Millennials vs Generation Z: What Businesses Need to Know!

Generation Z (Gen Z) is a demographic group born after 1995. The oldest members of Gen Z are turning 21 this year, which means that some have already graduated from University. Gen Z is a much smaller demographic cohort than Gen Y (also known as millennials).

It would be easy to assume that Gen Z are just an exaggerated version of the generation that came before them, spending even more of their lives on social media, doing even more of their shopping online, and demonstrating an ever-greater collaborative nature. But Gen Z grew up in a starkly different historical context than millennials, which has given them a distinct outlook on the world.

Millennials invented Facebook, shopped from their smartphones, and moved from satellite TV to Netflix. Gen Z, meanwhile, doesn't remember life without these basics of 21st century life. Millennials came of age during a time of economic expansion and were shocked to find a diminished, difficult job market after university; whereas Gen Z sees a tough job market as the norm. They are a generation that has been shaped by the recession and are prepared to fight hard to create a stable future for themselves.

Market research has shown that compared to any generation before them, Gen Z is less trusting of brands. They have grown up in an era where information is always available via the internet, social media, etc. They can research products and brands and see other users' reviews of them online.
Gen Z are financially cautious.

They grew up hearing horror stories about how many millennials ended up living at home after university, sitting on a mountain of debt, so they tend to save more and spend less than millennials. In a recent study, 89% said they remain optimistic about their futures, which is higher than any other generation on record.

So what should you be aware of when you are thinking about hiring Gen Z employees? Gen Z wants to do work that makes a difference and has a positive impact on the world. But they’re also more concerned about job security than the generation just before them.

They were at a very impressionable age during the financial crisis. This implies Gen Z would rather develop a career in one place than hop from employer to employer.

What's your Business's Unique Selling Point?

Most good marketing campaigns will focus on communicating a firm’s Unique Selling Point (USP). In today’s crowded market, customers have more choice than ever before. This increase in competition makes finding, defining and communicating your USP more important than ever before.

So what is your firm’s USP? Do you offer the faster or better or cheaper product or service? Maybe your people are regarded as the best or most efficient? What is it that is truly unique about your business?

When it comes to your product or service, you will know how it works and so you should understand exactly what it is that you do cheaper/ better / faster than your competitors. The problem is that your customers are trying to decide between choosing your product / service or one from your competitor. They don't know as much about your product line as you do. Getting them to choose your firm can therefore be a real challenge.

The problem with most marketing campaigns that focus on a USP is that they try to communicate the “what” rather than the “why”. Most businesses will talk about what it is that they do. They probably won’t talk about why it is that they do it. However to really stand out, you need to differentiate your firm. Maybe you should think about using the “why” as your USP.

This is a point that is well made by Simon Sinek in his famous Ted Talk. Sinek, a bestselling author, set out to discover why companies like Apple have been able to achieve such huge success, while others with the same resources have failed.

He outlined how Apple focuses on “Why” rather than “What”. What is it that Apple makes? They make electronics. They make tablets, laptops, desktops, portable music players and watches that have a nice design. They make nice software. That isn’t any different to any other electronics manufacturer. However, Apple builds its core marketing message on “Why”.

The core marketing message from Apple would likely be something along the lines of “With everything we do, we aim to challenge the status quo. We aim to think differently. Our products are user friendly, beautifully designed, and easy to use. We just happen to make great computers.”

Taking this as an example you can create a USP and associated marketing message for your business which communicates “Why” it is that you do what you do and how this is of benefit to your customers (and potential customers).

3 Tips to Develop an Effective Content Marketing Strategy!

Most businesses will at some point, consider creating a content marketing strategy in order to engage with customers. When you develop a content marketing strategy, you should start by thinking about your target audience rather than just looking internally towards your business. Here are a few tips to help you to develop an effective content marketing strategy.

