More and more accounting practices are getting on-line with their marketing. Pretty much all accounting firms today have smart-looking, professionally designed web sites. But while great websites for accountants are the beginning of a successful internet marketing campaign, they are certainly not the end-all.

Here are a few contemporary internet marketing strategies that your competitors may not be taking advantage of yet:

Social Media
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are three of the many social networking websites popular today that gather immense attention from individuals and businesses alike. Facebook especially has grown into the choice hangout spot for most big companies and the “like” button has evolved into a valued commodity.

Twitter is similarly utilized to fire out short messages to followers, many of whom might be looking to utilize the business’ services in the future. LinkedIn, being a professional network, can lend credence to your company and your name as well.

Video Sharing
Your business may be able to find new clients on YouTube. Millions of people peruse “how-tos” and information on the site, so posting your expertise can help people discover the resources you have to offer. These needn’t be complex videos and needn’t take up much of your valuable time to create, either: a simple “today’s business/financial tip from *Insert Your Company Name Here*” will suffice.

Article Distribution
If you can, hire a writer or two to create articles for you which can then be published in article databases, generating links back to your site. As above, the articles will need to be informative and interesting or your prospective clients won’t want to read them. These articles will not only guide traffic to your practice’s accountant website, but also attract internet search robots to link to you.

Search engines find your article or site in a number of ways: not only by keyword but also by taking note of hyperlinks contained in the body of the text. Your ranking in the search engines depends partly on the number of hyperlinks in your story. Naturally you don’t want to spam your article with hyperlinks and keywords, but strategic placement can generate a ton of new leads.

Blogging
This includes guest blogging on authority sites, maintaining your own company blog, and participating in blogging communities frequented or run by likely prospects. Blogging is superbly equipped for informing people of your CPA firm’s latest exploits in detail – something essential as you create a longstanding awareness of your business in the minds of possible clients.

When blogging, avoid over-committing to a rigid schedule. Instead, plan your blogging to fit into the time you have available.

No matter what kind of marketing you try, know one thing: forming this broad-spectrum knowledge network about your business is the very top trick to attract new customers reliably and steadily.

Provider of CPA Websites Saved Time and Increased Efficiency with CodeIgniter and Smarter Coding Procedures

CPA Site Solutions, a provider of CPA websites for accountants, announced they recently redeveloped their proprietary Email Marketing System using new architecture, methodology, and coding standards.

CodeIgniter Cut Down on Time Spent Coding

The niche web developer opted to use CodeIgniter for the system’s architecture.

“We evaluated several frameworks for PHP web application development.  Many of them could have worked, but they really tried to lock you in to their way of doing things,” explains Bob Rayl, Chief Technology Officer at CPA Site Solutions. “They did not offer the flexibility we need to accomplish some of the heavily proprietary functionality we bundle into our systems.”

CodeIgniter is an Application Development Framework for PHP developers. It provides a rich set of libraries for commonly needed tasks. CodeIgniter considerably trimmed the hours developers spent writing tedious code. And because the code comes secured and optimized out of the box, the team saved additional time and resources on those tasks.

The team chose NetBeans, an integrated development environment (IDE), for their new interface.

Localized Server Streamlined Testing and QA

The tech team at CPA Site Solutions chose to use a localized server for code development and testing on which they could “step-through” their code line by line as it was running on an isolated test environment. This enabled them to catch bugs early in the development cycle, resulting in less end-of-development quality assurance.

The team could also access a step-by-step history of the code, quickly leading them to the cause of any new bugs. And with a roll-back function in place, they could return to a previous working version if problematic code reached the production environment.

Finally, the localized server allowed multiple developers to work on the same project without having to trade entire copies of the code. Each developer simply located the latest version from the server to be in sync with other team members. They could also test small bits of code on their own working area of the server, so their testing and QA didn’t slow down the rest of the team.

New Coding Practices Increased Team Efficiency

For the application rebuild, CPA Site Solutions wrote object-oriented, reusable code that extends the basic functionality of CodeIgniter.  They also wrote libraries that sit in a separate website but deliver programmatic data to their CodeIgniter applications. For example, getting a firm’s domain information will never need to be written into any given application again; it’s now served via a service the team created and centralized.

