Choosing
an Ad Agency
Tips
on How to Select an Attorney
Tips
on How to Select a Banker
Tips
on How to Select an Accountant
Choosing
an Ad Agency
If
you're looking to help your business grow, the use of professional,
experienced advertising and public relations firms can make a big difference.
But once you've committed to the idea that you need professional help, how do
you choose the right agency?
Start by understanding the difference between advertising and PR. The
traditional definition of advertising goes something like this: "Creating
or changing attitudes, beliefs and perceptions by influencing people with
purchased broadcast time (radio, television, audio/videocassette), print space
(newspapers, magazines, journals, programs, billboards), or other forms of
written/visual media (flyers, brochures, billboards)."
Once you've decided that you need an advertising agency, use this checklist as
a guideline for selecting the best possible one for your needs and goals.
1.
Be certain that the ad agency realizes that advertising is only a small
portion of marketing. The agency must demonstrate that it knows there are
many other marketing weapons and that it is capable of using (or directing
the use of) all the appropriate ones in your potential marketing arsenal. Guerrilla businesses deserve guerrilla advertising agencies. Don't
settle for less.
2. Ascertain that your account will be considered special and deserving of
the agency's top talent. Be sure that you meet and talk to the people who
will actually be doing your advertising: creative, media, research, the
whole works. See what else the creative people have created. Ask about the
results. Avoid agency figureheads and get to know the troops who will be
serving on your front line. Is the chemistry right between you? Don't
underestimate the immense power of good chemistry.
3. Be sure that your agency understands your company's objectives and
considers them reasonable. This understanding will be reflected in the
marketing and advertising strategy that the agency creates for you. If it's
missing, look elsewhere.
4. Check to see that the people who will be working on your account have the
right credentials, experience, and attitude. See if they are good listeners.
If they haven't worked on a business just like yours, don't worry. Just make
sure that they understand the critical relationship between profitability
and creativity. If it doesn't help you earn profits, it's not creative.
5. Be positive that the people you will work with have a knowledge of your
business, an interest in your business, and a knowledge of the competitive
situation. If they've done their homework by the time they present to you,
they'll have these things. If not, you're not interested.
6. Look at the ads and other marketing materials they have created: theme
lines, logos, signs, brochures, videos, catalogs, newsletters, Web sites,
direct mail letters, postcards, posters, etc.
7. The best advertising agencies have grown from the growth of their clients
and those clients' ever-increasing marketing investments. That is a better
benchmark than growth coming from new clients. Such agencies are hard to
find. But the search will be worth your time.
When
selecting an advertising agency, ask people from the agency to make a
presentation to you, but don't ask them to spend a lot of money doing so.
Listen to their words, hoping they will talk more about you than about
themselves. Be aware of the emphasis they place on the importance of a
strategy, for that strategy is crucial to you. See if they know how
advertising fits into the overall marketing mix. Be wary if they speak only of
advertising and nothing about marketing.
Courtesy of Paragon Design Group, Inc.
3739 Hickory Blvd., Hudson, NC 28638.
Telephone: (828) 396-8350.
Web: www.paragondesign.com.
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How to Select a Lawyer
Where should you begin?
To find a reputable attorney, where do you begin? What about
lawyers who advertise in newspapers, on television or radio? Isn't this
sleazy? How can lawyers.com help you to select a lawyer? What's the next step?
What about referrals? How can you prepare for your consultation? What should
you ask a lawyer? How should you evaluate your consultation? How can you be a
good client?
Contact local attorney referral services. Many state bar
associations maintain attorney referral listings. If you use a referral
service, keep in mind that some of these services simply compile names and
contact information for local attorneys without regard to reputation,
expertise or other qualifying factors. These "referrals" are not
necessarily a pool of highly recommended lawyers.
What about lawyers who advertise in newspapers, on
television or radio? Isn't this sleazy?
Attorneys have the right to advertise truthfully to
prospective clients. When responding to an ad for low cost legal services,
find out what services a lawyer includes in his or her advertised fee. For
example, a lawyer who advertises low fees for uncontested divorces will
probably not include any applicable filing and related fees.
