With a Simple Change, They Are All the Same | STRATEGY COACHING

Many people (including me)have said that a difficulty in marketing most accounting firms is that they are all alike. Every firm advertises or lists on their site essentially the same list of services available to clients.

In fact, if you change the names and the photos on the websites of five randomly selected accounting firms in any town, I think you probably would not notice a difference. I want to check this hypothesis, and, I’d like your help.

I chose five accounting firms in Stamford, CT. I chose the first five firms I saw listed individually on a Google search. Some were paid ads, some were organic search results and some were in the places listing. This is probably as good a way as any to choose.

Do you know what I found? I demonstrated that all five offer essentially the same services to clients. Taking one as the control, I discovered that each of the other four offered essentially the same services plus one or two niche areas. One added payroll and part-time CFO services. Another added international services and business valuation. Yet another did fraud prevention and detection and pension and profit sharing plans. The fifth firm had a specialty with the construction industry.

The way I’d like to ask for your help is this: Please conduct the same kind of search and selection of CPA firms in your city. Compare them, and then tell us, in a response to this post, what you found. Are many of the firms essentially interchangeable? If you find a micro-niche, that would be very important information.

Thank you.