CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

Cracking the Code: James Smith’s Guide to Growing Accounting Firms with Facebook Ads

• James Donovan • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Unlock the secrets to marketing success with our fascinating guest, James Smith, the innovative mind behind Bright Idea Marketing. From his early days as a technology-enthused child to becoming a leader in digital marketing, James shares his inspiring journey and insights into the world of accounting. Discover how his passion for website development transformed into a thriving marketing agency, focusing on leveraging platforms like Facebook for lead generation. Listen as James admires the role of accountants in business success and reveals how he's helping them attract clients in a competitive market.

Explore the untapped potential of Facebook ads for accountants, a tool that can revolutionize how firms grow and stabilize their revenue. James guides us through effective strategies that shift focus from one-off projects to recurring services, reducing financial volatility. Hear about how targeting specific industries can position accountants as experts, attracting high-value clients with minimal ad spend. We discuss the importance of creating a predictable system for lead generation, moving away from traditional referrals to ensure quality and fit for incoming clients.

As we navigate the challenges accountants face in standing out, we emphasize the critical role of specialized marketing support. Learn how firms like Bright Idea Marketing can handle branding and lead nurturing, allowing accountants to focus on what they do best. James underscores the importance of patience in marketing campaigns, advising against the costly habit of frequently switching marketing firms. We conclude with strategic growth tips, encouraging accountants to position themselves as trusted advisors and stay engaged with industry trends via LinkedIn. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights and enhance your marketing prowess.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success the go-to podcast for fractional CFOs and accounting firm owners who want to attract more high-paying clients and increase their revenue. Hosted by James Donovan from Nine Two Media, this podcast dives into marketing strategies specifically designed for lead generation and client acquisition. In each episode, you'll hear from industry leaders sharing their success stories and Thank you to your bottom line.

Speaker 2:

Super excited to have James Smith today from Bright Idea Marketing on the podcast. James, you and I have had the chance to connect in a couple of different masterminds. We've had the chance to actually live together in Mexico. Most recently, we were staying at an Airbnb together for a mastermind in Miami. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Welcome, let's get right into it. Thanks for having me. I'm excited, very cool. So, james, for everyone who doesn't know who you are, mind give us a quick background on who Bright Idea Marketing is, how long you've been around and who you help.

Speaker 3:

Yeah for sure. So this goes back to around 2000. And in 2000, I was just a little kid that was excited about technology and at that age I got really into programming. So I went to pick up a book at the library and it was a website coding book and it basically taught me how to build a website. Of course, back then it was a lot more simplistic and you had to hand code everything, but it started there when it came to the marketing space. So from there my interest grew in the marketing arena.

Speaker 3:

Eventually, in 2010, I decided to start my own marketing company. I had a lot of people coming to me looking to get their websites built out, so that was kind of the beginning of the official business, if you will. I had done quite a few other deals before then unofficially, so that's where it started 2010. And even then we were just coming out of the phase of lime green websites and really bad MySpace pages. So definitely an interesting space to get involved in.

Speaker 3:

And yeah, from there, as I built out websites for people, I realized once I was done they had a website, but also 10,000 other people also had websites. And just because they had a website anymore didn't mean that people were just going to happen to appear and buy from them. So that was when I realized, ok, if I just do a website, that's needed because we need to collect the information, we need to show credibility of the client, we need to make sure they're proving themselves. But the next step is we need to get where the first step is getting people to the page. So that was where I decided, ok, we need to shift and get into the creating opportunities space, and that would be generating leads through marketing. So from there we went into advertising, we did a whole bunch of different things. We did Facebook to Google, to SEO, to a whole bunch of different things, and we landed on Facebook being probably one of the best platforms. It changed our whole agency and changed all of our clients' businesses. So that's kind of the origin story.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. I love how it was the prequel, first of websites and then all right now we got to go back and make the first movie and get people to the website.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So I know you've worked in a variety of different industries before, especially when we first met, I think you were working with insurance companies. It may have been solar, definitely solar at the time, but it might have been insurance when we first got started. But most recently you've joined us on the dark side in the accounting space. Tell me about what your experience has been like in the last eight months or so since joining this industry and maybe a couple of the wins you've brought your clients since joining the accounting space, because it's an amazing spot. There's a couple of the the wins you've brought your clients since since joining the accounting space, cause it's it's an amazing spot. Um, there's a lot of great clients, a lot of great businesses. Everyone needs an accountant, so there's always tons of opportunity out there. But I'd love to hear from you what your experience has been like so far.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So first things first. Um, I love the accounting space. I love accountants. Accountants are truly the backbone of every successful business. If somebody does not know their numbers, they're in trouble. And I say that not as a rah-rah promo. I'm in the space, so I'm going to have to say that. No, I truly believe that they're the ones that are running the business, because the entrepreneur is known to be the visionary, the creative type, the one that just wants to push the ball forward. But if he doesn't have a foundation, if he doesn't have a back office to make sure that he can be supported financially and the business is afloat, he can be in a lot of trouble. So it's because of accountants that they can stay in business and they can continue to grow. So that's the first thing and that really stood out to me.