About CPA Site Solutions

CPA Site Solutions (http://www.cpasitesolutions.com) provides websites for more than 5,000 CPA and Accounting firms. They offer personalized websites, a dedicated webmaster, a secure client portal, a client newsletter, secure email accounts, search engine optimization, and 109 additional website features designed specifically for Accountants.

*Facebook: www.facebook.com/cpasitesolutions
*Twitter: www.twitter.com/cpasitesolution
*YouTube: www.youtube.com/cpasitesolutions
*CPA Websites Blog:  www.cpasitesolutions.com/cpa-websites

This video provides an overview of CPA Site Solutions’s offerings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxMz_GwWgX0

Odds are you already have a really good website. Heck you probably got it from me, in which case you have a really great website.

This article isn’t so much for you. Please keep reading! It may help you use your website more effectively, but rest assured all the toools and design features I’m about to talk about are already integrated into your CPA Site Solutions website!

If you have a paid a professional design company to custom build your site I want you to take a look at it and honestly evaluate something: Did they hone in on your website’s customer retention potential?

Current clients are an important component of your CPA firm website’s strategic market. A little attention to what current clients secretly want from your website will go a long way towards keeping them with you.

For example, consider putting a “Secure File Transfer” tool on your website. Clients will enjoy the ability to quickly and effortlessly transmit records to your accountancy. Whenever tax season rolls around, it can be a Godsend. Your customers, especially the ones most prone to procrastination, will genuinely value being able to deliver their late forms to you without the cost of priority delivery.

Another tool that clients love is online tax organizers. Most accounting website providers offer downloadable tax organizers, but the cutting-edge is a tax organizer that can actually be filled out online. These secure forms can be filled out from anyplace with an internet connection and include a save function so they can be completed at the client’s leisure .

Business owners’ needs are probably a priority for your firm. Imagine how much time they can save with online payroll. Not only is it easy for your clients, but payroll companies make it easy for you too.

These elite clients will also really appreciate an online library of relevant tax forms that they can print out as needed. The IRS offers all their forms and periodicals as downloadable PDFs so it’s a simple matter to include links to these resources. Your website will help clients navigate through to what they need.

Another IRS feature that’s easy to re-brand and add to your website is an automated form for tracking your clients’ tax refunds. This wonderful client benefit will also save your staff time answering the common question “when will my refund arrive?”

Growing customers into true fans is not just beneficial for customer loyalty, it’s also good for appealing to new clients. Incorporating a “Testimonials” section on CPA websites is an excellent marketing tool. Customers enjoy the interactivity of adding their experience. What’s more, great testimonials speak more convincingly and more personally than any marketing effort, so you’ll be getting a double bang for your buck.

Although the economic climate may be tight, this is actually a great time to build your firm.

The recession affects everyone. Still, those worries are paired with opportunity. Make arrangements to connect with your business customers, new leads, and clients that are influential and offer them some extra, highly personalized services. This can result in not just developing your customer base, but it can also help you increase your client base.

Your best clients will always be by referral, and when there are fewer clients to go around it’s a good idea to try to shift your focus from getting the most clients to getting the best clients. Providing exceptional personal service is the best way to do this. For a relatively small investment in time you’ll soon find your clients are no longer customers but have become fans, and they will eagerly refer you to their friends and associates.

Before the busy tax season, a great way to get started with your clients is to plan 4th quarter tax planning sessions. Most professionally designed CPA websites have calendar functions that can help with appointment setting. The uncertainty of the economy creates an opportunity to explain to your clients that their lives are dependent on impact planning. It has a direct impact on their future.

An important metric for the impact of successful tax planning is money. However, boosting the confidence of your client and giving them some hope is the real value. This provides a real competitive advantage for your business. Your leadership gives your clients confidence and a sense of hope. This will make them more dependent on your firm. It will also help them manage day to day stress. Reducing stress can of course improve your clients’ lives.

