Welcome to Miles Consulting Group’s Rainmaker blog series, tailored to accounting and finance professionals. If you’ve made it here, hopefully, you’ve had the opportunity to check out our previous discussion about how to revisit your sales mentality (see discussion) and think differently about having sales conversations with your existing clients and prospects.
If you are here, you are probably, like me, responsible for bringing in some client work. Maybe you are a manager in a CPA firm; maybe you’re already a partner. Perhaps you are a very new staff person and don’t know where to start. Or maybe you are well trained in a firm, but have decided to go out on your own and need to start building that book of business. In any of those situations, I can help!
The first step in the process, as you sit down with your blank sheet of paper or computer screen in front of you, is to determine your target market. Easy, right? Not necessarily! Actually, determining and really defining your target market can be difficult, but deserves the attention that you must give it. After all, all the sales tools in the world will be worth very little if you sell to the wrong person. Here are some things to think about relative to your target market:
- Imagine your “perfect client”. Consider some of the following questions to narrow it down. How big are they in terms of sales revenue, asset base, or employees (or other metrics)? In what industry? In what part of the country (or state) do you find them?
- After going through that analysis, ask yourself WHY? Why do you consider this a perfect client? Perhaps you have a specialty in an industry. Perhaps you have history with clients just like them, and they provide good information, and they pay in a timely manner. Perhaps you have had one really good client that meets those characteristics and you know that there must be others just like them out there.
- Now, ask WHERE? Where do these perfect clients hang out? And can you meet them there? Do they attend conferences which you can attend or sponsor? Or can you be a speaker there? Can your current “perfect client” introduce you to more perfect clients (a successful referral strategy!)? Is there a regular networking or industry event that draws this type of company? And how can you get yourself in the room with them?
As you can see – this isn’t all that easy! And it’s just the first and very important step in the rainmaking process. The beauty, however, is that much of this is a linear process. As accountants and financial professionals, most of us like linear! Once you spend some investment time in Step One, the next ones follow along in a line (with possibly a few diversions now and again). Having a linear, rules-based process works to our strengths. And will make this fun. I promise. Click here for more information about my upcoming webinar series “Jumpstart Your Rainmaking.”
The program begins November 9th so register early! And stay tuned to this blog for more rainmaking tips!
Monika Miles is President of Miles Consulting Group, a firm specializing in multi-state tax consulting for middle market businesses. Clients include technology, manufacturing, software and SaaS based companies doing businesses across state lines. Miles Consulting Group assists companies in determining the sales tax and income tax ramifications of creating a taxable presence in a state and how to address these issues with the various states. When she’s not assisting clients with multi-state tax issues, she passionately shares Rainmaker strategies with other professional services firms.
