Marketing and business development is definitely an area that I readily admit nearly made me leave the profession many years ago. As an audit manager with aspirations to get to partner, I was really alive to the fact that to get to where I wanted to go, being able to win new clients and pay my way was the key skill that I needed to develop.
The problem was that I found it really uncomfortable. And despite the fact that everyone says you should try to stay outside of your comfort zone to help develop, it just felt like too much of the time was spent in that uncomfortable place.
What I didn’t like was walking into a room full of people I didn’t know and making conversation. Even before getting to that point, you had to try to find the other person stood on their own, wondering why they were at the event. It was horrible!
I did persevere though, and what I learnt is that you have to find your own way of winning clients and getting your name out there. One of the key things I have only really learnt recently is that over the last 20 years, I have been building up a list of potential clients through all the people I have worked with, both on the client side and ex-colleagues. I have won work now from clients I worked with 15 years ago, and colleagues I worked with 20 years ago!
There is no single way to market yourself. I very rarely go to networking events, they are low value and rarely where the decision makers go. I think about the intermediaries like bankers and lawyers and who their clients may be – are there dinners or events we could do together to try to increase the ‘circle’ of contacts and potential clients I have?
Most of my marketing is now based on what I would call ‘thought leadership’ and trying to reach as big an audience as possible. This helps demonstrate that we know what we are talking about. Then, the business development is about getting to know clients and prospective clients better. My preference is to do this in a more informal, relaxed environment – lunches, events, etc. – where the business chat is a pretty small part of the meeting.
I am a firm believer in people buying from people. Understanding your clients or prospective clients so you can interpret what they want or need helps them to buy from you. Knowing how many kids they have, what their hobbies are, and letting them tell you about it, lets them know you are interested in what they have to say.
LinkedIn has been a game changer in my view – and interestingly my experience tells me that the more ‘personal’ the post, the greater traction it gets. This goes completely against what we are taught as professionals. Great care needs to be taken with it, but sharing things that are not about accounting standards seems to be well received – I wonder why?!
