Marketing your professional services firm

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

The next graduate arrives, interviewing for a position at a small to medium-sized accounting firm: your accounting firm. This graduate will be one of the top performing employees for the employer of their choice. It takes you a while — nearly fifteen minutes into the interview, to fully realise that they are actually interviewing you.

Methodically, the graduate carefully crafts their answers and questions. When you look up from your notepad, direct eye contact takes a fraction of a second to re-connect: this graduate is absorbing the environment, the workspace and your body language. As you take notes, this graduate is also checking boxes on their own mental checklist: assessing you as a partner and the firm as a whole.

They don’t fit into your standard interview guide or assessment criteria: they are impressive in every aspect that a young aspiring graduate could be. They are energized and prepared to embark on a exciting career — just not with your firm.

How much is my time worth?

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

A few years ago, one of my first business coaching sessions was with an entrepreneur who had spent a year and a half in development. He’d given up a well-paid job and spent about $25,000 on developing an App. He had no real business plan. When I pointed out that he had notionally invested about a quarter of million dollars on the App, he drew a deep breath of entrepreneurial fatigue, and said disheartenly, “Well, I suppose so.”

This back of the envelope calculation was done as follows: see calculations and read more here.

I am a 90 year old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute!

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

After being surprised by the stat that “the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity is in the 55-64-year-old group” in a recent article by Jim Dougherty, I was posting my own blog about single operator businesses and was surprised yet again to get this comment back:

“I am a 90 yr. old one man band because I am also underfunded but resolute! There are services that one can sign up for that begin in a free stage and I definitely use them, have to. But this digital business needs advertising money, lots of it. One SBA volunteer told me since I didn’t have money I’m dead in the water. But I got an order the other day.” David Lambert

Amazing: especially after you read his bio of life experiences, I could not help but try to encourage a few followers, likes, views for him. Because you can do digital business at no or low cost and not all entrepreneurs are young, Jim rightly says. And maybe he’ll get the odd order or two; I know I became his second order from #socialmedia.

All this links social links are from his webpage, so anyone feeling socially generous, please give David’s Delicious Chocolates a like, follow or even an order (via PayPal, here’s on that too)!

I live in Australia and David is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have never met David until he reached Melbourne via LinkedIn and now I’m ordering chocolate from some guy called David in Pennsylvania!

http://davidsdeliciouschocolates.com

How do you get business inspiration (and keep it)?

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Go!

Stop. Think. Get inspired.

The gardening crew has arrived outside my office. I hear a clunk and a bump as their truck and trailer bounces into the lot. I watch for a few minutes, and I’m inspired by the efficiency. They quickly rev up the ride-on mower and begin trimming the edges. It’s like a well-oiled pit stop team — every worker knows his place. Someone hands me the bill and everybody leaves as smoothly as they came in. In business, it’s important to be creative. Here are five sources of inspiration. See full article: Here

Happy Easter!

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Are you in LinkedIn? If you run a business or have a professional career, you should be. Take a look at the Optimize Business Company Page (press the Easter eggs!) and please “follow” as we are working to drive up linkages to our own page! Thank you: let us know if you have any questions or tips about the set-up or analytics of a “LinkedIn Company Page.”

Wishing everyone who celebrates Easter a happy one and the very best to everyone over the break! I’ve been reluctant to use my mobile phone for posting full blogs, but a link saying a new app for “WordPress for iOS” tempted me on Good Friday. So posted I did – all seemed to work well with uploading a “seasonal” image and text.

I prefer micro-blogging on my iPhone (Twitter app), but handy to have a WordPress blogging app just in case! Do you do anything festive for the Easter period or does multiculturalism make it hard for your business to decide what to run with?

Survey: what technologies or APPs help your single operator small business the most?

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Most entrepreneurs face the issue, home based, single operator or small businesses face the issue. How can one person do it all?

What technologies or APPs do you use to improve the efficiency of a signal person operation? What are your top 5 tools or tips for running a lean and efficient single operator business?

#socialmedia: the new word of mouth

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Wow, I can’t believe it is two years since I took the entrepreneurial leap and founded Optimize Business. An exciting time for any small business, it is enjoyable, exhilarating and I love meeting new people everyday: exploring their ideas, developing their ideas into strategy, strategy into a plan and plans into action.

