The Accounting Growth Flywheel™ - How to drive your word-of-mouth and referral growth
Ask 100 accountants where 99% of their clients come from and the answer is always the same…
Word of mouth/referrals.
And it makes sense, right?
Accounting is a relationship business, not a transactional business.
This has implications for how you grow and market your firm. Content helps to build relationships, whereas paid ads tend not to work because they’re more transactional.
You’ll often hear marketing gurus and coaches say things like:
Word of mouth is dead
Referrals aren’t a strategy
You’ll normally hear this right before they position their ‘silver bullet’ marketing package as the solution.
Here’s the truth…
Word of mouth is alive and kicking.
Referrals are a growth strategy.
And in today's newsletter, I’m going to give you a process for putting it on steroids (I really hate that metaphor but I’m writing on a train today and struggling for an alternative 😅)
Before we get into the strategy, I want to share the concept of a flywheel…
What is a growth flywheel?
Flywheel’s are commonly used in mechanics (you have one in your car).
A flywheel is essentially a very heavy wheel that takes a lot of force to spin around. But when it’s spinning, it takes just as much force to try and slow it down.
There’s a nice breakdown of how they work if you’re geeky like me here.
The flywheel effect kicks in when results build over time and eventually gain so much momentum that growth seemingly happens by itself.
Believe it or not, you already have one in your firm…
Think about it:
You started your firm
Worked hard to bring on the first few clients
Did a good job
New clients came from word of mouth/referrals
You continued to do a good job
More new clients came from word of mouth/referrals
And over time, you found yourself growing, and growing, and growing some more.
All without really doing any ‘marketing’ or promotion.
Sound familiar?
That’s a growth flywheel in action!
But here’s the thing…
Depending on where you are right now in your growth journey, and what your growth goals are, you might have noticed that the initial growth flywheel isn’t growing as fast as you’d like.
If that’s you, then today’s newsletter will help.
Introducing…
The Accounting Growth Flywheel™
If you feel like your existing growth flywheel has slowed, and your goals are to grow a little faster, then this expanded version can help.
The Accounting Growth Flywheel™ contains 6 stages:
Deliver great work
Send out NPS
Ask for Google reviews
Ask for referrals
Referrals check your website & reviews
Referrals convert to clients
And the cycle continues…
Let’s unpack each of these in a little more detail…
1. Deliver great work
I don’t need to tell you what to do here since you’re likely already doing it.
Delivering great work and an even better experience for clients should be the primary goal your entire firm is aligned on.
2. Send out NPS
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of how satisfied your clients are with the service you deliver.
If you’re not measuring client satisfaction regularly, you’re missing opportunities to identify potential issues in your client base and improve the service you offer to them.
Running an NPS survey is as simple as asking 1 question…
“On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our service to a friend or colleague?”
The higher the score - the happier they are with your service and therefore more likely to recommend you.
The lower they score - there might be issues to address with them.
Check out this resource for a more detailed breakdown of how NPS works.
When it comes to running NPS, you could do a bulk-send approach once or twice a year. I think a more targeted approach would be to do it:
At the end of tax season (if you do taxes)
Once you’ve worked on their year-end
Or when any other project has been delivered
This can be easily automated in your workflow or practice management app.
3. Ask for Google reviews
Social proof is an important signal to current & future prospects.
Even referrals will check out your website and reviews so it’s important that you have some in place.
I’m a big fan of using Google reviews because:
They’re visible in Google search + in the Google Maps results (important if you have a local focus)
They’re easily embedded onto your website and elsewhere
There’s an element of trust when you see a verified review on Google
I’m an even bigger fan of asking the right questions at the right time…
That’s why a great time to ask for a Google review is right after somebody has completed your NPS survey.
Note - only ask people who score an 8, 9, or 10 to leave a review. If they’re likely to recommend someone, why wouldn’t they leave a review?
If people score 7 or less then they’re much less likely (and you run the risk of an upset client leaving a review that Google won’t let you delete).
Tip - most people won’t leave a review the first time you ask. It’s not because they don’t want to, they’re just busy. It pays to remind people. Tyler Winn from Cirrus Payroll found that his clients are most likely to leave a review on the 3rd email he sends.
4. Ask for referrals
This is something a lot of practice owners struggle with, and I understand why.
You don’t want to come across as needy or looking desperate to your clients.
That’s why doing this after running an NPS survey makes the ‘ask’ feel much more natural…
If you asked your clients how likely they are to recommend your service to somebody, and they score a 9 or a 10, then a logical next ask would be “who do you know?”.
Like most things, there’s a method to doing this well. Here are some tips:
Describe the types of businesses you want to work with - if you ask for any referrals then guess what, you’re going to get anyone they can think of
Give them a template they can use to make the intro - this takes any heavy lifting off their plate
Follow-up - similar to reviews, it pays to follow up with people. No response doesn’t mean no
5. Referrals check your website & reviews
Your website isn’t just for prospects that find you from Google or social media.
The majority of referrals will also check out your website as part of their due diligence before speaking with you.
Here’s a great accounting firm website checklist from our partner company Bizink.
I’d also recommend embedding your Google reviews on your website. This helps to showcase your social proof front and centre for people.
We’ve personally been using Elfsight’s review widget to add to our clients’ sites which works great. Check out the live demo half way down this page.
6. Referrals convert into clients
You probably already have a great sales process in place for converting & onboarding new clients.
The process we recommend to clients if they don’t already have it fine-tuned is:
Calendly (or similar) for prospects to book a discovery call
Use their routing forms to qualify/disqualify prospects that aren’t a good fit
Initial discovery call
Mainly to qualify them as a prospect + learn a little more about their business
Sales & proposal meeting
More detailed meeting to understand better the scope of work + create a proposal for your services
Proposal sent
Ideally using GoProposal, Ignition, or similar
Client signs up
From the firms that we work with, referrals tend to always convert at about 80%+.
The cycle continues and the flywheel spins faster
We’re now right back to where we started - delivering great work for your clients.
Over time, the results from this process will continue to build & compound until momentum takes over.
Is this growth flywheel helpful?
Do you already have something like this in place?
Would you like some help implementing a process like this?
Until next week!
- Jordan
P.S. Thanks to Beever & Struthers for the meeting room and free coffee that helped me through the last part of this newsletter
