Finding Clients For Bookkeepers

Are you starting a bookkeeping Business or a Hobby?

Kirsty has been having some real challenges getting her bookkeeping business started – and a large part of that seems to be her whole approach

How you think about your business, your attitude towards your business is very important – it’s the main stumbling block that bookkeepers have when they get started

Many wanna-be bookkeepers just see bookkeeping as a way of making some “pocket money” at home in between looking after the kids, shopping, housework etc

How do you view your business?
Propsective clients have an uncanny way of detecting the “credibility” of a bookkeeper

The responses that we receive from many wanna-be bookkeepers suggests that they haven’t got their heads around the potential of this opportunity of starting a bookkeeping business

That can be a challenge for bookkeepers/accountants that have been working fulltime for an employer

Your mental approach to your business is very important
Work on your business plan – review the list of services that you will offer – put them together in a professional manner [not a shopping list]

Focus on getting your business started in a serious manner, treat this like a business and you’ll start to see some good results

Today we asked Kirsty: ” Do you have a business plan for your bookkeeping business?”

It’s exciting to start a bookkeeping business – but do you have a “road map” to take you where you want to go?

As the saying goes:”If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”

Without a business plan for your business you could find your business hitting a brick wall. Your business plan doesn’t have to be complicated, and you may find that you’ve already got much of it in your head.

Start by thinking about the following points:

1) Why did I want to start my bookkeeping business?

2) What is the Focus of my business?

Some bookkeepers want to have a business that will do everything, from admin to secretarial to bookkeeping – and end up being the “Jill of all trades” and “mistress of none”

3) What do I want to do with my business when I choose to stop working?
Beginning with the end in mind is very important. It can affect how you structure your business. Does it have it’s own entity, or are you running it as a sole trader, part of a number of business activities within a trust or a company?

4) Do I want “20 jobs with 20 different bosses”, or do I want to build a business that I can employ staff to run?

5) Flexibility
Will my business plan allow for any changes in circumstances?

Basic elements of a simple business plan

1. The Vision Statement
Why did I want to start my bookkeeping business, and what am I building?

This is the place where you describe your vision ?your way. Simply describe a detailed picture of the bookkeeping business you want. The key to capturing your vision is to refrain from restricting the flow of thoughts.

2. The Mission Statement
What is the purpose of my bookkeeping business?

Sometimes called “the elevator speech”, your mission statement describes the purpose for which your bookkeeping business exists. Great mission statements are short and memorable.

They communicate in just a few words the company?s focus and what is being provided to clients.

They answer the question, “Why will clients use my bookkeeping service?”

The mission statement should also reflect the owner’s passion and commitment.

3. The Objectives
How will you measure your achievements?

These may be as simple as how many hours a week you want to work, and how much net income you want to generate. The more accurate you can define your objectives of your bookkeeping business, the easier it is to focus on the goals that are most critical to your success.

4. Your Business Building Strategies

How will you grow your business? You need to find strategies that you feel comfortable with, that set the tone or “culture” of your business. Some bookkeepers believe the best strategy to finding clients is to offer so many hours free work, or to heavily discount their rates at the beginning.

What are you strategies?

5. Action Plans – What work is to be done?

These are the specific actions your business must implement to achieve the objectives. These action items contribute to the growth of your bookkeeping business. Once you have a client, then what? Do you have a process in place for looking after each client?

Each action item is, in effect, a project. Plans should be action-oriented, list specific tasks and have definitive deadlines or due dates.

As you write your business plan, other ideas may come to mind – don’t dismiss them, because they may form part of your strategies and action plans.

Once you’ve put it in writing, keep it in a visible place, because you’ll be using it as a decision making tool.

You can keep updating it, and use it to measure your progress each quarter. It will also help you with a financial budget for your business

All you want is bookkeeping clients, so the first thing that many bookkeepers do is to print up some business cards, put an advert in the local paper and sit back waiting for the phone to ring.

How easy is that!

Then they wonder why the phone is running red hot with clients chasing them with bookkeeping work.

“I’ll put an advert in yellow pages!”, they exclaim.

Here’s an interesting thing about advertising. Companies like Yellow Pages and local newspapers make their money BEFORE you get any response to your advertisement. So they do not really care whether or not you have any success.

When it comes to renew, they tell you that there was nothing wrong with advertising, it’s just that you didn’t word it correctly, or you should pay for a bigger, fancier advertisement.

We’ve never advertised in the local paper or in Yellow Pages, and our business has always flourished.

Then there’s the fliers:
What do you do with junk mail that arrives in your letterbox? Maybe flick through it and then chuck it in the recycling bin

So why is it that anyone else is going to do anything different with your fliers?

What response do you want from your fliers?
Bookkeepers speak to us and can’t understand why their fliers have got no response. Maybe they expect people to treasure their fliers, get them mounted and framed and hung on the wall as a feature of the lounge room

Sorry, it just won’t happen. Show me your flier and chances are I’ll tell you that you’ve been 100% succesful in getting people to do exactly what you’ve asked them to do on your flier – nothing!

On Day Two, Kirsty is working on her mission statement or “elevator speech”. What sets Kirsty above all the other bookkeepers in her area? How can she make her advertising work for her? We discuss that more in our Bookkeepers Marketing Program

Kirsty has been working as a public accountant for a number of years, and has finally decided to quit her job and start her own bookkeeping business.

She’s living in the suburbs and has been used to commuting 90 minutes each way to work every day.

Like many bookkeepers that join our Bookkeepers Marketing Program, she has absolutely no idea what to do next.

Many bookkeepers begin their freelance bookkeeping career by moonlighting. They work fulltime during the day and do some bookkeeping in the evenings or weekends for friends or business associates that they have met along the way.

Jumping from fulltime to no employment can be a shock, not only to the wallet, but also to the routine.

Suddenly you’re sitting at home with all the skills to be a bookkeeper, and you are hit by the realisation that you have to go and find bookkeeping clients. And you want them yesterday.

Today’s task is to get Kirsty started in her quest to find bookkeeping clients. To do that she needs to think about what services she can offer potential clients. Why bother doing this, you ask. After all, bookkeeping is bookkeeping.

True, but what do potential clients think that bookkeepers do? Experience shows that most clients really have no idea what a bookkeeper does, all they know is that they need one.

Rather like a computer. Who really knows what a computer does? Who really cares? All you need to know is that the computer does stuff to save you time and money (hopefully).

That’s more or less what many bookkeeping clients also think. If they get a bookkeeper hopefully they will save the client time and money. The bookkeeping client knows that the bookkeeper will take the client’s financial documents, work some magic and be able to produce reports that the bookkeeper can then give to the accountant to process to keep the tax office happy.

Have a look at websites for bookkeepers and generally you’ll see a “shopping list” of services that the bookkeeper can provide. How much of it actually means anything to clients?

All the client wants to know is “What’s in it for me”. Have a look at your website as an outsider and ask yourself these questions:

1. Does this website clearly identify some solutions to my bookkeeping problems?
2. Do I even understand what this website is talking about?
3. Is it just a heap of accounting / bookkeeping jargon?

Tomorrow we look at the next step of getting Kirsty started with her bookkeeping business