why are accountants pulling back on marketing?

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source: 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

join the survey, get the results.

by rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

it’s too early to draw a final conclusion, but the early returns from the annual 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 marketing and business development survey are startling and may represent a dramatic trend reversal.

after three years of intensifying marketing activity — with 33% of firms last year saying they were increasing their business development efforts “significantly” — today only 19% of accountants tell us they are planning to “significantly” expand their programs. read more →

accounting industry extends two-year growth trend

but cpas lag behind non-cpas.

get the accountants’ business outlook: join the survey; see the results.

by rick telberg
卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间

screen shot 2013-08-06 at 7.34.21 pmthe tax and accounting industry is extending a two-year expansion by adding 2,500 new jobs in the latest month, according to 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research.

in this report:

  • employment trends for the public accounting, bookkeeping, tax and payroll sector of the economy.
  • licensed cpa firms are lagging in growth behind non-cpa accounting providers.
  • employees book more hours.
  • but wage growth gets cut back.
  • more jobs and better pay for higher-paid positions and for men; fewer new jobs and smaller pay increases for women and production workers.
  • cpa firms add to headcounts more slowly than non-cpa firms, grant lower pay increases, and hire back fewer women.

read more →

how to turn client surveys into new revenues

download the sample client satisfaction survey.

by ed mendlowitz

question: is there any value to sending clients a survey?

response: yes.  our firm sends a survey with every deliverable to a client.  we want to know what they think and how they feel about our service.

i think your best friends are the clients that complain.  this gives you an opportunity to correct any deficiencies or exceptions.

one time a long time very good client put on the survey that we were great but our fees were high.  i immediately met with him, reviewed our charges, had the time runs and details of everything extra we had been doing beyond the scope of our engagement, and the value to the client.  in the following year he recommended two clients to us!  i don’t believe we would have gotten the referrals had he not complained.

here is a sample of a survey we’ve used: read more →

tax season survey data on top issues

seven hot topics that “pushed a button.”

bob jennings
bob jenning

tax guru bob jennings (cpa, ea, cfp, and rtrp) has been polling past attendees of his cpe seminars about tax season 2013.

clearly, tax professionals are still seething. “we sent our survey out and it must have pushed a button because the responses overwhelmed our servers,” says jennings, taxspeaker.com.

the results may not surprise you. but they are sobering nevertheless.

he offers new data on

  1. workloads,
  2. profits,
  3. software,
  4. volume of returns handled,
  5. exit strategies, and
  6. the use of engagement letters and
  7. portals.

here are the highlights so far: read more →

busy season survey shows four key findings

updated with responses from may 2013.

the latest update to the topline results for the 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 busy season barometer shows additional confirmation of four key findings, beginning with the across-the-board problems of a late-starting season and buggy software.

how did your season compare? we’d love to hear. send your comments, rants raves, ideas, or questions to me here. – rick telberg

key finding #1: most practitioners, across all size firms, report a tougher 2013 than 2012. (see chart below for comparisons by size of firm.) read more →