007 | 5 Steps To Developing A Winning Elevator Pitch For Accountants

 

Do you have a pre-written and practiced “Brand Shake?”

If you’re not familiar with the term Brand Shake, it is the term I like to use with my Royal Family to describe the ever-important elevator pitch.

Having an award-winning elevator pitch is the key to mastering your next networking event, but what goes into writing an effective elevator pitch?

In this episode, I’m sharing The Pitch Queen’s top 5 steps for creating an elevator pitch that has people lining up to work with you and your firm.

Plus, I’m sharing my special little bonus that has set me apart from many individuals and has helped me secure interviews with some big name entrepreneurs like Mel Robbins.

If you want to create an award-winning elevator pitch that has clients waiting to work with you, then this episode of The Abundant Accountant Podcast is a MUST LISTEN!

Do you want to create an award-winning elevator pitch that helps you stand out from all of the other accountants? Click here to read THIS BLOG POST!

 

Here are a few key secrets we talked about in this episode:

• Michelle introduces this week’s topic and shares why it’s one of her favorites.
• Can you easily describe what you do and who you serve? In this episode, Michelle shares how to master step one of creating your sales pitch.
• Most accountants have a deep passion for helping their clients achieve their goals, which is why Michelle loves working with them.
• “When you are shaking someone’s hand you are representing your own brand.” ~ The Pitch Queen
• It’s impossible to be everything to everyone, so choosing a specific niche you want to serve is SO important.
• When it comes to step 2, you must know who your ideal client is and how you can serve them.
• Michelle shares the basic format of how she writes out her elevator pitch, aka Brand Shake.
• In order to pitch to the right people, you must know who to pitch to. There is no use pitching to people you can’t help.
• Step 4 all comes down to practice, practice, practice. You can have the most well-written elevator pitch in history, but if you haven’t practiced it, it won’t matter when you get in front of people and try to use it.
• After you’ve introduced yourself and shared your elevator pitch with a prospect, Michelle recommends that you follow-up within one or two days.
• Michelle shares a very effective little secret that she uses to connect further with those individuals that she’s met in person. You don’t want to miss this tip!
• Finally, Michelle shares her personal sales pitch to provide you an excellent example how to write your own.

 

Learn More & Connect With Me Here!

• Read The Abundant Accountant Blog
• Join us on Facebook
• Follow Michelle on LinkedIn

 

P.S. Are you ready to rock your next networking? All you need is an award-winning elevator pitch and THIS BLOG POST can help you write it! 

P.P.S. Are you tired of feeling like you have to give away your knowledge and expertise for free? Register NOW for my FREE Accountant Masterclass and learn my 3 proven strategies to easily build your practice with premium clients who eagerly pay you what you’re worth. Get FREE access NOW!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

5 Steps To Developing A Winning Elevator Pitch For Accountants

It is an honor to be here, and it’s one of my favorite subjects. It’s all about how to create an award-winning elevator pitch. If you are an accountant, this is probably something maybe you haven’t thought of that often. I frequently heard from many accountants who confess that they feel they don’t know how to give a good elevator pitch that draws attention from somebody. Not one that turns somebody off or have you ever been to a networking event, and it totally sucks because everything you keep saying, people don’t come and attract to you like having that abundant life or firm, but it has people like moving away from you and not wanting to talk to you.

If you’ve ever felt that way, we will be discussing that right here. I completely get it because I can understand that even writing a good elevator pitch is very difficult. It was difficult for me too. It’s like when someone asks you what you do, how do you say it in the right way where it’s engaging to someone else?

In this episode, I will give you the five steps for creating an award-winning elevator pitch for your accounting firm so that when you go out and network, you know exactly how to talk to people to track the right clients and grow the firm of abundance that you are looking to grow. That is what’s on deck. I always like to say this. If someone has a problem and you have the solution to help them with that problem, and you don’t sell your solution because you are a little scared, fearful, or afraid, you do need to share it because you are doing those people disservice when we don’t share it.

I believe that’s the same with our elevator pitch. When people ask me, “What is it that you do?” I share it freely and openly because I truly love helping all of my accountants like you, each of you reading right now. I love it. It’s so much fun. I love seeing the transformation and the growth. I truly believe that if you have the solution to help your clients with whatever it may be, saving money in tax, saving money in their business, and helping them create more cashflow in their business with all of the knowledge that you have, then this is important.

