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MenuHow best to service what a CPA needs to acquire new clients - methods and techniques so I become his go to guy?
I have an accountant pro -- individual CPA with a fairly large client base (30 years) who would like me to "service his customer expansion" needs.
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How many new clients and what types of clients (individual, business)? Local? Here is a pick list of strategies I know work: If he has a large, satisfied base, use them for referrals and to get their friends to seminars that he hosts. He could partner with a stock brokerage firm (they usually don't do taxes) and do joint marketing (education-based meetings on minimizing taxes, increasing business cash flow, etc.), partner with a legal firm and do joint marketing, their own meeting titled "How to read your business financial statements like a CPA" or "10 ways to get more cash flow out of your business". I have a long list on this topic so connect and I am happy to share.
So, I'm a CPA. I worked as an accountant for many years and here are some of the things I had to do before I became partner (to be able to bring clients).
1-First understand the clients the CPA has today. You will find patterns and types of clients. You can get a correct knowledge of what kind of clients he/she is best at providing services.
2-Map all the networks his/her client base touches today. What companies do they do business with? There is no better referral for a CPA that an actual client. E.g: if he has one construction company, find who are the suppliers and other companies that work with this company. Know that you could approach them and have an instant referral (which is 80% of odds to get the client.
3-Which communities is he part of? Jews? Afroamericans? Latinos? Catholic? What sports he does?
There are networks in which we are involved that we don't realize that we can be helpful and find clients.
4-Who is the CPA that is the closest competitor? Find who his/her clients are? Which are you competitive advantages on comparison with them? Go for them. Approach just to ask what do they think about the service of the competition and ask what they would like to have that they don't. What other services?
Hope this get you started. Good luck!
Inbound leads. Organic SEO the heck out of this guy's website. This would be local SEO so you'll need lots of Yelp type sites set up. His site should be big on reviews from customers and offer some incentive for people to contact him immediately. The copy needs to really differentiate why someone would use him over any other CPA in the area?
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This is a great question. The world of accounting/bookkeeping can be a confusing array of options for non accountants. Let's address the software question first. Let me start by saying that my firm is relatively agnostic to software, we work with dozens. I'm familiar with Xero and my firm has worked with it, and if someone comes to us already on it, we stay with it. It's a solid piece of software, certainly works. And it's a very fashionable choice right now due to inroads their marketing has made with the startup community. The big dog in the market is QuickBooks On-Line (QBO), and when I say big dog, various version of QuickBooks have easily 10x the number of current customers that Xero has. Why does this matter? The usability of the software from a user experience is about the same, but Xero is still trying to play catch up to QuickBooks On-Line in terms of features. For instance, they have payroll rolled out for "a few states and are adding more each month". Anything innovative that Xero comes out with QuickBooks is going to quickly copy and add to their product, because they are huge and have the resources to quickly adapt. This is not a situation of the iPhone putting Blackberry out of business, QuickBooks isn't going anywhere. Likely end game is that at some point QuickBooks acquires Xero and moves everyone over to QBO. Lastly, every bookkeeper knows QuickBooks, some know Xero, and there are hundreds of developers developing software that integrates with QuickBooks. So, while Xero is a perfectly adequate piece of software, we’re talking the platform for your accounting, go with QuickBooks On-line. The subject of a bookkeeper is tricker. Do you go with a person or a process solution? Full disclosure here, my firm does outsourced bookkeeping for a living, so you have to take that into account when viewing my answer. I haven’t worked with Bench.co, but it looks very intriguing, and pricing is quite aggressive. They also look very easy to engage with. The down side is that is appears to be a person based solution. You get assigned a bookkeeper, and then good luck. The skill of individual bookkeepers varies widely from damn good to truly awful. They often hook up with several services like this, so their loyalties are divided. Additionally, they are often working with up to a dozen clients, and what typically happens is one of their clients starts growing quickly. All other clients get pushed aside while they focus on their largest client because they can’t afford to lose them. A couple of other disadvantages are that, because they are on their own, you are limited to just their skill set, they have no one else to check with in sticky situations, and when they go on vacation, your accounting goes on vacation, too. These are all things that may be fine for you if you’ve got a relatively small business that doesn’t need daily attention to its accounting. The other alternative is a firm that specialized in outsourced accounting. There are several firms out there, you can find them (and us of course) with a simple search of the internet. The advantage to the better firms in this space is that they typically will assign you a team of bookkeepers/accountants so that you have backup in case one member of the team is on vacation or leaves to take a full time job somewhere. These solutions also will typically come wrapped with software they would suggest for your business. Finally, you aren’t limited to knowledge base of the one person working on your account. You have a team, and really the knowledge base of the entire firm at your fingertips. Of course you pay a little more for this, but the hourly rates are often not that much more than individual bookkeepers. And in the long run you may end up spending a lot less by not having to come behind a bookkeeper that maybe wasn’t so good and clean up the mess. So if you plan on scaling your business beyond a few $200k a year, it may be best to start out with a firm based solution rather than an individual solution. Side note on Bench.co: I can’t tell what software platform they are on. If they are using a proprietary platform, you will find it very hard to move your accounting to another solution if you’re not satisfied with their solution. Something to ask if you go with them. So, I think that about covers it. I’ve probably told you way more than you wanted to know, but I’m always available to schedule a call if you want to dive in a little deeper. Just let me know.CM
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