Episode 213: Should You be The Face of Your Accounting Firm?

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Show Notes:

Timestamps 

0:00 - Intro

1:35 - My thoughts on Threads

8:05 - What does it mean to be the face of your business?

9:35 - Do you need someone to be the face of your business?

11:00 - Your Options

14:15 - Tech Companies & Their Partners

16:00 - Who should be the face of your business?

18:40 - Some Challenges You May Face

23:30 - Final Thoughts

Podcast Transcript

INTRO

Welcome to another episode of the Media Books podcast. 

In this podcast episode, I'm going to be talking about being the face of your accounting firm. What does it mean? What does it mean to be the face of your accounting firm? Do you need someone to be the face? Should you be the face? How do you act professional online while also going behind the curtain to show your everyday life?

Back in the day, you played golf to grow partnerships. Now you post a photo of what you did over the weekend. Let's talk about it. 

But first, we got to talk about threads.

My thoughts on Threads

Okay, so I am recording this podcast episode July 11th, and threads just came out. It is blowing up on social media, it is all over Instagram. And this sort of spike, there's parts of it that remind me a lot of Clubhouse. If you remember Clubhouse, I'm going to be talking about threads.

Clubhouse, if you remember Clubhouse, or you know, maybe you're unfamiliar to begin with. Clubhouse actually launched in April of 2020, but they peaked in March of 2021. And everyone was on it, everyone was talking about it. But the creators ran into a bunch of issues that essentially made the app very difficult to use.

I talk about some of those challenges and reflect a little bit on those in episode 75. But essentially, you only got use out of the app when you were in the app. It basically had absolutely no shelf life, something that we've been talking about a lot on here. And it made it really challenging to grow your Clubhouse presence.

However, when it comes to threads, it is run and created by those over at Metta. And it seems like it's kind of being spearheaded by the Instagram team. These are the same people that own Facebook, sort of the Metta universe, they are building it out even more and threads is their latest venture.

So essentially, these people made social media what it is today. So I imagine they're not going to make the same mistakes as Clubhouse. But it definitely has that initial sort of excitement that was there. And frankly, even more so I've seen so many posts recently talking about how threads is the fastest growing social media app to hit 1 million downloads, I think it was like in two hours, something crazy. fastest growing social media app ever to date.

But I have divided my thoughts into threads, my thoughts of threads into different sections. The first is just setting up your profile using the app. If you're like, I don't want to have to learn another social media profile or social media platform. Threads is super, super simple.

Frankly, essentially, you just copy everything over from Instagram and says, Do you want to copy your profile image? Do you want to copy your bio? Do you want all your the same followers? And you just say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it took me less than one minute to set up. So setting up your profile getting up and running is the easiest thing. And once you're in the app, you're also going to find that it's super simple to use. I personally love a simple and minimalistic user interface. 

You know, I talked about that on flow about flow desk. That's why I really like that email campaign app. So it has a very simple just a few buttons. I don't know if they specifically designed it that way. Or it's part of the fact that they are still very much building out the app.

He's actually come out and said, there's still a lot of features that they're working on and they still have a ton more to do. So I don't know if it's just because it's early stages or this was their intention, but it is so simple to just find all the buttons. I learned it in a day. It wasn't difficult. And a lot of the buttons actually look very similar to Instagram. So if you're familiar with Instagram, or even Facebook, to be honest, I mean, you're going to have a very simple time learning threads.

That's obviously makes it even more easy to just jump in and start using it. And that's just when it comes to the buttons. When it comes to how you use it, it's going to be very similar to frankly, Twitter, and that it's just captions. One comment after another. Some people are comparing it to TikTok. Some people are just saying it's Instagram, but without the photos, it's social media. You're you know, if you're familiar with social media, you should be able to jump in and start using it.

So you're going to be able to just jump in there pretty quickly.

My last kind of initial thought with threads is that you are constantly right now, you are constantly getting hit with dopamine because everyone is joining threads. So your follower count is increasing. Remember, they're bringing over those same sort of followers following from Instagram. You're going to see that initial growth pretty quickly. You're probably going to think, oh, this is the next app. I'm growing so quickly here.

