The Story Only You Can Tell | Amplify S8E3

Joe, thank you so much for coming on the Amplify podcast here at Summit. It's really exciting to do it here live with everybody. Why don't you share with everyone who you are, even though I know everybody probably already knows you. So my name is Joe Kovacs.

I'm a long time attendee at Summit. My first Summit was 2011 in Chicago, but my role here at Summit has changed. So I've been in-house at 2 CPA firms over the past 14, 15 years. This is the first year I'm here as the owner and managing founder of a marketing consultancy, Kovacs Communications, obviously still serving the accounting industry.

So it's been a little bit of a different summit for me this year. I'm sure. I'm sure. What have you been, so in that role, right, you do a lot of writing, you do a lot of thinking, helping your clients think through a lot of challenges in their marketing.

What's maybe something that you've seen or you're talking, thinking about that's really, you see as important for accounting firms to be focusing on? Right, absolutely. So content marketing is a very familiar topic for firms to be dialoguing about and talking about. But what I've found looking at the websites of a decent number of CPA firms, is that, and I blogged about this a couple weeks ago, so the social proof, the case studies and the testimonials, where it's not the firm itself or the marketer talking on behalf of their firm about the value of their services and the values that they deliver to clients, but the actual clients themselves.

So a testimonial is a client speaking to potential clients through a website, the testimonial, wherever it's published. A case study is published by the CPA firm, but it does show kind of a client's journey from the situation the client's in, the agency that takes place. You know, what does the CPA firm do to bring that final positive outcome? So social proof, case studies, testimonials.

I blogged about it recently. I really think CPA firms should be thinking more about that. I love that. That's, I think, a really untapped area for a lot of firms.

So I'm glad you're thinking about it and writing about it. And I'm talking about it to different firms. I love it. Yeah.

I mean, if I could tie that into another area of marketing as well. So some firms as well, especially those that might have multiple office locations, I'm also seeing the tie-in with local SEO. So firms that might have a dedicated webpage to each office. So if someone in the local area, let's use Atlanta as an example, CPA firm near me.

If you have an Atlanta webpage for your firm that has multiple locations, that increases the likelihood that someone is going to be routed to your page because local SEO searches do have high intent. Someone who does a search like that is more likely to take action after a search like that. So now imagine an office page where someone lands because they've done that search and they've taken action, finds a testimonial or a case study specific to that geographic area. That is so powerful, but I think more firms should be taking advantage of that.

I'm sure some are doing it, but I see real opportunity for a lot of firms. That's awesome, Joe. I think that's really helpful for a lot of firms to be thinking about that. We're here at Summit, and a lot of our friends are already here, but there might be some who are considering next year and maybe on the fence or maybe having to convince a partner that, Hey, this is worth the investment to send me.

What would you tell them, or the partners in the firm, what should they be thinking about, about why they should be at Summit? Sure. No, it's the education, obviously, and the sessions that the attendees sign up for ahead of time. But it's the spontaneity and it's the organic quality of being a marketer who's bumping into other marketers, peers at other firms.

vendors groups such as yourself Mike the learning that takes place just in these sudden organic spontaneous conversations I think is great because it provides immediate educational value and it provides a network that you continue you can continue to reach out to after some it's done and I find that incredibly powerful and there's no event like summit that provides that opportunity I've been coming for 14 15 years now and I wouldn't be doing that if I didn't think it was incredibly valuable.

It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, you are a standby here at Summit. I think it would not be Summit if Joe wasn't here.

So I'm glad you're here this year. Thank you. And looking forward to next year as well. So thank you, Joe, for coming on the podcast.

Thanks for having me. And look forward to hearing all of your kind of insights from Summit. I'm sure you'll be writing about those and putting those out on LinkedIn. I would encourage everybody who knows Joe, or if you don't know Joe, get on LinkedIn, connect with him.

He puts out lots of great articles. Keep up with what his brilliant mind is working on. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Joe. I'm Kelsey Brewer. I'm the Chief Marketing Officer at McGuire Sponsor.

