Why oneninety8
Run by someone who has sold on trust
Professional services are sold the way complex industrial work is: on trust, over months, to more than one person.
Robb Sutton has spent 20 years in industrial sales and supply chain leadership, winning customers in long, relationship-driven sales cycles across the US, Europe, and Asia. That's the instinct we bring to your marketing: every page and post should move a real relationship forward.
We won't pretend to know your practice on day one. We don't need to be CPAs to market a CPA firm, but we do need to understand how your partners win work. So every engagement starts by learning it from them.
What carries over from 20 years of B2B selling
- Long sales cycles with several decision makers
- Proposals, scopes, and fee conversations
- Referral and partner relationships
- Expertise buyers can't easily judge
- Qualifying the right clients, and passing on the wrong ones
- Keeping the pipeline full between big wins
- Growing existing accounts
Who you're really selling to
One engagement. Several people to convince.
A firm is rarely hired by one person after one visit. The partner who takes the call is usually the last step of a longer search, so we write for everyone along the way.
The referral test
A referral gets you considered. Then they look you up.
Before they call, most referred prospects check you out. A thin website, a blog that stopped in 2021, or a partner bio that's just credentials quietly sends them to the next name on the list. We make sure the firm they find matches the firm they were told about.
- Your name in GoogleYour Google Business Profile, your reviews, and whether the firm looks current and active.
- Your websiteDo you work with companies like mine, on problems like mine? Is it clear what happens after I call?
- Your peoplePartner bios that show judgment and the clients they serve, not just degrees and memberships.
- Your thinkingRecent articles that answer a real question clearly. The fastest way to show how you'd think about theirs.
- What AI saysMore and more, a quick question to ChatGPT or Google's AI: who are the best firms for this around Atlanta?
What we run
Built around how clients choose a firm
Six parts, run every month as your marketing department. A person reviews every piece, and nothing publishes without your approval, because in your business one careless sentence costs trust.
Practice & industry pages
A page for each service and each type of client you want more of, answering what buyers ask before they call: who you help, how you work, and what an engagement looks like.
Your expertise, published
Articles and guides that answer the questions clients ask your partners every week, written in your firm's voice. The content that makes a prospect think, "these people get it."
Search & AI visibility
Built to rank for the searches buyers make, like "outsourced CFO Atlanta" or "employment attorney for small business," and to get cited when AI tools are asked for a shortlist.
LinkedIn, for the firm and its partners
Useful posts from the firm's page, plus drafts partners can publish under their own names. It's where your buyers and referral sources already spend time.
Referral-ready material
One-page overviews, short case stories, and explainers your partners and referral sources can forward in a single email.
Growth from existing clients
Content and email that tell current clients about services they don't know you offer. Usually the least expensive new revenue a firm has.
How we learn your business
We don't know your practice yet. Here's how we learn it.
Our deepest experience is industrial. For every other client, the first month goes to learning your business from the people who run it, not guessing from the outside.
Sit with your partners
Interviews with the people who win the work: how they describe what you do, who your best clients are, and which clients you'd rather not have.
Read your wins and losses
Recent proposals, with anything confidential removed, and the questions prospects asked before they signed or walked away.
Hear it from clients
A few short client conversations, plus your reviews, to learn the words clients use for the problem you solve. Those words become your headlines.
Write it, then check it
Early pieces go back to a partner for review until the voice is right. You approve the plan before anything publishes.
Example deliverable
What the plan looks like
This is the one-page plan you'd approve before anything is built, filled in for an illustrative firm. Client work is confidential, so we show the format and the depth instead.
Yours is built from the interviews above, not from a template. To see the whole process running, look at our own site: we're the test bed.
- The firm
- 35-person CPA and advisory firm in Alpharetta. Wants more advisory work with $10M to $50M companies, not just more tax returns.
- Who buys
- Owners and CFOs of privately held companies. Controllers usually build the shortlist.
- What they ask first
- Do you work with companies our size? What does outsourced CFO work actually include? How is it priced?
- The offer
- A free month-end close review for companies running on a part-time controller.
- First 90 days
- Outsourced CFO or full-time controller: what a $10M company actually needs
- The month-end close checklist we give new clients
- What changes in tax planning after you pass $10M in revenue
- Channels
- Firm LinkedIn page twice a week, partner posts drafted weekly, and a monthly email to clients and referral sources.
- Qualified lead
- Privately held, $10M+ in revenue, asking about advisory work.
- Reported monthly
- Inquiries by source, the pages they read first, how referred prospects heard of you, and who AI tools recommend.
Illustrative example, not a client. It shows the format and level of detail of the plan every client approves.
Referrals and your own platform
Referrals start it. Your reputation closes it.
Referrals, networking, and professional directories will always matter, and we'd never tell you to stop. But referrals are limited by who happens to mention you. We build the reputation that makes a referral land, and that brings in clients who never had one.
What we report every month
Who this fits
Established firms around Atlanta
Typically 10 to 150 people, growing on referrals, with partners who'd rather practice than market and no one in-house to run it. From Alpharetta and Perimeter to Buckhead, Midtown, and Cumberland.
Weighing a marketing hire instead? See what that hire really costs in year one, or score your marketing in 3 minutes.
Do you understand professional services?
Honestly, our deepest background is industrial, and we'd rather say so up front. What carries over is 20 years of selling expertise in long, relationship-driven sales cycles, which is how firms win clients too. Your practice itself we learn from your partners in the first month, and every early piece goes back to them for review.
We grow on referrals. Why do we need marketing?
Keep the referrals. Most referred prospects still look you up before they call, and many compare you with two or three other firms. Marketing makes sure what they find confirms what they were told. It also brings in clients who don't know anyone who knows you.
How do you handle client confidentiality and our professional rules?
We sign an NDA before we see anything, and we never name clients or share engagement details without written permission. If your profession has advertising or ethics rules, your review process comes first: nothing publishes without sign-off from the partner you designate.
Will our partners have to write?
No. We interview them, draft in their voice, and send it over for a quick review. Their expertise shows up in the work without taking their evenings.
How long before we see results?
Setup takes two to four weeks. Fixes to your website and your Google profile can pay off in the first month. Treat three to six months as the window to judge content and search. AI visibility is less predictable: it varies by market and by platform, so we check it monthly and report what changed rather than promise a date.
Do you meet in person?
Yes. We're based in Milton and meet with every client in person once a month, at your office. It's the fastest way to hear what your partners are seeing.
What does it cost?
Every engagement is a one-time setup plus a monthly rate, and you know both before anything starts. For most firms it comes in under the cost of one marketing hire. Run the numbers for yours.
Free calculator
What does a marketing hire really cost?
An Atlanta marketing manager averages about $88,000 in salary. Add benefits, tools, freelancers, and hiring, and the first year comes to about $145,900. Run the numbers for your company in about a minute.
See what a referral finds when they look you up.
Request a free Engine Teardown. Robb responds personally within one business day and sets up a time to meet. You'll talk through what prospects see before they call, including what ChatGPT and Google's AI say when someone asks for the best firms like yours around Atlanta.