Tax planning effectively isn’t just about minimizing the amount of taxes a client needs to pay over a period of time. It also has to do with investing, managing cash flow, and in some cases, planning an estate. You want to bring your clients lives back to order. This is the true value of effective tax planning. The natural result is managing fear, reducing negativity and alleviating stress. This can significantly improve the quality of your clients’ lives.

Once you have properly executed a planning session, it can make a big difference in terms of referrals. Your clients will speak of their experience to their family, co-workers, and friends. It is a great way to set your CPA practice apart from the competition, increase your client base, gain referrals and for existing clients, expand your service engagements.

At the planning session, you should:

1. Listen to and validate the concerns about the current economy. You don’t want to sound too optimistic or you will not seem realistic. Your client is not thinking optimistically.
2. Relate the client’s concerns to their situation in particular. Everyone is affected differently by recession, so speaking generally will not be as effective as if you connect someone’s personal concerns about the economy to their situation.
3. You must be realistic. Everyone needs to file taxes, it is inevitable. This shifts the client’s focus to their lives instead of the act of filing taxes.
4. Effective tax planning can bring a sense of hope. You need to present strong guidance. You can create a CPA website reference library of topics on which you can coach, which will help you improve your clients’ lives by giving them a sense of direction.

Here’s how to combine all of these points:

Keep in mind that everyone is feeling stress and anxiety about the economy, and the reality is that it will likely become worse before it improves. For clients with kids, this is especially hard. The responsibilities of parenthood are frightening enough even in the best of times. To help your clients adjust do more than just file a return, help them out by doing some strategic financial planning with them. Show them that no matter what the future brings they’ll be able to adapt effectively.

It is important to remember that recessions bring anxiety, stress, and uncertainty. In order to make informed decisions, you must provide strong leadership for your clients. It isn’t just about filing a tax return.

Arranging tax and fiscal planning with influential customers is the most effortless and cost effective method of increasing your firm’s profile within your local community. Your customers will speak of you, telling others how your business spent the extra time with them helping them manage their lives and their finances, not just filing their tax return.

Accountants matter. Accountants matter a lot.

That’s a major reason I love my job so much. You don’t need to sell a bill of goods to sell accounting services. Accountants provide real value to the businesses they serve. They are able to provide expert assistance with taxes throughout the year as well as at tax time as well as help companies boost their bottom lines by helping them streamline their businesses and track their profits and losses.

Almost everyone will likely need a reliable accountant sometime in their adult life.

As an accountant I want you to honestly consider how your business is portrayed on the web. Ask yourself, are you making a strong first impression? The days of relying on newspaper ads or the phone book listings are over. Everyone has replaced those methods of finding professional services with the Internet.

You might say, “Well, I rely on my reputation and word of mouth”. Sure, word of mouth is great. In fact, this is how you’ll get most of your best clients, but it won’t give you a steady flow of new clients.

People use the Internet for everything now and that includes finding an accountant. So this means that you can no longer neglect that website of yours. It is time to start strengthening your online presence so that it matches the level of professionalism you exhibit in person.

Since websites for accountants are a service business, accountants websites need to provide information in the most simple way possible. This means simple navigation and layout with fresh content. Since people are on the Internet to answer a question or solve a problem, the best websites are designed to answer a question or solve a problem. So now that you understand the need to give your website an upgrade, here are a few ways to avoid disaster and make your redesign effective!

Sloppy Sites Are a Death Knell
Even the most simple explanation of accounting may be confusing enough for your reader to continue browsing on the Internet. Therefore it is important to leave out lots of numbers, charts and spreadsheets. Most people who look at your website are simply trying to find out about your services. Help them evaluate if you are a good fit for their needs instead of getting into the boring details of accounting practices.

Don’t Make Visitors Feel Stupid
Many accountants make this mistake. It’s possible to make yourself look smart without making your prospect feel dumb but it takes a little forethought and consideration. As an accountant, you use a lot of terms that the average person will find confusing. Make an effort to speak as plainly about your services as you possible. Don’t get bogged down in the details. If you try to explain how you’re going to do everything you’ll leave the reader either bored to tears or feeling wholly inadequate. Just tell the prospect what you’re going to do and how it will benefit them.

