Can a CPA Really Help Your Company Make Better Sales and Marketing Decisions?
Profit Ability Article Highlight

Two people you would likely never see mentioned in the same sentence are "CPA" and "marketing professional" right? Think again. Your CPA can provide valuable insight into how effective, or ineffective, your marketing efforts are. In just about any company, there are tremendous insights that can be mined out of "the numbers" by the right person. This is especially true when it comes to your company's sales and marketing efforts. Reviewing these items with a CPA's perspective can help your company get more out your expenditures in this area.

At Talley & Company, we have addressed a number of marketing issues for our clients. For example, we can measure the return on investment a client earns "22 senators... from its overall marketing budget as well as specific budget areas. We have developed a set of metrics that measure the key performance indicators of the sales function and how salespeople perform relative to those objectives. This kind of insight is a big key to getting the most out of your sales force.

For example, one common question companies face is whether new customers are coming more from sales efforts or marketing efforts. Quite often to correctly and conclusively answer this question, all it takes is for a CPA to work back through the numbers in a way that the average company cannot do on its own. This valuable insight could confirm what you are already doing or it could change your marketing and sales efforts completely. Or maybe you would like to see how discounts, loss-leaders or throw-ins given by sales staffers affect your bottom line. Again, by working back through the right types of data, your CPA can help generate this kind of insight for your company.

So the next time you face a vexing sales and marketing issue, consider the possibility of bringing a CPA's perspective into the mix. You might be surprised what insights are just waiting to be discovered in the numbers. At Talley & Company, we have helped a number of clients audit their own marketing efforts. Our findings allowed each of them to make intelligent adjustments to their respective approaches and, in the end, will help each of them get more out of each marketing dollar.

If you have further questions on this issue, please contact our offices.