Finding Clients For Bookkeepers

Here’s an email from Kerrie, who’s having trouble finding bookkeeping clients:
Hi Jenny
I enjoy reading your emails. It helps me to keep my nose to the grind stone so to speak.

I am having trouble finding bookkeeping clients. I have a few bookkeeping clients that are regular but not enough to keep going. Some days I think if I got a full time bookkeeping job it would not be so hard. But then the reason I started my bookkeeping business would be invalid.

I have tried the papers, that doesn’t work. The only way I have been able to get bookkeeping clients is word of mouth.

We’ve talked many times previously about throwing money away in newspaper advertising – you could have sent that money our way and had better results.

Just a few questions:
1. What area/suburb are you located?
2. Are you a registered BAS Agent?
3. How muany years FREELANCE / CONTRACT experience do you have as a bookkeeper?
4. How many hours per week do you use MYOB?
5. How many hours per week do you use Quickbooks?
6. Do you have knowledge /experience of payroll and inventory?
7. Are you a professional and skilled bookkeeper?

We’ve helped bookkeepers who struggle to find clients – like Cathy, in February last year, similar position, by the end of April we’d found her enough clients to put her in a position of making $60k p/a part time – more than she was making fulltime for less hours

It’s your call – if you’re like Kerrie, and having trouble finding bookkeeping clients we can help, or you can keep struggling to do it on your own.

What do you think about a letter box drop to find bookkeeping clients?

Peter writes:
“I am looking to start-up a small bookkeeping business, with the objective of occupying me for say 3 days pw. My reason in writing to you is to obtain your opinion as to whether you think I am on the right track with regard to
my marketing strategy (just developed). I want to avoid any unnecessary wheel spinning.

My intention is to develop a one page letter, which I will use as a letter box drop in the local area. I have already approached the Accountants in my area and received some polite and positive comments, but I am not holding my breath! I believe a direct approach to end-users is more likely to be productive, rather than going through a third party. “

If you’ve read our book *Secrets to Finding Bookkeeping Clients* you’ll realise that we don’t really promote “cold calling”.

Have you thought about who your target market is? When I go down to the local hardware store to buy a drill, it’s not because I want to buy a drill – It’s because I need to hang a picture up on the wall, and need to put a hook in the wall, and need a drill to make the hole!

Business owners don’t want to pay for a bookkeeper – they just want their paperwork sorted out!

We’ve worked with accountants that have a tendancy to get caught up in the use of “jargin” when their clients are only interested in knowing if they’ve got enough cash left at the end of the week to buy a carton of coldies!!

You’re surrounded by potential clients – and end of financial year is a good time to source those clients – finding them is really quite simple with the right strategies

If you’d like some help then take advantage of our one-on-one coaching sessions

If you’re like most bookkeepers, you really don’t want to go out and meet new people. You’re like a rabbit frozen by the car headlights – and any type of business breakfast / networking function is the last place you’d want to be

When you arrive there, you may be totally ignored, or introduced to someone who’s whole purpose is to smother you with information about their business. They’ve found a new “victim”

Our approach is completely different, whether its at a Chamber event, Rotary Club meeting, and networking function or whatever the situation may be.

Because if you want to successfully market your business through networking, then do what everyone else is NOT doing!

The Greatest Networking Strategy

Our goal is to find 3 people at every networking function. We want to help them, not by selling our bookkeeping services, but by giving them business leads. At least by having an understanding of their business and the type of clients they seek, we an begin to consider our existing database of friends and business associates that may benefit from these new contacts.

By taking an interest in their business, guess what happens? They actually take an interest , a genuine interest in yours, and start asking more about how you can benefit them.

Here’s a few simple tips to maximise the opportunities available at networking functions:

• Arrive early – at least 10 minutes early.
• Bring your business cards if you have them
  Have a think about what most people do when they are given a business card. They lose them. So our goal is not so much to give them out, but to collect other people’s business cards

• Dress for the occasion
  You can only make a first impression once. What impression / statement do you want to make by the way you are dressed?

• Use people’s names. After they introduce themselves, try to use their name at least three times in the next few minutes – that way you’ll have a better chance of remembering it.
• Have your “elevator speech” prepared – you need to be able to explain what you do in less than two minutes

  “I’m a bookkeeper” may be the correct statement, but it will not help the conversation without embelishment

• Have a clear idea of your typical bookkeeping client, so that other people may quickly get an understanding of your target market

As a freelance bookkeeper, remember that where ever you go, it’s like a networking event. School sports days, the loacl supermarket etc – you never know where you may meet your next bookkeeping client

One bookkeeper who started on our Bookkeepers Marketing Program last week picked up her first client yesterday, and was so excited!!

She had been very nervous in anticpation of the first meeting with the client, and emailed us yesterday saying she’s got her first bookkeeping client.

