Unexpected Tips for Finding New Accounting Clients

Are you having trouble finding new customers yet you don't want to spend a lot of money hiring a marketing agency? If that's the case, you won't want to miss this blog post. This article will discuss some of the most successful methods that I implement during the process of taking on new clients for my accounting firm. In addition, you will find out how to design an engaging website, determine who your ideal customers are, and make the most of the various social media platforms available to you. If you are not already engaging in these activities, it is possible that you should start doing so.

Finding new clients to do accounting work with these days can be challenging. However, who is to say that you cannot make things simpler for yourself? As a result, I'm going to give you some pointers today that will make acquiring new customers much less of a bother and give you more time to devote to the aspect of your job that you enjoy the most—working.

Searching for local business associations is one thing that helps me out tremendously all the time. There are many events that are excellent for networking, and there are also a great number of people that need assistance with their financial situations. Simply showing up is all that is required of you. Also, don't forget about your close friends and family members; it's possible that they're holding off hiring an accountant because they believe doing so will require a significant financial investment.

How to Attract Accounting Clients

The introduction of the Internet and its subsequent expansion brought about a dramatic shift in the marketing industry. And this deep impact has been felt across all sectors, including the technological sector, the medical sector, the health sector, and the accounting sector. How, therefore, do you reel in new clients for your accounting practise using the Internet and the myriad of other resources at your disposal?

If you want accounting clients, the first and most important thing you need to do is choose a speciality and become an expert in that area. After that, discover potential customers who are in need of your specialised service, and communicate with them. Additionally, be involved in the circles that pertain to your sector, network with firms that are in a similar line of work, create a website for your company, and more.

Obtaining clientele in the field of accounting is not as simple as launching a website and advertising its services on the internet. Before and after the production of a website, there are a great many tasks that need to be completed.

The Most Vital Advice/Strategies to Attract Accounting Customers

A competent accountant is not simply someone who is sure of their ability to advise businesses on difficult financial issues, read through tax files in a matter of seconds, and other similar tasks in a timely manner. They should be as skilled in locating possibilities for them to display their abilities on a professional level. In other words, businesses need to be able to both acquire new customers and ensure that the satisfaction of the ones they already have.

The following is a list of advice and tricks that will assist you in marketing your accounting business, acquiring new clients, retaining existing clients, acquiring new clients through existing clients, and a great deal more. You shouldn't test out all of them at once. Instead, you should begin with either two or three. Implement the other strategies in order to build on the enthusiasm once they begin to show signs of bearing fruit.

Choose an accounting speciality

The following is a list of the many different accounting services that can be provided by a company that specialises in accounting:

• Tax accounting
• Forensic accounting
• Payroll processing
• Chartered accounting
• Internal auditing
• Management accounting, etc.

The aforementioned are examples of categories that are rather broad. For example, the term "public accounting" refers to accounting services that may include financial analysis, bookkeeping, account management, and other similar tasks.

Accountants that provide services in the area of internal audits examine the procedures used by a business to manage its finances, looking for signs of fraud, waste, and poor administration.

In most cases, a skilled accountant is able to handle a wide variety of accounting tasks. However, in order to enhance the likelihood of landing clients, it is essential to select a specialised market and sell your expertise inside that sector. Your goal should be to avoid giving the impression that you are a "generalist."

There is nothing wrong with being completely knowledgeable about everything. It is suggested that you do so. Having said that, it is of much more significance to be recognised as an authority in a specific sub-category, such as taxation.

Promote Your Business Constantly

Promote your service in both traditional and digital settings. Maintain an active presence on review and listing sites such as Yelp and Google My Business if you run a local company. These are the kinds of venues where a significant number of people might learn about companies that are similar to yours. The simple act of keeping your profile up to date on Google My Business, for instance, may lead to an increase in the amount of prospective customers who find your company through online searches.

You can sell your services in a variety of ways, either directly or indirectly, by taking part in online discussion groups, launching a blog and contributing to the blogs of others, being active on social media, organising webinars, penning a book, and so on.

Your name should be well known, and you should work towards making it a consistent priority as the ultimate goal. For your varied content marketing strategies to actually produce results, you need to make sure to distribute information that is of genuine use to your target audience.

Promote yourself while keeping your specific area of expertise and audience in mind. For example, if your target customers are small businesses, you should educate yourself on the locations, both online and offline, where they congregate. To clarify, "advertising your business" does not entail selling items or even attempting to do so. Thank you for your understanding. If you are at a local event that is geared towards company owners of small and medium-sized companies, you should refrain from selling anything.

The goal should be to present oneself in such a way that you are approachable, entertaining to communicate with, and knowledgeable. If you give away all of your knowledge without expressly expecting anything in return, it will help you create relationships, and calls for paid engagements will start coming in on their own.

Boost credibility and support

Trust is the most important aspect of accounting service. The customer is unaware of the reasoning behind the conclusions you reach. The only thing that concerns them is the outcome. They will return to you if they enjoy the work that you perform if they do.