What's the next step?
Once you've zoomed in on a few lawyers or firms, it's time
to telephone the office of each of your candidates. You might find it useful
to sit down in advance and write a short summary of your case or situation.
Don't hesitate to put together a list of questions you want to ask before
hiring a lawyer.
Typically, you'll speak first with a receptionist or
secretary. Here is an example of an initial inquiry:
"Hi, I've been fired from my job and I think it may
be because of my age. I'd like to talk to an attorney about it.
Does this attorney handle employment discrimination cases
on behalf of employees?
How many employee discrimination cases has he or she
handled?
Does he or she provide a free consultation to potential
clients?
How long will it take me to get an appointment to discuss
my case with this attorney?"
When you call an attorney's office, notice the courtesy of
staffers who handle your call. Feeling comfortable is an important part of
your relationship with your lawyer's office.
What about referrals?
If you contact a lawyer who doesn't handle your kind of
case, he or she might be able to refer you to another attorney who does. Don't
hesitate to ask about the referred attorney's legal experience and
credentials, and if the referring attorney knows the referred attorney
personally. If an attorney suggests a referral, you might ask if he or she is
going to get a fee for the referral. Anytime you do get a referral, you can
check out that attorney's credentials in the lawyers.com directory. The
first lawyer you speak with in a firm may offer you the services of another
attorney in the firm. This is common practice. In many law firms, different
attorneys specialize in different areas of law. Keep in mind that attorneys
are not required to accept all cases or give referrals.
How can you prepare for your consultation?
Most lawyers are not scary people. However, you might be
nervous about meeting with an attorney for the first time, particularly if
you've had little experience with the legal profession. It could help to make
a list of points and questions you want to discuss. Feel free to include
questions you asked initially on the telephone, like inquiring if the attorney
has had experience with cases such as yours. A lawyer's willingness to explain
procedures and answer questions may reveal something about his or her
personality and the ability to interact with you in a manner that you find
comfortable.
If you've been served with legal papers, bring them to the
consultation along with important correspondence or other relevant documents.
Show the attorney originals or copies. Don't leave documents with an attorney
unless you've decided to retain that attorney. And be sure to keep your own
copies.
What should you ask a lawyer?
Here is a handy checklist of basic questions to ask before
you hire a lawyer:
What is your experience in this field?
Have you handled matters like mine?
What are the possible outcomes of my case?
What are my alternatives in resolving the matter?
Approximately how long will it take to resolve?
Do you recommend mediation or arbitration?
What are your rates and how often will you bill me?
What is a ballpark figure for the total bill, including
fees and expenses?
How will you keep me informed of progress?
What kind of approach will you take to resolve the
matter - aggressive and unyielding, or will you be more inclined to
reach a reasonable settlement?
Who else in the office will be working on my case?
Can junior attorneys or paralegals in the office handle
some of the administrative work at a lower rate?
How should you evaluate your consultation?
After the consultation, ask yourself these questions:
Did the lawyer listen to you?
Did the lawyer give you an honest evaluation of the pros
and cons of your legal situation?
Did he know the applicable laws affecting your case?
Did the lawyer answer your questions about her education
and experience without being offended that you asked?
Did she give you complete information regarding her fees
and billing practices?
Did you feel comfortable with his style and personality?
Be comfortable with the lawyer you hire. You want to choose
the best lawyer you can afford who is experienced, competent, and willing to
communicate. Hire a lawyer who'll work with you and not just for you.
How can you be a good client?
A good attorney-client relationship is a two-way street.
Take some simple steps to make sure that you're on the same wavelength as your
lawyer.
To help your lawyer help you, think through and articulate
your objectives. Agree on some ground rules. Discuss the kind of approach you
want your lawyer to take to resolve the matter. Let the lawyer know what your
expectations are with regard to being kept informed of developments. Don't
hold back relevant information. Keep your lawyer informed of any developments
on your end. If you have any questions about billing, raise them immediately.
