34 October 2014 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
BRIDGING THE GAP
By Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP
5 Technologies to Develop
More Business for Your Firm
Client Referrals &
Testimonials
W hen we ask people, "W ho are your
best sales people?," the frst thought is
the rainmaking partner or the business
development professional in the frm.
Clients don't ofen come up. Tink of
your clients as an extension of your
sales & marketing team. Te relation-
ships they have with their colleagues
and peers are opportunities for your
frm to grow your client base. Keep in
mind that your business is not their
business. Making referrals should not
be expected to be at the top of their
priority list. You must be intentional
about ask ing for referrals. Here are
some tools to help in this area.
• NETPROMOTER – both a loyalty
metric and a discipline for using
customer feedback to fuel proftable
growth in your business. ( www.net-
promoter.com )
• SKYPE/VODBURNER – many of
you have probably used Skype for
video calls with family and friends.
You may even use it with your clients.
With the Vodburner plug-in for Skype,
you can record video calls to capture
client testimonials even when you are
not in the same location. ( www.skype.
com , www.vodburner.com )
Branding & Design
For many frms, branding and design
ca n be int i m idat ing a nd resource-
dra ining. Projects tend to become
delayed and over budget. Branding and
design effects lead generation and is
vitally important to the image of the
frm so this area can't be ignored. With
advances in technology, the burden of
these products can be minimized by
leveraging crowdsourcing. Crowd-
sourcing is commonly defned as "the
act of a company or institution taking a
function once performed by employees
and outsourcing it to an undefned (and
generally large) network of people in
the form of an open cal l." In other
words, you bid out your projects to a
c om mu n it y of r e s ou rc e s v i a t he
Internet completing projects quickly
and cost efectively. Some of the leading
platforms include:
• Crowdspring
( www.crowdspring.com )
• 99Designs ( www.99designs.com )
• Elance ( www.elance.com )
• Zerys ( www.zerys.com )
Social Media
Although social media has been around
for years, too much focus has been
given to marketing and not enough
focus on how to leverage it for sales.
With the improvements in social media
over the last couple years, the idea of
cold-calling is dead. By using the tools
available on Facebook, LinkedIn and
Tw itter, all of your "cold calls" can
become "warm calls."
Customer Relationship
Management
CR M has been a hot topic of discussion
for some time now. Tools can range from
simple to complex and success is deter-
mined more by process and behavioral
changes than the technologies them-
selves. However, as Sofware-as-a-Ser-
vice improves, so do the CR M tools. No
longer are we limited to on premise,
expensive, unwieldy CR M programs.
CR M programs are becoming stream-
lined, efective, and afordable options
for organizing and coordinating business
development eforts. Below is a list of
services to consider.
• Microsof Dynamics CRM
( htp://crm.dynamics.com )
• LexisNexis Interaction
( www.lexisnexis.com/intelligence/
interaction.page )
• SalesForce ( www.salesforce.com )
• ZOHO CRM ( www.zoho.com/crm )
• SugarCRM ( www.sugarcrm.com )
• WorkETC ( www.worketc.com )
Digital Messaging
In today's digital world, a website and
email marketing strategy are critical to
having your message and value propo-
sition heard by current and prospective
clients. Too many frms still don't even
have a website. And, a large number of
those that do haven't given proper
attention to their websites over the
years. Trough website building tools,
you can have a great looking website for
a fraction of the time and cost it used to
require. Some of the leading platforms
include:
• Wordpress ( www.wordpress.com )
• Emochila ( www.emochila.com )
• Squarespace ( www.squarespace.com )
• Weebly ( www.weebly.com )
• Wix ( www.wix.com )
• Webs ( www.webs.com )
• YourMembership
( www.yourmembership.com )
Developing an email communica-
tion plan and schedule is also crucial to
a well-rounded business development
strategy. Despite the efects of spam,
email marketing is still very efective
for communicating with your clients
and generating leads. Below are a few
email marketing platforms that range
from simplistic to robust.
• BizActions ( www.bizactions.com )
• ClickDimensions
( www.clickdimensions.com )
• SalesFUSION ( www.salesfusion.com )
• Benchmark Email
( www.benchmarkemail.com )
• Constant Contact
( www.constantcontact.com )
• Mail Chimp ( www.mailchimp.com )
Tere is no shortage of technologies
we can leverage to improve our busi-
ness development efforts. A lthough
many of the underlying principles are
the same, business isn't developed the
same way it was 5, 10, 20 years ago.
Tools are becoming more powerful and
more afordable every day. However,
technolog y can't substitute the core
business development sk i l ls we've
relied upon in the past. You need to
train your team on both the traditional
concepts as well as the new age tech-
nologies to truly recognize success.
Tis will allow your frm to continue to
Tink, Plan, Grow!
34 October 2014 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
Jim Boomer is a shareholder and the
CIO for Boomer Consulting , Inc. He is
the director of the Boomer Technology
Circles™ and an expert on managing
technology within an accounting frm.
He also serves as a strategic planning
and technology consultant and frm
adviser in the areas of performance
and risk management. In addition,
Jim is leading a new program, Te
Producer Circle, in collaboration with
CPA2BIZ and the AICPA.
jim.boomer@cpapracticeadvisor.com
E
very day, new technology services are
being launched that help professional
ser v i ces f i r m s b etter engage w i t h
prospects and clients in cost efective
ways. Filtering through all the possibilities and efectively
leveraging the technologies is becoming key to frms' success. W hile not all
inclusive, here are a few focus areas to maximize the impact of your business
development eforts.