Know Your Pitch’s Foundation

Step number one to making this all happen is you have to know the foundation of your pitch. One thing you can write down right now is what do you do and why do you do what you do. Those are two crucial questions to make sure and ask yourself. What is your firm all about? Are you focused on tax planning work? Are you focused on helping businesses with their bookkeeping and accounting? Are you focused on providing CFO services? What is it that you do, and what is it all about? Why is it your personal mission?

I have talked to probably a couple of hundred of you one-on-one, and you know who you are. I know a lot of your missions are to help your clients. You have a deep passion for helping clients. To be honest, any entrepreneur, solopreneur, and business owner want to help their clients. When you have your elevator pitch or in The Pitch Queen Empire, I do like to call it the brand shake because when you are shaking someone’s hand, you are representing your own brand. That rhymed.

It’s important that you know what your personal mission is. It can’t be just about making money and these materialistic things, but for a lot of us, and when I have talked and spoken to each of you, your personal missions are ultimately to help people. You have special knowledge. As an accounting professional, you have knowledge that a lot of people don’t have, and they need you. Then the last thing to think about is who can you help? This is a crucial step because you have to know who you can help because the who is extremely important.

Identify your personal mission. It can’t be about making money or getting materialistic things. It must be about helping people. Click To Tweet

I always say, “You can’t be everything to everybody.” Here at The Pitch Queen Empire, one of our main focal points is working with accountants. Some of you have probably had the thought about, “How can I get paid more for what I’m worth? I dish out all of this free information all day to clients via email and phone calls, and I never get paid for it.” I truly know that I can help you and put an end to that and make sure that you feel good about it too.

That’s who I can help. Think about who you can help. I was speaking to a new CPA I have never spoken to before, and his focus is on who he can help are business owners. That’s what he’s passionate about. He likes that he can help them with their business returns, help them with planning, and do the monthly fees. He rather works with a few businesses than hundreds of individual people. Then there’s another accountant who prefers to work with hundreds of people. It’s like, “What’s your cup of tea?”

Set Yourself Apart

Step number two is one of the most crucial steps. I truly believe that this step is what’s going to set you apart from any other accountant anywhere you go. Any networking events, if you are sitting on an airplane or if you are standing in line at Starbucks as an accountant, CPA, or enrolled agent, you have clients everywhere, and you have no idea what they do because we don’t talk to a lot of people anymore, but here’s a structure that I love.

You can copy this, and you can write it down. I would take some notes right here, but here’s the structure. First, you need to know who your ideal client is. You then need to understand the problem that you are helping them solve because you are the expert problem solver for them. You then want to understand what it is that your clients want to achieve, and that’s what will be the third important piece to this puzzle. The last thing is we want to ask a question, “Do you know anyone I could help?”

This is how it’s going to go. I’m going to pretend I’m an accountant for a second. What I have found is that there are a lot of business owners that are doing over $2 million or $3 million in revenue who want to keep more of that money in their pocket so they can fund and implement better structures in their businesses with equipment and technology to create a more efficient business, so they don’t have to work as much. They can take a little bit more time off and not ever have to work a weekend because so many business owners I work with have to work all weekends.

They don’t believe that’s possible. They believe that they have to work every single weekend. What I do is I show business owners how to save money in their business right now if they have a business of between $2 million and $3 million in revenue so that they can create better structures and systems in their business to keep the money in the business, instead of sending out checks to the IRS.

“Do you know anyone I could help?” That’s the structure, everybody. What I invite each of you to do is write that out. Let me repeat the few things that you need to know. Number one, who do you want to work with? Get as specific as possible. I was having this discussion with one of The Pitch Queen’s interns on the intern team about needing to pick a super-duper niche. It’s more important if you have a newer firm if you are starting out and you are getting your feet wet with clients. It’s bad news to start taking on any and every client.

 

My intern is not an accountant, but she is an aspiring entrepreneur and wants to start an online clothing store. If you think about the businesses you want to track, let’s say it was the online clothing store, you would need to ensure A) What’s their revenue? B) What type of clothing do they have? C) Do you want to work with a company that has inventory?