My assumption is that this is eventually going to level out once they kind of have an idea of who's or once people kind of get used to the app and people have decided, you know, that initial decision of whether they're going to be on the app or not.

Eventually you are going to have to consider some marketing strategy. Right now, a lot of it's just kind of having fun on the app.

I do look forward to seeing where threads will go. You know, right now there's a lot of excitement, but I am wondering long term, is it going to be essentially just another Twitter. You know, with the number of trolls and fighting on Twitter?

It's sort of this community square where everyone kind of just shares their unfiltered opinion. But starting with the most negative ones, I'm curious and hopeful that it can be different.

I know there's parts of Twitter that aren't like that, but it just feels like there's just so much negative connotation with Twitter.

If you are debating on jumping on, maybe you feel the same way about Twitter, maybe you just don't want to deal with another social media app. I would say give it a try.

My personal philosophy when considering whether you should have another social media account for your business specifically is that either be consistent in using it or make it a placeholder.

By placeholder, I mean, you created the account simply to reserve the username. This way no one takes it or gets confused that, you know, your business is on the social media platform when really someone else just took your username.

So I would say go for one or the other. If you do plan on making it a placeholder account, I would just, you know, have put out a few threads saying, hey, you know, thanks for checking out our threads.

If you'd like to follow us more closely, you can follow us on Instagram or Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever you hang out a lot.

But I would say give it a try. 

Give us a follow. Our username is @MediaBooksAgency.

What does it mean to be the face of your business?

So what does it mean to be the face of your business? If you have been following media books for a while, you probably know a few things about me.

My name is Kristen. My husband is a fighter pilot. I'm from Southern California. I've lived in France, Texas. I now live in Japan.

I do not know how to cope with the snow we get in Japan. I despise reels. I do not think you need to follow every marketing trend under the sun to run a successful business.

I was an accountant and now I'm a marketer. If you are going to be the face of your business, you've got to let people get to know you.

To a degree, you need to be comfortable connecting with strangers, sometimes being vulnerable and having your face all over your website and your marketing materials.

And this doesn't necessarily mean you need to open your diary and nothing is private.

But being the face of your business does mean that you need to get out there and network and connect with people.

Now, sometimes when people work with us, they think, OK, I've hired a marketing firm. The leads will just come in and I can just do bookkeeping.

That is not going to work for any sort of business model.

That doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have a face of the business or you need to be the face of your business.

But you do need someone out there making sales, networking and connecting with people.

Considering all this, the first question you may have is, do you specifically need to be the face of your business?

You do not. But understand what it can do for your brand, especially for a small business.

If you worked in public accounting, what was one of the main jobs of the partners? It was to be the face of their office.

They were the ones out there networking, making the sale, connecting with clients. They were not necessarily on Facebook posting tips, but they were the person leads would interact with when determining if this was the firm for them.

To have no one be the face of your business, especially a service based business, you're going to have to work harder to build credibility and relationships with people.

If you're virtual and dealing with very sensitive information, they're going to want to know who's going to be the person on the other end.

Even if you the face of the business are not the person in the books, it helps build trust.

It gives them the chance to feel like, OK, I know this person. I can relate to this person. I don't think they're going to cheat me out of something.

Now, if you are just trying to run your marketing firm online and you don't show any faces of yourself or anyone on your team, it is very likely they're wondering who's on the other end. Who am I sending my bank account information to? Questions are going to be asked. 

Your Options

So what options do you have?

Now, if you're the owner of a small accounting firm, we'll say, you know, anywhere from a solopreneur to 20 people, you basically have two options.

You or someone on your team can be the face of your business or you have no face of your business.

Now, I want to first talk about the pros and cons of having someone be the face versus no face.

So pros, having someone be the face, you can connect personally with other small business owners.

You can build trust more quickly. That is already going to put you ahead.

Now, the cons is whoever is the face of the business will need to be heavily involved in the marketing, whether that be a podcast, a social media profile or just having their photo on the website, your face and personality is likely going to need to come together in one way or another.

Now, this is not necessarily a con, more just something that you need to consider when deciding who is going to fulfill that role.

Now, the pros and cons of having no face of your firm is pros. Multiple people can easily contribute towards the marketing efforts.

But it is also worth noting here that you can have multiple faces of your business as well.