Educational Content 

When it comes to your firm’s content marketing strategy, you should focus on creating well written content that is of educational value to your readers. If you are selling HR advisory services, for example, then you might consider producing content that provides your readers with useful tips on how to create certain HR policies or manage staff absences, etc. Your readers will then consider that you and your firm understand these areas and may potentially decide to use your services as a result.

Leverage your content

After you publish your content, you will need to promote it. Perhaps you could create a social media strategy whereby you publish your content to your company website, then post links to Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media pages so that people can share your content with their network. You may also want to share your content via an email newsletter or client update. The key is to find as many ways as possible of sharing your content and re-purpose it in order to maximise the potential readership.

The WIIFM concept

WIIFM stands for What's In It For Me? What that means is that regardless of what you are selling (product, service, etc), all that matters to your customers is that you have the ability to solve a particular problem that they are experiencing at that particular moment. The way that you phrase your marketing content has a tremendous impact on how that target audience reacts to what they are reading.

In today’s increasingly connected business world, content is becoming more important. Some clients are more likely to visit your website or social media page than your office premises. As such, creating the right content strategy for your business is key.

Marketing Messages - How to make them stand out?

Regardless of the type of business that you run, your customers will have one thing in common.  As a result of technology, they are bombarded by marketing messages. Customers are more time-poor than ever before so if you want your marketing communications to stand out, you should consider cutting down the length of your messages and getting to the point.

Identify the message that matters most and make sure it's memorable.  Marketers have known for decades that there's value in identifying and driving home the most important point or benefit. It goes all the way back to when the best businesses began to identify their unique selling proposition (USP) for every client.

The difference today is the way that viewers and readers consume media. Today's reader or viewer is overwhelmed with an astounding number of media choices and channels. In fact, consumers are exposed to so many messages that they notice fewer of them.  Here are a few tips to help you get your point across.

1. Focus on what is most relevant to your customers 

Focus on what your target audience see first and outline what is most important and relevant to them. Avoid the temptation to use that first impression to deliver what you or the management team finds most interesting, unless you're also the target audience.

2. Write active rather than passive sentences

Active sentences are more vigorous and put more life into the message. Here's an example: "We deliver shipping services to clients nationally." This is much punchier than saying "Shipping services are delivered by us to clients nationally."

3. Avoid jargon

Try to avoid formal, overly corporate language. Where possible avoid using big words with several syllables. The business world is now very much a global market and English may not be your customer’s first language.

4. Make it about them

Use the words "you" and "your" much more than "I" and "we." If you catch yourself saying "I" and "we" a lot, then you're talking about yourself too much. Get back to being focused on your reader and their needs and concerns.

5. Be concise

If you can say something in 10 words don’t use 120 words instead. Cut out the fluff and keep your message concise. Remember, your potential customer is time-poor so you need to keep the message relevant.

Apple iPad Pro - Things you need to know from business perspective!

The iPad Pro follows the general design principles of the iPad Air 2, but on a significantly larger scale. Aside from the increase in screen area, there are some key design differences, each corresponding to a functional difference.

One is that there are four speakers, as opposed to the twin speakers on the iPad Air 2. This results in far more volume output of course, and Apple says the device is also smart enough to adjust audio balance between the four units to maintain a consistent performance as you hold the iPad in different ways. There is also a new type of connector on the left hand side. Apple calls it the Smart Connector, and it's designed to fit the new Smart Keyboard accessory. Its not yet known if third parties will produce their own accessories to fit the Smart Connector, but it’s fairly likely that a range of accessories will be available in due course.

 

Source: techgadgetcentral.com

The iPad Pro gets a super-powered A9X processor chip, one that Apple claims is close to twice the speed of the iPad Air 2's A8X. It also comes with a 12.9-inch display, compared to the 9.7-inch display on the iPad Air and the 7.9-inch display on the iPad mini. That's 78 percent more screen space than the next-largest iPad. Apple claims the iPad Pro will last for 10 hours (of video play or web use) between charges. That figure is the same as the quoted battery life for the iPad Air 2.

