Ideally the answer should be zero – it’s the facilities department’s job.

Unfortunately, all too often in some firms it is one, or a committee of partners needs to sign off the spend. I’ve even helped one of my clients (senior partner in a practice) see that a 2 hour trip to homebase in normal working hours to get a replacement lightbulb is not a good use of his unchargeable working time. And for the accountants among you, this became a very expensive light bulb!

So, what’s the point of this blog? As a partner or owner of a practice your time is precious. Your role is to provide leadership and direction for the practice. Have you noticed I’ve not mentioned fee earning yet? Yes, you will always have some client work to do. However, your role is to delegate down as much of this as possible. It’s not good for your stress levels or the long term health of the practice if you are trying to be all things to all people, i.e achieve yearly billable hour targets of 1100, lead your part of the practice, bring in new work and be the support/admin/back office side of your practice. Far too often you see a partner committee arguing over what type of light bulbs the firm needs, (or similar unimportant stuff) when what they should be doing is thinking about big picture items such as ‘succession planning’, ‘maximising cross selling opportunities’, new services etc etc.

The ultimate consequences of partners being the business rather than running the business is normally poor profitability, high stress
levels, high staff turnover and low practice survival rates.

So, take a long hard look at your practice and how you are spending your time. Unless you are a new start up practice, if you are getting involved in the day to day back office type duties, then something needs to change.

Likewise, if you are setting impossibly high fee earning targets whilst still expecting to lead and manage your team effectively, then something needs to change.

What needs to change for you and your practice?

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Very often professional advisors don’t act on their own advice.

Don’t believe me?

How many accountants do you know who get their own tax return in on the last day for filing? I have found that the clients who I have really had to nag to do a cash flow forecast for the year are normally my accounting clients…

But this isn’t about bashing accountants. This blog is about getting you to think about your own practice as if you were advising it, rather than running it. I challenge you to spend 30 mins critically looking at your practice as if it was a review you were doing for a juicy new client.

I did this exercise recently. It was illuminating, but more than slightly embarrassing. So, I have put some changes in place.

The first one is to blog from bed(!) I’m far better at writing first thing in the morning. But over the three months my blogging has become sporadic and sometimes non-existent. So, instead of reading the gossip columns of the daily mail each morning (bad habit I know), I will write a blog instead.

The next thing I am going to change is force myself to fall in love with Linkedin. I’ve always been far more of a fan of twitter, and spent more time on that medium. My clients, pipeline of work and book number two rely on me loving and being active on LinkedIn. I tell my clients to spend a small portion of time every day or week to get into the routine of being active on social media. So, now every work day I’m going to spent 30 mins on Linkedin, my executive village community and commenting on blogs.

What advice would you give your practice?

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On my LinkedIn group – The Financial Times Guide To Business Networking – we have been discussing the best ways to get your blog noticed.

Good question. Your practice has gone to all that trouble of writing and maintaining a blog, surely the world deserves to know about it AND read it? After all, why else write a blog?

Writing your blog is the easy bit, getting it noticed by sufficient numbers of your target audience is the hard bit.

So, how do you get your practice’s blog noticed?

1. Place it where your target audience will see it

Yes, it’s common sense, but this is perhaps the best way to get it seen. I have a large twitter following, so if I want my blog to get seen I tweet about it – and ask others to tweet about it. In fact about 50% of my blog traffic comes from my use of twitter. Posting your blog in a couple of LinkedIn groups may work for your practice as well.

2. Give it a ‘must-read’ title

As the saying goes you can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. The same goes for your blog. If it doesn’t have a title which incentivises them to read it, or pique’s their curiousity, they are not going to read it.

3. Put links to it in your e-mail signature

Enough said really…

4. Comment on others blogs

Very simple, if you make intelligent useful comments on other people’s blogs, they will often pop over to your blog to have a look around and return the favour.

5. Put links to your blog on forums and other people’s blogs

As well as commenting on someone else’s blog or discussion post, do share a link to a relevant blog post on your blog. This is a great way to get interested and qualified readers to your blog.

6. Put links to other people’s blogs in your own blog post (and blog roll)

Like many people I have a set of search alerts for certain keywords. I will also look at my back link report to see who has backlinked to my blog. If I see someone’s blog post I will normally have a look, at the post it’s linked to.

What would you add as number 7?

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I’ve often wondered whether LinkedIn is a numbers game. My networking
methodology and philosophy is firmly centred in relationship
management. So, surely LinkedIn should be used to deepen and
strengthen relationships rather than building up a large number of
connections?

But I see others talking about how linkedin is a numbers game. With
nearly 1000 connections on Linkedin,   I have been actively wondering
whether I should cull some connections so I can use Linkedin to focus
on the relationships which matter to me. After all, I was saying one
thing, but using the default Linkedin strategy and playing the numbers
game on Linkedin.

