How To Start A Bookkeeping Business

I tried some flyers to find bookkeeping clients, but they didn’t work!

That’s a common response from bookkeepers wanting to know how to get their business started.

Let’s just think about that statement. “The flyers didn’t work!” – What does that mean exactly? When you design the flyers, or instructed someone else to design the bookkeeping flyers, what result were you looking for?

So many people see junk mail in their letter box everyday – they pick it up and walk straight over to the recycle bin.

Then there’s the people that “love” the junk mail, and read everything that arrives in their mailbox.

This means that the flyer promoting your bookkeeping business is amongst a handful of others – most people would spend only a couple of seconds glancing at each flyer, so you need to GRAB their attention

Then what? You drown them in information, because this is the ONLY chance you have in pitching your bookkeeping services.

WRONG!

What’s the purpose of the flyer? Not to answer all the questions, but to raise the curiosity to the next level.

Remember this: You are selling the sizzle – not the sausage

There’s more about this in our Ebook “How To Find Bookkeeping Clients”.

“Too busy to take on new clients”

“Yes, please”, replied the bookkeeper. “Please will you help me find some more bookkeeping clients”

Often we will receive calls from clients that need someone yesterday, or even last week – so we need to find a bookkeeper to service that client immediately

Two weeks ago a client contacted us wanting Quickbooks training – we contacted the bookkeeper who then agreed to accept the contract

Last week we get a call from the client asking what happened to the bookkeeper – it seems that some bookkeepers are just too busy to find a couple of hours to earn some easy money.

“Having too many clients is a great problem”

The bookkeeper didn’t get back to us, so we then contacted another local bookkeeper – who was very keen to take a new client.

Two days later, after we send a follow-up email, we got a curt reply saying that they were too busy to service this client.

This is a concept that we really do not understand: We do whatever we can to service new clients, knowing that our regular clients are quite happy for us to shuffle around our timetable.

That new client could be worth $1000’s to our business. Having too many clients is a great problem to have. Having too many clients gives you the option to review your client list and decide which clients are giving the best return on investment

Your guide to find bookkeeping clients – Read our Ebook, “How to Find Bookkeeping Clients”. It’s a comprehensive guide to lead you through the sometimes daunting task of finding new clients for your bookkeeping business.

This book is very innovative,with some simple, effective and original strategies

In these tough economic times many wives and partners are realising that by doing some bookkeeping they can become the main bread-winner in the household.

We are hearing stories from all over the country about women who are wanting to turn their bookkeeping skills from a “hobby” to a serious business.

What steps do you take to get started with a bookkeeping business?
The major short term goal is to quickly get some CASH coming into the household. So you grab the local paper and see if there are any accountants looking for bookkeepers, or any small business owners that’s looking for and admin/bookkeeping person for a few hours a week.

You get yourself and Australian Business Number and start your short-term contract.

It’s a great result – but does not mean that you have your own bookkeeping business. The dilemma is whether to go down the track of a couple of part-time jobs each week, or to make the decision to start your own bookkeeping business.

You need to make a choice about which path you are going to follow, because there are different strategies that you need to consider, based on which way you want to move forward. You can read more about this in our Ebook, “How to Find Bookkeeping Clients”

Starting your own bookkeeping business can be very daunting

Cynthia’s a bookkeeper with 1 – 3 Years, using MYOB and Quickbooks accounting Software. She’s achieved a Cert iv Financial Services, and is looking for bookkeeping clients in her north Sydney suburb

She emailed us and asked:” How would you guys be able to assist me in starting my bookkeeping business?”

Her email is typical of many emails that we receive from bookeepers all around Australia, and indeed from many countries around the world.

We have helped many bookkeepers “kick start” their bookkeeping business, and have compiled an EBook “How To Find Bookkeeping Clients” that answers many of the questions you have about getting started, finding clients etc.

There’s also answers to questions that you haven’t even thought of yet

There’s also answers to questions that you haven’t even thought of yet.

To save you and ourselves time, we suggest that you read the book, and once you have an understanding of what’s involved, we can start to help you with your bookkeeping business

It’s all in the book – that’s why we wrote our EBook “How To Find Bookkeeping Clients”. Secure your copy NOW

Does advertising for bookkeeping clients work?
Short answer: No
Long Answer: Yes

An advertsing guru once said that 50% of all advertising works – the problem is knowing which 50%

Have a look in:
1) your local paper and you’ll see bookkeepers advertising for clients.

2) the yellow pages directory, and you’ll see advertisements for bookkeepers.

3) your letter box and glance through the junk mail.

In each case you’ll often see bookkeepers advertising for clients. Does this mean that you should use these same strategies?

Many bookkeepers follow these marketing strategies to advertise for bookkeeping clients.

Ask yourself this question: When is the last time you’ve picked up the local newspaper, yellow pages directory, or junk mail flyer to call a business or service that you require?

In most cases the answer is:”I can’t remember!”

So why will people respond differently to your advertisements? The point is exactly this – most bookkeepers do what they see most other businesses do, and then they wonder why they get the same results that most other businesses get – zero

Even large companies and multi-nationals are realising that traditional advertising isn’t working – and they have budgets far bigger than your annual income to throw at advertising campaigns

As bookkeepers you’ve probably seen the cost advertising efforts of small business owners when you are doing their bookwork – ask them what response they’ve had from those campaigns, and they’ll more often tell you that they only get a response if they run the advertisements each week or fortnight for the whole year.

Have a look at your advertising budget and then decide whether you should throw money away just on the off-chance that you’ll get a result, or decide that you should go ahead and invest in a practical hands-on simple manual that has a whole heap of marketing strategies [How to Find Bookkeeping Clients] that can turn your business around in no time.