Why should we be surprised? We are not – you see, it’s not difficult with the right preparation!

What other result would you be expecting?

After all, the purpose of the client meeting was to seal the deal, and she did. That’s all it takes!

The most important step in starting your bookkeeping business is not to focus on how many clients you have right now, but how many clients you will have in the future.

The mindset of a bookkeeper can make such a difference to the growth of their business. You learn more about this in our Bookkeepers Marketing Program

Are you projecting an image of a professional bookkeeper?

We are amazed by the number of bookkeepers that are telling their clients they a run a professional bookkeeping service, and issue their invoices on an excel spreadsheet or a word document.

We asked a bookkeeper why she was not using her MYOB accounting software for raising invoices – her response was that since she didn’t have many clients “it wasn’t worth it”

Since when does projecting a professional image become dependant on “having enough clients” – and how many is “enough” to justify using your software package to generate invoices?

From a marketing perspective, how does it look to your client if you present them with invoices like that? Maybe they don’t care. To others it would raise some concerns – How come the bookkeeper’s not using MYOB to generate their invoices? Why would our bookkeeper be double handling those invoices?

Is this the same approach that the bookkeeper is taking to our business?

Similarly we’ve seen a number of female bookkeepers getting lovely “fluffy” pink feminine business cards with a free clipart image to further “pretty up” their cards.

What does that project to a prospective client? Does it project an image of professionalism, or rather the archetypal stay-at-home-mum wanna-be bookkeeper who’s doing hubby’s books and a few other mates for some extra income?

Maybe they want to project that image, and play at being a bookkeeper

Have a look at your invoice templates – do they project an image of a professional bookkeeper?

Have a look at your business cards / stationery – do they project a professional image?

Have a look at your website – does it project a professional image?

Have a look at your business attire – does it project a professional image?

Are you doing everything you’ve seen other bookeepers do? Have you tried a few ideas of your own?

After making the decision to start your own bookkeeping business, what’s next?

You run around telling all your family and friends that you’re starting your bookeeping business, and they smile and wish you well.

By chance you may pick up a new client – but if it’s only a few hours at the end of the quarter, it’s hardly enough to keep you in business.

You go and do all the other things that you’ve seen other bookeepers do, and maybe try a few ideas of your own.

Then you get frustrated or disheartened.

Presumably you’ve tried some things for your self, and they haven’t worked? Or maybe they have worked, but not as quickly as you would have expeceted?

Or maybe you don’t know how much to charge? Or what to say to prospective clients? Or how to convert enquiries to contracts? ETC

That’s where we come into the picture. If you would like our help in finding you bookkeeping clients, you’ll soon discover it’s going to be a worthwhile investment into the future of your bookkeeping business.

We’ve helped bookkeepers just like you develop a $60,000 pa business in less than a year.

The choice is yours – You can continue doing what you are doing and learn the hard and slow way, or you can decide to fast track the process by securing a copy of our Ebook “How to Find Bookkeeping Clients”

Once you’ve read that and applied the various strategies, we can then help you fast track your business.

We will work with you, but we will not do all the work ourselves – that’s why we say we’ll help you build your bookkeeping business through the Bookkeepers Marketing Program

Have you decided you’ve had enough of this “working for a boss” lark?

Sam is typical of many bookkeepers that have been employed by large businesses and companies for many years as a company accountant or bookkeeper. They’ve run the financial department of the organisation and are regarded by their boss as the financial controller.

You wake up one day and decide that you’ve had enough of this “working for a boss” lark. You can do better on your own, make more money, and work your own hours.

So you decide to start your own bookkeeping business. Then your face turns white as you realise that it’s all very well having the expertise and know-how of being a bookkeeper. But without bookkeeping clients, you really do not have a bookeeping business!!

Our Bookkeepers Marketing Program will kick-start your bookkeeping business. It’s not for the feint-hearted, it’s only for bookkeepers who are serious about developing a strong, solid and profitable bookkeeping business.

Does your bookkeeping business speak for itself?

Ask any accountants and they will tell you that there are plenty of bookkeepers around, but there are only a few good bookkeepers.

You can determine how good you are as a bookkeeper. You can get all the necessary training, and then chase opportunities to get sufficient experience to set yourself up with the best possible resources to start your bookkeeping business when the time is right.

Starting your own business too early can destroy your self confidence, destroy your reputation in the business community and perhaps even destroy your business.

As a successful businessman once said:”the harder you work, the luckier you get” – and that can be said for many successful bookkeepers.

Once you get the ball rolling, you’ll find that your business continues to grow and expand, to the point where you are faced with decisions about where you want your business to go.

There are many other aspects involved in building a successful bookkeeping business that haven’t been covered in this book.

Our marketing program helps bookkeepers learn short cuts including how to overcome client objections, and how to develop your business to a point where you have so many clients that you can pick and choose.