For Sale: Professional Services

Professional services: they're invisible, seemingly generic and weigh down the debit side of the client's ledger. Standard advertising claims -- "new and improved," "we beat the competition," "have it your way" -- simply don't apply. Accounting firms face a difficult challenge in today's highly competitive marketplace as they seek to differentiate themselves, increase name recognition, win new business and retain their current clientele.

Marketing and its communication tools, such as advertising and public relations, remain relatively new disciplines within accounting practices. And just when the profession started adapting and adopting modern marketing techniques, along came the Internet transforming the playing field and, perhaps, changing all the rules once again.

There aren't any quick, easy answers to questions about how to market professional services in the year 2000. Every firm or individual practitioner has to evolve a personal approach. Yet good ideas can be drawn from the experience of others. Following is a series of personal perspectives on marketing CPA services from several firm partners who are shaping the marketing programs of their practices.

Perspective 1: Marketing Concepts are Much The Same -- But Faster

Alfonse M. Mattia, CPA, Amper, Politziner & Mattia P.A. www.amper.com.

"Marketing professional services hasn't changed that much," says Alfonse M. Mattia, CPA, of Amper, Politziner & Mattia P.A., with offices throughout New Jersey. "It's providing a consistent flow of informative and educated information to the business community."

The speed of marketing has changed, however, according to Mattia. He uses a garden analogy to explain.

"We're planting seeds with our marketing. Having patience. Nurturing the seeds with sunshine and water -- TLC. For us, it's still the basic marketing philosophy," says Mattia. "The change is the speed at which the seeds sometimes grow. The Internet, email -- the new forms of communication are like a new form of sunshine. It has forced us to look at our methods of marketing."

The decisive moments in gaining new business still require face-to-face meetings, Mattia says, but the time required for the evaluation process that leads to the crucial meeting can sometimes be shorter.

"Electronic commerce has changed the marketing time frame," Mattia says. Describing one important new engagement for his firm, he notes that much of the communication was electronic. "We had an important face-to-face meeting, but much of the communication that followed was electronic. We received an email message from the CFO advising us that we were selected," Mattia says. "Every day that goes by, electronic communication becomes more important. Unless CPA firms understand this, they'll fall behind the curve --they must be progressive in budgeting the firm capital needed to be at the cutting-edge."