Real Tax Business Success
Lesson - 38
The “Acres of Diamonds” Theory:
Strategic Marketing Techniques
Author: Chauncey Hutter Jr.
I’ve found through working with tax professionals in the tax industry, they tend to be interested in how other tax business owners advertise and promote their tax businesses to the public.
They see the “greener pastures” in their competition’s advertising and they have a tendency to want to follow in their promotional footsteps.
Now, if the other tax business really is promoting and advertising in a way that is truly effective, by all means take a hard look at what they are doing. But in most cases, the “greener pasture phenomenon” is what’s actually going on; meaning, you just think the other tax business owner’s EXTERNAL advertising is probably the better way to go, so you give it a try.
This is a BAD approach to promoting YOUR tax office!
Why do I say that?
Because you and most every other tax business owner on this planet has “hidden treasures” sitting right under your nose in your own client base!
You see, one of the greatest marketing secrets of all time is to tap into “the unmined gold” which exists in your client list.
There are “acres of diamonds” in EVERY tax business’ database right now. And the quicker you get this through your head and understand the potential profit sitting at your fingertips, the better! (You’ve neglected to mine this profit center in the past. Now I want to help you SEE “with fresh eyes” the riches in your own clients’ folders!)
I want to share a quick example showing you the importance of this marketing strategy and how many other businesses “miss it” when they don’t target their clients as much as they should.
Jay Abraham, a famous marketing consultant, has made a very nice living over the years consulting in this “niche” area alone. He puts on large seminars on the west coast at $25,000 a head revealing the “acres of diamonds” approach. The main theme of the whole seminar is “exploiting the under-valued, neglected asset” of each company in the room --their client lists!
(Business owners are happy to pay the $25,000 because once they understand what they’ve been missing, they will many times over make far more money in the future.)
You don’t need to go to this “high priced” seminar to learn this. I’m going to teach you everything you need to know right now in the next step or two.
The Lifetime Value of Your Client Dictates Your Marketing Plan
What is getting a new client worth to you? Would you spend $20 to get a new client? How about spending $50 to get a new client? Suppose you are averaging about $400 per return and you had a guy on the street come up to you and say, “I’ll bring you five new clients a day for 30 days if you will give me $300 a piece for each of them.”
Would you give someone $300 bucks for every new client they brought you so you could then turn around and net an additional $100 on the deal the next day? (Well, I should hope so.) That’s like saying, “Hey buddy, you bring me two $100 bills and I’ll give you one of those $100 bills back and let’s do it at least ten times a day for the next month!”
This sounds like an easy question to answer, but I run into tax business owners all the time who refuse to give out money for referrals. (Greedy? Stupidity?) Look, I know people are going to refer your tax business to other people whether you reward someone with cash or not. That’s not the point.
The BIGGER ISSUE is understanding what one particular client is worth to you over the “lifetime” he or she does business with your tax service!
You see, if you had enough money to “bankroll” yourself for a couple of tax seasons and not take any money out of the business, you could afford to “BUY” more market share and broaden your client base to be the most dominant tax business in your area.
What do I mean by “buying” clients? Well, if you understand the LIFETIME VALUE of your typical client, you can estimate the revenue he or she will generate over the next five or 10 years.
You could go through your database right now and see on average how long a typical client continues to return and do business with you. (Three years, six years, maybe more.) Let’s say, after you average all your clients from the last 10 years, considering those that stay only one year, you estimate that your typical clients will stick with you about five years. (That’s five years multiplied by $400 per return or a $2,000 lifetime value!)
Now let’s go back to the example of the man on the street. It’s the next tax season and you now have a better understanding of your clients’ lifetime value. Let’s say he comes up to you and says, I can bring you 10 new clients per day for a month, are you interested in giving me $500 a piece for each of them? (Your fees staying the same.) Knowing what you know now, would you sacrifice some (or maybe all … or more) of this year’s tax season profits and put it towards “bank rolling” 300 new clients into your business?
How you answer this question will determine your overall marketing strategy.
Chauncey Hutter Jr.
Tax Marketing Expert
Chauncey Hutter, Jr, is a best-selling author and leading marketing consultant and success coach to the tax industry. Mr. Hutter grew his father’s $50,000 per year tax preparation business to a multi-million dollar empire with 24 locations, 400+ employees and over 27,000 tax clients all coming from his marketing campaigns.
For more info on Real Tax Business Success, go to www.taxmarketing.com
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Real Tax Business Success
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