The positioning of your client’s mind is where the battle is won or lost. If your client has it in their mind that you only do high priced tax returns and they are not looking for high priced tax returns, you’re going to have a hard time getting that business.
By the same token, if your client sees you as only a “get your money back fast, assembly line” tax business and they want somebody that’ll spend an hour with them going over some extra tax advice for the coming year, then that client is not going to come in and do business with you.
The positioning in the client’s mind is critical -- especially after you have established a reputation and what you do. You may offer a certain kind of service to one group from January to February 15th and then you might start advertising a different way from February 15th all the way to the end of April.
That’s how my business was built. We targeted specific groups and advertised to small niches instead of doing mass “image” advertising. Since we targeted “individual” smaller markets, only a selected group of people saw what we do. This way we POSITIONED each group to think about and hopefully respond to the marketing message we put in their heads. (Not some other ad they saw where we are offering totally different benefits to a totally different market!)
I see many tax business owners trying to “be everything to everybody.” They will list a variety of tax services all through their ads. The problem is the client doesn’t feel like you are talking to him. (In his mind, you just “do everything.”)
If he sees an ad talking about just “quick tax” services and how fast he can get his money back, AND THAT’S WHAT HE WANTS, he’ll feel you are talking directly to him. (You have positioned yourself in his mind to be the tax firm that can DO what he’s looking to do.)
This mistake the tax business owner makes by not positioning himself properly can be traced back to NOT FOCUSING IN ON WHAT HE DOES WELL IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NOT KNOWING WHO HIS TARGET MARKET REALLY IS!
But once this first priority is taken care of, you must start thinking about the “congruency” and “consistency” of your message.
Think about it. If you are “positioning” yourself as a $500/hour tax attorney, you better not have a “cheesy” rug in your lobby. (The message is not congruent.)
By the same token, your message better be consistent! If in one sales letter you are “pitching” how much time you spend with each individual client and how much more ongoing help you offer year-round, but in another sales letter going to the same market you are “pitching” FAST REFUNDS and GET YOUR MONEY BACK QUICK WITH NO FEES PAID UP FRONT!...well.
I hope you can see that there is a consistency problem here.
And, finally, if you want to win the “battle of positioning” in your client’s mind, you must keep hammering home YOUR advantage you have over your competition! (USPs!)
Again, if you don’t have any good reasons for your target market to choose you compared to your competition, I question whether or not you should be in the tax business altogether!