Chapter 6 in my book deals with a growing issue in the industry…recruiting and then retaining top talent.

If you’re just joining us, we’re going front-to-back celebrating the audio release of our best-selling book, Double Your Accounting Firm.
To refresh, here are the first three chapters:

Chapter 1: Increasing Workflow Efficiency and Staff Capacity
Chapter 2: Solving the Pricing Problems in Your Firm
Chapter 3: Driving Growth in Your Firm
Chapter 4: Your Sales Appointment from Start to Close
Chapter 5: Get Referrals and Attract the Clients You Want

In this audiobook chapter, you will discover:

• The big challenges facing retaining top talent in today’s accounting environment
• How to create a culture every employee wants
• The 12 strategies to retain your best employees

ADDITIONAL LINKS: 

• How to build a team that fuels growth (interview)
• Transform your CPA firm into a profitable powerhouse (interview)
• 3 steps to building an effective team (interview)

The Challenge Today of Retaining Top Talent

If you’re a smaller firm, you know the crunch of keeping your top employees engaged. Bigger firms have more money, more perks, bigger expense accounts, and parties. A common complaint today is how millennials especially don’t stay at a job for longer than 1-2 years. As we know, it’s cheaper to keep old employees than hire and train new ones.

What if I told you most accountants — especially millennials — aren’t leaving just because of money and perks. More and more, employees want to be involved in the mission of your firm as well as find their place in your culture. As a smaller firm, you can offer more opportunities than those at big firms where employees are just a cog in the wheel.

The first key to retaining top talent is looking at your management circle. Are they buying into the vision and mission of the firm? Are they here for the long haul? Partners are the generals leading the troops into battle. The ‘soldiers’ need to know they can count on their leader.

Because when you have a solid core group of long-term employees, you enjoy a host of benefits including:

• Increased profits as employees become more efficient
• A steady, enjoyable culture
• A succession plan in place
• Happier clients who feel more secure rather than be shuffled around
• Closer relationships with team members as they know and trust each other more and more

The first hurdle you must get over is financial recruiters.

The Cross-Pollination Scheme of Financial Recruiters

Financial recruiters are relentless today. In the past, they were less aggressive and filled roles as firms needed help. Today, there are new schemes popping up. For example, I’ve found one company that has built multiple recruiting firms. Then, they cross-pollinate employees between the different firms. That way they are collecting “finders fees” with each placement that ultimately ends up all in the same place.

The subsidiaries keep their hands clean and the umbrella company gets more and more fees from recycling candidates. It’s nuts.

Another strategy is scouring Linkedin and simply cold-calling the firm office to talk to the potential job-hopper. They have no shame!

There is a way to defend against this. The secret is to start building a strong culture.

Strong Culture = Retaining Top Talent

In the past, you could get away with a bad culture because folks stayed at their job forever. Not anymore. Younger folks want a culture to go to every morning. There’s a stigma in many older firms that the “longer you have been there, the wiser you are.” In most cases, that will be true. However, younger employees want their ideas heard.

Even if you don’t act on their ideas, make them heard.

The marketplace is always changing. The younger employees who are your future can provide valuable insights you never thought before. Here’s the first: retaining top talent goes far beyond a steady paycheck.

Culture is the first piece. Culture is the reason folks enjoy coming to work. It’s not all fun and games either. Culture is also grounded in your mission and values. There must be a “why” you and your team believe in. That all starts with the top brass. Their example dictates what is important for the firm. What’s important guides the culture and how employees interact and work.

Part of the vision is defining your Unique Value Proposition (USP). We’ve talked about that with your ideal client. But, you also need a USP for your firm.

• How big do you want to grow?
• Do you want to expand across state lines?
• What role should each employee strive for?
• What does the firm look like in 10-20 years?

Employees may not directly ask these questions, but they want to know. The reason is so they can see if they buy into that USP and vision. If they don’t want to be a part of it, you’ve lost them already.

Your USP must be unique enough to stick out from other firms. Like your marketing message, it must be specific and compelling. That way you attract the right kind of talent.
Lastly, you must have a rock-solid mission behind your company.

• Why did you start this company?
• Why does your company exist?

