Marketing Professional Services –
Not an Oxymoron
By Steve Ernst

"On Second Thought, Tell Them You're a CPA"
At one point in my career I was responsible for the small but growing B2B area of a company. For the most part, the responsibilities were more business development than sales and marketing but encompassed all three to a certain extent. My CEO was very supportive because the B2B area was a new undertaking and he saw it as a potential growth engine worth nurturing.

On one occasion we were going to make a luncheon presentation to a potential joint venture partner and were reviewing the presentation on the way to the meeting. Chuckling, he asked me to not bring up the fact that I was a CPA because he didn't want the group we were meeting with to think his sales and marketing guy was a bean counter. I knew what he meant and took the request with a grain of salt. When I said, if anything, being a CPA made me more of a sales and marketing professional than he might have thought, he asked me to explain.

I said that for years, while I was a practicing CPA, I had been producing, packaging, marketing and selling myself, my ideas, my recommendations, my services, and my firm. I explained I had been working in a very competitive environment, both internally and externally. CPAs compete every day with each other inside the same firm. There are limited resources and you have to market your worth and sell your "value proposition" to senior partners and department heads on a continual basis. Externally, CPAs compete, there's no other word for it, it's compete, with other firms to retain current clients, obtain new clients and to keep if not increase the public's mind share of their existence and the services they can provide. I continued by pointing out that a lot of CPAs, although most of them are not aware of it, become very adept at positioning and marketing their professional services in an understated but direct fashion. In essence, I told the CEO, I have been a sales and marketing person from the first day of my business career. He let that sink in and, after a few moments said, "On second thought, tell them you're a CPA."

Branding Professional Services
Branding is a science unto itself. There have been lucrative consulting careers built, numerous books written, college and MBA courses taught, PhD thesis written on the subject of branding. To me, branding encompasses a couple of key concepts – The Promise and The Difference. What can one expect at any time in any place from your brand and why would anyone look to you and your brand rather than any other brand in the category.

Building a brand is time-consuming. It's not a "just add water" or an overnight proposition and there are no foolproof one-size-fits-all templates to follow. But, as CPAs, we have an advantage, we have the ability to use the set of initials that still maintains its own, concretely solid promise. Attaining and maintaining the right to say you're a CPA is a never ending task. There are certain thoughts and to-do's that are an everyday thing with CPAs. Just as there is an ongoing search for meaningful, professionally impactful yet cost efficient continuing professional education there should be a regular search for professionally acceptable ways to convey the value proposition of your services as a CPA and a way to distinguish you and your services from those of other CPAs.

As a group, CPAs have maintained their polling position as one of the most trusted professions. Aside from the medical profession, in the business category, we remain the most trusted advisor to the business community. We can build on that. We can use that as the basis for our marketing in general terms. It's part of the branding effort and that's exactly how CPAs have to think – in terms of branding, in terms of The Promise.

Differentiating
If you think deciding on and solidifying the promise within a branding effort is difficult, wait until you try to make yours not only different from but preferable to someone else's. Right now you're saying "Steve, between my family, my church, my clients, my local volunteer efforts and the few hours of free time I have left each month, where am I going to find the time for this branding stuff, this promise and difference malarkey?"

My answer, as noted above, is you're doing it every minute of the day and just not aware of it. If pressed, I would offer the following as the significant differentiating factors: inquisitive intelligence, education, independence, experience, the ability to apply and innovate and referenceable success. Your response would be a sarcastic "and what CPA would not describe themselves using those attributes?" Not many. Each of those differentiators are worth a column or two each. Most or common to a CPA in public practice but, taken collectively, that grouping of difference makers can be applied to very few CPAs. Being truly independent and being able to think innovatively and being able to demonstrate how that those two assets have contributed to client success will set you apart from your peers and help you complete the branding of not only a professional service but, more importantly, your personal, professional service as a CPA.

Steve Ernst, CPA, leads the SAP CPA Advisor and other influencer programs for SAP America, Inc. Prior to joining SAP, Steve provided consulting services to boards and executive staff on accounting, auditing, business processes, and internal control systems, as well as sales, marketing, and business development initiatives. He has more than 30 years of experience, including 10 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and more than 20 years in international finance and operations in the consumer product and technology markets. You can contact him at steve.ernst@sap.com.