Last week I wrote about Price Waterhouse being engaged to count the Oscar ballots and I mentioned a book by Mark Stevens, The Big Eight. Mark also wrote a follow-up titled The Big Six. I read them both (and also most of his other books).
One day I was browsing through a bookstore and saw a new book titled Your Marketing Sucks, which caught my eye. I picked it up and noticed the author’s name was Mark Stevens and was curious if it was the same guy who wrote the two books I read about the giant accounting firms, and it was. I then opened the book and happened to turn to a page that had the title “Lazy CPA Firms: The Case of Fifty CPAs.” I read that chapter and he described something we did that did not work at all, and then I bought the book. After I read it, I distributed copies to many clients. My interest in giving it to them wasn’t about the CPA firms’ experience, but his other tips and suggestions on marketing. I thought the book was great and wanted to share it with my clients.
I also gave books to my marketing coordinator, Kristen Ferrar Celii, to read, as well as my partners. Kristen, being resourceful, found out that he was speaking in Manhattan the following week and she purchased a ticket for her and me and we attended it. We also saw a couple of our clients at that presentation. He spoke even better than his book, and we became raving fans of his. A month or two later, we engaged him to speak at our annual Partners’ Network Power Breakfast.
My purpose in writing this is not my personal journey through memory lane, but to introduce you to an excellent, and short, marketing book. I purchased the Kindle version to reread it before writing this column. His “10th Anniversary Edition” was published in 2014 but is still as relevant and crisp as the original. Good marketing ideas do not wither with age, and as long as they are used, adapted to the ever-changing media and customer needs and subjected to market dictated iterations, they grow stronger and more significant. Of course, this is true some of the time. Your results, experiences, message, follow-through, creativity and imagination will determine the validity of your marketing.
I believe this book is a strong contender for your interest and attention. I also recommend using it to get started following my 2000 🡪 70 🡪 40 🡪 12 🡪 1 🡪 60 growth method. There are probably 2,000 ideas you can adopt or wish you could, but practically only about 70 are really relevant to you. Of those, there are likely about 40 that are just right for you, but doing them becomes too overwhelming of a project, so nothing is done for lack of deciding which to start with. My suggestion is to make a goal of learning and doing one new thing a month. That means you will have accomplished 12 new ways of growth over the course of a year, and 60 new ways over the next five years. That is pretty impressive and should greatly add to your success.
My takeaway is to pick one new thing a month to use, adopt, try or put in practice. This book has many ideas. Pick one for this month. Next month, pick it from some other source, or go back to this book, or maybe get it from one of my columns posted here, and you will be on your way to 60 new things over the next five years. Pretty cool!
Do not hesitate to contact me at emendlowitz@withum.com with your practice management questions or about engagements you might not be able to perform.
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