Marketing 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

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

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

When you start out with your bookkeeping business, have you considered the image that you are projecting?

After all, like it or not, you can only make a first impression once.

That’s right, you can only make a FIRST impression ONCE.

Are You Projecting a Professional Image?
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 one bookkeeper in our Bookkeepers Marketing Program 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”?

How many bookkeeping clients is “enough” to justify using your software package to generate invoices?

Should I be GST Registered?
The ATO rulings regarding the income level of which you are required to register for GST are clear.

Does that mean that you don’t need to register for GST if your income is below the
threshold? Absolutely

Does that mean that you SHOULDN’T register for GST until you reach that threshold? – that’s your decision.

From a marketing perspective, how does it look to your client if you are not GST registered? Maybe they don’t care.

However if they see a bookkeeper that is GST registered and one that is not, they may automatically assume that the bookkeeper that is registered has a stronger business, and a higher turnover.

Similarly we’ve seen 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 a professional bookkeeping image?

Have a look at your business cards / stationery ? Do they project the image of a professional bookkeeping service?

Have a look at your website? Does it project a professional image and give your potential bookeeping clients confidence in your services?

Have a look at your business attire? Does you project a professional image in your dress code, or look like you do bookkeeping as a hobby? Some bookkeepers don’t care how they dress, and turn up to clients looking scruff, and then wonder why the clients are concerned about their attention to detail

When you start out with your bookkeeping business, look closely at the image that you are projecting,

Ask any accountants, or any experienced professional bookkeepers, and they’ll tell you : “There’s bookkeepers and there’s bookkeepers”

And since 1st March 2010 [in Australia], “there’s bookkeepers, and there’s bookkeepers and there’s bookkeepers!”

What does that mean?
Until 1st March 2010, anyone in Australia could start a bookkeeping business and call themselves a bookkeeper. Who knows what experience they had, or how profficient they were!

The Federal Treasury, the Australian Taxation Office, and a number of organisations loosely representing bookkepers all got together and decided that every bookkeeper who chooses to work as a contractor needs to have a Cert IV (Financial Services – Bookkeeping) to be legally entitled to lodge a Business Activity Statement on behalf of their clients.

That is, of course, the minimum requirement – there’s some other hoops you have to jump through to become a registered BAS Agent – including “being of sound mind” – whatever that means. Sometimes we think we must be crazy to want to process the paperwork of some clients – so does that mean we are not “of sound mind”?

Having a qualification, and being a registered BAS agent is just the start of the journey towards a successful bookkeeping business

Finding bookkeeping clients is the next step

Keeping bookkeeping clients, knowing what to charge your clients, keeping your clients happy and finding more bookkeeping clients are more steps towards building a successful bookeeping business

Every freelance independant bookkeeper needs bookkeeping clients!

It’s always interesting meeting a small business owner who’s just decided to take the plunge and outsource their bookkeeping.

When it comes to having a handle on their finances, many small business owners just don’t know what they don’t know!!

By that, they just have no idea about having a system for their bookkeeping or getting their finances in order. It’s amazing how some businesses survive in such a state of disorder

That’s where you come in. As bookkeepers we can help the client by making suggestions to improve or even establish a bookkeeping system.

The first step may be something as straightforward as suggesting that they should consider opening a seperate bank account for their business rather than using their personal bank account.

You may need to set them up with a simple system of manila folders for bank statements unpaid / paid bills etc

There’s some clients that seem to take years to grasp the fact that by them spending a couple of extra minutes on completing their documentation correctly before they file it, they’ll end up saving so much money on bookkeeping fees.

When they final realise that you’ve been working to save them money, they’ll thank you (perhaps with a sheepish grin)!

It’s moments like that when your bookkeeping clients understand that they that need you more than you need them!