Hence, my dilemma. So, I asked this question in my ‘FT guide to
business networking‘ Linkedin group. Some fascinating responses…

I was firstly told to only very selectively cull – if at all. I was
surprised about this. It appears that as I have a large Linkedin
network, others in my network value that and I am a hub for them to
reach others.

There was a strong argument for keeping my large network on Linkedin
intact – my needs may change in the future. If your role was in sales
or recruitment, where being able to reach as many people as possible
was vital, then I can see the rationale for playing the numbers game
on LinkedIn.

The decision I did take was to be more selective about whose request
to connect I accepted. I’ve had some interesting conversations AND
started some potentially valuable conversations as a result of asking
people, in a very nice way, what has prompted them to connect.

What’s your view, is Linkedin a number’s game?

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Myself and my co-director Jon Baker were training some clients on social media this week. As we were going around asking the participants what were their attitudes to social media, the immortal lines were uttered:

‘I’m too old to be using social media’

Now, (although Jon wouldn’t thank me for saying this), the oldest person in the room was Jon. Let’s just say, Jon is no spring chicken and brings a large amount of experience and hard-won wisdom to our partnership. So, if Jon can use it, and use it very well, then it can’t just be a tool for the kids.

I hear that social media is for the kids all the time – be they my teenagers, the trainees, the recent graduates, the younger members of staff… I could go on. In fact, the 1st reason that anyone will give me why they are not using social media is ‘I’m too old, it’s for the kids’. Normally I am working with the senior members of the partnership – often the leadership team or a highly influential partner within the partnership. So, it’s understandable that from this population perhaps social networking is seen to be something for the ‘kids’ (as the chairman of a top 6 accountancy practice eloqiently put it to me about 6 months back).

However, our older clients are gradually retiring or handing over decision making responsibilities to their younger members of the team coming up through the ranks. These younger members of the team want to communicate with their professional advisor via their preferred medium – not our preferred medium. So, that means we have to put our assumptions and limiting beliefs about social networking to one side, and start to engage in social media – be it linkedin, twitter, or facebook.

After all your clients are there – or will be there in the next 5-10 years – shouldn’t your firm be ready and waiting for them?

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I am often asked to refer people in my network – which, I love doing. In fact there is nothing better I like more than using my network to help my clients grow their business.

However, just because I am a business coach with an extensive network doesn’t mean that I will refer you or your business.

Let me explain:

My business partner, Jon Baker and I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to referrals or choosing suppliers for our own business. We aim to use or recommend someone within our network wherever possible. After all, we are committed to the power of networking and want to walk our walk and talk our talk. However, we reserve the right to be able to choose who we recommend. This is important to us, as we have to be seen to be always recommending the right person for the right job.

What this means for you (if you want us to recommend you) is as follows:

• Screw up on our business or our client’s businesses and we are unlikely to recommend you in the future
• Lack credibility or give us doubts about your capability to fulfil the service you offer, means we are unlikely to refer you
• We can never be bought. We will not accept a commission share. I.e. if you get the referral we wouldn’t take a cut or commission, otherwise our impartiality becomes compromised. So please don’t suggest this to us, as it only offends and leads to a difficult conversation.
• If we don’t like you, we are unlikely to recommend you (not surprising really!)
• Neglect the relationship at your peril

What are your golden rules for referring someone?

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When I am working with my clients talking about a social media strategy. I will always ask them for the firm’s strategy and business plan. Unfortunately, at this point I often get very blank looks.

Business plan? What business plan?

Strategy for growth? What strategy? (or even strategy for survival!)

Very often, I am finding that many firms don’t have a three or five year plan. Let’s be honest, having a business plan or vision would be a start. In case you are thinking.. “but our practice has revenue targets for every partner“. This is not a business plan or strategy.

At this point in time, the professions are changing. Clients are becoming less loyal and wanting more discernable value from their advisor. Both the accountancy and legal world are facing significant change. Legal services act anyone? Online accounting software anyone?

Far too often a practice is a collection of partners doing their own thing tied together by common overheads and letterheads. When this is the case, often leadership – the very thing needed for the firm’s survival – is lacking. It’s this leadership, it doesn’t matter from which partner it comes from, which will gel the partners together to decide on the firm strategy, business and marketing plan for the next 3 to 5 years. And more importantly, it will be this leadership which means that the firm actually works toward the business plan rather than paying lip service to it and letting it get dusty in a drawer somewhere. Without this common vision for the practice, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the daily challenge of client demands and lose sight of the bigger picture.

It’s this bigger picture which will ultimately be the difference between your practice surviving and thriving during the next five years… or not.

Does your practice have a 3 or 5 year business plan?

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One of the many benefits of having two business coaches within our company is that occasionally we swap clients. (With the client’s full permission). We have found that sometimes it’s useful for our clients to hear (very often the same thing) it from a different person, who has a different slant on the problem.