Be Accessible
Your website is a primary way for people to get in touch with you. Make it easy for people to find your contact information on your website. Make it intuitive so that they don’t have to search around the page for it. Put your phone number and address in the footer of every page and add lots of contact forms to your site. Use Facebook “like” buttons or “share with a friend” links to make it easy for visitors to share what they find on your site.

Don’t Use Your Business Site as a “Learning Experience”.
Your business website is not the best place to learn how to design websites. Even the best trained web designers put out a dud or two before they get the hang of producing a well organized, good looking website.

Understand your limits. Compare your web design skills to what is expected on even a basic website for businesses in your field. It is likely that you don’t have the web design skills to create a professional website. Therefore you should hire a professional web designer. The pay off will be well worth it.

Search Engines: The Contemporary Marketplace
Back in the old days there was an expression designed to explain the three most important elements to a successful business… “Location… Location… Location.” This cliche is as true today as it was a century ago, but the marketplace has changed. What matters isn’t your physical location. What street you’re on or where your storefront is in relation to commuting and pedestrian thoroughfares no longer matters much at all.

What matters now is your location in the search engines!

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a very important component of a website. Essentially, SEO helps increase your search engine ranking, which will in turn lead people to your website. If you have a brilliant website that nobody can find, it isn’t doing you any good.

Don’t Blow Your Chance at a Good First Impression!
It is important to provide users with a pleasing aesthetic and an easy, streamlined experience on your website. A visitor landing on a sloppy looking site will go straight for the “back” button and functionality issues, such as links that don’t work, are frustrating. They also call into question your level of professionalism.

Don’t be Afraid to Sell Yourself
Don’t forget that a website is just a tool to promote your services. It can be easy to get caught up in the creation of a website. Remember the big picture and focus on selling you and your services. Make your website for people to find you and learn about your services. For one thing, if you seem shy about what you do it will look like you lack confidence in yourself, and secondly… what you do matters. You’re not selling anyone a bill of goods. You’re going to save your clients money! That’s something to proud of, so don’t hide from it. Sell… sell… sell. It’s good for you and it’s good for them.

People have varying levels of experience with accountants. For a lot of people, it can be intimidating. You need to show people that you understand their needs and can offer a solution. Reassure them and stay true to yourself so that when they meet you in person you’ll already have a rapport. If done well, you’ll have an easy way to gain new clients.

OK, maybe this isn’t the most original post I’ve ever done.

If you Google the keywords “Charlie Sheen Marketing” you’ll see at least a dozen articles with titles like “Charlie Sheen: Crackpot or Marketing Genius”. Now personally I don’t see why he can’t be both. Madness and genius has never been an “either or” proposition and I’ve certainly seen plenty of evidence to support both contentions. Of course exploring narcissistic personality disorders probably won’t do much to help you build your practice, but whether with intent or just by dumb luck he’s demonstrated some highly effective marketing techniques that even us mere mortals should be taking advantage of.

CPA firms are no different from other businesses in that they need to bring in new clients as well as retain old ones. To accomplish that, your optimal weapon is an useful, pleasing website that clients find helpful over and over.

Good inbound marketing for CPA websites is dignified but never boring. If you’re providing valuable content to your clients with online articles and targeted emails, you will attract clients. And you will keep them because they appreciate your responsible guidance.

Good accounting websites consistently report on the latest developments in the profession. Show that you’re looking towards the future. Or as Charlie Sheen says, “I’m more interested in what I can do next than what I did last.”

Don’t be hesitant about sharing tips that can save tax money and expenses. Other firms will envy your confidence.

Keep abreast of the latest tips to aid your clients, and load them onto your website. Along with your valuable information should be an easy financial calculating tool for the client to see how much money can be saved by using the suggestion he or she just read.

To be dignified is not to be cowardly, but to show your strength as a smart defender of your client. Great accounting websites project loyalty to clients, and confidence in yourself–”you’re either in my corner, or you’re with the trolls” says Charlie, but if you turn this around a little it can actually work for you. Show your clients you’re in their corner and they’ll respond with loyalty and respect.

Effective accounting websites should be personable and very open to communication. Want to encourage contact and trust? List contact information for all your professional staff on your website.