I have spoken to a lot of accountants, and they don’t want to deal with anyone that has inventory because inventory can get a little bit chaotic at times. If you don’t like inventory, that’s not for you, but these are all the things to think about if you have a niche. That’s how you can figure out who your ideal client is.

Also, you want to think about the problems that you help solve. One of my other students loved to make sure that his clients not only got their payroll is taken care of, their 401(k) stuff, financial service needs, compliance work, and bookkeeping, he wanted to be what I call the hub and spoke. Being the hub and spoke means you have to have a solution for the full package for any new business client that you take on.

Think about the problem that you solve and then what will happen if they succeed to do that. What most people think is that they don’t believe they can do it or it’s not possible. Think about what it is that you can make sure they know they can succeed. In my example, if I can recall correctly, they can use the money in their business to not make payments to the IRS and invest it in their technology and infrastructure to create a more efficient business so the entrepreneurs can not have to work on the weekends because maybe that person didn’t believe that not working on the weekends was even possible.

This is an example. You need to create it for yourself. Lastly, you are going to share what you do, “What I do is,” blank. Share your solution. What is it that you do? What are the specifics that you help with? Do you know anyone I can help? This is where people miss the boat all the time. You have to be willing to ask, “Do you know anyone I can help?”

What I recommend too is this, and this is funny. When you start asking people, networking, etc., and they say, “Do you know anyone I can help?” you are automatically not making it about them, and you are making it about helping other people. When you help other people, the person typically will say, if you are in the right area networking or at the right place, “That’s me. You can help me.” It’s a great way. Step number two is crucial and super-duper important, so make sure you get step two down.

 

Know Who To Pitch To

Step number three is to know who to pitch to. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people making their pitch about their business to someone who doesn’t need anything. I have a new friend, and this is an example, who’s a business corporate attorney. What if this person went to pitch his services to a place where they had zero business owners, and you were talking to a bunch of students or people with jobs? It’s probably not the best place to do and build relationships with people. Step number three is to know who to pitch to. There are multiple reasons why this is important.

Number one, when you are knowing who you want to pitch to, I would make a list. Make a list of five different niche industries to whom you want to pitch to because that will create confidence. It won’t come across as if you are desperate when you are talking to people, as you need new clients. You want to pitch to the right people.

It doesn’t make any sense if I were to start sharing about how The Pitch Queen can help, specifically accountants, if I go to an attorney convention. Maybe if they are experts in tax, it would make more sense because they have some, or maybe the attorneys do work with a lot of CPAs, but it’s not getting any because that’s going to be a lot of extra work and extra steps. Think about the people and the right people that you want to pitch to.

Remember that you won’t be able to help everyone the same. This goes back to what we were talking about who your ideal client is, and you’ll probably hear me talk about it pretty often. Having your ideal client is important because you can’t be everything to all people. I was dealing with this. One of the EAs that I have worked with, she’s had a client for a long time, and he’s in the construction business.

They do construction contract work, and she wanted to help him. However, this person is not her ideal client. I don’t even know, maybe if the ideal client is in the construction business or space. It needs to be someone who has been in business for a few years. They are paying a lot in taxes. Pick a niche where they understand you. She deals with a lot of real estate investors. I’m like, “Why don’t you spend your time focused on the real estate investors versus dealing with a construction guy, a truck-driving guy, and this guy?” You won’t be able to help everybody when you are all over the place. You want to focus.

We don’t want to pitch people who you can’t help. It’s a waste of breath. It’s a waste of time. We all don’t have a lot of time. You have so many deadlines. We have got deadlines on the fifteenth all the time. We have so much going on that it’s not worth it to pitch to people who we can’t help. Step three, I can’t hone in on this enough. Who is the ideal person you would like to find? Who do you want to help? Who do you want to work with? Where do they hang out? What publications do they read? Where do they spend their time online? What public places do they spend time in? If your clients are at Starbucks all the time because Starbucks is a conglomerate of massive business buildings, that might be a great place to meet new clients. Step number three, know who to pitch to. Maybe make a list. Why wait?

Practice Makes Perfect

Step number four is my all-time favorite. Step number four is all about practice. Practice makes perfect. People make their first impression of you within the first six seconds of meeting you. Practice counts. Don’t let it slip by the side and say, “I will practice when I get there or when I go somewhere,” or maybe you are going to a B&I meeting. I know a lot of you do attend some B&I groups and other things. If you practice this ten times a day for a few days prior to any meeting or function, it’s going to make a huge difference, and note, while practicing these three different things, number one, your body posture.

