Your brand and how people see you is the first gateway into making sure that you can increase your revenue. In this episode, Michelle Weinstein, a.k.a. The Pitch Queen, talks about the importance of branding. Not only does branding increase your revenue, but it also attracts the right types of clients. The first step to having successful branding is to hire a graphic designer. The color scheme, font style, and logo design are all essential elements for your branding. Do you want to know more? This episode’s for you. Tune in!
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The Importance Of Branding: Quick Insights From The Pitch Queen
It is an honor to be back with you. I am talking about a very important topic, just like all of our other important topics about branding. Before we dive in, if you would like to get to the truth of where your firm is at and what is keeping you stuck, then head on over to TheAbundantCall.com. My team and I have set aside some time to talk to you personally about that, if you own your own firm.
We’ll go over what are some of your biggest challenges because we’ve seen them all and we know how to overcome it. We’ll look at where you want to be with your firm to ensure you are paid upfront and first. We’ll also craft a step-by-step processing game plan for you to hit your firm revenue and get two additional six figures and beyond in your firm.
You might be wondering what the cost is because some people have emailed me about that. It is complimentary but here’s the catch. It’s not for everyone. If you offer a high value service such as tax planning, tax resolution, CFO services, profit coaching and you’re outstanding at what you do, then book a session at TheAbundantCall.com. Let’s get into the episode of why branding is important.
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Why is it important to have branding possibly, maybe for yourself or for your firm? A lot of people think that I’m an expert in branding. The funny thing is I’m not. I’m an expert in sales and increasing revenue but your brand and how people see you is the first gateway into making sure that you can increase your revenue, have the clients you want and be able to attract higher quality type clients. Your brand has everything and anything to do with that.
Importance Of Branding: If you’re thinking about branding for your firm, one of the first things you need to do is find a graphic designer who has experience with branding.
We’re going to talk about that and the importance of your firm brand and your personal brand or maybe you want to choose one or the other. I’ve got a lot of lessons learned from my past. When I started this whole Abundant Accountant empire in April of 2017, I said, “I’m not going to make the mistakes I’ve made in my previous career and businesses. I am going to do it right from the get-go.” The first thing I did was hire a brand design expert where I picked colors, my logo and got my logo trademarked.
If you’re thinking about your branding for your firm or personal, one of the first things you need to do is find a graphic designer who has experience with branding. This is the foundation before you get clients or if you’re already in the midst of it. I saw Rite Aid went through a whole branding change. If you go down the street, you’ll notice it has blue, green and white in their color. They changed their signage, everything.
Another brand I saw that went through branding years ago because I worked with them was The Vitamin Shoppe. They spent millions of dollars to rebrand themselves and they were a brand that’s been around for years. If you’re an accounting firm and you have been around for 15, 10, 20, 30 years, a rebrand is a very good idea. It’s an investment now for payoff in the future.
The payoffs will vary for each of you but I promise you, it will have a direct impact in the client experience. It will have cohesiveness. Your logo, font and email matching your website, those little things take part at the beginning of your sales process. I’m the pitch queen, so I focus on sales but your branding comes before any sale comes in your door.
For all of you that might be starting a firm, in corporate, want to quit your job and want to go out on your own, this is for you or if you’ve had a firm for the last 15, 20, 30 years, a rebrand might be a good idea to refresh. It’s almost like when I go get my hair highlighted. I’m at that age where I have to get gray hairs, so I go and rebrand my hair. That’s what I’m doing. Every couple of months, I go and get a rebrand.
How can we not do this in our businesses? I’m sure it’s probably not the first thing top of mind. I’m sure your tax resolution engagements, planning, bookkeeping services and a pile of paperwork are the priority, which I completely understand. However, a rebrand will help improve revenue. How many of you want to attract higher paying or better quality clients? I hear from so many of you, “Michelle, I hated the clients that I work with, the ones that dropped me and all my paperwork off at the end right before the deadline. Why don’t they appreciate me?”
