Early in my research of marketing for accountants I came across Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) and the name Paddi Lund. Paddi was mentioned in a book and I was intrigued by his story because he not only won clients without advertising, he only works 22 hours a week and makes three times his industry average.
Paddi is a dentist and a few years after I first read about him I worked with Fletcher Potanin (Paddi’s publisher) to bring Paddi’s to The Institute of Directors in the UK. It was great to meet up with Paddi and the seminar was a great success with 500 dentists and business people. Here are some clips from the event:
I have used many of Paddi’s ideas in business for myself and clients but for me the most impactful is the idea of a Welcome Book. This is an A4 folder sent out to potential clients before you meet them. This resource does many things including filtering out the wrong type of clients. It educates prospects and makes them want to be your client.
The Welcome Book speeds up the sale and enables you to get higher prices. But, like all marketing it is important to understand that the Welcome Book makes a promise and you MUST honour the promise otherwise clients will feel cheated.
I can remember meeting a potential client and explaining that I would go back to the offices and put some thought to a package for them. Two days later I got a call from the prospect concerned because they had not seen a proposal and wondered if I was going to accept them as clients! The funny thing is that the prospect was an “A” type client. Nice people, good profits and I knew their budgeted for accountancy services fitted my business model.
I used the Welcome Book for years in an accountancy business and it is very powerful. I see this tool as part of the client induction programme. Consider investing in a Welcome Book and use the production of the book as a opportunity to bring your team together!