Case Study
Skinner Hamilton Accountants and Business Advisors.
Company History
Skinner Hamilton is an accounting and business advisory firm located in Varsity Lakes QLD.
The principal’s of the firm are a husband and wife team Jason & Melissa Skinner.
The firm was founded in 2008 and has grown from a mixed services accounting firm offering taxation and accounting services, to now being a more specialised targeted firm that focuses on Accounting, Taxation and Business Growth Strategies to Small to Medium Businesses.
Background & Strategy
Background
Accounting services have traditionally been a grudge purchase. Meaning that going to the Accountant is something you have to do because either the Government requires you to keep business records and lodge a tax return or because the bank will not lend you any money without proper accounting records.
Either way the services provided by an Accountant have tended to be reactionary in nature and value to the client or end user.
The way Accountants charged for these services and value them was to charge by the time unit plus any disbursements (on-charges) that it took to complete the project.
Example
An accountant may have a unit charge of $20 per 6 minute unit spent on a clients work. If it takes 2 hours to complete a task for a client the client would be charged $400 plus GST $440.
The unit charge of $20 is worked out based on an equation of the firm's cost structure of wages and overheads to ensure that a return of profit is made after taking everything into account.
The problem with this model is that, whilst profitable, it has no attachment to end value for the client. The measure of value is time taken multiplied by the charge rate to complete the work. If you are not efficient doing the work the client gets charged more for the project. In contrast if you are too efficient in completing the task you will under charge the client.
Extending this theme out further, as technology has improved within the Accounting profession, with the introduction of automated accounting software etc, it now means a tasks can be performed faster for the client and as such, under this model, means the client is under-charged for the value provided.
Effectively it has been a reactionary ‘Trade Time For Money’ model.
This has led to where we are at present within the the marketplace seeing accounting services as:
- A Grudge Purchase
- Commoditised (As hourly charges can be compared amongst competitors)
- Reactionary in that preparing Financial Data is keeping track of the past rather than shaping the future.
- Eroding profit margins despite greater legal and compliance requirements by governments.
- Clients are now more informed due to technology meaning it’s easier for clients to compare services and change accountants (although there is still a wide perception by clients that it is difficult and too hard to change accountants.)
- Common commentary is “I’d rather go to the Dentist than go to see an Accountant”
Our Strategy
Skinner Hamilton’s strategy is to become a customer relationship and value first focused company.
Whilst we keep track of our time and charge records for our own accountability purposes our fees are based on value of our services provided to our clients, not calculated on a basis of time for money.
Our strategy is to be proactive with our clients, working with them to grow their businesses rather than just keep track of their financial history.
“Skinner Hamilton are history makers not history takers”
Using the latest technologies and strategies we want our clients to seek out our services rather than avoid them.
We want to build a valuable community within our brand, so that in order to change accountants and advisors it would be detrimental to our clients business, as they wouldn’t just be leaving a commodity but an entire community.
We now offer in addition to our traditional taxation & accounting services:
- A weekly Business Podcast - The Business Made Easy Podcast
- A free Facebook Group for business owners and entrepreneurs
- A paid membership community with regular webinar trainings, courses, templates and resources to assist & support business owners to grow.
- A paid coaching and mastermind product for business owners that want to take their business to the next level.
We want our clients to prefer to come to us than go to the Dentist.
We do this under 2 bands
Skinner Hamilton Accountants
The Business Made Easy Podcast
Headline Financial Data
Current Annual Revenue Year Ended 2017 - $1 million
Budget Revenue for 2018 - $1.1 million
Vision and mission for your organisation
Mission Statement
To grow small businesses into large businesses with innovative strategies, support and security.
Vision Statement
To become a respected and trusted brand that enriches the lives of business owners and entrepreneurs, empowering them build sustainable businesses that make the world a better place.
Size (employees, locations,).
The firm currently has 5 full time team members including the Principals and 1 part time outsourced team member.
This is made up of 2 Administration people, 1 part time Graphic Designer and 3 Professional Accountants.
The firm has one professional office and is located in Varsity Lakes QLD
Staff dedicated to marketing
Jason Skinner and Melissa Skinner are dedicated to the marketing function of the business.
Krizia is dedicated to the Graphic and Design role.
Digital strategy/tactics currently used
The firm has historically grown through word of mouth referrals from existing clients and key centres of influence relationships such as Business Bankers, Financial Planners.
We are really a clean slate as far as digital strategy goes at present.
We do have a Podcast - The Business Made Easy Podcast
We are present on all digital platforms (Facebook Page for both Podcast and Accounting Practice, Instagram for Podcast, Twitter for Podcast, Linked in for both)
We currently have no digital sales funnels in place.
We don’t participate in any paid social media.
Business and digital objectives
We are wanting to build digital strategies and assets that attract cold audiences and people
Nurture the journey to become members of our communities.
Become users of our products and services
Become evangelists of our brand.
Target audience information (any segmentation or persona work you have done)
We have a couple of Target Audiences.
Skinner Hamilton Accountants & Business Advisors
Target Audience 1
Located Australia wide.
