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Just starting your bookkeeping practice or looking for fresh strategies to expand after years of running one? This week's episode has got you covered!
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The Disruptors with Liz FarrMore here: https://cpatrendlines.com/?p=94950Matt Wilkinson's Take-AwaysPart of your marketing is attracting new talent. Make yourself look good talent as they do their due diligence. Update your website and make sure your social media is engaging.Business owners like Matt have been asking accountants for predictable monthly billing and help with KPIs for their businesses since the early 2000's. It's only recently that accountants are beginning to provide that. Exclusively for PRO Members. Accounting firm owners tend to have limiting beliefs about how to run their firms – billing by the hour, working in the office, and the partnership structure. The partnership structure itself can be problematic for growing a coherent firm, where each partner acts almost like a freelancer with their own clients, and decisions require agreement between groups that oppose each other's ideas.Accounting firms don't have scale issues that can be solved with technology and automation. Instead, they have quality issues or people issues. A better way to grow is to focus on doing a better job. Make small 1% improvements in areas like client communication or selling additional services to existing clients. Focus on being local or boutique – all the things that the biggest firms can't do.Times change, people don't. People skills will always be essential.Instead of trying to “make a dent in the universe” as Steve Jobs did, try to model being a good person and what a good company looks like. Those changes will ripple out and impact more than your clients and your team. Thinking smaller can be thinking bigger.About Matt WilkinsonMatt Wilkinson has been a marketer for over 20 years. He's run campaigns promoting everything from a Paul McCartney concert to a skincare brand used by Madonna. Since 2010, he's worked exclusively with accountants and bookkeepers. His goal is to help them become small business heroes.Matt is co-founder and CEO of New Zealand-based Bizink, which specializes in websites and online marketing for accountants throughout the English-speaking world. Bizink helps busy accountants and bookkeepers grow by improving their marketing. They do that with high-performance websites, engaging content and modern marketing tools. Everything Bizink does is built for accountants and bookkeepers and streamlined so they can run their practices in the knowledge their online marketing is in safe hands.
“Websites that work” – a conversation with Matt Wilkinson Show Notes In this episode we talk with Matt Wilkinson of Bizink about websites that work. Amongst a range of interesting topics, we discuss the role one’s website plays as part of an overall marketing program; the respective importance of content and design of a website; having “hero content” on your site, together with common mistakes and misconceptions. Matt also shares some interesting observations about “vanity metrics”; the benefits of having “hero content” on your site and how to be relevant to the core market that you are seeking to attract to your firm. Throughout the discussion, Matt also shares some powerful opinions about websites, such as “You don’t need to be different. You just need to be good” and to be extremely wary about “SEO experts” who may promise much but deliver little. He is also very insightful with respect to one’s overall marketing strategy, sharing that consistency trumps creativity and that accountants often under budget for marketing activities. We also put Matt in the “driver’s seat”, being a six-month secondment as marketing manager to a professional services firm just like yours. His responses may surprise you! References arising during the interview 1. In the interview Matt referred to a complimentary website audit which Bizink provides. To take advantage of this outstanding opportunity, refer to: https://bizinkonline.com/website-audit/ 2. The incredibly valuable marketing report Matt also mentioned during the interview can be located at: https://bizinkonline.com/accounting-marketing-report-2019/ 3. The book Matt mentioned he’s been reading lately is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Matt’s contact details are Email: matt@bizinkonline.com Phone: For Matt (or Andrea Major), call Aus 02 8006 4755 / NZ 03 669 0775 For other countries, refer to contact details in the Bizink website. Web: http://bizinkonline.com/ Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattbizink/ Scott’s contact details are: Email: scott@slipstreamcoaching.com.au Phone: 0409 870 330 Web: www.slipstreamcoaching.com.au Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/scottcharlton To take an interest in Tim Lane’s music, which is featured on the episode: Facebook: The Backstick Agenda. (Please go and Like this page.) Website: www.thebackstickagenda.com/ To see film clips and to hear Tim’s music: https://thebackstickagenda.bandcamp.com/ (To purchase Tim’s music, you need to register on Bandcamp before you can download.)
Growing Your Firm | Strategies for Accountants, CPA's, Bookkeepers , and Tax Professionals
I'm the founder and CEO at BizInk where make accountants incredible online. We do that with high-performance websites, engaging content and modern marketing tools. Everything we do is built for accountants and streamlined so they can run their practices in the knowledge their online marketing is in safe hands. We’re based in the South Island of New Zealand but power the websites of accountants in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. I love working with accountants because of their vital role in business and the economy. Sitting at the intersection of business and technology is an amazing place to be right now.
