Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to CFO
Chronicles the secrets behind
success the go-to podcast forfractional CFOs and accounting
firm owners who want to attractmore high-paying clients and
increase their revenue.
Hosted by James Donovan fromNine Two Media, this podcast
dives into marketing strategiesspecifically designed for lead
(00:22):
generation and clientacquisition.
In each episode, you'll hearfrom industry leaders sharing
their success stories and Thankyou, boost your bottom line.
Today, I want to do something alittle bit different.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
To kickstart the new
year, I want to start this
season with an individualpodcast.
We're not going to jump in andhave an interview today, but I
wanted to recap what's workedreally well over the last year
for us as a business and what'sworked really well for our
clients through differentmarketing channels, mindset etc.
And just share with thoselistening what's going well and
(01:25):
what's not.
So I would say kind of gettinginto the marketing side of
things so that there's someactionable takeaways from this
is one of the big shifts in thebusiness over the last year was
when we launched local serviceads for our clients back in the
summer.
Local service ads has been hugebecause our clients are getting
(01:54):
very high intent leads frompeople who are problem aware,
looking for a solution, andthey're going to Google with
their search.
So it's all search intent andthey're looking for those
opportunities.
The nice thing about localservice ads it's all search
intent and they're looking forthose opportunities.
The nice thing about localservice ads it's a pay per call
model, so if your phone doesn'tring, you don't pay.
The other nice thing is ifpeople are calling for a service
(02:14):
that you do not want to beadvertised, google will credit
those funds back so you don'thave to pay for them.
We see calls range anywherefrom 70 to $100 cost per lead,
which works out really solid.
If you think about a lead onFacebook potentially being $50,.
You're getting a name, phonenumber and an email, versus 70
(02:34):
to 100.
And you're actually on thephone with somebody who says I
need tax planning, I needaccounting, I need payroll, etc.
So local service ads have beenhuge and I would highly
encourage anyone who's offeringtax planning, monthly accounting
, bookkeeping, payroll, tax prepto be on there.
(02:55):
Pairing with that, anotherstrategy that's started to work
very well for our clients andfor ourselves as the agency is
Google business profile andmanaging your SEO.
So putting together weeklyarticles that are SEO, focused
on your Google business profilea really solid way to think
(03:16):
about your content and what youwant to put out.
There is what questions areyour clients asking you?
What questions are you gettingasked on sales calls?
Potentially, what questions areyour team members asking you
that are trying to learn aboutthe business, learn about your
products?
Taking those questions, thosecommonly asked questions, taking
them to chat GPT, throwing itin there and prompting it to say
(03:39):
write me an article that's SEOoptimized on this topic.
That's going to spit outessentially what it is you're
looking for to help educate youraudience, but, more importantly
, give you the keyword search sothat you're organically
climbing the ranks with your SEOand your Google business
profile.
Another piece to Google businessprofile would be maximizing
(04:02):
your Google reviews.
So if you haven't done it in awhile, I'd strongly encourage
you jump into QuickBooks orwherever your CRM for your
clients are.
Export your current and pastclient list, go to your Google
business profile, grab yourreview link and email out all of
your clients the link to yourGoogle business page to leave a
(04:26):
review.
Kindly ask them.
Hey, would love if you couldleave us a review.
We're growing our presenceonline.
Your feedback would mean theworld so we could help other
businesses like we've helpedyours.
Side note don't send this outto everyone at once.
Just drip out three, fouremails a day so you don't get a
(04:47):
ton of influx overnight of brandnew reviews.
Google's gonna flag them andnot put them up on your account.
They'll look at them as spam.
So that's local service ads andGoogle business profile.
If you have any questions withthat, feel free to reach out to
us over email or LinkedIn.
More than happy to pick up theconversation.
(05:08):
Another thing that we starteddoing for our clients and we
started doing for ourselves thathas worked very well is the
newsletter feature on LinkedIn.
So some of you may know, someof you may not, but the
newsletter feature is it'sactually a bit of a hack for
getting multiple notificationsout for one piece of content.
(05:30):
The really nice thing about thenewsletter is, as you grow your
subscriber list, so yourconnections on LinkedIn, every
time you publish a newnewsletter, linkedin is going to
email all of your subscribers.
Email all of your subscribers.