Establishing mutual faith and reliance among members is essential to the health and growth of the group. If the customer develops doubts about your abilities as an accountant or becomes suspicious of your behaviour, they have the ability to sever all ties immediately, and you might not even be aware of what has happened. They are resistant to persuasion of any kind, therefore there is no hope of winning them over.

The more serious risk associated with betraying someone's confidence is that news will get out, and you run the risk of losing potential customers. More important than being responsive or affordable is, therefore, the creation of trust and goodwill among the target audience.

Establish credibility with a new client by first gaining an understanding of their accounting needs. Find out more about their level of financial understanding and the ways in which you might be able to assist them. Do not make any attempts to sell anything right away, nor should you talk highly of yourself in the beginning. Engage the customer in a meaningful conversation while allowing them to do the majority of the talking. If there is a problem that can be fixed right then and there, you should do it.

After you've listened to them, you should clarify their issue or what they require to them. It would be helpful if you could respond without using any accounting jargon. They will view you as an expert and gain faith in your abilities if you put in the effort to clarify accounting concepts or address specific difficulties or scenarios.

Look for Referrals

The likelihood of you acquiring new customers by maintaining the satisfaction of your current clientele is high. However, you should not take a passive attitude and should not anticipate your existing clients to recommend you to their friends, family members, and other individuals in their network. Instead, you should actively seek their referrals.

A reference is a good technique to bag new clients because the client who referred them to you is likely to have already heard of you and trust you. There is no method of advertising that can generate trust to the same degree as word-of-mouth recommendations can. To put it another way, the quality of customers acquired through word-of-mouth recommendations is incomparably higher than those obtained by cold phoning, internet advertising, or participation in social media interaction.

As was mentioned before, repeat customers won't recommend your business to their friends and family no matter how pleased they are with the quality of the service you provide. They are only likely to do so if a member of their family or a close friend asks them to recommend a few accounting services. Therefore, after every successful job, you should enquire with the client about any other people they know who could have a need for services like yours. Send them emails and newsletters to let them know that you are searching for recommendations, and ask them to pass the word along to their contacts.

In the event that it is essential, create an incentive programme for customers who bring in new consumers. The benefits could take the form of gift cards, discounts on services, or anything else that incentivizes the customers who are already using your company to spread the word about it. Establish a means of monitoring referrals and rewarding the appropriate customers by putting a tracking system in place.

Regularly network and establish relationships

It is crucial to have a professional network and continue to build it in order to be successful in any kind of business. You may exchange resources with other businesses or experts in your network, or you could provide services that complement one another's specialised areas of expertise.

For instance, if you focus largely on providing tax preparation services, forming a strategic alliance with a company that specialises in wealth management could prove to be quite beneficial for both parties involved. Should any of your customers want services related to wealth management, you may refer them to your business partner. In a similar vein, if a client of the partner firm is searching for help with taxation, you have priority to assist that client. If you are unable to refer customers, you may choose to offer monetary bonuses instead.

However, broadening your network is essential if you want to become familiar with other service providers operating in your industry. Your customers may also be able to provide you with information regarding alternative accounting companies. You will gain insight into other companies that they may be collaborating with if you have an in-depth conversation about the accounting and tax challenges or obligations that they face and how they solve them.

Make sure that you only form strategic alliances with companies that aren't in direct competition with your own. Your professional network can benefit from the addition of professionals such as attorneys, bankers, insurance agents, and so on. These companies have a high probability of serving customers who have a requirement for professional accounting services. If you have expertise in taxation, becoming affiliated with a business that also provides tax services would be counterproductive given your level of expertise.

Unexpected Advice on Getting a New Accounting Job

You are aware of the need to solicit recommendations from already satisfied clients. You are aware that it is beneficial to join the Chamber of Commerce in your community and take part in various networking events that are held there. But what should you do when the typical methods for acquiring brand new accounting clients start to run out?

If you find that the traditional methods are no longer producing results for you, it's time to start thinking outside the box. In this article, we have actually compiled a list of 27 surprising ideas for finding new clients in the accounting field. If you include even just a few of these strategies in your marketing and promotion efforts, you can ensure that a constant flow of new customers will enter your place of business.

Reactivate Dormant Customers

Your company may be sitting on a profit goldmine, despite the fact that reactivating dormant clients will not make them technically "new" consumers once they have been brought back into the fold. This is especially the case if, as a result of prior customers becoming inactive, you have introduced brand-new services or made major alterations to the operations of your firm, such as introducing payment methods that are more appealing to customers.

Establish A Facebook Group

The functionality for creating groups that can be found on Facebook is analogous to that found on other platforms; however, there is a key caveat associated with developing communities on either of these platforms. They can provide wonderful opportunities to establish a following around your brand, but they also require regular inspection on your side, as communities that do not have continuing involvement can quickly fade away if they are not actively maintained.

Obtain Certification As A Quickbooks or Xero Provider

Accountant’s Accelerator - It should be noted that doing so will enable you to claim a listing on the "Find a Provider" part of the websites.

Include new goods or services

There are customers whose business you won't be able to get until such time as you take the necessary steps to expand your company's service offerings. This is due to the fact that you do not provide the products or services that are required by these customers.