All of those conversations in your head, a rebrand will reframe and have you be able to attract a new type of client. That is the number one thing to do. Find a graphic designer who has experience with branding. There are lots of graphic designers out there but one that specifically focuses on branding. Here’s what branding entails. If you go to my LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook, it’s all The Pitch Queen because I branded myself as a person. Did I also brand the Abundant Accountant? I did but The Pitch Queen was the first thing that I wanted to focus on because I wanted to make sure it was memorable.
Your brand and how people see you is the first gateway into making sure that you can increase your revenue. Click To TweetI have a funny story for you. I was going up to Seattle, where my family lives, for Father’s Day. I was on the plane writing out thank you cards to my new clients and someone said, “What are you doing? Are you in insurance? Are you in real estate?” I said, “No, I teach accountants how to sell, so they don’t have to wing their sales conversations, fly by the seat of their pants, donate all of their knowledge for free and never get paid for it and then resent themselves later like, ‘Why did I answer those questions and not get paid?’ For all of those reasons, that’s why I exist.”
He’s like, “What’s your name? I want to check you out.” I said, “If you go on LinkedIn or anywhere, it’s The Pitch Queen.” He sent me a message. I think it was on Instagram, Facebook or one of them, through The Pitch Queen account. I also have my own account for Michelle Weinstein but that’s going to be more of my personal life. As far as your business, think about what is your brand and how do you want to come across?
Another great example is because you want to make it memorable. That’s number two. Find a graphic designer who’s had experience in branding, so they understand logos, fonts and colors, all of that weirdness that none of us have any interest in. I know you don’t care about any of that. It’s like decorating at home. For a lot of you, the decorations, the colors and the bathroom don’t matter. We want to get to the accounting and the numbers. I want to see your QuickBooks file. That’s what matters. I got it. However, the branding will get you the types of clients you want.
Number two is thinking about what would be meant memorable. Locally, I live in San Diego, California. When I drive down the street by my house and I go to the freeway, I drive by a dental office. It’s called Zoom Dental. It’s for kids and it’s super obvious it’s for kids because it’s got red, blue and yellow. It looks like Superman. It’s Super Dental but it’s Super Zoom Dental or something. It’s so memorable that I even saw a location they had up north.
Have something that’s catchy, memorable, colorful and cohesive like the thing they have on the mail. I even get it in the mail because I’m in their ZIP code and they don’t know I don’t have any kids, so I’m not going to go there but I get a pamphlet with the letters and colors that’s the same on the building and the letter that comes in the mail.
If you think about it from a marketing standpoint, sometimes before someone becomes the client, you might get someone right away but it could take them 4, 5, 6, 7 times of seeing you or hearing about you before they enroll with you as a client. Your branding has to be catchy and memorable. If you’re like, “Michelle, I established my firm 30 years ago. I’ve already been incorporated. I’m not going to change the name.” That’s no problem but you can still give yourself a facelift or an uplift, a change in font, colors, everything.
Importance Of Branding: When you sell your trademarked brand, you’ll have increased value on the firm.
Your letterhead to your business cards, to your email signature, to your LinkedIn profile image, to your website, all of that could have a facelift and it could attract those higher value type clients that you’re looking for without doing a whole ton of work, just a little bit of work on the front end to do your facelift. The third thing I would say that’s important to branding is trademarking, if you can. With the Abundant Accountant, I was able to trademark that and it protects you.
There’s not a lot of IPs in our industry unless you’re going to create a software or some technology tool, maybe that’s some IP but if your plan is to sell your firm in the future, I would highly recommend getting your logo and business name trademarked. That was one of the first things I did because I know I was going to share with you some lessons learned from my past.
My past goes a little something like this. My first job out of college was at an accounting firm called Moss Adams, which I’m sure a lot of you know. I was there a couple of years. I ended up going to a sales meeting with partners. I loved that. Then realized I was not cut out for the cubicle life. I was like, “What am I going to do?” I got a part-time job at Nordstrom. I started to be a fitness instructor. I started my own bootcamp business outside in the park in Seattle.
