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

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