Mark's Magic of Success plus advice on how to avoid getting Pay Per Click and Adwords all wrong

I hope you have been able to enjoy the good weather. I'm still keeping up with my daily walks and thrice weekly exercise regime - at home. I haven't braved a return to the gym yet.

Below you'll find more real-life practical ideas and in.sights, plus my advice on how to avoid getting it all wrong with Pay Per Click and Adwords. Lastly this week's fun item contains some late night thoughts of young auditors.

3 practical tips I shared recently in 1-2-1 sessions

My mentoring clients found these tips helpful in the context of their issues, challenges and problems. I hope you will too.

1. Respect yourself and your colleagues: Treat internal meetings (whether with colleagues or alone) with the same respect as you would with a client. If they are in the diary do not allow other client matters to take priority. When you do that you are showing everyone that you do NOT respect your colleagues. Be clear as to your priorities and reliable - not just so far as clients are concerned.
2. Focus on your strengths: You have a tendency to worry about your weaknesses rather than to celebrate your strengths. As you focus more on these, as we discussed, you are bound to increase your resilience, confidence, success and happiness.
3. Its OK to say NO to a referral: If the prospect isn't right for you going forward, then know that it's OK not to accept the work. Taking on work solely because you don't want to miss an opportunity to generate additional short-term income, risks you working hard for little profit.

More on mentoring >>>

Strategic lead generation

Here's just a couple of the virtual sessions you can book me to present 1-2-1 or for your office/team:

MMMMM – Mastering the 5 Ms – Ideal if your business development activities are a little unfocused and you are struggling to win the new clients and work you really want to be doing.

Lead generation using Linkedin – Basic and advanced opportunities for accountants to use Linkedin effectively to source the leads you really want.

Find out more >>>

Topical tax commentary on Linkedin

If you are at all active on Linkedin, you can follow The Tax Advice Network business page. You may find the posts insightful and useful. The Linkedin algorithm should also then reflect your interest in the posts you see on your home page feed.

Latest posts on Linkedin:

• Harry Potter and the ￡10million payoff - This news story relates to alleged negligent advice regarding the tax deductibility of the ￡10m in question.
• An official Government body recently referenced a concern about the low level of public awareness of a certain UK tax. Do you know which one?
• This is the sort of argument tax advisers will often make. But do HMRC agree? Does it matter?

Don’t waste your time with Pay Per Click ads – try this instead

Because of the subjects I write about, the blogs I read and how many accountants write to me, I see loads of Accountants’ Pay per Click (Adwords) adverts. And most of them are evidently not doing the business.

If you use Pay per Click (PPC) you’re hoping that your advert will catch someone’s eye.

Your advert may be aimed at those people who, having searched for ‘accountant in Harrow’ choose to ignore all of the search results for accountants in Harrow; and instead choose to click an advert on the side of the page. And if they click on your advert you will ‘pay per click’. Of course most people ignore these adverts and simply choose one of the natural search results.

Your advert might also be intended to appear on other websites whenever someone is reading about something related to accountancy or tax. You are hoping that they will see your advert and click on it.

How often do YOU click the adverts that you see in either of the above scenarios?

Never mind. Let’s assume that you still think that ‘pay per click’ adverts are worth a try. You really need to first understand a key insight.

You can read about that and further advice from a PPC specialist friend of mine on my blog post here >>>

Fun time - Late night thoughts of young auditors

You must be an account receivable, because you're outstanding

“As a student, you are either struggling academically, financially, or emotionally.” If you’re an auditor, well... all three.

“Treat me like interest. Compound me.”

“Work-life balance in audit is like Santa. We all wish it existed, but it does not.”

“My boss thinks taking us out to dinner is a bonus. I don’t need his dinner I need cash.”

“Are you a bank loan? Because you have my interest.”

“If you could be any TB account? Which would it be?” - Goodwill because people never want to write you off

If I could substantively test how boys felt about me, my life would be so much easier. I could send confirms to their exes, recalculate average time between reading their texts and replying, doing a search for "unrecorded liabilities" aka side hoes

Originally collated and shared on the twitter account @overheardaudit

There's plenty more to make you laugh on the Accounting Fun blog here >>>

I look forward to speaking with you

You can take your chances 07769 692890

or book a call at a time that suits us both: www.calendly.com/bookmarklee

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Mark Lee FCA provides strategic advice, talks and mentoring to accountants and tax advisers who want to improve their reach, referrals and results. He is also Chairman of the Tax Advice Network, the UK’s largest network of independent tax advisers.

Mark has long been a popular speaker for UK accountants both on stage and online. Informed, entertaining and commercial he also debunks hype and misconceptions. Earlier in his career he was a partner in two top firms. He has a number of voluntary roles including being Treasurer of The Magic Circle.

BookMarkLee.co.uk