Your vision looks ahead at what you want to be in the future. Your mission dives into why that is important to you. I started Jetpack Workflow because CPA firms weren’t efficiently tracking their work. The processes were dated and broken. Jetpack makes sure every one of your accounting clients gets 100% of the work they paid for.

Think about the personal story of your firm. Start telling that to new hires and see who resonates with it.

That brings us to actually figuring out who to hire. Let’s look at that next.

How to Actually Hire Top Talent

When you understand who you’re looking for and what skills they need, it can be easier to sift through job applications. Before each interview, you need to ask yourself “is this person going to be the future of our firm?” That mindset will keep you sharp in the interview.

Finding the right employee can be tough, so here are a few things to learn about the potential hire:

• What motivates them? Growth? Autonomy?
• How do they spend their free time? This gives you a glimpse into their “why” of life
• How do they solve problems? Does that manner blend with your culture
• What kind of work culture are they coming from?
• How do they interact with clients?

Next, you need to understand the employee’s motivation for their compensation. There are many different forms of compensation:

• Cross-train them in different positions as a bonus so they don’t get bored and broaden their skillset
• Provide paid training even tickets to conferences
• Give them autonomy on some projects
• Provide slight bumps in retirement bonuses for performance

These should lead you to whether the person is a good fit or not. After this, the real work begins.

How to Actually Retain Top Talent

Once the interviews are over, the offer is accepted, the employee starts, that’s when the real work begins. Nothing leaves a sour taste in a new employee’s mouth then thinking their job will look one way and its the opposite. If they thought they’d have more time with one of the partners and they don’t, that’s a bigger problem than you think.

Managing expectations is the name of the game when retaining top talent. Here are 12 suggestions to keep an employee engaged:

1. Work together at setting goals around their needs
2. Provide flexible work hours
3. Encourage them with positive feedback
4. Create bite-sized, manageable goals
5. Create interactive games
6. Take team members out individually
7. Radiate positivity
8. Have an open door policy (really do)
9. Give employees the spotlight at different times
10. Offer cash bonuses as surprise times
11. Plan an outdoors day
12. Give a surprise day or even week off!

Start brainstorming ideas around your vision, mission, culture and how to keep your employees engaged. It doesn’t need to be a chore. You’ll notice an energy in your office going forward. A good energy!

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. How He Grew from 2-10 Employees in 1 Year…While Working Abroad. The Josh Zweig Interview
2. How To Manage Your Employees… Even When They Are Remote
3. 12 Effective & Genuine Techniques to Motivate Accountants

In most accounting firms, marketing is typically one of the last things on the ‘priority’ list.

“We have enough referrals right now, we need to focus on tax returns right now.” 

That may be the past.

But if you’re reading this blog, you most likely want to be a Firm of the Future.  A firm that’s both looking to grow but also adapt to changing conditions in the marketplace.

In the past, referrals were the main way to grow your practice. And that’s still happening today. However, if you’re serious about the long-term growth of the firm (as compared to short-term), it’s important you develop the right habits now for this to happen.

I just wrote a book on how to start doing this now called Double Your Accounting Firm. Click here to get a copy.

One way to immediately stand out from the pack is writing regular emails to your clients.

Now, I’m not talking “invoice due” emails or “send in your bank statement” type stuff. Those will get opened and responded to (hopefully). Those type of emails are expected and part of the job. Every accountant before you sent those to your clients.

Instead, you want to send emails that go beyond the norm. Emails that get opened, read, responded to, and ones that change the perception of your firm in your client’s eyes.

The more touchpoints that connect your firm to your prospect, the more likely they will stay around and want to keep working with you. Not to mention, when you raise your rates, they will not push back.
Here’s some data to feast on thanks to Constant Contact.

• 91% of adults enjoy receiving promotional emails from ones they do business with
• Opened emails are 40X more effective than any Facebook post or Linkedin update

You are always going to have your clients top-of-mind. Bad news…that’s not a two-way street. Your clients have their own business to run. That’s why getting an email ping from you can go a long way to strengthen your relationship with them and your brand.
Let’s first look at the types of emails you can send:

What Emails Should I Be Sending to my Clients? 

Writing emails sounds like a chore for many especially if you’re not a writer at heart. I recommend letting multiple people in your office draft emails to keep the content fresh and different.
To start, there are various types of emails to send:

• Requests for information
• Content
• Promotional
• Entertaining
• Updates from Firm

Unfortunately, many firms only focus on #1 and maybe #5 at times. After that, there is much left to be desired.