The provision of virtual CFO services and accounting services to clients is currently a trending issue and an easy approach to extend the reach of your company's core skills to a new audience. Consider taking a look at the Cloud CFO service that Orba offers as a working illustration of this concept.

Put the details of your company on your sleeve

Transform yourself into a moving advertisement by donning t-shirts or other articles of clothing that feature the name of your company as well as its contact information. This strategy was employed by the proprietor of a digital marketing agency, Sujan Patel, to generate over one million dollars in additional revenue.

Make some cold calls

Nobody wants to dial for bucks, which is precisely why businesses that are prepared to put in the effort to make it work have a chance at a potentially lucrative opportunity. According to what Nicholas D. Keseric Jr., a contributor to Accounting Today, explains:

It's exactly the same thing as when a highway shuts down a portion of the sections on the highway if you don't use cold calling to promote your company. You might reduce the number of lanes from four to three. The expansion of services to existing customers, referrals from existing customers, referral sources who introduce their clients to you, walk-in businesses, marketing efforts, and your website are the primary avenues through which you can expand your company. Why did you stop people from doing cold calls? Open it up.

Cold emailing

If making cold calls is too scary for you, an alternative that might be more appealing is sending cold emails. Look for tried and tested templates for cold emails to cut down on your learning curve.

Reactivate Dormant Customers

Your company may be sitting on a financial goldmine without even realising it, despite the fact that re-engaging with dormant clients won't make them officially "new" consumers. This is especially true if, after previous clients became inactive, you have offered new services or made big changes to the operations of your company, such as providing payment methods that are more tempting to customers.

Put up a LinkedIn ad

It's possible that marketing in printed media or in local news sources is the promotional tactic of choice for your company. However, you might want to think about redirecting part of this money to LinkedIn, which is sometimes overlooked. In addition to communicating with those customers in a setting geared towards business, you'll have the opportunity there to personalise your advertisements for the customers who are most likely to buy from you.

Use LinkedIn's Publishing Platform to publish

A more general recommendation is to transition away from outgoing advertising methods and place a greater emphasis on developing thought leadership, which refers to the kind of content that attracts inbound leads, for both yourself and your company. Publishing contributions on the Publishing Platform offered by LinkedIn is one way to accomplish this goal.

Create a LinkedIn Group of your own

You can also take advantage of the professional network's Group-building option to establish a community in which you can demonstrate your level of knowledge and engage with potential clients in a manner that is not as direct.

Run contests on social media

It's possible that a social media challenge will be successful for your company if it caters to customers rather than other corporations.

For example, in the eight weeks running up to tax time, you could publish messages to your followers issuing particular tasks to assist them get their submissions in order. This would be beneficial to both you and them. Instruct the participants to check the website on a frequent basis, to verify that they have carried out the required steps, and to spread the challenge with other people.

Join forces with neighborhood-specific websites

This piece of advice is especially useful if estate planning is one of the services you provide, as this emphasises the need of locating local families and establishing relationships with them.

Do some research to find websites in your area that share resources with families. Inquire regarding sponsorships or other methods your company can help if you are able to identify websites that cater to the audience you are looking to reach.

Activate a YouTube channel

CPA Josh Bauerle utilised straightforward videos on YouTube to generate $10,000 in additional revenue for his company right when he was getting it off the ground (most of which went on to become recurring).

Engage in Public Speaking

Consider speaking engagements to be similar to live versions of YouTube videos. If you are successful at them, people will remember not only your name but also the name of your company.

Offer To Speak As A Replacement

If you are unable to secure speaking slots on the main stage of the conference, you should make yourself available as a back-up speaker to the conference organisers. The following is what Eula M. Young of Griot's Roll Film Production has to say about it:

When I was requested to speak on a panel in lieu of a speaker who had to abruptly cancel their appearance, I was able to acquire new consumers in a way that was completely unexpected. I just went because I was interested in seeing what I could pick up from the speaker about the subject of the programme. As a result of my participation on the panel, I acquired some new clients.

Contribute as a guest on appropriate websites

These days, a great number of websites welcome content written by visitors as "guest contributors." Locate websites where users who are most likely to become your clients spend time, and then contact the site's proprietor to enquire about the possibility of contributing an article. Your contribution is not likely to result in monetary compensation; however, you should be permitted to add information about your company as well as a link that directs readers to their website within your author profile.

Release A Book

Do you want to really make a leap in the way others view your authority? Create and release a book. It is a terrific method to demonstrate the expertise that your customers are seeking for, and it doesn't matter whether you pursue the road of traditional publishing or opt for the newer chances for self-publishing.

Support A Local Event

Is it possible for you to sponsor a local sports team? Participate in a very important event? Finding a community event like this one to support and contributing to it can be an excellent way to get your name in front of potential clients.

Donate To Local Organizations

In a similar vein, making contributions to charitable organisations in your community, either on a continuing process or as component of a one-time fundraising drive, can be an excellent way to raise people's awareness of your company's name while also tying it to important causes in your region. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways.