Great Gift Ideas for Your Clients and Other Deserving Professionals

As the winter holidays approach, individuals and firms alike often struggle to find the perfect gifts. Atlanta Professional Advisors, a group of business owners and thought leaders of which Bonnie is a part, recently discussed the annual challenge and shared our favorite solutions for the present dilemma. We’ve got no idea what you should give…

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Find Out What It’s Like to Be Your Client

by Sarah Warlick, content director Ever wonder what it’s really like to be a client working with your firm? That’s important information and try as you might, you’re simply not going to find out by looking at your own experience or that of your staff. The solution is simple: engage professional help to conduct client interviews…

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The Business Benefits of Being Brutally Honest

  by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager It was the first day of my freshman year of high school. As I sat in my homeroom seat waiting for the bell to ring, a kid walked in and sat down next to me. He was new to the school, and having been the new kid…

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Responsiveness Beats SEO When It Comes to Gaining New Clients

  Published in Accounting Today on February 6, 2013 by Sarah Warlick, copywriter and editor Don’t rely on SEO to do things it can’t. The best search optimization in the world won’t help if your business isn’t ready to welcome the potential clients it attracts. Many firms get so wrapped up in the quest for perfectly…

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I don’t mean to “Complain,” but…

  by Kelly Googe Lucas, marketing and social media manager Each and every single day I receive several newsletters and email blast announcements. They come from clients, vendors and others with whom I registered for something a million years ago and they still have me in their system. For the most part, I just skim…

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Deathbed Regrets and Choosing to be Happy in 2012!

  by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president This is the time of year when most of us take stock of how we’ve done and where we are going. I encourage our clients to do this on a regular basis, but the end of the year just naturally makes us all want to take a look at…

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Support Your Local Small Businesses This Saturday

  We are all familiar with Black Friday. Most know about Cyber Monday too. Now, show of hands, how many of you have heard of Small Business Saturday? My guess is that most of you haven’t. It may be lesser-known but this is the most satisfying and personal of the bunch. Best of all, it’s…

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How to Become a High Growth Professional Services Firm

  Hinge Marketing recently reached out to us on Twitter, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them in the last few weeks. I was interested in the research they had done with professional service firms, so agreed to have them guest post on the BBR Marketing blog. Now that I see their results, I’m pretty…

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How to Change your Facebook News Feed

  by Kelly Lucas, marketing and social media manager I opened up my Facebook account this morning to find a great many of my friends and family kvetching about the new layout. At first I got a good giggle out of it. I mean, aren’t we used to changes on our social networking sites? They…

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Congratulations to Two Outstanding Clients!

  I can’t tell you how proud I am to announce that two of my clients were recognized on the 40 Under 40 list by CPA Practice Advisor! These two women, Cathy Iconis (page 27) and Kerri Gibson (page 36) are both powerhouses. They are highly respected for what they do, regardless of age, but…

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Can an Entrepreneur Really Take a Vacation?

  I don’t know about you, but I work a lot. And I mean A LOT! Since I started my company two years ago, I typically work around 60 hours a week, and some weeks are even more than that. This did not catch me off guard, as I was warned that the first two…

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Getting Positive Results from Negative Feedback

  by Kelly Googe Lucas, marketing and social media manager I think it’s safe to say no one really likes to receive negative feedback on a service their firm provides. You put a lot of time and effort into creating and delivering services as perfectly as you can, and then someone comes along and pulls…

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Weeding your Garden

Many years ago, someone I considered one of my dearest friends hurt me deeply, and not for the first time. In comforting me, another friend, Bob, told me something I live by to this day. “Sometimes, you have to weed your garden. While it may be a pretty weed, or one to which you’ve grown…

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The Lost Art of Letter Writing

by Kelly Googe Lucas, Marketing and Social Media Manager, BBR Marketing When I was interviewing for jobs out of college, I made a point of sending a hand-written Thank You letter to each person with whom I had met. If I talked with seven people at the same firm, I sent out seven separate letters.…

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Free Business Books on Kindle

I found several law and business themed eBooks that are currently free. This could change at any moment (they don’t really let you know when it will go on sale as free and when it ends, so it’s the luck of the draw), so I advise that you hurry on over and grab these, or look for others, while you can.

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How strong are your client relationships?

Do you really know what your clients think of your firm, staff and services? Would they consider putting their work up for review? Are you meeting all their needs?

Even the best client relationships can be improved. Many times you won’t know when your best clients are unhappy and considering other providers. In a time when clients are looking for the best value for their dollar more than ever, many of your strongest accounts could be at risk, and you won’t know it until it’s too late.

After seeing this happen in the marketplace time and time again, BBR Marketing developed its Client Relationship Check (CRC) program. By engaging your key clients in a meaningful dialogue about the services your firm provides, you walk away with valuable information from which you can make adjustments, offer new services to retain – and improve – your client relationships.

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