After three years at Moss Adams, I said enough is enough. I ended up moving back to Arizona, where I grew up and I went to college at the University of Arizona. Fast forward to 2000 and 2006, I started a meal delivery service. Before, it was a cool thing to do. There were about six companies. We didn’t have much competition. I was into fitness and health. I always wanted a personal chef in a package and that’s what I started. Who knew I was going down a big rabbit hole of marketing challenges, food production, inventory, you name it, all those clients that you probably aren’t too fond of working with?
One of my clients, Allen who I love to death, works only with restaurants. She picked that niche but I know there are lots of you out there that don’t want to touch a restaurant. You don’t want to touch a food business or an eCommerce business with tons of inventory. Trust me, I know why, because that was a pain in the butt with that company. I didn’t trademark the name. The fonts, colors and everything were all over the place. I said, “I’m not going to make these mistakes again. I’m going to make it bulletproof.” The way I made it bulletproof was doing what I’m sharing with you.
Those three things are all you have to do. If you do those three things well, I can’t think of anything else I did but I get messages all the time. “Michelle, I love your branding. I love how cohesive your pages look. You look so professional. You look like you’re this big company.” I’m fairly big but I don’t have a huge team. We’re an online presence and I do everything via Zoom.
One day, I’m going to do a retreat and that retreat will be branded. It will be branded the Abundant Accountant hosted by The Pitch Queen. I had 2 or 3 attorneys in my last company because we had all sorts of issues with recipes and people trying to steal your ideas. It’s not any fun. I’m not in the food business anymore and I got back into what I love. I said, “If I could spend 90% of my time doing what I love, which is sales and teaching it, I knew I could do it for you.”
I’ve sold $60,000 tax plans and monthly bookkeeping services at $1,000 to $3,000 profit first. I know how to sell any of this and I was able to figure out a way to teach it. You can watch over probably 60, 70 testimonials of accountants, CPAs, EAs and bookkeepers like you over on TheAbundantAccountant.com. What you’re going to notice is you’ll see the little circled R in a lot of places. I didn’t put it everywhere but it is the registered trademark. I’ve registered trademarked it for this show as well, which is a beautiful thing because it protects you in that area.
Your branding has to be catchy and memorable. Click To TweetHow can you trademark your firm name? When you sell it, you have more increased value on the firm. Not only do you have your client base but you also have the value that’s attached to the fact that you have protected your brand. That’s what trademarking does. It protects your brand in a certain area. If you think about the accounting firms or colleagues that you’ve met that had a good, catchy, memorable name in their business and if you’ve had your firm 20 or 30 years, I’m not saying rename it, trademark it. Trademark your logo and name. I promise you, it will have dividends that come to you over and over again.
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Thank you all so much for joining me on another amazing episode. If you learned something about the importance of branding, having something catchy and memorable, I would be honored if you could leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. I do read them and it does help this show grow to help other accounting professionals grow their firm. If you’re looking to possibly want to explore working together and getting to the truth of where your firm is at right and the things that are keeping you stuck, then head on over to TheAbundantCall.com.
Remember that if you own your own firm and you offer high value services such as planning, resolution work, profit coaching, bookkeeping, accounting, CFO services or any consulting work in your firm, I would love to speak with you. You must be outstanding at what you do and have a high level of integrity. If that’s you, book a session over at TheAbundantCall.com. We will look at where your firm is at and ensure that you are paid upfront and first. I’ll explore your branding too. I look forward to chatting with some of you. It was an honor to have you here. I’ll see you in the next episode.
Important Links:
- TheAbundantCall.com
- The Vitamin Shoppe
- LinkedIn – Michelle Weinstein
- Instagram – Michelle Sales Strategist
- Facebook – The Pitch Queen
- Michelle Weinstein – Facebook
- Moss Adams
- https://TheAbundantAccountant.com/accountant-masterclass/
About Michelle Weinstein
Michelle Weinstein is the founder of The Abundant Accountant and helps accountants to grow their firms to 8-figures and beyond by making selling FUN. She has successfully trained accountants, CPAs, EAs, bookkeepers, and other financial professionals how to add $10k to $50k in additional revenue every month.