Expanding from business coaching and strategy services, my clients value my financial background and being a CPA gives an added credibility and weight to suggestions about running their organisations. What I enjoy most and now do most is help business with their social media. I diversified my skills with photography, documentary video and writing for the web.

Most of my clients now come from the “new” word of mouth – #socialmedia. I just signed a contract with a North Eastern US company to provide regular social media content… they contacted me from Connecticut, I do not market to the US but social media is global, so be ready! Most people find me through LinkedIn or as a result of my social media engagements.

So give it a go. Try flying solo. Ensure you have enough cash-flow up-front, a good strategy, a good plan, and go for it…. oh, and a good business coach or mentor to guide you along the way 🙂

Social media companies dominate the ‘best places to work’ for 2014

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Social media companies are the best technology employers to work for. According to employees, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are the best three technology employers for 2014. Google is ranked fifth, with Interactive Intelligence the only ‘traditional’ tech company in the top five best technology employers to work for.

Not only did social media providers dominate the technology sector, they also seized the majority of positions in the overall top five rankings.

Social media is transforming lives in more ways than we could have expected. From record initial public offerings to the birth of the Arab Spring, these companies are now setting the standard as the employers of choice.

When Glassdoor, a free online jobs and career community, revealed its 2014 Employees’ Choice Awards this month, it also provided a snapshot of the ever-growing influence of social media beyond a screen.

In 2010 Southwest Airlines led the rankings, joined by a mixture of manufacturing and business services firms. A year later, things began to change in when social media companies began wowing their employees:

2011: Facebook entered the top five with a bang, as the number one employer in Employees’ Choice Awards. Facebook had bumped the much acclaimed Southwest Airlines to number two, followed by business services and manufacturing leaders Bain & Company, General Mills and Edelman;

2012: Unseated by consulting behemoths Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company, Facebook ranked third and was joined by Google just scraping into the top five. With MITRE taking the fourth place, business services and consulting firms clearly ruled the day in 2012, but Google and Facebook were giving rival employers a taste of things to come;

2013: Facebook, the only social media company in the top five, reclaimed the number one ranking, amongst a diverse range of employers from business services, technology and health sectors;

2014: While Bain & Company has stolen the 2014 crown, social media companies dominate the top five, filling sixty percent of the top five positions: Twitter, LinkedIn, then industrial Eastman Chemical, followed by Facebook in fifth position.

Glassdoor has aggregated millions of salaries and anonymous company reviews, surveys and other “employee generated content”. The US rankings of the 50 best places to work in 2014 is now in its sixth year and provides a unique confirmation of social media pushing the boundaries in more than just the technology industry.

The top five of the last six years is like a storybook of our change in our society: 2009 did not include a single social media company. Traditional industries dominated, with General Mills, one of the world’s leading food companies, with 100 consumer brands, topping the employee rankings.

Business services firm Bain & Company was ranked number two and is noteworthy in that it is the only employer to be consistently listed in the top five for the last six years. Bain & Company went on to claim the leader’s jersey in 2012 and again in 2014.

The lessons for 2014? Watch this space: social media companies are innovators in more than just technology and IPOs, they are disrupting many different aspects of business and society. And their employees love it.

Social media for pharmacies: let Optimize Business guide you

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Optimize Business understands pharmacy
As your business pushes through the scripts, orders the retail and behind the counter stock, balances the cash, pays the bills, drops off the banking and tries to spend time with talking with every customer…. should you be embarking on a new marketing strategy to embrace social media in your pharmacy?

Social media for pharmacies
Social media can be overwhelming at times: content (photographs, images and text), online communities, tone of voice, moderation, legal considerations, time management, public verses personal posts, timely responses to customers… Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter… a blog? Where should you start? Do you even need to start using social media?

We understand social media
Pharmacy is a unique business and every pharmacy is unique. Don’t jump into social media with out carefully selecting what best suits your needs. Nothing is worse than a business that started Facebook or Tweeting but has not done an update in the last year or two. It is part of a pharmacy’s public face, just like a shop window, it is either neat and tidy, or run-down and tired. Even worse perhaps, there is no shop window for your Pharmacy! We have great experience with social media, let us help you!

