Accounting Consulting (Marketing and Sales Activities)
Marketing and Sales Activities
Overall Marketing Strategy
What Are Specific Plans in Marketing Service?
- Networking among past and current customers, other consultants and other business acquaintances is at the top of my list for marketing my business.
- Posting notices at community bulletin boards, in community newspapers and on electronic bulletin board will also be pursued.
- Participation in accounting software forums is already in progress. Some of these forums are ongoing in electronic form, while others are less frequent.
- Participation in industry seminars and trade shows will be limited to attendance at this point. As a reputation is built, it may be possible to be invited to speak at some of these events. This will require a high degree of expertise and credibility and some political work efforts.
What Are the Expected Costs of These Activities?
- Networking will cost no more than the occasional lunch.
- Posting notices will cost nothing, until the larger circulation community papers are approached.
- Participation in various electronic forums adds to the cost of bulletin board system (BBS) subscription, but the incremental cost is averaging about $10 to $15 per month.
- Industry seminars quite often charge an admission of $5 to $20. This is expected to cost less than $300 per year. Any speaking engagements will not occur in the first year and travel costs are usually met in those cases.
How Does Ams Plan to Grow?
In the first years the goal is to establish a reputation in the field and survive while doing so. The ultimate goal here is to become busier than a single person can handle. The aim at this point is to have a handful of associates with which work is shared. In the future, if the business is successful, it will become necessary to hire staff or contract out more of the support and hands on implementation work. After four or five years the ideal would be to have one or two salaried staff.
Sales Strategy
The actual delivery of the service will be carried out by Richard L. Sawinski, the owner of Accounting Management Systems. The process of making a sale is as follows:
- Identify a potential client.
- Meet with the client to determine whether specific needs exist and what they are. This meeting will be free of charge. Care must be taken that the client is not allowed to ask a million questions and then perform the implementation him or herself.
- Sell the potential client on the reputation and capabilities of my business (myself).
- Perform the actual services.
