The Whetstone Group, Inc. - Marketing Assessment

The Whetstone Group, Inc.
Marketing Cost Segregation

The Whetstone Group, Inc. has developed a process to market cost segregation studies to your prospective clients. This process has worked effectively for our clients in the past, generating a good number of leads that were converted into new business - providing clients a high ROI on the effort. Following are the details of this marketing program:

The Process:

You contract with Whetstone to purchase leads for a specific territory (can be an entire state(s) or group of counties). Once contracted, you will have exclusive rights to all leads generated in this territory.
Whetstone will access information about new construction projects that meet your criteria.
a. Your exclusive geographic territory
b. Bid date
c. Valuation
Whetstone calls each lead and does the research to determine who the owner of the property is - who will benefit from the cost seg savings.
a. If this person or entity is located in your territory, we continue the process. If not, this is no longer a valid potential lead for you.
Whetstone sends a letter on your letterhead about cost seg to the identified contacts:
a. The letter will explain the benefits of performing cost seg to the prospects and discuss your firm's unique competitive differentiation.
b. You will have final approval on the letter.
One week after the letter mails, Whetstone begins calling the leads and attempts to set face-to-face appointments for you to meet with the prospects. We continue to call each potential lead until we reach them and have the conversation about cost seg.
As appointments are set, Whetstone emails you the time, date of the appointment and any notes the lead generation representatives took during the conversation.
Whetstone will email or fax a confirmation notice of the appointment time/date to the prospect to ensure they note it on their calendar.
You meet with the prospects and work the sales cycle from there.

Deliverables:

A lead is defined as a scheduled face-to-face meeting with a construction project owner or a key decision maker at the entity that owns the project.

A qualified lead is defined as follows:

Construction project owner.
Project owner is within your exclusive geographic territory.
The total project costs as listed in source data are equal to or greater than the amount you set in your criteria.
Projects that are listed in the source data at the stage of construction bids or earlier in the life cycle of the project (as you designate in your criteria).
The appointment has to happen. Whetstone will use our best efforts to reschedule appointments that are not held. Your sales people will use their best efforts to keep the appointment as scheduled with the prospect.

Whetstone is not guaranteeing the prospect is ready to buy anything as a result of this process or will ever buy anything from your firm. The service Whetstone offers is to get you face-to-face with a qualified prospect to discuss cost segregation services.

Benefits of the Whetstone Approach

Following are the benefits you will realize by working with Whetstone to develop leads for cost segregation:

Maximizes ROI on sales and marketing activities because these activities are:
- Focused on the appropriate target market;
- Geared towards having conversations with decision makers; and
- Aligned with your business objectives.
Reduces your risk in business development investment; you only pay for qualified leads.
Easy to implement - all your firm has to do is provide the sales people to make the sales calls and then work the sales cycle. Whetstone will handle the rest.
This process reduces the amount of time your professionals spend trying to generate appointments.
Our callers have years of experience getting through the gatekeepers and having needs-oriented conversations with business owners. We understand cost seg and know how to have conversations with business owners about the business issues that lead to a face-to-face appointment.
You'll obtain ongoing growth results because sales and marketing activities are implemented with the guidance of marketing consultants who are familiar with best practices and know what works and what doesn't within a CPA firm environment.
The letter sent on your behalf warms the prospects with proven cost seg language; even if no appointment is set, your firm's brand awareness is increased because of the letter.

Fees/Arrangements

You only pay for leads received - the fee is $650 for each face-to-face appointment. Balance due is invoiced once per month. Payment is due upon submission.

Annual rights are automatically renewable at your election. Either party may cancel the agreement at any time without penalty by providing a written 30-day notice of intent to terminate.

Client Responsibilities

The client will provide:

Your criteria for a qualified lead - Whetstone consultants will work with you to define this on the front end; if you find after going on a few appointments that you want to change the criteria, contact Whetstone and we will work with you to update.
One box (500 quantity) of your letterhead and envelopes. As more is needed, Whetstone will notify you.
A list of entities you have done cost segregation for within the past year and those you are currently talking to (we need this so we don't call people you are already working with). If you begin talking to a new prospective cost segregation client, you should notify Whetstone right away so we don't also call them.
The list of individuals from your firm who will be going on sales appointments and their contact information.
Dates that are not available to set appointments; this will need to be proactively provided on an ongoing basis (i.e. at least once per month), otherwise Whetstone will assume you can cover any appointment we set.
If possible, a one-page summary of your cost segregation service, your experience and approach - sometimes prospects ask for more information prior to agreeing to a meeting. We prefer this in a PDF format to email to interested prospects.

If you have additional questions please contact Lisa Rhatigan at 319-447-6403 or Carrie Steffen at 319-447-6402.

Back to Services List