Prospective clients are taking a risk when they meet with a new accountant. You can lesson that risk and welcome them by offering free initial consults. That signals to the client that you’ve got their back.

Having blogs on accounting websites adds friendliness and builds a community of clients and professionals who all share the same concerns and goals.

Follow these tips and you’ll be amazed. An online inbound marketing campaign is more powerful and more economical than traditional advertising.You’ll build credibility and loyalty by drawing people interested in financial services to you, instead of shooting ads blindly to the masses.

Often there is backlash against the offensive marketing “hard-sell.” But inbound marketing, involving communication only with individuals who locate your accountant website due to their own drive, takes only a gentle assurance that the person has identified the most expert accountants in town, who rightly may proclaim like Charlie, “I try to be known more for my work than for anything else.”

Leads are essential to any business practice, and especially to the field of accounting. Beyond simply looking for leads via effective accountant websites or undergoing customer inquiry and sales contact, leads must be sorted and nurtured so that they can be reused and recycled for later business practices.

In addition to the benefits of lead nurturing in developing new client business for your accounting firm, lead nurturing ensures you don’t miss the potential for a business merger.  In today’s economy, you can’t let an ideal business relationship slip away. Lead nurturing ensures you can consider all options when developing new business.

While lead nurturing may seem time-consuming or redundant, it is absolutely essential to market to potential clients. Here are several reasons why as an accountant, you should use lead nurturing to develop meaningful relationships with potential customers.

1) 77% of potential sales come from longer-term leads
By ignoring future opportunities that may arise from unnurtured leads, you run an enormous risk of losing revenue. Knowing who you have already touched and with whom you can expand your professional relationship allows you to grow your accounting firm and expand your networking reach exponentially.

2) Leads tend to change their mind over time
Allow your leads to consider your professional services rather than demanding an immediate “yes” or “no”.  This gives them the opportunity to weigh their options and decide what works for them. Continued touches mean that your accounting firm stays at the front of their mind.

3) Lead nurturing is a relatively simple process
After initial contact with leads from accountant website traffic, easy follow-up calls and addition of the leads to a mailing list is an almost effortless way to grow your business.  Light touches that are well timed show discretion and concern for your leads, and do not add to you or your staff’s workload.

4) Lead nurturing elicits trust in clients
If you express genuine concern for your leads, they will more likely be inclined to engage in business dealings with you. Ultimately, the human side to accounting converts leads into customers, where as the business side can make you seem distant, cold, and unapproachable.

5) Lead nurturing suggests thoroughness
The process of following up with a lead shows consistency, even in the preliminary stages of business dealings that will translate into dedicated, consistent, and high quality results. The intent of lead nurturing is to win the lead over and convert them to a client for your accounting firm.

6) Lead nurturing allows you to better understand your leads
In learning which parts of the accounting website lead nurturing processes bear favorable results, you will be able to empathize with your clients and to ultimately serve them better through the life of your business relationship.

7) Lead nurturing puts you ahead of your competitors
Simple, light touches for your leads beyond initial contact, set you apart from the competition, particularly those who do not practice lead nurturing.

Lead nurturing prevents redundancy
For leads who have turned you down entirely, further touches can sometimes feel like harassment and are very counterproductive; leave them alone. Isolating leads which rejected your firm altogether prevents redundancy and prevents the development of a bad reputation amongst leads who are as yet undecided.

Retailers offer great deals and interesting products to get repeat customers, but CPAs and accounting firms need to be more creative to keep their clients coming back. Superb bookkeeping, helpful CPA websites, and flawless tax filings make for satisfied clients – but a competitor down the street could be offering the same excellent service. CPAs need an edge to make sure their clients stick with them. Otherwise, they need to spend too much of their time attracting new work.

Here are several tips for how to retain clients.

Use CPA Websites and Other Tools to Develop Client Relationships

When the job is all about numbers, a personal feel is sometimes difficult to establish. Here are some steps you can take to humanize your business:

• Make follow-up calls to ensure clients have no further questions, that their tax forms were processed correctly, and that their business is doing well.
• Set up a web presence. Accountant websites provide helpful tax tips and financial information for clients, as well as time-saving features like a client portal or a credit card processing service.
• Utilize social media and answer easy accounting questions on your Facebook page or blog.
• Keep small personal notes on each client. Ask about their children, their career, or their success in school next time you see them; it gives you instant likability. People are more comfortable trusting financial issues to those with whom they have personal relationships.