Thanks to lawyers.com for the information included in this
article.
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How to
Select a Banker
Choosing a bank, or more precisely a banker, is one of the most important
decisions that a new or young business can make. A good banking relationship
can make the difference between life and death of a business during difficult
times. Because the choice of a banker is such an important decision, the new
business should shop around
before making a choice. The key watchword when choosing a bank should be
service. Specifically, some important criteria in choosing a banker should
include:
1) Size of the bank - A bank that is too small may be appropriate while your
company is small, however, they may not be able to service your needs for
larger loans as your
company grows. A bank that is too large may be indifferent to your needs
while your company is small.
2) Familiarity and desire to work with small business - Some institutions
maintain policies that are favorable to working with small business. They tend
to be more familiar with special problems of the young and growing
companies.
3) How the bank will react to your problems? Will they foreclose the first
time a payment is late, or will they be willing to give you some extra time to
meet your debt schedule?
4) Is the bank helpful? Will they go out of their way for you, or are you
just another account number?
5) Has the bank some special experience in your industry?
A bank familiar
with your industry is more likely to be tolerant of your problems and familiar
with the workings of your company.
6) Is there good personal chemistry? Do you feel comfortable with your
banker? Do
you feel they are responsive to your needs and really care about your
business operation? This is probably one of the most important considerations.
On virtually every loan, a bank will make reservations or restrictions.
Examples of loan restrictions include the following:
Restrictions on the level of borrowing
Minimum working capital levels
Pledging other assets as loan collateral
Keeping adequate insurance on people and property
Maintaining your equipment
Submission of financial statements and tax returns to the lender
Failure to comply with any covenant or restriction can put a loan in
default and give the lender the right to call on you to pay the balance of the
loan. Loan restrictions are often as important as the interest rate.
Therefore, you should compare loan restrictions
when you have the chance to choose between two different banks. For
example, a restriction on the amount that can be borrowed in the future could
severely limit the growth of a firm and cause a crunch on cash flow. Before
borrowing, the businessperson must decide which restrictions are acceptable.
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an
Accountant
There are a
number of services that a company may need to keep proper records: bookkeeping,
payroll, sales tax reports, monthly and quarterly tax filings, tax returns, tax
advice, generating financial statements, auditing financial statements and
financial management advice. Some
can be handled by a bookkeeper, others need the skills of an accountant.
Decisions need to be made about services needed, budget, and how much to
try to handle within the company.
Bookkeeper
vs. Accountant vs. CPA
Bookkeepers
tend to do the simpler, lower level record keeping tasks. Accountants, on the
other hand, have a higher level of skill and knowledge, and can do higher level
tasks, although they usually offer bookkeeping services, as well. Keep in mind, anyone can call himself/herself an accountant.
On the other hand a CPA is an accountant who has been certified, through
testing and education, to use the title “CPA”.
“Because of stringent requirements for education, experience and
testing, most CPAs do indeed live up to the higher level of respect they enjoy
compared to other professionals, as research tells us. Their keen ability to
analyze data, record it, interpret and compare it, make them a critically in
many, if not most important personal and business decisions. They tend to be more
objective and independent, as a result of their training as an auditor,” Frank
Sisco, CPAdirectory.com.
Steps
to Making a Choice
The
following comments were excerpted from the CPAdirectory.com web site and were
written by Frank Sisco, CPA, FPS. The
suggestions he makes should be helpful no matter whether you choose a
bookkeeper, accountant or CPA, or a combination of the three.
Here are some steps that should be helpful in making your choice(s):
1. Determine
your needs and desires, immediate and narrow, and longer-term and broader and
make an assessment of your own particular circumstances, quirks and preferences.
2. Gather
several candidates, using various methods such as:
(a)
Referrals: talk to business associates, friends, colleagues in community
activities, and other professionals such as your attorney or insurance agent.
(b)
Directories such as this site's referral list or CPAdirectory.com
(c)
Searches among information sources such as industry publications, articles,
Internet search engines, etc.