So if you're feeling like, oh, this person is going to be the face of the business, everyone, you know, they're going to be the only one doing the marketing.

Not necessarily. You can have multiple people out there on your website, on the forefront, making those connections, networking, just like the public accounting example that I had. You don't have one partner at a firm.

You have multiple partners at a firm. And more often than not, they have a specialty that they are sort of heading for that specific office.

There just needs to be some consistency to a degree. So not having a face, multiple people from, you know, all over your firm can kind of find ways that maybe they can contribute.

But like I said, you can have multiple faces to kind of help share that workload.

So not necessarily the biggest pro and also a con with not having a face is, as I said, you will struggle to build credibility.

You will limit yourself when it comes to opportunities. It may be more difficult to get yourself featured on a podcast, to gain followers on social media or to network on LinkedIn.

People may not recognize you at conferences or events, but they may recognize your T-shirt or brand.

And this isn't to say no one's going to talk to you on a podcast or no one's going to talk to you at a conference.

But seeing your name, seeing kind of the work that you do, you out there vocalizing it, people are going to want to connect with you more so just because they've gotten to know you.

You're a face that they recognize. Hey, you've really helped me. You don't understand this app more. You've really helped me understand my business more.

I want to say thank you. I want to ask you a question versus some stranger that they met who has a T-shirt on with the brand, with an app that they just like.

It definitely is going to play a bigger role in building that relationship.

If you are still unsure, also know that this is not every this is nothing for every service based businesses.

Tech Companies & Their Partners

Tech companies also consider having faces or spokesperson, affiliates, partners.

They call them different things at different tech companies, but they definitely have people out there sort of seeing the praises of these different apps.

Just for example, a few that you may recognize David Leary, Emilio, you kind of think of them one in the same.

Blake Oliver, definitely known for his work and his development of Earmark CPE.

Will Lopez at Gusto, he connects accountants with the app.

Twyla Velhurst at FreshBooks, all these people very much talk about these apps and how they can do different things for your business.

They are relatable. They are on social media.

Now, if you're thinking, oh, face of the business, it sounds flashy and, you know, it's all these headshots and their social media influencers.

These are accountants. These are everyday people that you likely know and you connect with and you don't necessarily think of them as influencers, but they definitely are.

You don't necessarily think of them as, you know, flashy faces of a tech company.

But they kind of are. So really kind of consider the authentic approach that these people took with their own tech brands and consider how you could do that for your accounting firm.

A big part of their job is being the face of the tech, getting out there, showing what it can do.

They reach audiences through personal connection that otherwise would not be there, something that you can definitely take advantage of with your accounting firm.

Who should be the face of your business?

So. Final question. Should you be the face of your business?

If you are a small to mid-sized business, ideally it would be the owner of the business, CEO or a top executive.

But you can't have an admin or a marketer on your team do this as well.

It doesn't matter, you know, who it is necessarily, as long as it's a person in-house, that really is going to be the best option.

And the reason for that is if you were to outsource the face of your business to a contractor like MediaBooks, you know, we provide marketing and web design services.

It's really kind of unreasonable to expect them to be the face of your firm when they're serving multiple firms where, you know, they may have other firms asking them to do the same thing.

They can't really do that or they, you know, I shouldn't say that.

I have not come across a marketing agency that has is set up in that way.

Ideally, it's going to be someone in-house.

And some things you may want to consider when trying to figure out who that person is or whether that should be you is, can this person easily talk about your client's pain points?

Off the bat, without a script, no sort of prompting. Can they walk into a room and talk about it?

Can this person know all the ins and outs of your services?

Now, this may be why it's difficult to hire someone new. You're definitely going to want to put them through some training and make sure they are very familiar with your processes, what that looks like, all the services you offer.

Is this person comfortable being and speaking on camera?

It's not necessarily a requirement, but like I said, I mean, their photo is probably going to show up quite a bit on the website.

They may be on podcasts. They may be asked to speak at an event.

They're, if anything, going to be speaking to people. They need to be able to articulate their thoughts clearly.

Do they represent the brand?

Well, this is a really big one because this can also mean anything. You know, there's brands out there that are super conservative and professional and buttoned up. There's brands out there that are very wild and in your face and fun and exciting and creative.