Medical Professionals this covers GP’s, Medical Specialists such as Surgeons etc)
Age range ( 35 to 60)
Extremely time poor people
Very intelligent but poor money managers
Financially Secure.
Any turnover is relevant
Target Audience 2
Located Australia Wide
Business owner
Wants more from their accountant than a tax returns
Wants to grow their business.
Age Range (35 to 55)
Male or Female
Turnover $200k Minimum
Online or Offline Business
Wants to be a part of a proactive community.
Sick of spinning their wheels and feeling overwhelmed with business.
Business Made Easy Podcast Community
Target Audience 1
Located World Wide
Business owner/ Entrepreneur
Wants to grow their business.
Age Range (20 to 55)
Male or Female
Turnover No Minimum
Online or Offline Business
Wants to be a part of a proactive community.
Sick of spinning their wheels and feeling overwhelmed with business.
Open to paying to be a part of a community
Open to business coaching
Customer database
Skinner Hamilton
Skinner Hamilton uses Infusionsoft to segment it’s database. We have approx 3000 people on this database. We segment this database between Clients and Non Clients.
We also use Infusionsoft within the practice to deliver efficiencies and reliability in systems and procedures to maintain a consistent reliable experience for clients.
Business Made Easy Podcast
The Business Made Easy Podcast uses convertkit as it’s database.
There are currently 941 subscribers at present
Digital marketing budget
Budget will need to be assessed with ROI .
We are wanting to grow our annual revenue by 15% using digital media.
The nature of our business is that we have natural attrition each year from clients retiring or selling their businesses or changing accountants. This equates to approx 5% attrition per year.
15% would give us solid growth plus fill any lost revenue through attrition.
To break this down.
If current revenue is $1million, 10% net growth is $100,000
If new average client fee is $5,000 we need at least 20 new clients per year.
Our conversion rate is 80 to 90 % so we need to get in front of at least ideally 30 new prospects from Advertising campaigns.
Social Media activity (Content plan)
We currently use Co Schedule to schedule our social media posts for the Podcast across all platforms.
We are also using a repurpose function within Co Schedule to recycle older posts.
We have an Instagram strategy of 1 daily motivational post.
We are also engaged in conversation and commenting in Instagram. Currently (400 followers)
We have a Twitter following of 200
We post regularly and comment regularly as well.
We are active in a number of other Facebook communities as well.
Additional Information To Assist
Current Social Media Profiles
- Linked In -
- Facebook Page For Accounting -
- Facebook Page For Podcast -
- Facebook Group for Podcast Community
- Twitter For Podcast -
- Instagram Podcast - @jasonskinner_bme
Other pertinent information
1) Have you completed any analysis on your social media followers? eg segmentation by Geographic's, Demographics and Industry etc.? If not, then please share more detailed reports from the various platforms and you will have some students do that for you.
I have created a Facebook User and made analytics available to this user as an Analyst role.
On logging in you can go to manage pages and see all demographic insights to both the
- Skinner Hamilton Facebook Page
- Business Made Easy Podcast Facebook Page.
Log In under
Facebook username: GUDigitalproject@gmail
Password: @digitalproject
2) Do you have more metrics for your posts across the 4 platforms in the last 3 months?
Including - Impressions, clicks, social actions, engagement and followers gained? Again the raw data would allow students to do this analysis for you. You just need to download the reports.
See Above re log in for Facebook Metrics.
We also use a program called Iconosquare for Instagram Analytics and further facebook.
You can log on here
Username:
Password: @digitalproject1
I have also uploaded further Facebook Spreadsheet Analytics in the attached Google Drive.
Access here.
Twitter Analytics can be accessed by logging onto twitter as
Username
Password @Digitalproject
(Just linking analytics now taking some time ) Will put screen shots in mean time in Google Drive
3) Do you currently do email newsletters? If so an example would be good along key metrics (open rates, click through rates, conversions, etc.)
Many Years ago we used to do a client monthly newsletter. This was largely tax update related to small businesses and as such resulted in very low open rates ie 2- 3% which was distributed to clients of the firm. We have not done these for at least 5 to 6 years now.
4) Do you sponsor any groups?
We do not have any current sponsorship arrangements with any groups
5) Are you affiliated with any other industry bodies or groups?
Other than the Gold Coast Medical Association mentioned we are not affiliated with any groups at all.
6) Do you use direct mail?
Due to postage costs and lack of tracking we do not do any direct mail at present.
7) Do you exhibit at any industry events?
We have done this in the past but found them to be hit and miss in terms of benefit. We currently sponsor The Gold Coast Medical Association monthly educational evenings twice per year. Weh have had some luck in securing new clients for the medical client side of the practice but few and far between. The cost to sponsor these nights is $1,000 and we have had one good client who pays us $5000 per year and we have had them for 5 years now.
8) Do you do any cold calling?
Due to time involved we do not do any cold calling on potential prospects. We do however try and establish warmer centre of influence relationships with potential referral partners ant networking events such as Networking breakfasts and events however these are adhoc.
9) Last but not least, students are asking for the RGB and CMYK colours of your logo to make the assignments more professional.
Please see attached folders for style guides and logos etc.
10) I can be contacted for a Zoom call for any additional information by booking here on the following link.