Digital Transformation & Social Selling for Accountants
Alex Low
Alex Low is a change consultant for professional firms. He advises accountants on topics such as social selling, digital transformation, sales and marketing online and engaging more using digital. He has over 15 years sales experience, lead social selling programmes for an International Law firm and Global Commercial Real Estate firm.
He is the Professional Service lead at DLA ignite and is at the forefront of understanding the latest technology platforms and how they can be used in a social context, including AI & Machine Learning. He has been featured in LinkedIn case studies talking on social selling and the real world benefits organisations can achieve leveraging the technology and processes in the 21st Century. Shownotes:
- What digital transformation means in the real world
- Accountants only talk a very good game when it comes to digital transformation
- Social media is not just about cute cats and posting pictures of your latest pizza
- Social selling is business development and sales/marketing for the 21st-century
- Social selling challenges traditional sales approaches, especially for accountants
- Digital in simple terms is technology and in sales and social selling, the outcome remains getting business meetings
- Some progressive accounting firms are embracing digital transformation – Kingston Smith’s website now allows voice search
- PWC now have a practice focused on drone technology
- Change takes time and people fear it, which is why culture is slow to adopt digital transformation
- Professional service firms like accountants have a fixed mindset (see Carol Dweck) which makes them slow to change
- People still buy people and that hasn’t changed in this age of digital transformation, but more and more people are communicating online
- Buying behaviours are changing – people don’t like being sold to, they do their own research and ask their trusted network
- LinkedIn is one of the most accepted and professional business to business selling platforms
- People used to buy by word-of-mouth – this has now just moved into the social media arena
- Our attention span is diminishing technology and we are becoming more and more lazy – this is why we save time asking others for recommendations
- Amazon has reprogrammed the way people buy in the 21st-century
- Google are blocking 100 million email marketing messages every day and marking them as spam – people do not like being interrupted
- 4.3 billion people in the world are now online and over 2 million have installed ad blockers on their email, so the majority of paid-for advertising is not working
- Social selling is 21st-century lead generation – it creates awareness and starts conversations
- Tips to help accountants dip their toes into the world of social selling
- Attention is a currency so any social media activity must cut through the noise
- The power of hashtags to label your conversations online and create engagement
- How Microsoft (who own LinkedIn) are trying to drive engagement
- The role of the marketing team in shaping social media approaches for individual accountants
- Permission and fear are some of the biggest challenges that prevent change happening in accounting firms
- How EY are trying to change the partnership model of accounting firms from a pyramid to more of an ecosystem.
'#Accountants only talk a very good game when it comes to digital transformation' says #accounting social selling expert @alexander_low on the Accounting Influencers Podcast #accountex 'accountancy #advisory #accountinginsight
Alex Low
When Alex is not working, he geeks out over BBQs, and loves both skiing and heli-skiiing. He met the Queen last year and his Great Great Uncle invented the tank. Contact Alex directly:
Liked your Accounting Influencers Interview with Rob Brown" target="_blank">Alex on email
