networking, but if they would be a good advocate of the firm and help to raise the profile and meet prospective new clients, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t attend such events.
Celebrate successful business development activities
If a member of staff helps the practice to sign up a new client, helps a client to grow their business, save a lot of tax, or access funding – let everyone know inside (possibly outside) the firm. Creating a culture of participation and success can be a proactive way of growing the practice and improving staff engagement.
Never assume, ask
The key thing is to ASK your staff to get involved with these business development activities and to explain to them why it’s important for them to do so and the likely benefits of playing their part in the success of the practice. Getting your staff involved in marketing can make a massive difference in how the practice develops.
If your team lacks the confidence to talk about your services, our blog entitled “Getting staff to increase your fees” gives some great ideas on how to motivate staff and get them involved in the marketing and sales process.
Momentum provides a mentoring service to partners or staff who are involved in business development activities. If mentoring could help keep your marketing on track, call me on 01822 833300 or email vicki@momentumforprofessionals.co.uk.