Linkedin is going to send amobile notification to everyone
who has the mobile app and it'sgoing to send a desktop
(05:52):
notification to everyone onLinkedIn.
So you're getting threenotifications for the price of
one.
So if you think you have, say,5,000 connections on LinkedIn,
you create your newsletter.
You start getting people tosubscribe to that.
You're not going to take it'snot going to take you very long
to get that subscriber listnorth of a thousand contacts.
Every time you publish yourarticle, you got a thousand free
(06:14):
emails that LinkedIn is sendingout on your behalf, driving
traffic back to your page withyour links.
Think of your newsletter as avehicle that should be providing
90% value educating youraudience Again.
Think about the questions thatyou be providing 90% value.
Educating your audience Again.
Think about the questions thatyou're getting on sales calls,
the questions your clients areasking.
You Go to ChatGPT, ask it tohelp you write content that's
(06:37):
SEO, optimized, very easy todigest, and that's where you're
going to, and then, of course,add in your own edits to
personalize it and remove thatkind of AI cover that it'll have
At the very bottom.
That's where you're going towant to have your links with
your call to action your link toyour website, a link to, maybe,
(07:00):
your podcast, like this one, alink to your school community,
wherever you want to be sendingtraffic, include all of your
links.
The more consistent you getwith that that's the name of the
game consistency the moreconsistent you're getting with
that, the more you're going tohave that omnipresence of
constantly staying in front ofyour audience.
A couple other strategies thatare working really well for
(07:21):
exposure for us and for ourclients and we're really
starting to see some of thefruits of those labors is
starting a school community One.
It can be.
It's best.
My opinion is to set this up asyour low ticket offer low touch
(07:42):
points with your clients whoare in there.
Whether you have touch pointswith your clients who are in
there, whether you have maybeit's an office hours for for
anyone in your pipeline who'slooking for for questions to get
answered.
You can charge $47 a month, $97a month.
They would have those officehours to access you one-on-one.
(08:03):
You can have as many calls asyou want toast per week.
You could have differenttrainings put in there.
It's a really great way for theprospects who aren't a good fit
for your offer right now oraren't quite ready to move
forward with you.
They can get into yourecosystem.
They can see what sort of valueyou're providing to your
audience at a very low pricepoint.
Get a little taste of what it'dbe like to work with you and
(08:26):
it's very low overhead for youregarding time, regarding
resources.
So if you haven't done thatalready, a couple of our clients
have opened up a schoolcommunity.
They're slowly growing.
It's a great way again to getpeople into your ecosystem,
especially those who maybe arephoning in all the time and
trying to look for free advice.
(08:47):
Start a school community.
There's a link in the shownotes to start a school
community.
But start a school community.
You can get people in thereAgain, super low ticket.
If they have a couple taxquestions, instead of you giving
away this information for free,they can have access to you for
(09:09):
, say, one hour a month.
Know, 20 minutes a week.
You have your open office hoursand then everyone who's not a
good fit for your primaryservices just send them the link
to join school.
It's super hands-off, it'sreally easy and you're able to
provide a ton of value to youraudience.
The last thing that we've seenwork really well and something
that we started um, I'd say,back in the summer as well,
along the same time we weredoing local service ads is
(09:31):
starting a podcast.
Podcast has been awesome forbrand exposure.
Podcast has been awesome forinterviewing really big players
in the industry, picking theirbrain and getting to learn a
little bit more about what'sworking for them, what's not
working and getting introducedto people within their network.
(09:52):
We've been able to have a tonof awesome conversations with
different accounting firms,different business owners that I
never would have imagined if wewouldn't have started this
podcast.
If you're not looking to startyour own podcast, which may be a
little bit more labor intensiveon the front end.
I got a couple of resources Ican put you in touch with.
(10:14):
We actually have some in ourschool community on starting a
podcast.
But if you're not looking tostart your own podcast, guesting
on podcasts.
It's an awesome way to tap intoother other individuals
audiences.
An awesome way to tap intoother individuals' audiences.
It's a great way for exposure.
Better practice at publicspeaking even though it would
just be one-on-one, it's greatpractice telling your story,
(10:37):
telling your offer and, again,just getting in front of other
people's audiences andleveraging their audience.
And you just never know wherethose conversations are going to
go, what one conversation willlead to and the opportunities it
will create down the road.
