Running Head: BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT 1

Antonio Perez

MKA1021

Mini Paper 4
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Accounting Services

Thinking of a service I would love to market; I could not think of any other than my own

career. It has always been my dream and goal to one day own my accounting practice and

provide customers with all my expertise gathered in my years of experience. The reason why I

think customers would want to buy my services is because I would make sure to use personal

selling in every transaction with my clients to not only make sure I understand every single one

of their needs but also ensure every one of those get the attention they deserved. In persuading

my clients, I would also establish a relationship with them and ask for referrals to further

promote my services. Another way I would market my services would be through Facebook

advertising and YouTube. I believe that in these days, having a strong internet presence and

promotion is critical and key to a successful marketing of your services. Overall, I would focus

on the customer, to make sure they are always happy with my services. In terms of

compensation, I would charge and a fair hourly rate of $50 equally to all my clients.

As a Certified Public Accountant, the prospecting method that I would use to market my

services is Telephone and Telemarketing as well as Becoming an Expert and getting published.

With telephone called calling and telemarketing I would constantly be searching for the need in

the marketplace rather than waiting for the customer to show up at my door. By launching cold

calling campaign efforts, I could spread my name in town while also getting new customers.

Becoming an expert and getting published would be another prospecting method that I would

use. The reason being, when you provide professional services, your customers are often seeking

someone knowledgeable. Making sure that I am always up to date with everything that has to do
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with accounting and regulations as well as writing articles for newspaper and internet blogs

would put me out there as someone who is well involved in the industry and well informed.

In exploring my different options to promote my services as a future CPA there are three

specific technologies that I find very good and effective in terms of marketing. These are Google

AdWords, LinkedIn Campaign Ads and Facebook advertising. The reason I chose these

platforms as a mean to promote my services is because these technologies have well designed

algorithms that can target a specific audience and demographic which can be ideal when building

my potential clientele. This as a result can not only be beneficial from a marketing standpoint but

also from a cost effectiveness perspective. With Google, LinkedIn and Facebook Ads I can

guarantee that my budget is well spent and can also measure the results of my advertising

campaigns.

Aside from having strong promotion system, I also feel very well about my services and

my CPA professional knowledge. The reason being, I just passed the four parts of the CPA exam

which gives me the confidence that I am well informed on all the latest regulations and laws

when it comes to my profession. This knowledge will allow me to provide excellent service to all

my clients which will help my business expand.

When analyzing the features of the services that I will provide as a future Certified Public

Accountant, I had to think of myself and my knowledge as the product to be described. There are

three features that I think will be of great benefit to my clients and those are:

1- Approachable and Charismatic

2- Fast and Efficient

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3- Detailed Oriented

Approachable and Charismatic is a feature that I think would be of great advantage of my

clients because as they feel more comfortable with me, they can share more about their personal

life which would give me more room to give input and as a result help them even more. Fast and

efficient is also a feature of myself and services that I know will be of advantage to my

customers because, in this busy life that everyone has, almost nobody wants to be in an office

discussing tax matters for hours. As I get to know my customers, I would know the right

questions to ask to be able to deliver fast and efficient and as a result my clients would be happy

and can go back to living their lives as soon as possible. Lastly being detailed oriented, is a great

feature that in my opinion my clients would appreciate because knowing that your accountant is

very detail driven would give them the peace of mind that no errors were populated and they can

rest assured that they were given a service with a zero margin for mistakes.

When determining the presentation method that fits my future business model as a CPA

servicing companies and individuals, the Problem-Solution Sales Presentation Method would be

my ideal when delivering a presentation to a customer about my services. The reason why I

chose this method is because in this industry the services that are provided depends on the needs

of the customer. As a Certified Public Accountant, I will be required to have extensive calls with

my customers to determine their needs and how I can help them. Another reason is, the services

that I will be providing are very technical and complex that only a CPA can provide and require

a flexible, customized presentation based on the situation of the customer.

When beginning a sales call, the approach that I would use to get the customers attention

is the Direct question approach. In a business of accounting services, you are constantly
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providing solutions to problems for people. Therefore, the challenge when seeking new prospects

is to find problems in the market place to give solutions to. To accomplish this task, you must

ask questions. A good example of the kinds of questions that I would ask would be, Good

afternoon sir or madam, would you be interested in lowering your taxes? Would you be

interested in a tax structure for your business to be more efficient with taxes? Almost everyone

feels like there is always room for improvement when it comes to their taxes, and the goal with

these questions would be to spark the curiosity in the client to make them want to hear more

about my services.

As the leader and owner of my future accounting practice, I would make sure to always

market and deliver my services ethically. The first way in which I would do so is to always be

honest and transparent with my clients with regards to the scope and pricing of the work. Not

being fully honest with the pricing is the most unethical way of doing business in my opinion. I

would not promise customers on unrealistic or false outcomes. I would make sure to protect my

client’s personal and financial information.

Inside the business, I would create an environment from the top of the organization to

promote integrity. Establishing a code of ethics as well as internal controls would be the primary

ways in which I would avoid ethical problems. Lastly, I would hire ethically likeminded

employees to make sure the culture forever remains ethically driven.

There is one competitor in my industry that I in my opinion will not represent a threat to

my business and that is Turbotax. This online CPA/ Accounting service website provides tax

services at a very low cost through a software that asks questions and populates the

corresponding tax calculation. The story on how I came to research this competitor is because I
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was a customer myself many years ago and used their services for quite some time before I

became a CPA. My services will be a better buy because I believe that in this time and age

people want to interact with a human being rather than a computer or a software. I offer

something that TurboTax can never offer and that is a human connection, a relationship with my

customers and for that reason I believe I have a competitive advantage.

In examining the potential objections to my accounting services, I had to make a

comparison of the advantages of using my competitor TurboTax. Price is one of the great

advantages of using this platform. Because my services will be more personal and tailored to the

customer, I think they will be worthy of a higher rate. When it comes to the closing technique to

avoid this objection, I thought of summary of benefits, reiterating repeatedly the advantages of

using a CPA rather than a software to compute their taxes. I think the customer understanding

that a Certified Public Accountant will have a better understanding of their tax situation and

different avenues to maximize their tax liability, will help them get over the hurdle of the price.

Another technique I would use is negotiation, I could offer them and first-time customer discount

or a loyalty discount that can bring down the rate to a much more comfortable one for them.

Using TurboTax, the customer also has the option to access their prior years tax returns through

their website which is another advantage that will cause an objection to my services. To avoid

this objection, I plan to explain the customer that although I will not have a website, I will have

records of all their tax returns and I will make them available to them immediately upon their

request.

There are many ways that I would follow up with my customers to keep them happy with

my product of services and maintain the relationship. The first one would be, I would call them a
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few months prior to the tax season to remind them of the importance of filing early in the year to

avoid any penalties or missing the deadline. In doing so I would express my gratitude for them

coming back with me another year and show them that I genuinely care about their taxes.

Another way to keep them happy would be, making sure I always conduct myself in an ethical

manner as well as always be honest with them. By doing that, I would slowly build trust with

them and ensure they can always feel safe and comfortable with me. Lastly, because I plan to

build a personal relationship with each one of my customers, I would make sure to send them a

holiday card every year as well as a birthday present.