Lead Generation – The Three Ghosts Of Christmas Accounting

Lead generation is all about getting information and doing background checks. And when it comes to background checks, you could take a surprising lesson from the three Ghosts who visited Mr. Scrooge in Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Like them, your lead generation process should evaluate businesses in terms of past, present, and future.

Use Lead Generation To Help Prospects Reflect

Essentially, the reason why these three spirits visited Scrooge was to help him reflect. Likewise, your lead generation campaign should be the same. In the same order, your campaign must have a Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come capable of bringing out their respective memories, events and predictions about every prospect’s accounting behavior.

• The Ghost of Christmas Past – This is the Ghost that brings to mind how your prospect did their accounting before. Initially, this is how you start qualifying your accounting leads. Your lead generation campaign must always look to past behavior in order shine a light on the prospect’s current situation. For example, perhaps some businesses usually do not report on a particular cost because they never thought much about it.

• The Ghost of Christmas Present – When Scrooge travels with this jolly Ghost, he is taken to the places of people he currently knows. And as such, your lead generation process should not just be satisfied with the decision maker. They should consider those who will be affected by their present accounting activities. Another example, a manager might think they have all reductions covered but disgruntled employees think otherwise.

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• The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come – This particularly scary Ghost shows Scrooge what is to happen if he did not change his ways. Similarly, your lead generation campaign should be just as honest when it comes to telling what awaits your prospect should they remain as they are. One should not underestimate the effects of even the slightest inconsistency in either accounting or lead generation.

At this point, you should also remember the main point of all this reflection. Much like Scrooge, the prospects screened by your accounting lead generation process have something that might need changing. You could have prospects engaged in flawed practices. Your lead generation services might also encounter businesses who are doing something completely illegal!

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This same lead generation campaign is not just for your sake but for the sake of such businesses. The consequences of persisting with such errors and malpractices range from loss of money to scandal, even business termination! Remember Marley? Remember the chains he wore, bound with ledgers and cash boxes? These things serve as a grim, symbolic reminder even to good, respectable accountants. Your lead generation services could be the one thing stopping more money-managers from meeting the same fate.

Luckily, it is not always too late which is why your marketing campaign can use its lead generation tools screen these accounting sales leads and help them change!

Falling Behind In Lead Generation? The Simplest Concepts Can Speed You Up!

If you think your lead generation campaign is falling behind because you are missing out on some fancy, new marketing trend, you need to define what you mean by ‘new’.

You see while it is true that new technology opens up the possibilities of new marketing channels, the basic concepts of what you do on those channels remains to be the same. More than that, they remain to be simple.

Scrutinize Your Sales Leads As Much As Prospects Scrutinize You

Getting sales leads for financial planning can be tough with all the scrutiny. However, this is natural in when you are in an industry that handles other people’s money. On the brighter side, you have a right to be critical yourself.

Should Business Leads Be Criticized?

The word criticize can be loaded and is not exactly something you would want prospects to accuse you of. On the other hand, what other word can you use to describe the very process in which you qualify them for appointment setting? Have you forgotten that this process also gives you a criteria?

• Prospect’s Business Must Be Size X – If you do not know the size, how else can you be sure you have what it takes to serve them? Prospects that are too big can tax your resources and end in disappointment. Prospects who are too small may not understand the benefits (nor reap them for that matter).

• Prospect’s Business Must Work In the Z Industry – Different industries have different businesses that manage their finances differently. It only follows that you should only qualify a prospect that is appropriate for your industry expertise. And even if you boast a vast variety of experience, specifying an industry can help your salespeople and marketers set your image.

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• Prospect’s Business Must Have A Clean Record – What? You think only your prospects have a right to credibility, integrity, and a public image? Do not forget that financial management is no stranger to scandals and losses. But more than that, you should be no stranger to the fact that you are not always responsible for them. You never know when your people’s skills and resources might catch the eye of someone who might want them for less than ethical objectives.

When it comes to finances, there will be many parties who become critical: from shareholders and board executives to consumer advocates and the media. For example, just recently the Daily Beast published an article that seemed to draw connections between JP Morgan and government food stamp programs. Regardless of your political views, do you want articles like that potentially affecting the chances of your financial sales leads? Ideally, you would want to be of service to anyone regardless of their political views so long as they do not cause you to compromise your own integrity.

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Take note, this does not give you license to just simply be in a prospect’s face. You should still be as amiable as possible when you are engaging with them because they too can have a raised guard. On the other hand, that is neither a reason to have no guard of your own. A bad customer is just as much a harbinger of doom as bad business practices. In fact, if you are so uncertain about criticizing your leads directly, then outsource a lead generator if you really want someone else to complain to. Either way, your lead generation services must scrutinize as much as prospects scrutinize you!

Getting Sales Leads In The Wild West Of Tax Whistleblowers

Tax evasion is a serious crime but it’s also a crime that has spawned a considerable demand for accounting services. And when there’s demand, there’s a high chance of promising sales leads for accounting companies with forensic experience.

