December 2001a- Each month this page will be updated with new tips and ideas and the previous content archived. As time goes by our archives will grow. These will always be accessible, and always without charge. Enjoy.

Season's Greetings

Let me take this opportunity to wish you a happy and peaceful festive period and a successful, profitable new year.

Whatever you do for relaxation this holiday period, use your time off wisely.

Recharge the batteries, take time to rethink your approach to your practice in the new year, and spend quality time with your loved ones.

I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has subscribed to LEDGER and made its launch such a spectacular success. If you have friends or family in practice, please spread the word by passing details of our web site onto them.

OK enough sentimentality, on with the free tips for December 2001.

First up - a look at your policy on seasonal gifts for clients & referral sources and staff bonuses. Do you actually have a policy, or is it something that you just determine on the day?

Well, for clients I never really did much at all. A card in the mail? Sure. Anything else? No. Not unless they had referred business to me in the year.

I would go out of my way to have a personal greeting card designed and printed for my firm, as I believe it still stands out from the rest.

Think about it - how many cards do you receive this time of year? How many "doubles" (same card, different sender) do you get?

I still get quite a few, even after all these years. I remember a few years ago, as Director of Marketing for a large CA firm in the UK, the secretaries would play "Go Fish" (or "snap" - the British version of it) in the mailroom with duplicated Christmas cards that had been sent in to the firm.

We don't really want anyone else to be able to send the same card as us to a valued contact do we?

No more boring greeting cards
For about $500 you can get a nice design put together by your designers that is unique to you. For example, I created cards for firms that have used the firm logo within the design, or photographs of the tree in reception, the Partners around a log fire, whatever it is doesn't really matter that much, the point is that it is totally unique to your firm.

With the printing costs included, it doesn't cost any more - and it's often cheaper - than buying from those boring catalogues (you know the ones) of seasonal cards that simply print your firm's message inside.

Be smart and order 2 or 3 years worth at a time - they store well - and substantially reduce the unit cost per card.

e-Cards
Taking it to the next logical conclusion...why not think about sending e-cards out instead? They're free to make, there's no postage costs and you can use your digital camera (you do have one don't you - you need one for your practice for so many reasons, and it will be a legitimate tax deductable - more on why you need such a "toy" another time) to take some photographs to include in your e-card.

For clients who had referred business to me, then I would do whatever I thought suitable, bearing in mind the financial standing of that client and the quality, number and total fees of the clients referred to me by them.

More often than not it was a simple lunch out together, one-to-one. These are great for developing relationships anyway, and something we should do with our better clients throughout the year. Other times it might be a bottle of champagne for Christmas day.

For "Big Ticket" referrals
For the "big ticket" referrals, I'd go out of my way to show my appreciation and to encourage more. I would find out what their particular passion, hobby or interest was and get them something directly related to that topic - the thoughtfulness was always genuinely appreciated.

From a simple pair of front-row tickets to the Opera for an Opera loving contact or client, to a leather-bound issue of a rare book on the topic of interest to the individual, or simply a dozen golf balls with the recipient's name printed on them for the golfing enthusiast, all are valid gifts. It just takes a little creativity and care.

The effort that you put into your gift giving and seasonal card will be noticed and appreciated, I promise you.

Staff Bonuses
As for staff, well the annual bonus is something that most team members really look forward to. Devise a system for recognition within the office and award points during the year (usually mentally rather than formally) for performance, reliability, extra hours and/or effort put in and, of course, value of fees introduced by them and reward on merit accordingly.

The bigger the practice, the more formal this has to be. One thing I do NOT recommend is a fixed percentage given as a "right" to team members. A bonus should be exactly that - something additional to salary and earned.

Party Season
This time of year, we start to get numerous party invites. It's a time that I still find exciting. Lots of new people to meet, some of whom might well be potential clients. Networking has always been an important part of the marketing mix for Accountants, and for some, it's still the number one source of new clients.