Maybe they curse or they live on the edge, what have you.

It's a wide spectrum. So whatever your brand is, you also want to make sure the face of your brand, their personality, is cohesive with what you want your brand to represent,

Which is often why it can be good for it to be the CEO, a top exec or the owner of the business.

Now, based on these questions, you may be starting to realize why you may be the best person for the job.

If you're getting a little bit nervous or you feel like you want to push back a little bit, let's just talk about some of the challenges that you may face or some of the reasons that people maybe have been hesitant to do this.

Turning your business into a personal brand versus keeping it as a business.

Remember, this is not necessarily about you being an influencer or showing your whole personal life or making everything about you.

This, at the end of the day, is about the business.

I very much have separation from my personal life, what I like to do, my family, my friends and media books. I don't sit at the dinner table and talk about good ways to market your website. There is a clear separation and you can have that too.

When you are small and you are the face of the business, much of your personality, though, needs to be woven into the brand. It is what is going to be out there in the public.

So be comfortable with being yourself and consider this as you establish your brand. Our values at media books are very much things that I believe in my everyday life.

I really don't like the idea that this is your job versus my job. Frankly, that is something that I live out, yes, actually at home.

My husband, we have certain jobs that we like and prefer, but my husband knows how to do the dishes and cook dinner just as I know how to go out and take care of the plants.

It is my husband's thing, but I know how to do it if I need to do it. We all know how to kind of do everyone's job. Same thing at Mediabooks.

Everyone at media books, we have no such thing as not my job.

It is very much I try to create a team environment.

So consider that with your brand.

What sort of personal character traits are going to come through when you are out there putting out a message? Should those be also incorporated into your business?

Second area that you may struggle with a little bit is showing your personal life.

Now, I actually struggled with this a lot because I do like to keep a lot of my life private.

I have always noticed I am less on my phone when I am happier or when I am present in the moment.

So forcing myself to be on my phone or be on social media feels counterintuitive to what may be going on in my actual life.

I always found that difficult. I'm really enjoying this dinner with friends. I don't want to take my phone out and take a picture. I'm really having a good time with my husband on the strip.

I don't want to start, you know, pulling out Instagram and talking on stories. It just feels like I'm in the moment. I want to be in the moment.

So I found that I have found that difficult to just remember things like, hey, you're also the face of the business.

You need to remember to check in every once in a while, even when, you know, you're having a good time. Having said that, I did find some really great advice, actually, from Gary Vee.

This was a couple of months back.

He runs social media. He's on every platform. He kills it on every platform. He does have a giant team, but he is very much the face of Gary Vee, of his business.

And in fact, we don't know a ton about his personal life. I don't know if I've ever seen who he's dating. I don't believe he has kids. I don't know if he has a dog. I honestly don't even know where he lives.

But his advice, if you are struggling with the idea of having this personal life that you just like want to keep private for whatever reason and then also being the face of your business is to focus on content pillars, but make them around your interests.

So we I've actually talked about this just with your own content.

Content pillars help give you a focus. So if you want to be known for payroll, to have a content pillar around payroll, if you want to be known for fresh books, then you have a content pillar around fresh books.

You have that for the technical stuff, but then you also have that for your personal life.

For example, I do not need to bring my audience into my living room or videotape my kid every second of the day.

But there are interests that I have that other people will relate to.

When I do create personal content, I can focus on those areas and those will be my personal content pillars.

My personal content pillars are being a military spouse and traveling.

You'll notice that in my email campaigns or on the podcast or wherever, I often talk about life in Japan or I often talk about life in the military.

It allows me to connect with people and be a bit vulnerable without bringing people into super intimate moments of my life and looking throughout my life for content.

Those are the kind of things that I want to say for, you know, family and friends and those sort of areas of my life.

But then I have these other areas that I kind of always dip into and they sort of trigger my brain to be like, hey, you know, you're having a really cool trip right now.

It'd be awesome if we can write an email campaign about it.

One Last Tip

One last tip I want to leave you with on being the face of your accounting firm.

Get good at sales. You can hire someone to help you with marketing. A lot of it will be technical web design, Canva or copy work.

But when it is just you and another person, you are going to have to tap into some sales skills. That is what is really going to improve your bottom line.