3. Match
what you need and want from step #1 with the candidates from step #2 for an initial short
list of candidates to interview.
4. Conduct
interviews and use the article "Choosing the right CPA" for guidance as to
particular questions and attributes to consider.
5. Narrow
the list based on subjective considerations such as chemistry, attitude,
impressions, etc., and return to step #1 if not fully satisfied.
Choosing
the Right CPA
(Courtesy of the author, Frank Sisco, CPA, PFS, Copyright 2003 Frank Sisco, For more information, contact him at www.LifeAndMoney.com)
Treat the decision of choosing the right CPA like you do choosing a good friend,
business partner or a trusted companion. Be thorough, interview several
candidates, explore common ground for values, integrity, and philosophies about
life, check out the CPA’s listening skills as well as acumen to analyze and
interpret data, and also trust your instincts on recognizing solid character
traits.
Guidelines
Choosing a
CPA to prepare a relatively uncomplicated tax return is a lot different from
choosing one to help you plan your financial future, or selecting a CPA to help
you transform your business into an e-commerce powerhouse. And choosing an
individual CPA, or small CPA firm, is miles away from selecting a worldwide CPA
firm of hundreds of partners and scores of specialties. But certain common
factors apply about the particular CPA with whom you will have contact.
Step
#1 - Evaluate the CPA as a person and
an advisor. Ask the CPA, and others who know her or him, questions which help
you to determine how well the CPA measures up to these “12 Shoulds”. Your
CPA should:
1. Excel at serving
people. She
should enjoy her work, and take genuine pleasure from helping people like you.
Explain your preferences and what bothers you, and see her reaction. Ask her
what are her preferences and what bothers her. It will be telling.
2. Be more honest than you with a higher
level of integrity. You need someone to hold you back from crossing the
line.
3. Have an office location within a quick
car ride so you can meet personally whenever needed, including early mornings,
evenings and weekends. The convenience of emails and phones is great, but
getting alone with an advisor in the flesh, looking face to face is a must if
you want someone to really know you, understand your goals, and think of you
during their day. And availability during off hours is a plus.
4. Be well-experienced in the areas you
need, but also a good generalist.
If you need help with sophisticated personal financial planning strategies, do
not hire a CPA who spends 90% of his time preparing financial statements for
small businesses, and visa versa. Check not only his credentials and references,
but evaluate him by discussing examples of situations like yours. Avoid being a
CPA's on-the-job training.
5. Be a good communicator, both listening
and speaking. It’s also important for your CPA to know she can tell you
when she had made a mistake, and right away. And no matter how embarrassing, you
need to be able to tell her about circumstances that arise which might affect
your financial health or of your immediate family members who may need help.
6. Get along well with all kinds of
people. Not only does she or he need to get along with you, but also with
your spouse and your other advisors, and perhaps your children, parents and
others who get included in family planning matters. She or he should be, as much
as possible, a world citizen in this diversity-minded age.
7. Demonstrate being attuned to matters
of the heart and soul as well as the mind. What matters most in life in the
end are the relationships we’ve had and how we’ve shared our love with
others. If the prospective CPA does not seem to care about her own family and
friends and clients to the degree you care about people in your life, consider
another person.
8. Do what she says she will do.
9. Charge fairly for services. Be
flexible in billing and be willing to work on a “value basis,” charging you
for value she delivers versus time she spends.
10. Have a great network of associates whom
he can use as a resource to supplement his own knowledge.
11. Enjoy learning and being creative, always
on the look-out for innovative ways to help you.
12. Conduct their own business and
personal affairs in a reasonably efficient and sensible way. Ask questions
about the CPA’s approach to getting and serving clients, the role of staff,
the use of technology including computers, communications equipment and the
internet, ways of keeping current, research methods, management of files and
records, etc.
Step
#2 - If you feel the prospective CPA
excels at the “12 Shoulds”, the next step is to then delve into more
specifics about doing the work. Here are 13 questions you can ask when
interviewing a prospective CPA:
1.
