E-book Helps Firms Improve Marketing & Customer Service

Is the marketing produced by your accounting firm truly so useful that people would pay for it if you asked them to do so? That’s the success standard outlined in the new e-book, Youtility for Accountants, co-authored by Darren Root, CPA and Jay Baer, and published by Portfolio/Penguin.

Root is CEO of RootWorks, a membership-based organization dedicated to educating firms nationwide on building a Next Generation Accounting Firm. He is also president of Root & Associates CPAs, and Executive Editor of CPA Practice Advisor. Baer is a digital marketing expert and president/founder of Convince & Convert, a marketing services firm that provides social media and content marketing advice to major companies. Jay has founded five companies, and has consulted for over 700 companies and brands on digital marketing since 1994, including Sony, Columbia Sportswear, Nike, Petco, WalMart, and California tourism, among others.

Baer defines “Youtility” as “useful marketing.” That is, creating communication assets that clients actually want to receive. Due to enormous shifts in technology and consumer behavior, consumers readily seek helpful information—marketing that is truly, inherently useful. This book was developed to help accountants capitalize on this trend.

“Today’s consumers are always connected to the Internet, and are doing far more research on companies than ever before, which is why it’s so important for businesses, accounting firms included, to create massive amounts of useful information,” stated Jay Baer, author of the New York Times best-seller Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype.

In Youtility for Accountants, Root and Baer show how accountants, who focus on information rather than promotion, can profit from fundamental shifts in how consumers research and respond and how they want to connect. The book also offers several examples of real-life accountants that have put Youtility in action and how it’s improved business.

“The difference between helping and selling is just two letters, but embracing the former makes the latter much easier. This is what we want accounting professionals to understand,” said Darren Root, CPA and CEO of RootWorks. “For years, the profession has operated under the mindset of guarding our trade secrets—fearing that if we gave the information away, no one would need our services. The fact is, the more information we put out there, the more consumers realize how much they do need our services, because they understand that they can’t begin to keep up with changing regulations and compliance.”

Youtility for Accountants was officially released March 11, 2014, and is available for purchase on Amazon.