Speaker 3:

The second thing is we've worked with a lot of people in the financial services space. So we've been in the arena and a lot of different ways. You mentioned insurance. They're kind of in that arena. They work with accountants all the time. So I've seen that for a lot of the years that that collaboration happened and the migration into accounting just was a natural step for me, because you know, what we do best is getting business owners on the phone and getting them closed into a deal, and if we can help other people get that, then that's best. See, we always say we practice what we preach. We actually run advertisements to get to talk with accountants to help them with their services, in the same exact way that we do the same thing for them, right? So we're in complete alignment with what we're doing and what we can do for them. We prove it every single day. So that's another great reason why we're in the space.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. I love that because it's also so great for your own sales calls of being like, hey, you've already been through our demo, you just don't even know it. The reason you got on this call is because what we're going to be able to do for your business so there's also like a huge sales hack to that. Tell me about some of the recent wins or what you're seeing works really well for your clients in the accounting space. When it comes to Facebook ads, because I think a lot of people get nervous about running ads on Facebook and get very expensive. You can burn a lot of money and all those things are true, but when done right, what sort of results are you seeing for your clients? Absolutely.

Speaker 3:

So one of the first things that we always recommend for accounting firms is, first of all, step away from the one-off projects. You know, tax preparation is a needed service, for sure, but it should be coupled with a recurring monthly service. That's the first thing that accounting firms it's the biggest hack that they can take advantage of. Thing that accounting firms it's the biggest hack that they can take advantage of. We talk with a lot of people who you know they'll have $50,000 of revenue or $100,000 of revenue in a single month during tax season. Then it drops to $5,000 or $6,000 off season and it creates such a big roller coaster and it's a pain. So the advantage with Facebook ads is you can get in front of that business owner who has a need for more than just tax preparation, and that gets into more ideal client territory, right? So Facebook will get you in front of the right person, and I do get asked this question quite a bit and I'll talk about recent results. Actually, we had a great lead come in from a client yesterday, so we'll talk about that. But I've been asked this question do business owners actually hang out on Facebook or Instagram or any of the social media platforms? And it's a valid question, but the answer is yes. There's over 3 billion active users on Facebook. That includes Instagram as well, and what they say is 50% of all users are on Facebook, instagram, every single day. So if you don't believe that of the 3 billion people on these social media platforms are not business owners, then your numbers are off. Yeah, so that's a huge piece for people to realize is yes, business owners are on there and in fact, it's how we've generated our own business and how we've generated for our clients' businesses for the last 15 years. So it clearly shows that it's working.

Speaker 3:

Now, in terms of results, the great advantage here is we can target whoever we want. We can get in front of basically anybody in the world. So with this targeted approach, we're not just spraying and praying, we're specifically talking to. We recommend a specific industry or a couple industries to go after, and when you do that, you can position yourself as the expert and also put you in a position of having authority in their space. You know one thing I always like to say you know, if you're talking with somebody who is an accountant and the accountant's worked with you, know various industries and they're a plumbing company, let's say if they go to that person who charges X amount, or they go to an accountant that specializes only in plumbing companies and has the past 30 clients have been plumbing and he's raised their, their bottom line, by 15, consistently, price aside. The question is, which one are they most likely going to work with?

