This section features special articles covering the AAM Summit. More articles are featured in our Best Practices section. Even more articles are archived in our Members Only section.

Developing an Effective Sales Organization
By: Sarah Johnson
Successful sales organizations need to have four key components working together in order to be effective, according to Larry Bildstein of the Whetstone Group. Those components include:
Strategic marketing
Marketing & sales support
Sales people
Sales manager

From Marketing to Practice Growth – Becoming a Director of Practice Growth
By: Sarah Johnson

Directors of practice growth are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Becoming a director of practice growth requires specific skills and strategy. According to Gale Crosely, Crosley + Company, here’s how one becomes a director of practice growth.

Gain Credibility with Your Partners
By Kristen Ludwig

Bridging the gap between marketing and accounting mindsets in one of the chief struggles marketing directors face. According to Lyne Noella and Jill Joffrion of Stonefield Josephson, while there are differences in perception between the two groups, there are ways to improve communication.

Getting Things Done: Personal Productivity Strategies
By: Kim Cooley

Jocelyn Coverdale was a very effective speaker – straight and to the point, easy to understand and follow. She opened the segment by asking each attendee to complete a self-assessment test designed to help us determine “where we are” as far as our organizational skills go. For those who scored low on the organizational skills chart, Coverdale offered encouragement and stated that becoming organized is a process – it’s never a “once and for all” thing.

Jump Start Your Sales Process with Telemarketing
By Kathy Lombardino

Having just hired outside telemarketers for a very successful lead generation campaign, I was interested in how I could continue to use telemarketing as part of our overall practice growth strategy. After attending Jump Start Your Sales Process with Telemarketing at the 2006 AAM Conference, I learned not only how to effectively use this tool, but more importantly, why telemarketing should be an integral part of practice development and how it is a catalyst for growth.

Killer Advertising and Marketing
By: Kim Cooley

To develop your firm’s most killer advertising, you must focus. And, focus starts with a message – but most firms relay the same message: we are big, we are old, we represent everyone, we do lots of things and we do all of them the best. The advertising includes the obligatory photos of people in conference rooms, handshakes, money symbols, etc.

What’s a Marketing Plan Look Like?
By: Vicki Lock

Planning the Plan
The first step is to determine the firm’s strategy by interviewing your managing partner and other leaders within the firm and gathering information about the long term direction and goals of the firm, industry niches, firm services and strategic emphasis and what makes your firm and your firm’s people different from the competition.

Sales as an Art and a Science
By: Vicki Lock

Good salespeople follow a strict process, and they also possess the natural ability to sell. The sales process, a series of steps that are carried out in order to achieve a predictable result, includes:

The State of the Profession
By: Kristen Ludwig

Veteran marketers from a diverse slate of firms share their thoughts on the state of the accounting marketing profession. Mitch Reno, Director of Sales & Marketing for the Rehmann Group; Edmund Russ, Chief Marketing Officer for Grant Thornton; and, Carol Schraeger, Director of Marketing at Friedman, LLP have all seen their firms double in size over the past two years. In a question and answer format, these professional share their own perspective on trends in the accounting industry and address issues including capturing market share, the changes Sarbanes-Oxley has brought to their firms, and defining sales and marketing roles, among others.

Strategic Planning 101
By: Becca Davis

There is a difference between being “strategic” and “tactical.” A strategy, according to Sally Glick Chief Marketing Officer of Sobel & Co. LLC, is a plan for action, whereas tactics are the “actionable steps that will accomplish the strategy.”

Using Technology to Market Smarter
By Melissa Farmer

Firms should use technologies including customer relationship management (CRM), web presence and blogging to market smarter, according to two true authorities on technology and marketing, Joe Rotella, SPHR, CTO of Delphia Consulting, LLC, and Anne Stanton, MVP-CRM, MBA/ACC, Presi