Jim Vass, Paul Rattray and Michael Mekhitarian are the Elite Directors of ATB Partners. Jim was very kindly to Guest Blog for us and enjoy!
If you have been a long term follower of my blog (God Bless you!) I not only think you are awesome, but you may have seen some articles talking about this great man by the name of Jim Vass.
Even though he is a CPA Accountant, he is much more than that. He is a Partner of a Top Accounting Firm by the name of ATB Partners and is an incredible Enterprise Level Business Consultant & Mentor. Jim would have easily forgotten more than I have ever known about business and I recall meeting him the first week I started out.
I think he’s awesome and I am very lucky to have him Guest Blog on the Edward Files. Enjoy!
Accounting Techniques for Marketers – Guest Blog by Jim Vass:
Although accountants and marketers have very different roles within organisations, both occupations have autonomous and overlapping responsibilities.
Smart marketers will apply techniques used by accountants to measure their marketing efforts.
These techniques include budgeting, measuring the acquisition of new business, managing customer relationships, increasing the average transaction value and raising the number of transactions per client per year. By making marketers more accountable for their results you can expect positive outcomes for your business.
Budgeting can help marketers to control costs and determine a return on investment. Tracking costs is essential for the cash flow management of any business. Budgeting also assists in achieving long- term strategies.
By comparing marketing plans, organising and controlling marketing activities and making adjustments as required, marketers can achieve good results.
The plan or budget quantifies the marketer’s efforts and the performance results. All businesses should have a sales budget, marketing budget and production budget. Analytical ratios such as gross margin percentage, net profit percentage, expense to sales ratio, average transaction value, number of transactions per client per year, marketing cost analysis, sales-volume analysis and the return on investment ratio can be used to measure marketing efforts. There are some non- financial measures that marketers can use to assess performance. These are market share, the number of new products developed, the strength of the brand equity, and number of complaints received and the value of the business or product’s brand.
The average transaction value has a huge impact on your bottom line and many factors can improve this metric. You need to have courage when pricing your product or service and target more profitable customers. It’s important to invest money into communicating to customers about your products and services in order to encourage purchasing. Eliminate discounts for clients that do not ask for them and provide value early in order to increase your average transaction value. Understanding the impact of price rises verses volume you could lose is critical to managing your business.
Measuring average transaction value regularly and by sales person can also provide useful insights into your business and employee’s performance.
Another way of improving your sales is to increase the number of transactions per client per year. There are several ways that you could do this. You could expand the product/ service range, create a client service matrix, increase customer awareness of your services/ product range, lead customers, post-sale check-in calls, increase communication frequency, educate the team on finding new opportunities and consistently provide great service.
Acquiring new customers and maintaining relationships with existing customers is important for the success of any business. Lead generation activities such as social media campaigns, search engine optimisation, cold calling, marketing events and your website can all have an influence on how many new leads your business generates. Measuring conversion rates for marketing activities is essential to determining the return on investment from your marketing. To increase your conversion rates you need to understand your prospects business, have clearly defined sales processes that are followed by all staff and have refined closing techniques.
It costs five times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing customers. It is important to make contact with your existing clients regularly and ask for referrals at every opportunity. Referrals are the holy grail of marketing so make sure that you put in effort to nurture any new business generated through word-of-mouth advertising.
Customers can be retained through scheduling a follow-up meeting through a contact system, carrying out annual customer surveys, saying thank you to customers for their business, training your team in customer service, holding customer events, under promising and over delivering, educating customers on the products and services offered and conducting exit interviews when customers leave.
Marketing activity on its own is not enough. You need to work with a good accountant and marketer. In addition to this, a good accounting system and CRM is essential in measuring your business results.
Jim is a highly experienced certified practising accountant (CPA), he sits on the board of several companies and is the treasurer for the Cumberland Business Chamber. Jim, Paul and Michael are the directors of the Parramatta based accounting firm ATB Partners, which was founded over 20 years ago. The successful firm is well known for it’s highly sought after tax consultants, financial advisors and business mentors. ATB Partners specialises in providing advice to clients in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, professional services, franchise and construction. For more information visit www.atb.net.au
Edward’s Post Blog Commentary:
I learned some great items from this blog. As a Marketer you can fall into the trap of chasing clients all the time and what I have learned is the key is keeping who you have and looking after them big time so they stay with you longer. This article really reinforced that and I liked how it discussed keeping an eye on your spend and it’s return.
Jim Vass is a top operator and if you need a hand in this area – I encourage you to visit the ATB Partners Website to learn more.
Enjoy & Stay Awesome!
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