 

It’s very important because if you are practicing slouched down, you won’t receive the same results, and you always want to keep the tone of your voice pretty consistent. You want to have confidence in your voice. You don’t want to be too quiet, but you don’t want to be too loud. Think about the tone of your voice and also the speed of your voice. It’s all extremely important.

Do Follow-Ups

That is step number four, and guess what? We have step number five and a little bonus because my bonus is the best thing. If you put it into action, it will be a game-changer for your firm. Number five is follow-up. This is where I see a lot of mistakes happen. A lot of people make the mistake of not following up. Take your prospects’ numbers, emails, and business cards, so you have the information. I always like to do it on the first day, the same day, if not the next day. Email them to make sure they remember you.

You can even email your elevator pitch in an email. If you put it in a good structure, you can create an email out of this exact same thing. Think about this. Focus on building a relationship with your potential client and not making a sale. Every single networking opportunity is about building a business relationship and not about getting a sale. When the business relationship is solid, and you have that foundation, that is the foundation for a new client, which creates a new opportunity in sale. Think about the five steps, and the follow-up is all about creating a business relationship. It’s not about the sale.

Every single networking opportunity is about building a business relationship and not about getting a sale. Click To Tweet

Bonus Tip: Get A Photo

Here’s my bonus tip, and I do this all the time. For some of you who are reading, you know it because you’ve heard me talk about it. Get a photo. What’s the best example to give you? I also host a podcast called Success Unfiltered, and I’m always looking for more general entrepreneurs who have dealt with noes and rejections and how they overcame them to get to their versions of success.

Some are product-based businesses, some are service-based, and some people are actors, comedians, and performers. There’s a difference between my two shows. However, I go to different events where I network with different entrepreneurs and speakers. One of the things that I do is get their number, everything I do that I’m teaching you right here. I get their number or email and say, “Can we take a photo?” When I email you, I will email you a photo of us, and you can remember who I am.

This little step has set me apart from so many other people, and I have interviewed amazing entrepreneurs. Some people you might recognize like Mel Robbins, who’s an author, or Justin from Justin’s Nut Butter, and I was able to get a photo with Justin several years ago. I can’t even remember how long ago it was, but this is something that you can do. It’s not like I’m sharing these photos. It’s to save it with their contact information in order for them to remember. 1) It’s unique. 2) No one’s doing it, and 3) They are going to remember you. You want to make it memorable, and when you make it memorable, these are the things that you can do.

Michelle’s Elevator Pitch

Here is my elevator pitch that I have done as it relates to myself helping each of you as an accountant. I help mission-driven accountants, CPAs, EAs, and bookkeepers who have been in business for at least 2 to 3 years learn how to sell with confidence and come from a place of service to offer their high-value services to their clients. Without feeling sleazy, pushy, or desperate, and have the confidence to deliver that in their message so that they can increase the sales conversations and increase the conversions to ultimately increase their revenue. Do you know anyone that I can help? My goal for you is to create and fine-tune your elevator pitch. Practice and practice. As I said, I would say ten times a day until it becomes flawless.

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Thank you all so much for joining me here on the show. It was an honor to have each of you reading. If you have a quick second, I would be grateful if you could leave a review right here on iTunes and also subscribe to the show. I always love hearing from you. One last thing before I let you go. If you feel that you’ve been giving away too much information for free or you are tired of not being paid what you are worth, then you are probably like many accountants who feel like they are on a cashflow rollercoaster ride, and I have the solution for you.

You can join us for our Abundant Accountant Masterclass at TheAbundantAccountant.com to learn how to communicate your value, collect higher fees, and do it with confidence so you can get paid what you are worth and work a little bit less, make a little bit more money, and have that life of abundance. Thank you so much for reading, and have an amazing day.

 

Important Links

• Success Unfiltered
• Mel Robbins – Past episode
• Justin’s Nut Butter
• iTunes – The Abundant Accountant
• FREE Accountant Masterclass
• LinkedIn – Michelle Weinstein
• Twitter – Michelle Weinstein
• Instagram – The Pitch Queen
• Facebook – The Pitch Queen
• YouTube – The Pitch Queen