A diagonal measurement of 12.9 inches makes for a device that is both sharply differentiated from the smaller iPads and a convenient size in terms of productivity and ease of use. The iPad Pro's screen is also pleasingly sharp, with a massive screen resolution of 2732 x 2048, the largest resolution ever seen on an iOS device. That's the same pixel density - 264.68 pixels per inch (ppi) - as the iPad Air 2, stretched across a much bigger screen. 

With a total of 5.6 million pixels on show, Apple boasts that the iPad Pro has more pixels than the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. And it's supposed to be power-efficient too, with the ability to adjust refresh rate as and when the movement on the screen warrants it. "For the first time in any of our devices," says Apple, "iPad Pro knows when the content on your screen is static and cuts the refresh rate in half, to 30 times per second instead of 60. This means that the screen isn’t just big, beautiful and bright. It's also incredibly energy efficient."

Apple has finally given way and launched a stylus, called the Apple Pencil, intended to offer pressure-sensitive drawing and painting rather than a standard control method. The Apple Pencil charges by plugging directly into the the iPad Pro’s Lightening Connector port.

The new iPad Pro will come in 64GB or 128GB versions, the latter coming with or without 4G LTE. The iPad Pro is backed by some new accessories: a detachable fabric keyboard and the aforementioned Apple Pencil stylus.

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Half My Advertising Is Wasted, I Just Don’t Know Which Half”

I read an interesting (and disturbing) statistic recently from Forbes. It stated that 45% of CEOs agree that ‘marketing efforts are wasting money’.

Yes, I’m an accountant (and proud of it) but I’m also a business owner. In many respects I’m in a unique position. I not only have to run and build our firm, I also get to advise dozens of other business owners (our clients) on growing their firms, making sure their financial management is as good as it can be, and ensuring they don’t pay a penny more in tax than they have to.

However, we are different to most accountants because we take an active role in helping our clients grow. That’s why we invested a considerable sum to give our clients access to one of the world’s leading sales and marketing systems (the BGSvault).

But when I read that statistic from Forbes, it reminded me of a famous quote from department store mogul John Wanamaker, who said: "Half my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half".

It’s fair to say I have this discussion regularly with a number of our clients. They don’t measure the results of their marketing, so they have no way of knowing what’s working and what isn’t makes my team and me very ‘number conscious’. We do measure everything. That includes our marketing. I want to know if I spent X on a strategy, what return did I get?

Why is that important? Well, it means I know which strategies to invest more of our hard-earned money into and which strategies to ditch or try and improve. It’s not rocket science, but as small-business owners we have to watch the pennies and leverage as many things as we can.

I also smiled when I read that statistic from Forbes. I wonder how many CEOs actually know what their marketing results are and which strategies work. It is highly likely they are just like John Wanamaker—they haven’t got a clue.

This one simple act of measuring the results (or lack) of ALL your marketing is so simple, yet it will have a significant effect on the growth of your firm.  It’s your job to make   sure   you  put  in  place  a  mechanism that  gives  you this  data.  In   my   experience,  I can  tell you, it is TRANSFORMATIONAL!

How to keep your clients happy? 8 Simple Steps!

Keeping existing clients happy is a lot easier than acquiring new ones. But that’s easier said than done.

Think of yourself as a customer. When you walk into a shop, you expect to be treated in a certain way - a smile, a small greeting, “Hello, how are you?” and you want to feel like you matter.

You don’t want to be treated as just another customer. Excellent service makes a difference to how you perceived the experience and if you return to that store again.

Opposite our office we have a coffee shop called Rise. If I ever want a coffee, I go there and wouldn’t think about going anywhere else. This is all because of their excellent customer service.

