Innovative Write Angle
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Her Best Referral Source Started Forwarding Someone Else’s Newsletter
Carla’s best referral source hadn’t stopped recommending her. He had just started recommending someone else first. Carla runs a twelve-partner CPA firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, built almost entirely on referrals from estate planning attorneys. For nearly two decades, the arrangement worked in a plain, predictable way: an attorney’s client needed a CPA to handle the tax and reporting side of a trust or an estate, the attorney thought of Carla, and the attorney picked up the phone. It was a...
The GC He’d Worked With for Nine Years Kept Forgetting Who He Was
Owen had worked with the same general contractor for nine years, and he still had to prove himself to someone new every year and a half. Owen had worked with the same general contractor for nine years, and he still had to prove himself to someone new every year and a half. His company, a fourteen-person interior framing and drywall crew based outside Nashville, had a standing relationship with one of the city’s larger commercial GCs. The paperwork made it look permanent: a preferred-vendor...
A confession, and a new project
Hey, it's Peggy. This email is a little different than what you usually get from me. For years, before ghostwriting, I spent nearly two decades behind the camera as a professional portrait photographer. I earned 10 bronze awards through Portrait Masters, and "Best of the Best" recognition three years running. And I kept noticing the same thing, over and over. When it came to either the glamour or boudoir sessions, a woman would walk into a session nervous, arms crossed, apologizing before I'd...
Renee Lost the Client Before She Knew She Was Competing
Renee found out she had lost her firm’s biggest prospect in three years from a text message forwarded without comment by her office manager. Renee found out she had lost her firm’s biggest prospect in three years from a text message forwarded without comment by her office manager. The message came from a mutual contact who had been sitting in the room. A fast-growing manufacturing company in Denver was choosing among three CPA firms to guide it through an upcoming acquisition, and Renee’s...
Walter Inherited a Referral Network. He Didn’t Realize It Had an Expiration Date.
The referral sources who built Walter’s practice are retiring faster than he expected, and taking his reputation with them. The referral sources who built Walter’s practice are retiring faster than he expected, and taking his reputation with them. Walter is a partner at an eleven-partner CPA firm in Austin, the kind of practice built almost entirely on relationships that started decades ago. When he joined the firm as a young associate, the senior partners handed him introductions to a...
The Referral That Almost Cost Lauren Her Oldest Client
The referral that almost cost Lauren her longest client did not come from a competitor. It came from her client’s bank. The referral that almost cost Lauren her longest client did not come from a competitor. It came from her client’s bank. Lauren had been the accountant of record for a growing distribution company in Charlotte for twelve years, since it was three trucks and a rented warehouse. She watched the founder scale it into a business with real revenue and real complexity, and she...
The five names on every GC's shortlist, and how to become one
The Five Names on Every GC’s Shortlist, and How to Become One Ray found out too late that the real competition happens weeks before the RFP goes out. By the time the bid invitation reaches your inbox, the decision about who gets invited has usually already been made. Ray runs a twenty-two person mechanical and HVAC subcontracting firm out of Mesa, and for years he assumed the bidding process worked the way it looked on paper: a project goes out, qualified subcontractors submit numbers, and...
The Bid He Lost by $400, and What It Actually Cost Him
Ray could recite his numbers in his sleep. He still couldn't tell you why he kept losing. He ran a nine-person electrical subcontracting crew outside Charlotte, the kind of outfit that had built its name the old way. Word of mouth, repeat GCs, a reputation for showing up on time and doing it right the first time. For most of a decade, that had been enough. Then the bid requests started arriving differently. Instead of a call from a GC he'd worked with for years, they came through an app with...
The Rescue Every CPA Firm Remembers, and Why It Wasn't Enough
The client who owes you the most is often the one who remembers you least. Diane found this out the hard way, and it took a phone call from another firm to make her see it clearly. She ran a fourteen-person CPA practice in Scottsdale, the kind of firm built on relationships that ran deep rather than wide. Nine years earlier, she had pulled one of her clients back from the edge of a business-ending audit, working nights for three weeks straight to reconstruct records that never should have...
Why Your Best Clients Keep Forgetting You Exist Between Tax Seasons
Why Your Best Clients Keep Forgetting You Exist Between Tax Seasons Filing season ends, the phone calls stop, and somewhere around June a client who swore by your firm in March can no longer quite remember why. That gap is not a personality problem. It is not even a service problem. It is a visibility problem, and it costs CPA firms more than most owners realize. The question worth asking is simple: what happens to a client’s memory of you once the urgent reason to call you is gone? And the...
For businesses ready to grow. Get valuable information and tips on business related issues