Be Realistic – Then Wow Them

It’s important not to set your clients’ expectations too high. For example, if they turn in their tax materials on April 13, you don’t want them to be disappointed when you need to file an extension.

That being said, you should always work to deliver more than you’ve promised. If a client does turn in her documents on the 13th and you ARE able to get her return done on time, make sure she understands you’ve gone above and beyond for her.

CPA websites can help here, too. If you invest in a high-quality site with a client portal, online bookkeeping, QuickBooks support, and similar features, your clients will benefit. The increased efficiency and convenience of online tools make a great impression.

Act with Integrity

Unfortunately, many people automatically assume those who deal with financial matters are dishonest. Since the deck may already be stacked against you, you must work that much harder to provide honest services.

To combat this, never stretch the truth and always provide bad news in a gentle, straightforward manner.

It also helps to express your trustworthiness in other ways. Being courteous, considerate, and always following through on your promises are other ways you can convey your honesty. The little things really do add up.

Practice Prompt Communication

Hard-to-reach businesses lose customers. When clients are worried about money, waiting hours or days for a return phone call provides ample time for increased fears. Regardless of the reason, clients may be concerned that lack of contact means something is wrong.

Make sure your office is able to deliver prompt communication on all issues. Follow up by phone or email as soon as you can, even if it’s just to report that you’ll be in touch with more information later.

Be Yourself

People like to work with other human beings, not robots. If you are funny, be funny. If you are smart, be smart. Not every customer will see your personality as a fit for theirs, but that’s okay. Conforming to the desires of every customer means you are not a match for any.

Learning how to retain clients is important for anyone in the service industry, and CPAs and other financial professionals are no exception. Remember: the more you can use accounting websites, social media, and your own winning personality to satisfy your clients, the easier it will be to keep folks on your client list. Focus your client-retention efforts most intensely on the highest paying clientele and you should be able to enjoy a stable base of clients and a pleasing bottom line.

Getting organized, bringing in outside help, pledging to relax on a regular basis – will help every CPA get through busy season with less stress and improved productivity.

It’s common for accounting professionals to both yearn for and dread accounting busy season. Everyone enjoys the extra income that’s part of the package, which can fund their company for the rest of the year. However, plenty of CPAs ignore their accounting websites and other key marketing channels from January to April, and they allow their health to deteriorate. Even taking into account the boost in the bottom line that comes with it, all too often, busy season ruins a practice.

To get the most out of busy season and leave the stress behind, successful CPA firms follow these 5 steps:

1. They Don’t Skimp on Accounting Websites

During busy season, time is money. An hour here or there printing out documents or filing paper returns can really add up, preventing firms from reaching revenue goals.

Keeping the office simple is the name of the game, which is why well-prepared accountants use accounting websites to increase efficiency. Consider the following, all of which help firms work smarter:

• Client portal
• Online tax organizer
• Pay by credit card
• E-newsletter
• Frequently asked questions page
• Map and driving directions

2. They Tidy Their Offices and Touch Up Their Accounting Websites

Disorganization in the workplace (and at home for that matter) really adds to people’s stress. Especially in a business like accounting, piles of papers and files quickly get out of control, spilling all over the floor and teetering on the edges of crowded desks. And what happens when a client calls and the CPA can’t find their information easily? Even when they’re confident they can locate any piece of paper quickly, they’re foolish to take a chance with client data.

Accountants who prepare for busy season before the first of the year are more relaxed and more effective in their client work. These CPAs arrange files, update their accounting websites, and clean out inboxes. And they’re careful to “hibernate” any projects that can wait until after April 15th by placing them out of the way where they won’t add to the general chaos.

Once work starts coming in, it helps to spend a couple minutes at the end of every day to tidy up the office. Folks who do this report feeling empowered and well-prepared for the next day.