Even before you are at the counter ready to order, you’re greeted with a friendly “Hello” and the staff make you feel valued and appreciated. Here are a few ways you can keep your clients happy so they are amazed by your service and never want to leave…

1. GIVE FREE ADVICE

If you come across as only wanting fees from your clients, they’ll run in the opposite direction. Giving free advice shows that you care about your clients’ success. It doesn’t mean you have to be on the phone with them every day answering a list of questions, but if they know you’re available to give advice when they need it, you’re more likely to be referred.

Don’t think about trying to sell them other services - treat it as a form of developing the relationship with your clients.

2. UNDER-PROMISE AND OVER-DELIVER

We say this a lot to our clients, but it’s true! If you promise someone too much, you’re putting pressure on yourself just to impress.

If you can see them for one hour a week, but you tell them they’re entitled to 30 minutes of your time every single week—they’ll be blown away when you over-deliver.
 

That’s a lot better than making promises you can’t keep (even though your intentions are never to break them).

3. COMMUNICATE CLEARLY WITH CLIENTS

If there is anything clients like - it’s to be kept informed, even if you have some bad news to tell them. Don’t let months go by without speaking to them. And this goes for your team too. Make it part of your team ethos to regularly keep in contact with clients about their workload. No matter how small the situation may seem, if a client’s work changes, they should be informed. 

It will go a long way in creating excellent customer service. 

Feedback emails are a great way to check in with clients to make sure they’re happy with the service provided. Ask your team to send an email to clients every few months making sure that everything is running smoothly. (This is a great way to keep your firm moving forward.)

4. BE AVAILABLE

Similar to point 3, communication is key to developing a strong relationship and making sure everything runs smoothly. 

You can’t be available every hour of every day, but there’s nothing worse for a client than not being able to get in touch with their accountant. Set aside a few hours a day when you are free to chat to clients if they ever need you and let them know that you’re unavailable any time outside of these hours.
 

People don’t like to be left in the dark about things, and if they haven’t received a response back from you within a few days, then they will lose confidence that you care.

5. DELIVER WORLD-CLASS WORK

This goes without saying really, but if clients aren’t satisfied with the service provided, they will cancel.
The primary reason clients came to you is because of the service you provided, and not how great your customer service is. Keep track of any work your team might do for clients, so you are always aware of the status of their work.
 

If your service isn’t up to scratch and they don’t see results - you can expect a cancellation.

6. ASK YOUR CLIENTS QUESTIONS

The only way to know what your clients want is to ask them. Feedback emails (as mentioned earlier) are an excellent way to over-deliver. And it goes a long way that you made the effort to ask.
 

Ask questions about their company too - find out the best times to communicate with them, what excellent customer service means to them, what their goals are and more. Establish what their expectations are and exceed them. Treat this as an opportunity to get to know your clients too.

7. MAKE EVERYTHING PERSONAL

People like personalisation and not being treated as just another client (think back to what I said about Rise earlier). This means every moment of truth with the client should be personal - from their name on letters to a personal touch to emails.
 

Make all of your clients feel appreciated. If you’re holding an event - invite them along. Invest time in building a relationship with each and every one of them.

8. UNDERSTAND THEIR POINT OF VIEW

Your clients are busy people and you won’t always get a response from them as quickly as you’d like. If you know that you need something from them, then asking the day before isn’t sensible. You have to put them first. 

Put yourself in their shoes. If they’re upset with how a member of the team has spoken with them, empathise and do everything you can to turn the situation around. Get the facts from your team and see the situation from the client’s side. (This doesn’t mean they’re always right, but look at things from their side)

PJ

For Accounting, Marketing, Business Building help, contact us:
☎ 020 89310165 | ☏ 07900537459 | ✉ info@apjaccountancy.com

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7 Strategies To Capitalise On Your Acres Of Diamonds!

When you’re constantly looking to acquire more clients, it’s easy to forget about your most prized asset - your EXISTING clients. This is a mistake I see often.

In many ways, it’s easy to understand why existing clients are neglected, but it’s no excuse.

Growing your firm is challenging (I don’t need to tell you that). But having strategies to retain existing clients and to maximise profits from them are without doubt the quickest, easiest and most cost-effective ways to grow your accounting firm AND give you the income and earnings you desire.