There are more than a handful of factors contributing to this demand. Not the least are government programs who award those who blow the whistle on tax evaders. In fact, The New York Times just reported of one case where even someone who has had a hand in such crimes has been awarded by such a program:

“Mr. Birkenfeld’s award, the largest ever paid by the I.R.S., is also a milestone for the agency’s whistle-blower program, which offers informants rewards of up to 30 percent of any fines and unpaid taxes recouped by the government.

The program was revamped in 2006, offering higher rewards and more incentives for citizens to report tax dodges, in an effort to help recover more of the estimated $100 billion a year in underpaid taxes.”

When you look at it long enough, it’s very similar to the bounty system of Wild West fiction. And in such systems, the presence of bounty hunters (which would be the whistle-blowers in this analogy) play a significant role in the demand these systems create:

• More demand for compliance: Not all businesses want to be charged for tax evasion, especially when they aren’t even aware that they’re committing it themselves. This is where services like tax compliance can find their accounting leads. With whistle-blowers getting more encouragement, it indirectly gives businesses more reason to make sure they’ve paid their taxes properly.

• More demand for investigating disputes: Naturally, you have demand for the actual skills that can determine tax evasion. Government agencies aren’t the only ones who want these claims investigated. You also have third parties who are affected by the accused.

But remember, this is still a highly volatile market and the amount of time it would take to investigate just one claim could take a while for your accounting services. You want to manage your time and resources carefully and want to prioritize the bigger cases while filtering out those that are clearly petty goose chases. That means your marketing agents should emulate similar investigative skills when qualifying your leads.

Don’t worry about expecting too much from them. That’s the reason why you can view them as a sort of filter because like filters, they they quickly let the more serious claims pass through. A few strategies you should expect them to employ are:

• Spreading basic information on tax evasion and other crimes – You can leave them in charge of spreading materials that are meant to disseminate simple facts and increase common knowledge of the things your accounting services investigate.

• Interviews with those making claims – Telemarketers can be either hired or outsourced to receive calls from concerned parties. Those who arrive with more and more information are slowly qualified as accounting sales leads and an appointment with your representatives is eventually arranged.

Just as crime in the Wild West brought the rise of the bounty hunters, crimes like tax evasion are bringing the rise of whistle-blowers. The unique thing about tax evasion though is that the most serious cases are unique to the heavier side of the business world. Use B2B marketing tools to help you filter out the small stuff if you want to focus more on these serious cases.

Sharing Knowledge When Generating Sales Leads Requires Preparation

Do not assume that the title is stating the obvious. Generating sales leads through the sharing of knowledge needs more than just preparing presentations or marketing materials. Take this one example. Suppose your financial services have managed to identify an undiscovered need among your prospects. Do you realize how careful you need to be when sharing that knowledge? If not, then you should.

Why you may ask? Wouldn’t letting them know mean your business can immediately spark their interest because you’ve found a solution? Ideally, yes. Knowing a potential client’s needs is critical to the value of generating sales leads and the success that comes from acting on them. You can even say you have an obligation to increase awareness of a problem.

Unfortunately, there are also additional risks that come from pointing out previously unknown needs:

• They might seek your competitors instead: Just because you’ve found a problem doesn’t mean they’ll look to you for the solution. They might already be doing business with a competitor and would instead, opt to consult with them.

• They might try and solve it themselves: They might be concerned but not enough to rely on outside help. Can they surely resolve the problem with their own financial management resources?

This doesn’t mean that you should let prospects know at all. It means you have to be careful when you’re doing so. Identifying needs ahead of everyone else can give you the advantage because you’ve found an unspoken demand. Once you point it out though, everyone else will become aware and verbalizing that demand will draw the attention of competitors as well influence buying decisions.

In order for you to stay ahead and keep generating financial leads, there are a few things you need to learn in advance.

• Competitors – Logically, you need to know how likely your competitors can identify these needs and how likely your potential clients will consult them first. It’s best to gain their trust first and make sure your marketing efforts can distinguish your firm’s knowledge in a way that deals most with the need that you’ve identified.

• Client’s resources – Try conducting telemarketing survey or post an online questionnaire that would require someone of your level to really answer correctly. It’s a quick way to tell how many companies can really manage the problem you’ve identified. It might also give the clients themselves something to think about if they really wish to continue relying on their own resources.

• How to keep them interested – There are several ways to do this. You can try establishing a loyal following of your own to help back up your expertise. You can just simply be more convenient by having an appointment setter save them the trouble of requesting appointments with busier competitors. Either way, you mustn’t instantly give up when it comes to keeping them interested.

Sharing your knowledge takes planning in of itself. You have to make sure that the people you share it to don’t do something unexpected with it. Don’t just assume that knowing an undiscovered need will send a new client diving into your sales funnel. Always be prepared for any chance that your competitors or even the clients themselves will become alternatives to your solution.