Speaker 3:

they're going to work with the expert they're going to work with the one who's done 30, 40, 50 of the same for them. So that's the advantage with Facebook Now in terms of recent wins. So we helped a and actually a controller get a lead. A lead came in yesterday. We're working on getting that that deal closed. But this was a in the Medicare space or the medical space, and this was a, a senior living center, and they deal with high-end housing for senior living and this person has been around for eight years. They have multiple locations, so really big company and it was the first lead that came in. Exactly, they spent just a couple hundred dollars to get that person in and this is just the first couple of days of starting with them and it just goes to show that the people are out there. The question is not are people on these social media platforms? It's how do we get in front of them? And that's the gap that we close for them and that's how we help accountants get to those ideal clients.

Speaker 2:

That's cool, well, I mean and we've spoken about this before often but it's you're. You're putting a predictable system into people's businesses. So it's not a matter of when. When am I going to get my next lead? Where are they coming from? It's you are going to get another lead and we're going to get them on Facebook. For you, it's just a matter of you continue to feed into a machine that is going to produce more, more output for cash than what you're putting in. So you're not wondering okay, well, if I go to that networking event, or which client of mine is going to send a referral, you have a predictable system. Now you don't have to worry where these next sales calls coming from. It's just a matter of time. They're going to come through. You put in the effort, you play the game you pay to play. They are going to come.

Speaker 3:

That's the best thing about this. When you know most accountants are used to getting business through referrals and that means a referral is somebody who is in their network that has either worked with them or aware of them and they're talking to somebody else about their service, right. And when that referral happens, it's great because there's some trust built in and they say, hey, john the accountant, I know somebody who is in need of your services, let me connect you. And that's great. But the biggest issue is there's two problems that happen. Number one the accountant has no control over the client that comes to him, and we've seen this many times over. A lot of times they're not the most ideal client. A lot of times they turn into that tax prep client or maybe a business that's doing $50,000 in revenue a year and that's not that ideal client that will help them grow their business. So they don't have control over the quality of who's coming in, and sometimes it's actually a feeling of obligation. Like I got referred to this guy, I don't want to make this guy mad, he's my customer as well. Like you've got that obligation. So what happens because of that is you end up getting low value clients.

Speaker 3:

And then the second part is you have absolutely zero control over when you get your next client. There is no predictability. It's just hoping that somebody is going to talk about you and then you get that connection. So you have absolutely zero control over the quality of your business, of when you bring customers in and you basically get stuck. So those are the issues with the networking. Now I always say continued network, expand your network in that way. But the best way to do that is to run advertising. Advertising is basically hiring 20 salespeople on your behalf that are going out every single day and promoting who you are talking about, how credible you are and the type of services and how you can solve their problems. There is no better system than having that many salespeople going out expanding your network every single day, because once you do that, then you have nearly unlimited opportunities to choose and pick who you want to work with. So it just creates more opportunities at the end of the day.

Speaker 2:

I love what you're talking about with creating more opportunities and getting in front. You have, you know, 20 sales reps, or however you want to word it for getting your name out there. A lot of firms rely on word of mouth, but the ironic part is, if nobody knows who you are, who's talking about you? How's your name getting in those mouths to talk about you, right? So buy into paid ads. Buy into the channels that are going to expand your reach, your audience, bet on yourself.

Speaker 2:

The other nice thing about paid ads on Facebook, or any platform for that matter, is you can pay that bill at the end of the month. You can spend money for 30 days to bring in as many opportunities as you want to bet on yourself, and then it's just a matter of you closing them, and then that bill at the end of the month from Facebook can be very insignificant based on the amount of cash that has been collected. It's not like Facebook's asking for five grand or ten grand up front. Run that for the month. A ton of opportunities come in and I think you'd be extremely surprised at how much cash you start collecting and now you're playing with house money all the months following.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely money. All you know all the uh, the months following Absolutely. And the best way to think about this too is you know you put a dollar in you can get $5 back out. It's kind of like playing the lottery but you know you're winning every time and it's it's hard to beat that. And you know there's there's a lot of accountants that um, because they're used to doing the referral thing.