Cloud Stories | Cloud Accounting Apps | Accounting Ecosystem
Today on episode 40 of the Cloud Stories podcast I’m talking with Matt Wilkinson who is the founder and CEO of Bizink. Bizink helps accountants and bookkeepers grow their practices through their websites and online marketing. Matt has worked with accountants since 2010. He has over 15 years’ experience of digital marketing for his own businesses and other companies as a consultant. Bizink’s mission is to make accountants incredible online. With our websites, content and online marketing, we help accounting firms across the globe win more business, engage their clients and save time. Subscribe to Episode 40 of Cloud Stories on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/cloud-stories-heather-smith/id908333807 Today’s episode is kindly sponsored by Spotlight Reporting. Visit CloudStories.com to download your free white paper The Perfect Advisory Relationship. In this episode I talk to Matt about: How exchange rate affects cloud based businesses selling globally [pricing and costing]. Developing ideas for products and bringing them to market. Accountants and bookkeepers need to define and communicate their unique selling point (USP). If this is sorted – it makes developing an online presence much easier. Content marketing is similar to inbound marketing. Smart marketers want to get involved with the conversations that people are having online and pull people towards the business. Engaging content pulls business owners towards accountants and bookkeepers. This could be in the form of an e-book or an real event. Great example of content marketing ‘Ultimate Guide to Business Process Automation with Zapier‘ produced by Process.St the simple process and workflow management tool. Matt states ‘We are all in business and need to pay bills. Content marketing needs to convert business owners to buyers. For example include a relevant offer, amongst useful content’. It is great to create cool content – but don’t be shy of making appropriate commercial offers. If your content is targeted you are speaking to the right audience. Hopefully you offer the right services for that audience. They should be interested in that and they won’t be offended if you make a proposal to them. Potential clients want to see actionable things that help them grow manage and run their business. Talk to their pain points. Typical evergreen themes for accountants and bookkeepers include cashflow, business planning. It is good to focus on an industry or niche, better to appear strong to a small audience. The more specific you can make it — the more effective it’s going to be. Using fiverr.com for content writing — nuances and technical commentary was completely inaccurate, but beautifully written. Social Media channels for accountants and bookkeeper:LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Linkedin is a must for networking and publishing posts. Twitter is a research channel, to join in on conversations of what is happening in the industry. You can connect with CEO’s of listed companies via twitter. Also you can distribute content via twitter. Facebook: Matt thinks a lot of firms wasting time on FaceBook, and are not getting leads from it. Content marketing is difficult to track, but it is certainly effective. Google adwords and PayPerClick appears above search engine results such as blog posts. Email marketing if you do it right is one of the most effective forms of marketing and you can track the click throughs. Thanks to Receipt Bank for sharing these stats with me prior to the interview! Cisco Visual Networking Index™ (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast (2015 to 2020) forecasts 5.4 B people will have mobile phones by 2020. With that in mind we discussed whether potential accounting clients really go to a mobile device to search for an accountant or bookkeeper? All accountants and bookkeepers need mobile friendly websites. 23% of traffic to BizInk accountant and bookkeepers sites is from mobile devices. Some firms had as high as 51% traffic from mobile device. Test your website is mobile friendly here: https://www.google.com.au/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly If your site is not mobile friendly – then you don’t exist on a mobile device. 5 Common mistakes accountants and bookkeepers make on their website Websites need to be mobile friendly Websites should not simply be a bland and vanilla online brochure – they need to display a USP a unique selling proposition. Websites need to contain content, typically in the form of a blog. The websites need a call to action. The business needs to continue a relationship with site visitors. This can be done by giving away useful content in exchange for an email address. Going forward BizInk is working on lead generation and lead nurturing, and developing content to achieve this. This helps accountants and bookkeepers convert prospects to clients. Today’s episode is kindly sponsored by Spotlight Reporting. Resources mentioned in this interview Receipt Bank fiverr.com Process.St Linkedin Twitter Facebook Connect with Matt Wilkinson Bizinkonline.com twitter.com/mattwilkinsonNZ nz.linkedin.com/in/mattbizink Bizinkonline.com/blog/ Thanks for listening! What’s been your biggest learning from today’s episode? Share in the comments below. Don’t miss an episode! Please subscribe and if you love Cloud Stories the Podcast please take a minute to leave a review.