Working the room is an art. It's not something most accounting professionals are comfortable doing, but the real "Rainmakers" excel at this. Generally speaking, Accountants are conservative in nature and some of us are shy. Nothing wrong with that, but if you want to turn social gatherings into opportunities to generate business, in an ethical, professional manner, then you'd better get used to attending parties and learn to mix and mingle.

The secret to succeeding in this environment? Well, they're numerous, and contained in our 163 page, 19 chapter manual LOW COST HIGH IMPACT WAYS TO WIN NEW CLIENTS - and at just $49.95 a perfect Christmas gift to yourself - but I'll give you more of an insight as to why it's so important right here, gratis.

Making business functions work for you
Just think about how many different business functions you and your partners and senior staff attend either as the host, or as guests.

They might be anything from a quiet drink after work with a client or acquaintance from the media, or a banker, to formal black tie dinners with hundreds in attendance. In a busy firm, six per events per month would not be unusual, and at Christmas time there seems to be one every night to attend.

If there were five senior people in your firm, that would give your firm 1,560 chances to raise its profile every year! Include middle management and the number could treble or more.

What, typically, happens at most of these events? We meet an old friend or colleague and spend most of the time talking to them or to others from our own firm!

Every gathering, either purely business or partly social, is an opportunity for you to meet new people and leave them with the right impression of your practice.

Start With A Simple Number
Look at it this way. When people from your firm attend a business function of any sort, they leave either a positive or negative impression behind. The number of times this is done over the year varies from firm to firm, but even in the smallest of practices, a sizeable number amounts. Here's why:

Number of Partners in your firm	(A)
Average number of business or large social functions attended by each per month	(B)
Average number of worthwhile contacts attending each function	(C)

Now let's do the Math:

A x B x C x 12 =

(D)

And then the same for senior staff/managers/fee earners:

Number of senior staff/managers/fee earners in your firm	(E)
Average number of business or large social functions attended by each per month	(F)
Average number of worthwhile contacts attending each function	(G)

And the Math again

E x F x G x 12 =

(H)

D + H = ____________________________ Number of chances to create awareness and gain permission to stay in touch with worthwhile contacts generated by your firm every year.

An amazingly large number for most firms.

Hopefully you can now see more clearly, the need to devise a plan for dealing with such occasions.

Working the room can be seen by some as bad form, yet you can acquire the ability to be invited to join a group that is in full flight without coming over as pushy or self-promoting.

You can also learn how to get others to ask for your business card and ask you to keep in touch, whilst you gain their business card, and be thought of as a thoroughly nice person and a damn good accountant.

Above all, you can learn how to plan a strategy for every event that you and your colleagues attend, for any occasion, involve everyone from your firm (who is attending) and end the evening having met all the valuable contacts you wanted to meet, leaving them with an excellent impression of you and your firm.

Oh, how I love Christmas!

Towards 2002 - Making Plans For Your Practice
Many of us make new year resolutions but almost all are broken by the end of January. These are usually something of a personal nature. For instance, last year I did something I'm very proud of. I quit smoking.

I did it "cold turkey" style, and haven't looked back. I also promised myself that by the end of the year I'd
have this website that you are at right now, up and running. So far, I'm batting a thousand. What about you?

Did you promise yourself that you would change something about your firm in 2001 that you are still trying to "get round to doing"? Maybe it was a simple promise to get a web site for your practice, or maybe it was to get some external help in marketing your firm. It's still not too late.

By making that commitment NOW, you will start out on the journey of discovery that will lead to you asking yourself: "Why didn't I do this earlier?"

A Gift For Yourself
We spend a lot of money in December on gifts, many of which are unwrapped, used for five minutes and then never seen again. Make a commitment to buy a gift for yourself that will keep on giving - build a web site, start a marketing or public relations campaign. Get that brochure rewritten and updated, repaint your offices. Whatever it is that has been on your mind, take action, consider it a gift to yourself, and watch as the rewards start to materialize in 2002.

Thanks for visiting.
Enjoy the holidays.
Until next time.



More free tips to come as we next update our site in January 2002.