Have you helped a client in a similar
situation? It
saves time to work with a CPA who has already dealt with similar situations.
Probe to discover exactly how he has dealt with problems similar to yours.
2.
Will my company and/or I be serviced by you, a partner or by junior
accountants? Many CPA firms train new associates at the client’s
expense. Be sure that you get what you pay for.
3. What are the nature, scope, and
timing of your work, and what will it cost me? Often, a CPA’s work plan
can be more extensive and more expensive than you might expect. Get the
accountant to be specific about what he or she will do, and get a detailed
written letter and cost estimate.
4. How are your fees calculated? Will
you be charging me for every phone discussion? To avoid friction later, it
is essential to discuss the CPA’s fee structure. If the CPA uses a
time-based system, discuss the hourly rate of the accountant and staff,
overhead expense reimbursement (what is the cost of a fax?) and whether
certain time is not billed. Discuss alternatives such as value billing which
could base the fees on a percentage of certain value realized from creating
and helping to implement strategies (e.g. cost reductions from restructuring
operations; the present value of estate taxes saved)
5. Can you give me two or three quick
ideas on how you might be able to save our company money or me personally?
A good CPA should have sharp business acumen and be creative. A question like
this can show whether the CPA can call on his or her many skills to truly help
your business to increase profits, improve productivity, trim costs, enhance
return, and lower taxes, or in a personal planning context to achieve
financial goals, partly through enhanced investment returns, lowered taxes,
reduced costs, and coordinated and simplified budgeting and planning.
6. Can you tell me a little about your
practice, and your success and failures? Open-ended questions can elicit a
wealth of information. Let the CPA talk. You will also learn a lot about the
CPA’s priorities, risk-tolerance levels, and various personality
characteristics, all of which can be helpful in gauging compatibility.
7. What can I do to help you with your
work and keep your fees to a minimum? A great deal of your accountant’s
time can be saved by preparing information beforehand. Find out if your CPA is
willing to work with you to offload this work to your firm.
8. How will you be communicating the
results of your work to me? The results of an audit usually take the form
of an audit report, and tax return preparation yields tax returns. But this
work also can lead (and should lead) to many suggestions by the CPA on how to
cut taxes, increase income, restructure investments, build business, and
improve information. Some CPAs are more comfortable with interactive
discussions and others prefer written action reports. In addition, specialists
such as Personal Financial Specialists should be able to provide you with
financial planning memos and reports to organize the many ideas on improving
your financial health. Ask to see examples.
9. Do you perceive any conflicts of
interests? CPAs work for dozens of firms and scores and sometimes hundreds
of individuals. You should inquire if any of your direct competition is
represented by the firm. If so, inquire as to how this conflict is handled.
10. How long have you been a Certified
Public Accountant, and what other licenses do you hold? You should inquire
with the state CPA organization to discover if there have been any
disciplinary actions entered. Some accountants also have credentials as
financial planners (PFS), securities representatives, business valuation
experts, even lawyers.
11. How well have you integrated computers and the internet into your
practice, and has it enabled you to do more for clients at less cost?
Integrating your computer files with those of your CPA’s files can save time
and money, and increase accuracy. Doing so over the internet makes it even
simpler. Find out how your CPA uses the internet. Does she have her own
website,and if so check it out and ask questions about the resources available
on it. Find out how you can interact with her and her computer systems to make
work flow more efficiently and enable you both to stay in better touch.
12. Will you need to overhaul our
current system ? Your internal bookkeeping and cost-accounting systems are
expensive to alter. Find out up front whether you can integrate with the
firm’s systems.
13. Are you conservative or aggressive
in interpreting tax laws and regulations, and accounting and auditing
standards? Save yourself the hassle and be certain that your accountant
approaches your books in the same way you would.
Step
#3 -
Take the CPA to a two-hour dinner, and talk about your lives, your
personal sides not the business sides, and then see if the person across the
table is the one whom you would choose. If so, raise a glass to toast a new
important relationship!