The reason for this, as mentioned, is due to ‘priority’ but perhaps also due to what many might consider ‘dry’ topics. I mean, how many posts about ‘cashflow’ and ‘tax deductions’ do you expect your clients to read, right?

But, this is where you can get creative with what you do.

Let’s brainstorm a minute.

If you service many medical clients, let’s say…they may not want to read about “Section 179” on equipment and things like that. After all, that is why they hired you. Instead, what if you thought about “What do these medical professionals want to read about?”

Maybe — updates to their industry, discussions with what successful doctors are doing, blogs about the recent medical conference you attended. These are topics that would perk their interest because it’s part of their world.

If you service a lot of restaurants, they may not want read about “Cost of Goods Sold” on their inventory.

Instead, think about this — ways to save money on [insert food category], how to hire long-term employees in their restaurants, how their servers can get 10% higher tips, stories about Bobby Flay when he was younger and starting out.

This is what they would click on right away.

As you can imagine, this takes a bit of work to do. Luckily, the internet is a vast place. If you become a ‘curated’ source of information, they will happily open your emails again and again.

Meanwhile, you can sprinkle in updates on your firm, entertaining posts of your Christmas party, and the normal stuff.

Now that you know what to write…

Here’s how to begin writing emails that get opened.

How Do I Get my Clients to Open my Dang Emails?

There are three parts to every email:

1. Subject line === entices client to click and open the email
2. Body === the meat and potatoes of the thing
3. Call-to-Action === what do you want the client to do? Click a link, respond, smile?

First, the subject line.

Think of the subject line as the bullhorn that distracts the client from everything else in their inbox, on their phone and on TV. If it’s something boring like “Depreciation limits are extending this year!”, you will get a supremely low click rate. I bet that subject line would be the lowest in history to be honest.
When you think of a subject line, try and think about a few things to stir up creativity:

• Any current events you can tie to (topical)
• What major benefit that matters TO THEM (if it’s depreciation, talk about how much money they’d save)
• Can we use any specific numbers or names (these always stand out especially if a famous person)
• Make a reference to a popular movie, TV show, or fad going around (“The one $1,000 tax tip to rule them all” — Lord of the Rings for all the non-nerds out there)

The key to remember with the subject line === It has ONE JOB…GET CLIENT TO OPEN. So say whatever you need to that isn’t a lie or misleading. It can be fun, entertaining, catchy, but make sure it relates to the body of the message.

Never do a subject line that’s like “We have a $5,000 check waiting for you” (kinda spammy) and then inside the email it’s “Just kidding, but now that you opened this email…etc. etc. etc.”.

Pulling stuff like that will get you into the SPAM box no matter how long the client has been with you. Don’t ruin your brand. The subject line is the first thing the client will see, make it memorable.

Next, you have the body of the message.

The body is what you actually say to the viewer. When it comes to the body, there is no perfect way you can write the message. If you put 1,000 writers in a room, they’d all craft a different message.

If you’re curious about what absolutely must be in a message, here are just a few pointers to remember:

• Make each email about one sole message. Don’t have multiple points to make else the message gets muddled
• Craft each email with the client in mind. We tend to write focused on what we want to say. Writing emails that get read and responded to is all about thinking “what does my client most want to hear about.”
• Trim, trim, trim. You don’t need to write one sentence emails. But try and trim where you need to

The most important piece again…make sure the email focuses on what the client wants, not what you want to say. 
Here’s an example of an email for a blog post that could be relevant to your client.

Hi Dan,
We were just at the medical conference in Chicago last week, and I got to sit down with a few of the doctors there.
One of the doctors I asked about how he has kept the same nurses for the past 5 years. I thought this would be something cool for you to see.
I wrote up what he said in this quick post. Click here to see,
David Cristello

Now, this is a pretty short email. You can add more details about the conference, but notice how I’m offering them something of value (information about retaining nurses…important for doctors). Plus, I tease the point so they actually click.

That brings me to the final part about emails.

Make the Call-to-Action enticing.