Anyway, this blog isn’t about us, it is about our client’s problem. It’s a problem which many professionals (and business owners) face. They know that networking is the best way to find referrals – after all, isn’t this the first lesson that everyone with business development responsibility learns?

But… They hate going networking.

The thought of going into a room, and meeting and greeting a room full of strangers and having to make small talk makes them cringe. For some people, it just feels so artificial – particularly when you feel you have to be ultra friendly to your networking group members, who, under normal circumstances, you would normally steer well clear of. Others worry about the fear of rejection, not knowing what to say…

Regardless of why they hate going networking, the end result is always the same. They try and avoid going networking.

There is a solution. You can still gain referrals via networking, but you don’t actually need to go out and do the meet the strangers bit. I am proof of this. I very very rarely actually now ‘work a room’. Honestly. I have tripled my business in the last six months, and all of this business has come to me via my network. I have a handful of champions who regularly – and I mean very regularly – ask me to work with their clients. Consequently I never have to ‘go out and find new clients’. Cool isn’t it.

Most people feel that networking means ‘go out and prospect for clients’. Why waste time doing this, when you could be spending that time deepening relationships with potential referral sources within your network? It may take a little longer to get a relationship with a referral source to the point where referrals regularly flow – but as I have found out, once they do, they really do. When that happens, and you have enough of these referral sources – or A-listers as I like to call them, then the pressure is off.

You can THEN stop working the room.

What do you think?

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I’m a busy networker. So, tell me something new? I’m guessing you are a pretty busy networker as well – after all your time as a professional with specialist skills for hire really does equal money. So like me, I am sure what you would love to know is where to focus your business development (BD) efforts and time for the greatest reward. As everyone I am sure keeps telling you, networking is the best and most effective way to gain referrals for your business. The question is how do you measure your effectiveness at networking – and more importantly how do you measure your effectiveness at online networking.

So, I decided to review the analytics capability of several social media management tools – e.g. hootsuite, sprout social and sendible. Was there an answer to the question of ROI for my time spent on social networking sites and writing all these blogs?

The short answer is no. There is no easy way to measure how effective you are being on social media through the current analytics tools available to you.

Whilst, these programmes claim to be a lot of things, I found that hootsuite, sprout social and sendible all have fundamental flaws in how they measure the number of links from your social media activity. The problem is as follows, they will only count a click on one of your links if you create that link in their programme in the first place. (This is not strictly true for sprout social, but they include aggregated click numbers from your bit.ly links which means they return your life time clicks rather than clicks on a link on a certain day. #fail) Sorry, geeky moment over.

This means that they ignore the following sources of traffic:

• links created for you from automation/time saving programmes/plugins such as Tweet Old Post
• links which others have created to your blogs or content

That’s a big chunk of web traffic which are not being counted for me.

So, what’s the answer to this large headache?

Firstly, it’s useful to remember that you only get paid on the results of your networking, not how much networking which you do. Therefore, similar to face to face networking, record where leads, enquiries, recommendations and referrals are actually coming from.

Secondly, remember that what is important is not the number of people who visit your website, it’s the number of people who take action as a result of being on your website – e.g. sign up for mailing list, phone you etc

Thirdly, if you confident using google analytics then, look at your google analytics data – this will show you the referral source for the web visitor, and help you analyse how much traffic is being referred from social media sources. If the number of visitors to a certain webpage is important to you, ‘tag’ this webpage URL in google analytics. The link shortener should still keep the ‘tag’ and google analytics will be able to track traffic to this webpage easily.

How do you use social analytics at the moment?

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I was reading the latest blog from ‘the practitioner – twitter ye not‘ on Accountancy Age. In this article, the writer is pondering whether social media marketing is working for the firm. The firm has recently won it’s first client via twitter. However, the firm’s partners are wondering whether social media marketing is worth the ‘disproportionate’ effort.

Mark Lee made an interesting and insightful comment on the article, that it is social MEDIA not social MARKETING. It is about how you engage with people. I would hazard a guess that Mark has hit the nail on the head with this comment.

As I see it, most accountancy practices who have invested in social media to generate new clients have not quite caught onto three essential parts of using social media successfully in marketing their practice.

These are very simply:

1) Have a strategy – so you know who you want to attract and the best place to put content which attract these to you

2) Engage, i.e. actually talk and be social when you are on social networking

3) Know what you actually want to happen as a result of these conversations

I challenge you, look at the social media presence of any accountancy practice. How much conversation or personality is being generated by the firm or people on the firm’s behalf? I suspect, very little.

Then, have a look at the firm’s blog or website. How much valuable (interesting!) content is actually being shared? I bet most of the blog is full of jargon, and is written from the accountant’s view point rather than what potential clients actually want to read. Anyone for a budget summary? How many of these firms using social media marketing have an incentive to sign up for the firm’s mailing list?

It can get very depressing.

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