Let us guide you through the process
Pharmacists are called on to do a lot of things. Let Optimize Business help you assess your business needs for social media. We’ll sit down with you to understand your customers, your opportunities for social and then we either train up you and/or your staff or you can hand it all over to Optimize Business for a complete outsourced solution.

Our approach
We are flexible and will work to meet your individual needs. We will also tell you straight out if we think social media is not right for you. We will also talk to you about social media advertising, it is constantly changing but provides direct access to local customers you choose to communicate with.

Needs analysis
Strategy development
Initial account configuration
Content creation
Outsource 100% or in-house training
Build & engage your community
Social advertising
Grow your business!

To take advantage of current promotional offers, enter your details below and we will contact you:

Minor CBA system upgrade leads to bank meltdown and social media backlash

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

The Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has taken a beating overnight on social media platforms Twitter and Facebook. What started as a ‘minor upgrade’ to NetBank ended in a social media and literal spat for cash. By 3am the issue had not been resolved, with CBA customers at the end of their tether.

Read the posts on Storify.

It all started with a small Facebook post on the CBA page on Sunday 27, 2013. It was not dissimilar to the outage notice of the night before (1am – 7am), about a minor upgrades, except this notice was of an earlier start to a 6 hour upgrade may impact some accounts from 6pm-12midnight on Sunday evening:

“We’re upgrading NetBank tonight, making several minor enhancements to Australia’s #1 online bank. NetBank, mobile, tablet and CommBank Kaching apps will be online, however some accounts and features will be unavailable 6pm-12midnight (AEDT) on Sunday 27 October. You can stay up-to-date commbank.com.au/update“

The post from the Saturday outage from 1am caused no ripples, with 56 people liking that update and about 25 comments. Sunday’s post, however, turned into something of a social media storm with 85 likes and nearly 500 Facebook comments on the post and over 100 comments directly on the Commonwealth Bank’s Facebook Page. The @NetBank Twitter account also did a short innocuous tweet about the same time, then seemed to go to sleep for two hours before it responded to the tweets for updates, cash and help. Initially mild queries and complaints came in of inconvenience came in:

small business owners lamented the timing for their Australian Taxation Office Business Activity Statement due on Monday;
some asked “is netbank not working at the moment?”

Then some more desperation started to appear in the posts, like from Angela on Facebook over a 2 hour period:

What is going on?? I tried to make a purchase from a store and my card was declined…I went to an ATM and i kept getting error messages…I have tried calling …no response…..NOT HAPPY
I’m pissed off…i’ve been a customer since forever..paid THOUSANDS in interest and this is the service I get????
And what is wrong with the call centre…why cant I get through to anybody ..it even hangs up on me!! Very frustrsting. Feel sorry for the person at my local branch in the morning

After several hours, the impact of the “minor up-grade” became more apparent, with CBA customers almost crying out for help:

unable to pay for dinner or takeaway
spending hours shopping then being unable to pay
“humiliation” and “embarrassment” at having their cards declined
people trapped at petrol stations with a full tank but unable to pay
others frantic to transfer money, pay rent or withdraw cash
customers unable to pay for flights and facing the possibility of losing flights
employers unable to pay their staff

And so the list of individual dramas, tension and frustration continued. Several CBA employees jumped in to defend the corporate giant and leading to with a tongue in cheek poke at impatient customers, led to them being identified as employees and images of their full name, work role and other details being taken as screen shots and posted online. CommBank posted a warning directed at several individuals, deleted several customer posts that identified an employee and reminded the customers of the Facebook Community Guidelines.

At 2:15 am CBA updated their web page with “We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up.”

At 2:30am the CBA posted on Facebook “Hi everyone, we apologies that NetBank still isn’t available right now. We’ve had an unexpected issue that we’re working hard to resolve. We still have more investigation and testing to do before we bring our systems back up. This is all the information we have at present, our next update will be later this morning. Again, we apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

And that brings us to 3am when this writer will cease monitoring the situation. I became involved while trying to phone the CBA tonight to advise of overseas transactions on my account, only to eventually get the message “we have encountered a technical problem” and the call was terminated by the CBA.