3. They Don’t Put Up with Trouble Clients

It’s part of the package to have some clients who just make life miserable for the whole staff. These difficult folks might take issue with every single fee, leave nasty comments on firms’ accounting websites, or just come across as highly unpleasant and antisocial.

It may be hard to do, but it’s okay to fire obnoxious clients, and smart CPAs terminate these relationships. The time accountants waste dealing with these troublemakers is better spent working with the clients who are easy and problem free.

4. They Hire Outside Help

Historically, accountants have been the biggest administrators. They answer e-mails, handle returns, manage their accounting websites, field phone and website inquiries, and other tedious tasks. Wouldn’t it save time to hand all this off to someone else?

Busy season is the perfect time to hire interns. Many interns are fresh from schooling and more than happy to get real-life office experience. Both accountants and interns benefit – and busy season can become much more manageable.

5. They Aren’t Married to the Job

During busy season, many accountants work 10, 12, 14 hours a day – or more. But not all of them. The wisest CPAs don’t allow the job to take over their lives, even when workload is at its height.

Take a page from their playbook. Instead of burning the candle at both ends, set a fixed time at the end of the day when you power down your computer and go home – no matter what. A few more hours of sleep will greatly enhance your mood and boost your efficiency.

And remember to tell your clients that you can’t work miracles. They should know that they MUST hand in their materials by a particular date or you’ll be filing for an extension on their behalf. Period.

If you’re an accountant facing busy season, remember to take time for yourself. Once a week, forget about accounting websites, tax organizers, and dissatisfied clients – and relax. Go to a film, take a bubble bath, or make a date with your pals. When you do, you – and your business – will not just survive, but thrive!

Can Your CPA or Accounting Practice Learn Anything from a Failed Business?

Borders’ chapter 11 filing came as no surprise to anyone who watches technology. The cause was their refusing to take up digital delivery.

For accountants, emerging technologies like websites and online networking can seem just as remote from their core business as they did to Borders. But learning from Border’s example can help ensure that accounting firms do not make similar mistakes.

Historically, communications didn’t change much until the last few decades.  Then, electronic communications quickly overtook print communications, making products and services much easier to find, access, and deliver. Increased access to information online means less paper production, which is more environmentally friendly.

Today’s world is online.  Almost every reading material you can think of is available electronically. Forward-thinking marketing approaches like compelling websites for accountants are simply imperative.

Not long ago Borders Books was at the top of its industry. It had a proven product, a strong brand name and enviable market position. But despite the technological changes over the last decade, Borders chose to pursue a strategy of business as usual. Borders turned up their noses at e-books.  They ignored electronic communications of all sorts. It simply wasn’t their world.  They didn’t bother to become technologically literate. This was a crucial strategy error. Even their proven marketing tools failed them.  Marketing cannot save a bygone business model.

Technology continued to advance and Amazon and Barnes and Noble were early adopters. It wasn’t long until their e-book and online sales added significantly to their bottom line.  Both Amazon and Barnes and Noble pulled ahead of Borders based on their electronic savvy.

Meanwhile, Borders slept.  Previous customers of Borders who became excited by the electronic possibilities had to use more accommodating booksellers. As in any industry, once a customer has made a switch to another company and finds it satisfactory, that customer is almost impossible to retrieve.

Even after Borders figured out that they were losing market share, they kept doing the same old thing.

Meanwhile new technological horizons kept opening up. Former admirers soon realized that Borders’ marketing team was behind the times, deficient in technological leadership and vision. Border’s heel-dragging continued.  It’s almost as if they feared technology.

Reluctance to embrace technology spawned a series of further marketing missteps. In an effort to shore up eroding profits, Borders raised prices in retail stores and online, antagonizing their loyal customer base. Customers revolted, moving their business to Borders’ competitors. This was the final straw for Borders Books, which was forced to file for bankruptcy.

So what does this have to do with your practice?

In every industry, businesses must adapt to a changing technological climate or become obsolete. Similar to any other business, professional accountants must follow and accept the evolving world of technology and newfangled web marketing tools such as good quality websites for accountants. That is the pith of Borders Books’ lesson for CPA firms.  Avoiding its biggest mistakes will help keep your practice .