So let’s take a look at the different strategies you can use right now to capitalise on the relationship you already have with your existing clients… 

STRATEGY #1: INCREASE YOUR FEES ANNUALLY

The best and easiest way to maximise profits is to increase your fees. This is a no-brainer.
Systematically increase your fees by at least 15% EVERY year.
You’ll be surprised how few clients you lose as a result and the ones that do leave are the ones you don’t want anyway (price-conscious).

The reason why price increases are so successful is because YOU’RE NOT CHARGING ENOUGH RIGHT NOW ANYWAY. There’s a significant element of added value which you can capitalise on - and increasing your prices is the easiest way to do this.

STRATEGY #2: WOW YOUR CLIENTS WITH MOMENTS OF TRUTH

One of the best ways to add value, build strong relationships and retain clients is to use Moments Of Truth (MOT). We discuss MOT often in these pages, but if you’re new to AFG, MOT are the steps you take at each interaction with your clients to ensure their experience with you is exceptional.

If you focus on every interaction you have with a client and make this the BEST it can be each time, you will create a world-class service.

You’ll retain far more clients and strengthen the bond you have with them - making them less susceptible to the advances of your competition.

STRATEGY #3: TELL THEM WHAT YOU SELL

I know this sounds almost ridiculous, but guess what? Your clients don’t know what you sell.

How many times have you spoken to a client and they’ve turned to you and said something like, “We’ve just gone to ABC company for XYZ,” only for you to turn round to them and say, “Didn’t you know we do that?”

This is more common than you think. Plus, it also brings into focus that if they don’t know what you offer, they won’t even think to buy it. So making them aware of what you sell will prevent many clients from sourcing this service from other suppliers and also increase the likelihood of them buying the service from you.

There are more, but here are 2 easy ways to do this…

1. Include a list of services with short descriptions in your newsletter (see next strategy). This can either be within the newsletter itself or as an insert.
2. Send a letter 4 times a year making clients aware of the services you sell. A good way to do this is to use a tick-box approach whereby you ask them to tick the services they would like more information on. You then follow up with those who want more information. This strategy alone will yield significant income opportunities for you.

STRATEGY #4: SEND A MONTHLY PRINTED NEWSLETTER

This is still one of the least-used strategies, but sending a printed monthly newsletter to clients is one of the best things you can do. Done right, it can achieve all of the following for you…

• Help to retain clients
• Get clients to buy new services from you
• Motivate clients to buy more existing services from you
• Keep clients engaged with you, strengthening your relationship with them
• Differentiate you from the competition
• And much, much more

To begin with, keep it simple. 4 pages is ample, but your goal should be to increase to 8 pages.

STRATEGY #5: SEGMENT YOUR CLIENT LIST

Segmenting their client list is something that very few firms ever do. Instead, they treat every client in the same way. But, clients are not created equally. Pareto’s ‘80/20 Rule’ is applicable to your client base. 80% of your profit will come from 20% of your clients. 80% of your headaches come from 20% of your clients, and so on. It is vital that you identify who your best clients are, so you can focus on giving them the attention they deserve. Reference our execution plan on ‘A-D Client Segmentation’ for more details.

STRATEGY #6: PHONE YOUR BEST CLIENTS

Now you’ve segmented your client list, you can start to communicate more with your best clients (’A’ and ‘B+’).

Simply picking up the phone once or twice a year and having a general discussion on how things are going will ultimately lead to more opportunities and, therefore, more business for you.

STRATEGY #7: CLIENT APPRECIATION EVENT

Once a year, you should organise a ‘Client Appreciation Event’ either at your office or a local hotel/restaurant and treat your best clients. Once again, you’ll be surprised by how much extra business this generates for you.

There are, of course, many more strategies you can use to generate more and more business from your clients. These 7 strategies are a good place to start.