Every email, no matter what it is, should try and get some response from your clients. Even if it’s something like:

Hi Dr. Andrews,
I’ve talked with a few other clients who are doctors and they were all asking about cashflow help. Is that something you have a question to ask about too?
David

That’s basically a ‘check-in’ email. The point is that it asks for a response. In other instances, you might try and entice them to click a link like the email above. The more action they take with your email, the more attached they become to your brand.

So, end every email with something to get them to respond or click. It can be as simple as asking a question (“What do you think?”) or try and get them to click (“Click here to read this”).

7 Quick Last Minute Tips on Emails:

1. Please, please have your client name in your CRM. Nothing is worse than “Dear Client” emails…nothing screams mass mailing than that.
2. Keep the staff update emails to a minimum. Most clients don’t care you had ‘jeans Friday’ last week. Too many of those and your important emails won’t get opened.
3. Only flag emails as “IMPORTANT” when they really are. No crying wolf.
4. A P.S. is proven to get more clicks in emails. Try it.
5. Don’t bunch your paragraphs together. Keep paragraphs to 1-3 sentences. It’s easier to read.
6. Try and speak (write) casually not all business-like. It’s more interesting to read how people talk, not how robots talk.
7. The first line in your email is critical…best make it something that entices them to read the next line

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. Offering Your Service To Business Owners? This is the #1 Thing To Remember

2. How To Generate Your First 100 Accounting Clients & Building Recurring Revenue

3. Chapter 5: Get Referrals and Attract the Clients You Want

Sometimes we only get one shot at a prospect.

You know this to be true because you’ve been in the situation as the ‘prospect’ yourself.

When you’re surfing the web, on social media, wherever, and you suddenly see an article or ad that perks your interest.

You click on the ad, maybe it’s interesting, maybe not. Chances are unless provoked, you’ll read the content and then click back to the website you were at before.

What may have been an interesting experience for you has turned into a ‘loss’ for the website you were on. Because, since you consumed a piece of content, and enjoyed it…chances are, there are other pieces of content on that same website that would be interesting to you.

Unfortunately, the website didn’t pull you into more of their content, then capture your information, and perhaps sell you a product right then and there.

Instead, you have *poofed* and will probably never return to that website again.

Lost opportunity for them. Lost profits too.

If that sounds like it’s never happened to you, chances are, you didn’t realize it until later.

But, it’s happening on your website as you read this. 

Prospects — potentially ones worth millions over the next few years — are browsing your website, poking around, then leaving.

Never to return again.

Today, we are going to discuss how to capture prospects when they hit your firm’s page. That way, we can follow up with them later and perhaps turn them into a long-term client.

The ONE Page You Need to Capture Prospects and Get Their Information:

When someone hits your accounting website, our main goal is to get their information in some fashion. Typically, nowadays, that means a valid email address. The reason is we can follow up that prospect whenever we want.

After all, everyone checks their email.

It’s estimated it takes 8-12 touchpoints before a prospect remembers and cares about you — the business.

Go back to my initial example in the intro. Touchpoint #1 needs to work on getting them into a position where you can contact them again and again.

The best way to do that is through a LANDING PAGE.

A LANDING PAGE has two main components:

1. It has a distinct, clear offer for what the prospect gets for handing over their email
2. It specifically asks for an identification for the prospect (email, phone number, social media)

The most common landing page does this.

1. Gives away something for free
2. Gets prospects into your CRM

At Jetpack, we’ve offered free reports in exchange for emails. Our most popular lead generation tool is our free trial.
(Check it out here —> https://app.jetpackworkflow.com/users/sign_up)

Here, our offer is to give away 14 free days use of our software (Jetpack Workflow) in exchange for name and email. If they don’t continue with us after the trial, we have their information and can follow up them as needed.

Other common giveaway items are:

1. Short ebooks/report/guide
2. Recordings of a talk or presentation
3. Discount on a product

Thus, before you put together a page to start capturing prospects, think about:

• What kind of information does my client want?
• What information would shock the prospect?
• What ‘secret’s do I have that would really help the client?

In marketing, these questions have been forgotten. But they are the key to hooking prospects into your firm, not others.

Have a piece of information your clients are begging for. To get this info, talk to your prospects, do some deep research. You’ll find some of your ‘free gift’ ideas in the unlikely places.