Speaker 3:

It's kind of scary at first to you know put cash into something and you know try to. You know hope that something's going to come back from it. But once you get there, like the amount of control that you have with the quality of client that you can bring in, you can actually have control over and you'll know the exact dollar amount of how much it takes for you to get the next ideal client Right. So having that control and that visibility is the best thing about growing your business. If somebody wants to grow their accounting firm, they need to have control over getting the customer that will allow them to grow. If they don't have that control, you're not going to, you're not going to reach those goals.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, and it's having the numbers that you're more than likely giving your clients to help them grow. You're getting your own numbers on that. How much is it going to cost me to get a new lead, a new appointment, a new client, what's you know? And then from there you can you can get as deep as you want into the numbers, something that comes up a lot, and I'm sure you've noticed it as well and not just in the accounting space, but with anyone who's investing into marketing, and not just in the accounting space, but with anyone who's investing into marketing.

Speaker 2:

What would you say to you know a firm who's maybe tried Facebook ads in the past. That hasn't worked for them. They've either run it themselves, they've had another company do it. It didn't quite work. You know as well as I know it's not the platform that's bad, it's not the leads that are bad, it's the resources and the filters and all the complexities within Facebook to get those opportunities. So what would you say to those business owners who have been burned in the past or they just haven't been able to crack Facebook?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So there's a couple of things when I talk to accountants. Not all accountants are made the same. Not all of them have the same quality level of work that they can put into it, and I've talked to quite a few of them that will talk about their competitor, how their competitor got business that should have been theirs because they can do the job better. And it's a real frustrating thing when you don't have control of your business like that. It's annoying when you see competition taking that.

Speaker 3:

But the same thing happens in the marketing space. Some people just get in the space and don't really have the knowledge to actually help. So that's the first part. But the second part most marketing companies don't pay attention to the detail required and the level of effort required to close a customer and they put it on the accountant to do all the work. So what happens is if you have someone who's inquiring about a service, if you just put them in front of a payment link, they're not going to just straight up and buy. They don't know you yet. They don't have any idea of who you are.

Speaker 3:

But does that mean that the accountant needs to spend all that extra time and become a salesperson and become the marketer and try to do all that stuff themselves. Well, no, they shouldn't. They should do what they do best, which is accounting, and they should hire a marketing company that handles the rest of that right. They should be able to do what they do best and delegate the rest, just like they're doing for their clients. So that's why, for us at Bright Idea, we not only help with the marketing side but we help add branding.

Speaker 3:

But, more importantly, we also add qualifying steps. We have live callers that will call on every business owner that submits information and gatekeep for accountants. That way accountants don't have to get out of their day-to-day and try to chase people, try to sell them, convince them oh, you need to work with me, no, that's not a good use of your time. So we go that extra mile and do that qualification and gatekeeping. It's basically like you have another front desk person that's specifically qualified and has expertise in turning someone into a customer. So at the end of the day, the account obviously you quote the client, you quote the prospect and give them the paperwork and all that stuff and make sure they close the deal in that way.

Speaker 2:

But we do everything leading up to that and the best marketing companies know that that part should be taken care of, because accountants don't want to pay a marketing company to have to do more work yeah, similar to to what we're doing, and I often just remind our clients and prospects as well, especially those who are fractional cfos or the advisors like, what you're doing in your, what you're doing is you're jumping in, you're being the fractional marketing department for these firms. You, they're not. You're not asking someone to pay you to do more homework. There's firms out there that do that.

Speaker 2:

It, it's be it, you know, blows my mind that people are buying into that. But, yeah, you want to try to take as much of that off their plate as possible so they can just do what they do best. And by you guys handling those, those calls getting the people to the door. All they have to do is open the door, but you got them right up to the door, so that's massive. What would you say people should look for when testing Facebook ads? What is a realistic time frame a business owner should look at where they can finally put a finger on a pulse and say this is or isn't working? There's no gray area like black or white this has or hasn't worked.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely. In terms of running advertisements, you need at least a 90 day window to assess how things are looking. That's first of all, and I always like to ask accountants you know if you were doing fractional CFO services or if you're doing? You know any type of advisory. You know projections. You know in the first five minutes, do you solve all the problems? Do you walk them through everything, cause you already know what's going on, or do you take a moment to assess where they're at, what their situation looks like? Do you walk through step-by-step? Then the business owner has to take the steps actually, that you recommend.