To know more and be up-to-date, contact us:
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How To Market Your Business On Facebook And Twitter!

There are so many social media channels available that it’s hard to keep up, but it’s important to be familiar with each platform at your disposal. And as you want to create brand awareness, you can’t afford to ignore what makes each one unique.

If you’ve found an interesting article you want to share with your ‘fanbase’, what platform do you upload it to? Facebook? Twitter? You probably think it doesn’t matter where you upload it: as long as it’s online, people might see it.

But it does matter. Each channel is unique. It has different resources, and there are different types of people there. You want to post your content to a platform where it will be appreciated and users will engage with it. 

92% of business owners indicated that social media is important to their business, according to Forbes. In other words, getting it right can significantly impact your growth.

People use social media to learn new information, discover people and companies, and keep updated with news and share stories.

FACEBOOK

Facebook has a community culture.  People use it to connect with people they know. Many of us don’t accept invitations from people we don’t know. What this means to you is that you don’t want to just post information about your industry.

A recent study by Boston University found that people use Facebook to fulfil their need to belong and the need for self-presentation. People upload family pictures and share personal information on Facebook because they want to let people in on their lives. Private people tend to not update their Facebook profile regularly because they aren’t comfortable letting people in. 
  

1. Share Your Feelings, Values And Thoughts 

Facebook is a space to express your private life. People should get to know you - not your business - by what you post. That means avoid over-promoting your website and contact information. If you’re wondering why your page is receiving few ‘Likes’, it’s probably because you’re doing just that.  Provide insight into who you are by creative posts that have personality.

2. Track Your Audience

Understand who is following you and post content they would find appealing. You can’t be selfish in social media. After all, you are posting content for other people to engage with.

3. Post Pictures More Than Text

 There has been a move to becoming more visual, because people are more likely to read your post if there is an image accompanying it. This     is because when people scroll       their timeline , images are more               eye-catching than text.

4. Add  Links To Relevant  Content 

You have a lot of room to write your status. The huge bonus to this channel is that people can share and ‘like’ posts they find interesting, so you show up on their friends’ news feed.

TWITTER

Twitter is the easiest social media platform to grow because you can connect with other users directly. With every tweet you upload, the ultimate goal is for people to
retweet it, and then their followers to retweet, though that of course takes time and dedication.

The benefit of Twitter is  that you can easily connect with people from all around the world.

1. Make Conversation 

People love sharing their thoughts on Twitter and expect companies to have a social media presence. Don’t just put a tweet out there and expect people to ‘do something with it’. Ask questions to get a conversation rolling. You could even hold a regular Twitter chat where you answer questions.

2. Don’t Put Lengthy Tweets 

It sounds crazy that you only have 140 characters and I’m telling you to not use all of them. But the idea of Twitter is that you can receive information quickly by scrolling through your timeline. If users see a lengthy post, they’re likely to skip it, especially as most people scroll through quickly before work, at dinner and in the evenings.

3. Use Text More Than Images 

Contrary to Facebook, text performs better than images, according to quicksprout.com. In addition, I encourage you to write tweets that contain a link - specifically to your website.  Share interesting articles and news you think your followers will be interested in too, even if it isn’t something from your website.

4. Use Quotes

 You are an expert; you know what people want to know. Post motivational quotes to show that you are passionate about your industry.

5. Add A Call To Action

 The best way to get someone to do something is to tell them. Post a link to your website with text    saying ‘click here for more info’. Put things like ‘RT if you are looking for an Accountant’ to get people to engage with you.

6. Tag Suitable People

 If you decide to tweet a link to an article, why not try to find the writer on Twitter and mention them in your tweet?  The person may see this in their notifications and retweet, so their followers see your account.

It’s essential that you post for the right platform to sustain a strong social media presence.  Always think what your followers would want to read and see, to keep you focussed.

PJ

☎ 020 89310165

☏ 07900537459

✉ pushkar.joshi@apjaccountancy.com