Finding a Hungry Crowd - How Accountants Can Find New Business in Any Economic Climate

I recently attended a Marketing conference where a consistent message of the guest speakers was “find a hungry crowd and feed them”. Their argument was the key to a profitable successful business was the simple principle of finding a group with specific needs and giving them what they want.

In the good old days, the Accountancy Profession relied heavily on audit revenues. Like a car MOT it was something that was needed every year and Accountants enjoyed the stability that audit work provided; even though clients occasionally moaned about the fees very few ever switched to another firm.

As the audit threshold slowly increased over the past 10 years many a small firm paid the price for their complacency as they watched the foundations of their business dissolve. Those who survived were forced to provide services that their clients actually wanted.

As firms struggle through the financial crisis once again revenues have been hit. Perhaps it’s time to find a hungry crowd.

Where do you start?

Admittedly I’m bored of hearing about how social networking is changing the way we live and work; some use it for mindless blurting about nothing. Common Craft provide an excellent explanation of how Twitter can identify local and national trends and inform local businesses.

ACCA regularly tweets news updates on a variety of subjects. This is easy to duplicate but Blogger Mark Lee suggests that accountants should go a step further and use twitter to monitor what their clients are saying about them. This creates an opportunity to explore new business opportunities and monitor existing relationships.

In the right hands these social networking platforms become cost free market intelligence tools with negligible training costs.

Even for a risk averse accountant, the numbers speak for themselves…

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