We're a tax and advisory firm based in Indianapolis, but have five offices across the country. So it's fun to be here. Yeah, it's always good to see you here. I know.

We're having lots of fun. It is fun. You've had a really good year. Why don't you share one of your biggest wins with everybody?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say one of our biggest wins is the development of the end of the first season of our Let's Talk Talks podcast. So we launched McGuire on the Wire, which was an audio-only podcast in 2017. It developed like many of them did, had really great technical content, but the one thing that we didn't have was an ability for clients and prospects to really feel what it's like to be in the room with us.

And so the growth and kind of evolution and development of Let's Talk Tax was an easy way for people to see what it's like to be in a meeting with us, hear how we talk, break it down, and really bring it to life. So we launched Let's Talk Tax last April, finished the season in December, and we're about to kick off season two here in a week or so, which is super exciting. That's really cool. I love that idea of using the podcast to give people a sneak peek of what they're going to get as a client.

That's a great idea. I know if you talk to a lot of our partners, many people would say that when they're sitting with CPAs, CPAs, the first thing they'll say is, You guys just talk about it differently. The conversations that you have, it's just a different feel for understanding if it's a good idea or if it's not a good idea. From a technical angle, if you look back at 174 over the last year with the R&D tax credit, I think our team had more conversations about why it wasn't a good fit or if they should do 174, just do 41, right?

There was a lot of back and forth on what to do. And so having the opportunity to break that down in a way that's chill and vibe and people can kind of take it as they are is what LTT has really come to be. I'm Jashana Fox. I'm the marketing director at Brown Plus.

We are in Pennsylvania with five offices. 140 people or so. Yep. And we got to talk about your big win from this last year.

Yes, our big rebrand, which took up, you know, like 18 to 20 months of my life that I will never get back. But it was a great accomplishment. We did just win an AIMA for it. So that's pretty awesome.

It's really awesome. Yeah. So that was huge for us. I mean, it was a name change, which was big.

And it wasn't like, you know, the softer name changes of, oh, we're just going to go to an acronym of some sort or keep some variation. We were like, hey, we're going to keep some of it, but then change it. And so that was a huge deal for us. And definitely did not think at first that they were going to sign on and agree to it, but they were pretty excited about it.

That's awesome. Yeah, it was definitely worth it. It's made a huge difference for us as a firm, both from Both a client perspective, I think everyone's like initial reaction was, Hey, that's so great. Your name is shorter.

Uh, and we don't have to say four names anymore. And that's fantastic. Um, we don't have to worry about people misspelling our name anymore, which is also really nice. Uh, but definitely from also like an internal perspective with our people and our younger people, uh, it's something that I feel like people could get behind and they were excited to talk about.

And so that's sort of made a difference for us. It makes us stand out a little bit, you know, at like a recruiting fair. Yep. For example.

Yep. Um, and in such a tight labor market where you're searching for people, any differentiator that we can have, it makes a difference. Yeah. Brand isn't just about client acquisition.

Correct. It's about your culture, your people. Yeah. And client retention too.

Yeah. Yeah, and it was just, you know, the name really tied into everything that we are as a firm. You know, the whole idea was Brown was the history, it was who we've always been, and plus is everything that comes after, it's our future. And in a lot of ways, that's sort of how our culture is as well.

We are very much a culture of we're always growing, we're always looking for something new, but we're also always keeping that historical perspective of who we are because we love that so much. So it really sort of worked and jived together. And we were really happy with how that ended up. Yep.

No, and it looks great too. It does. And we have ReSound to thank for that. I was looking for that plug.

I'll give it to you anyways. But definitely that was... The most critical part of what we were thinking, other from the name, was like, hey, we need a design that really reflects where we are, and it needs to be able to future-proof itself a little bit. We want something that's going to grow with us and not be something that, hey, two years from now, we're like, oh, okay, we've got to do this all over again.

