"Today, you have to communicate information to clients quickly and efficiently. If you can't keep your documents up to date, you're wasting a real marketing opportunity" says Martin Pollins.

Three ways in which a firm can maintain relationships with its clients and prospects in providing technical and other information in response to a request for information from clients and prospects.

  1. Buy in publications from publishers. The problem with this is that this is a costly thing to do. The information can easily go out of date and it's a clumsy way of providing information to those who ask for it. What happens in practice is that there are piles of brochures in the corner of an office, gathering dust, part of a long-forgotten marketing plan that didn't work. Buying in pre-printed publications was a good idea over 20 years ago when I launched the CharterGroup Partnership because small to medium sized firms couldn't afford to write or publish their own brochures, so they had to be syndicated and bought in from a group publisher. But it's old hat today. Today, we're supposed to be saving the Planet and going paperless is one way to do just that.
  2. To do nothing. This option costs nothing. Clients get nothing that they need. Prospects avoid firms that do nothing and move on to firms that provide details of their services and issue free publications. Which firm are you?
  3. The next option is to subscribe to a digital business library and have hundreds of brochures available via your website 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The advantage of this is that because the publications are digital they are up to date and once clients and prospects register on your website they can simply take what they need. Even better still is that the cost to a firm is a fraction of printing publications under option 1 and helps prevent trees being chopped down and endangering the Planet.

According to recent research over a third of small business owners feel isolated when making key business decisions.
43% confess to loneliness when focusing on changing strategy or direction, and another two fifths feel detached over business planning matters."

Accountants are uniquely placed to help businesses by providing them with information direct from their website through a digital business library.

Have you got 8 years to spare?
When I was in public practice, I set about creating a digital business library. It took me about 8 years to get it right. However, it was all worthwhile as Bizezia's Online Business Library now leads the market with a comprehensive collection of 700+ professionally-written informative publications that you can offer free to your clients direct from your website. The publications cover an extensive range of business topics from tax to marketing. 

Digital publications will allow you to add significant value to the service you offer your clients, and enable you to build relationships with prospective clients.  The alternative, as mentioned above is to do nothing - it costs nothing but clients get nothing they need.

By Martin Pollins

Martin Pollins MBA, FCA ATII, F IDM, former ICAEW Council Member, the Founder of The CharterGroup Partnership and Bizezia Limited

For further information about this article, contact Iman Rouane at: Bizezia Limited, +44(0)870 389 1420, E-mail iman@bizezia.com

To access the Bizezia on-line Library, please visit: www.bizezia.com