Speaker 3:

Well, obviously it. It's that second one, right, it takes time to build up and to optimize, but 90 days is a good window for people to get an early indication of how things are looking. You should have closed your first deal in the first 90 days. If not, and your marketing company says, well, we just need more time, I would start looking at that. There should be early results there, showing that we have some promise, and then from there it's the next 30 days or next 90 days. Is also optimizing, capitalizing, making sure that that's getting optimized even further. But you need at least 90 days to have an idea how are things looking, but you should have closed deals along that period.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's so important and there's so many different things to look into. Right, like you're mentioning the qualification questions, those things are not. You may not get them 100% on the first shot. You might have like two or three that are really good, but that third or fourth question you may need to tweak, but it's constantly tweaking and testing to get better and better results and you can't do that in a 30 days.

Speaker 2:

So I always like to remind people as well if you're only going into this with a 30 day mindset, it's going to cost you a lot of money because you're just going to jump around every 30 days to multiple companies who are just picking up everything from scratch. It's the same reason. You know business owners aren't jumping from bookkeeper to bookkeeper every 30 days. It's going to reason business owners aren't jumping from bookkeeper to bookkeeper every 30 days. It's going to get very expensive. It's just going to be a huge pain as well. So just stick through it. Trust the marketing company you're with and rely on the expertise of people who actually have the results right, absolutely, yeah, cool, james. Any final thoughts on Facebook ads for those who are either looking to try to run some ads by themselves or for those who are like you know what. I don't want to do this. I'm not going to get the best results, like how could they get in touch with you or what should they look for in a marketing company. A couple of questions in there, yep for sure.

Speaker 3:

So first things first. When looking at doing marketing, you're much better off finding an expert to help you with it. You know most accountants when they work with their clients. If they were to see how their clients operate and think about finances, they usually would laugh. They would say, ok, they clearly don't know how to handle their finances, they clearly don't know how to manage their stuff and they need me. And it's the same way too with marketing, because marketing is outside of most accountants expertise and area of knowledge. They shouldn't try to learn a whole new skill set, create a whole new job for themselves. They should hire an expert that's already done it many, many times before. So that'd be.

Speaker 3:

The first thing is don't waste your time. There's no need to try to do it all yourself. Find someone who knows what they're talking about. And the second part is I'd love to help those accountants, like that's obviously what we do every day. They can reach out to me. My name is James Smith. You can find me on all the social media platforms or bradideamarketingcom. We've been around for almost 15 years now, so I'm happy to help and talk and walk through how accountants can grow their business, but at the end of the day, just like our business. I don't do my own bookkeeping. I hire someone to do my bookkeeping because I understand the value of my time and my expertise. It's not there, so that's what I recommend for accountants as well.

Speaker 2:

That's so good, james. I appreciate you so much coming on. It was great to pick your brain for a little bit on Facebook ads. I strongly encourage everyone to reach out to you. The knowledge you've shared with me, what you've helped with our own ads, has been incredible. You truly know what you're doing, or else you wouldn't have been in business for 15 years, and I'm really looking forward to reconnecting again in a couple of weeks down in Mexico. We'll talk more Facebook ads and everything accounting then Look forward to it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks so much, james. We'll speak to you soon. Awesome, thank you. Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. I hope you found value in today's conversation. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate and review the show. It helps others discover the insights we share here. Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnowcom or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy. Call it's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need. And don't forget you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth. We've got more exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles. Until then, keep pushing forward. Your growth is just one strategic move away.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. We hope today's episode provided valuable strategies to help you attract more high paying clients. Be sure to subscribe, follow and share with fellow professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn and leave a review or comment to join the conversation. Your feedback helps us bring you the best insights. Thank you.