So it was really great working with you guys because you sort of understood where we were going with that and that we still wanted to keep, again, some of that history, so keeping the blues in there was really important to us. And then kind of updating it a little bit. So it was a little more modern. Yeah.

And it was a team effort. I mean, you guys had already done a lot of work. You brought in other partners. Yeah.

So this was, you know, it was very much a team effort. Yeah. I mean, we really operate under the whole, like, hey, we really want to make sure that everything's good. So we're not going to, you know, stick something out just because that's what We said.

So we're going to make sure that it's all. I'm a perfectionist. It's really hard to be a perfectionist and a marketer at the same time, though, if you know that. It can pay off.

It can pay off. It can. It just requires a lot of time and detail. I've been.

Uh, maybe I'm getting better at that, but I've been indicted for being a perfectionist. Yeah. Just, I mean, some, it's, it's definitely one of the traits that can help you in the long term. Well, and in like an attention to detail world, being a perfectionist is.

And that's brand. Yeah. Right. A lot of brand is the consistency and holding to it.

Right. Which requires a level of. Yes. It's also something accountants don't tend to understand is consistency.

Uh, so you So you have to battle that a lot in your firm. I really love our Remarker book for that reason. I'm not plugging this for any other reason, but it's been helpful. Mike's not holding up a checklist for me, but it's been helpful because people are so excited to see it.

Like they're like, oh, look, it's like our story in a book. And I'm like, yeah, and look, that's why we can't, you know, make something like purple. It's not in the book. It's not part of the story.

It's a different story. So that's been really helpful, you know, for us to have all of that stuff documented and in one place. And it's just a nice thing for us to have. Like we have it sitting in our lobby.

That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. We love that story.

I just, I love when those kinds of assets become not just like a book on the shelf or something to remember the project, but really become tools in the business. Like, this is how we tell our story. It's something that we can, you know, show clients because they, you know, for us, a lot of our clients have been with us since we formed. So that's, you know, 35 plus years.

And so a lot of the story that we have in there about the history of our firm resonates with them because some of them were there. So that was. A really cool part about this rebrand was how much we were able to sort of bridge our past and what we consider our future to be at this point. Which is so helpful for those clients.

Even with new clients, right? They get that history and they get some of that like, you know, okay, I can trust you. You've been around. And you do really good work, but you also are modern and, you know, doing good things.

Yeah, right. And we weren't trying to be too flashy, right? That wasn't where we were going with this. We just really wanted to approach this in a way that was real and true to us and really reflected what we consider the personality of our firm, which is our brand.

So that really worked out. So I'm glad we won this award because it is definitely gratifying, right? Like we spent so much time thinking through this and like all these like details that we thought of, and we were like, oh, are people even going to recognize like how much you know, data we put behind this? Because I think sometimes for the external viewer, who's not a marketer, you know, they think like brand is the pretty stuff.

And it's like, well, no, there was so much research that went into this. We had focus groups, we had surveys, we did internal, external, and like we made these decisions based based on that data. And so like to have that recognized was super just gratifying. Yeah.

I'm Chris Kamara and I am doing some writing for firms and consultants and I'm really enjoying it. That's awesome. Yeah. And you're back on the podcast committee.

I'm back on the podcast committee. So back better than ever. Yes. I love it.

All right. So a lot of firms are talking about CAS right now. And you're a writer, helping them write about it. So what are some things they should be considering when it comes to CAS?

Well, number one is that it's the fastest growing segment in a lot of firms' service lines. So it's important to get the word out about what CAS is because there seems to be a real need for it among clients. So of course, As with all content, you have to figure out what the pain points are for your prospects and your existing clients. And it seems to be that doing the back end stuff is really a hassle.

And so if we can take that hassle off their plates. There's a lot of manual kind of tasks that have to be done that are time consuming and error prone. And so if we can get the word out about how we can relieve that administrative headache and time consuming pain in the rear, then, you know, I think we'll be, you know, doing a great service to the clients and the prospects.