Getting rid of your salesforce - retreat to communism?
Now here's an interesting accounting-world related question - don't roll your eyes at the sight of "accounting-world" and "interesting" in the same sentence - if you were to almost reduce the sales-side of the equation and focus only on the cost of delivering audits, with a small profit margin to keep things running smoothly, could you deliver quality audits? Of course, it happens all the time with smaller firms that have lower overhead - which is why sole proprietor CAs can serve many small clients and charge lower fees to scoop up business from entrepreneurs.
I wonder, though, if this approach is applicable to big firms too?
I haven't given this too much detailed though but the big thinkers are all over this all the time it seems. Something that definitely deserves some more attention and information. Like knowing what proportion of revenue is used to cover sales and administrative costs, for example
It'd be interesting to see what would happen following removal of "traditional" marketing from large tiers of the market - not just in audit/accounting, for that matter - and if it would improve matters.
At one extreme, you have ad-free Cuba. At the other extreme, well, look outside.
That Google search in the previous link is actually very interesting - it points you to this article about Sao Paolo - where they've banned billboards. Check out, the photos are beautiful. Makes me wish our city had the guts to do something this cool.
My aunt's delicious cakes would sell themselves, if you could find them in stores.
There's another 'extreme', or at least fad, of course - viral marketing. Word of mouth and all that.
I'm prompted to think about all this perhaps less because
I'm about to overthrow the capitalist system, but rather witness
another delicious byproduct of it - some swag is headed my way. Full
disclosure will accompany it the moment it arrives, as I'll treat it
the same way I would treat the CDs and movie passes that showed up at
my newspaper's offices back in the school days - with ruthless
critical attention, or praise, if earned.
In a way, the old newspaper industry is the original 'viral' marketing, as is old media, in it's broadcast itself to the millions and billions mode, generating 'buzz'. Buzz is harder to create these days, so small firms pop up to try and create a new process to catch all those people who have given up on newspapers and TV. Oh, like me.
One of my arts editors and friends was an early-blooming culture warrior, vowing to sell the free stuff for beer money and to cover more off-beat stuff. We did a bit of both - taking the review-worthy goodies and bashing the heck out of them or singing their praises as appropriate
So it doesn't matter if a star appears on a late night show, and
promotes upcoming h/er book or movie. Or that when a newspaper gets
free samples, it reviews said products. If I don't see it on Videosift
or somewhere on my way to work, I'll say "huh" or, more appropriatley,
"eh?" when you mention it to me.
But what I've really done is wandered off on a massive tangent. There is a connection here, though, and it's glaringly obvious: audit firms, in their classic incarnation, are the original progenitors of the "viral" phenomenon, or its more well known ancestors, "word of mouth" and "networking".
Any decent audit professor will spend some lecture time teaching the class about how, in Canada at least, CA firms can't advertise their services in an overt fashion.
Or else what? You lose you CA, that's what.
The whole idea being that tacky ads will tarnish the profession. Think of SNL's ambulance chasing lawyer commercials, and the real deals for that matter too.
So, since time immemorial, the antiquated, "I know someone who knows someone who's good with taxes" and the "I went to school with her and her firm sounds good" system has reigned supreme.
The, "this person on myspace is promoting their band, come listen to them" system, then, is just another market's way of doing the same thing.
Given some of the recruiting videos I've seen online, it's almost as if the big firms are even aware of this too, and given the above thinking, I'm not surprised. Now if they could only dial back on the cheesiness in many of the productions and increase the, production values, then it might even look like they know how to do it well too.
Will sales forces have to stay in their current incarnation for some time to come? I know they will - but will it be a waste of resources? I'm intrigued.