So my suggestion to everyonewho's listening to this think
about the bigger picture of whatyou're looking to accomplish
(11:00):
with your marketing, with yourexposure.
Are you reaching out to enoughpeople daily on LinkedIn?
Whether you're doing thatindividually, you have an
assistant helping you out,you're using some sort of
automation.
Are you getting in front ofenough of the right people on a
daily basis?
Are you asking your current andpast clients for reviews?
(11:21):
Are you generating inboundcalls?
Current and past clients forreviews?
Are you generating inboundcalls?
Another thing do you haveanything on your website so that
people can reach out to yousuper easy, like a chat widget?
Do you have a way for people tosubmit a form to book onto your
calendar?
Are you asking the rightqualification questions?
Does your website have theup-to-date information?
(11:43):
We were speaking with aprospect the other day and their
website had.
They didn't know whose numberwas on their website, so they're
potentially sending calls tosomeone else's business that
they're missing.
These are just some things tocheck over as we start the new
year to really make sure you'regeared up for success Again
(12:04):
starting a school community,something low ticket, where
people can jump in, people canask questions, they can review
some resources you have, thatyou've built up your different
lead magnets, getting them intoyour ecosystem so they have a
sample size of what it's like towork with you before making a
larger investment.
And then the last couple thingsI was just mentioning either
starting your own podcastinterviewing sometimes maybe
(12:28):
it's your ideal clients,sometimes it's thought leaders
in your space getting access todifferent associations you can
use that as a prospecting toolbut also just having really
beneficial conversations to growyour own network and see where
those conversations go.
Maybe you have someone you'reable to connect within your
(12:49):
network to the individual thatyou're interviewing and they
have an awesome relationship outof that.
The other piece is guesting onother people's podcasts.
Again, you never know wherethese conversations are going to
go.
You can chop up all of thecontent from your recordings,
turn those into reels, post themon your social media pages.
There's a lot you can be doing,repurposing a lot of your
(13:13):
content so that you're notworking that hard to have so
much content going out.
The last thing I'll add in, justbecause it came top of mind
again all of the podcasts that Igo on, some of the ones that
we're hosting, we're chopping upall of that content, we're
turning it into reels, we'reposting on Instagram, linkedin,
facebook.
(13:33):
Then we're actually takingthose recordings or taking those
reels from YouTube.
We're pulling the transcript.
We're going into chat, gpt,write me an article based off of
the transcript.
That's here.
Boom, you have a new articlepost and go out on Google
business profile, go out onLinkedIn and you're repurposing
that video, driving traffic backto the video to for more
(13:55):
engagement on that topic thatyou're just speaking on.
So hopefully these are sometips that will really help you
leverage and grow your, your,your brand, your brand awareness
in 2025.
We'll probably throw in acouple more of these one-off um
clips, but I'd love to hear somefeedback.
If this is what people arelooking for or if they prefer
(14:17):
the interview style, all right,we'll see you in the next.
We'll see you on the uh, thenext one.
Thanks for tuning in to thisepisode of cfo chronicles the
secrets behind success.
I hope you found value intoday's conversation.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, make sure to subscribeto this podcast so you don't
miss any future episodes.
If you enjoyed today'sdiscussion, please rate and
(14:38):
review the show.
It helps others discover theinsights we share here.
Second, if you're ready to takeyour business to the next level
and attract the high-endclients you deserve, head over
to accountingleadsnowcom orclick the link in the show notes
to book your strategy.
Call it's time to positionyourself as the advisor your
clients need.
And don't forget you canconnect with me on LinkedIn to
stay up to date on what'shappening in the world of
(15:01):
accounting and financial growth.
We've got more exciting topicscoming up, so stay tuned for the
next episode of CFO Chronicles.
Until then, keep pushingforward.
Your growth is just onestrategic move away.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
Thanks for listening
to CFO Chronicles the secrets
behind success.
We hope today's episodeprovided valuable strategies to
help you attract morehigh-paying clients.
Be sure to subscribe, followand share with fellow
professionals.
Connect with us on LinkedIn andleave a review or comment to
join the conversation.
Your feedback helps us bringyou the best insights in finance
(15:36):
and marketing.
Until next time, keep strivingfor success and unlocking your
business's potential.