Tools You Need on Your Website: 

Getting a LANDING PAGE set up can be super easy. All you need are the right tools.

First, you can download a plugin like OptimizePress (for WordPress sites) that has built-in landing pages.

If you’re more ambitious, sites like ClickFunnels puts together complex methods to set up funnels, landing pages and much more.
I’d recommend starting out with something that’s not complex.

For a LANDING PAGE, you could simply open up a new ‘page’ on your site and create it from scratch like a blog post. You just need to design it properly.

The second piece you need is an email provider who collects, stores, and sends mass emails.

The options out there continue to expand. There is MailChimp, ConvertKit, InfusionSoft, and others.

All do similar jobs with a few small tweaks between them. An email provider is important so you can actually capture prospects emails from the get-go.
That’s it for tools.

Next, it’s just a matter of ‘selling’ your free gift to the viewer.

How to Set Up Your Landing Page for Maximum Conversions: 

When we say “conversions”, we mean the percentage of people who hit your LANDING PAGE and put in their email.

For a free offer, we’re shooting between 20-50%. Meaning, for every 100 people to hit our site, we want to get 20-50 emails.

If you can get higher than 50%, you’re in incredible shape. But, 20% is about as low as we want to go for conversions.

You can calculate your conversions by looking at the traffic that hits your page and comparing visitors vs. actual email addresses captured and stored in your email provider that you chose.

To actually set up your LANDING PAGE, there are a variety of routes you can go.

It’s short and punchy, or
It’s got longer copy to sell.

Longer copy LANDING PAGES work best for long-term conversions. Short and punchy can get you more email addresses faster. The only way to figure out what works for your firm is to test, test, test. Test multiple LANDING PAGES at once if possible.

To get the gist of a basic LANDING PAGE, here’s what you need:

1. A compelling headline
2. An interesting offer
3. Short bullets about what they get
4. Proof of your authority

Let’s look at a few quick examples from well-known info marketers around the web.

I don’t want to use examples from the accounting niche because I don’t want you to be influenced by other firms out there. Do the work and research yourself.

First, Derek Halpern from Social Triggers. His popular blog helps people start and grow a profitable online business.

Check out the top headline of his LANDING PAGE.

Now, his LP (landing page lingo) is longer than most folks if you look at it. But, that’s because he believes it will convert more subscribers, but also prep new prospects to know, like and trust him more. In turn, they will buy more.
When you scroll down the page, you’ll see his compelling offer “Get 5,000 email subscribers.”

Imagine 5,000 new prospects on your list right now? That feels pretty good.
As the last point, he builds proof on his page with a lot of stats and data backing up his claims. Dig deep and find stats that can back up your offer and the ‘sale’ becomes much easier.

Next, we will look at Neil Patel. He helps online businesses increase traffic to their sites.

His LANDING PAGE follows similarly to the framework I shared above. He has a compelling headline. He reveals he will send you a cheat sheet of how to rank for competitive keywords. And then he has bullet points teasing what is inside the free gift.

If you’re wondering where the “proof” is here, it’s hidden in plain sight. The exact number “1,702,148” subconsciously tells us that he knows what he is talking about. It’s specific not to mention a huge number.
Most websites don’t see one million visits over 10 years! He promises that in a month.
Huge claim and offer.

Last, here is a bit different of an offer. It’s from Tim Sykes, the most notorious penny stock trader online.
Here he is offering actually a free ebook about “how I did it.” It’s more a story than a ‘step-by-step’ strategy.

Notice, at the top, it’s immediate proof. A quote about the book along with a “5-star” from Amazon.
Again, compelling headline === check.
If you scroll down, you’ll see bullet points teasing what’s in the book.

Sykes did something interesting as he added a personal video to the LP. This is a great way to connect to the audience, plus Sykes has a magnetic personality that draws you in. If there’s a way to use you or someone on your team in a short video, try it out.

To close out this post, what you want to remember is that it’s important to capture prospects when they hit your site.
The best way to do that is to get their email. The easiest path to an email is a LANDING PAGE.
It’s not hard to set up, but it could explode the amount of prospects that walk through your door this month.
Try it now.

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. How To Generate Your First 100 Accounting Clients & Building Recurring Revenue

2. Writing Emails That Your Clients Happily Open

3. Market Your Firm For Free With A New Book