| Why is it so difficult to find qualified prospective client for Accounting services? Get the prospecting secrets of top CPAs and learn which factors govern the results of your prospecting and how you can find year-round clients monthly. |
Accounting Professionals' Prospecting Guide |
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Finding qualified prospective clients for your CPA firm. |
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| Prospecting for your CPA or Accounting firm isn't easy. Marketing and advertising, as well as telemarketing and direct mailing letters don't seem to give much results - to say nothing of being cost effective. Here are tips on how to get qualified prospective clients monthly. | ||
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What makes finding prospects for Accounting services so difficult - and how the top CPAs have solved this? Prospecting - finding prospects for your CPA firm or Accounting Practice... hmm. If there is one untruth that is the mother of all untruths about Accounting Industry, then "it is impossible to find good prospects for Accounting practices" is a prime candidate for the title. Top CPA Practices certainly have no trouble finding good prospects. It isn't hard to see why successful ways of finding prospects might not be openly shared. And the more you believe that it is impossible to get prospects, the less you try to get prospects... leaving the field open for others. The day you really firmly believe it is IMPOSSIBLE to get prospects... then so it will be for you. Why would you bother to try? It's a self-serving fixed idea, making prospecting impossible for the one believing in it.
So it's possible. But is it easy?Most agree it is at least very difficult and expensive to get prospects for a CPA Practice. I'd like to add to this: ... if you go about it the traditional way. Prospecting is essentially a part of marketing. The idea of marketing is to find a way to avoid the "sales resistance mechanisms" that business owners have toward anyone trying to sell them something. Obviously, they get LOTS of sales letters and calls. A marketing strategy includes the angle of approach and the message - and above all, the "WHAT" you offer... the product or service or mixture thereof. Your marketing system with messages and introductory services - it's a package. And it works the same way like an antibiotic, in a sense. After a while, it is rendered ineffective. Sure, you can get prospects ANY old way. But with a CLEVER marketing strategy, it will be a lot easier and more effective. A good marketing system will do a lot of the work FOR you. With the traditional systems, you have to do it all.
Prospecting for Accounting ClientsThe existing, traditional marketing methods make prospecting possible... but you can only LOSE money. That's the way things are within the Accounting Industry. It is impossible to find prospects for CPA services PROFITABLY. If you are prepared to pay WHAT EVER IT TAKES to get prospects, you can get them. Use TV-commercials, have a huge ad weekly in your local newspaper, put in radio ads and so on. You'll get prospects, all right... The problem with this, of course, is that you take a huge risk of coming out with a campaign that gives NO response and will not be able to get return for your investment in marketing. The problem with campaigs is that they are always NEW and untried. And they are based on the traditional marketing strategies of Accounting Industry. Even if it works, your R.O.I. will take years. The goal here should be more ambitious. You don't want to ONLY brake even - you want to make A PROFIT from marketing. And preferably it should not take more than couple of months to start making that profit.
CPA Prospecting SuccessLuck has little to do with proactive prospecting. It has much to do with waiting for prospects - doing nothing effective makes you totally dependent on outside activity... which is basically what luck is. Finding prospects for CPA services profitably and controllably depends on... a) KNOWING EXACTLY how it is done; and b) having the CORRECT TOOLS to do it. Once you possess these two, you instantly get a way to DO something about getting prospects. You can increase the number of new clients you get monthly or quarterly.
Clients want MONITORING, REPORTING, SOLUTIONS and A BETTER UNDERSTANDING & CONTROL OVER FINANCES. They want someone to monitor their accounts, report on findings in a way that is (to them) understandable, they want support and help to solve the problems that are found... and so on. You need to know what problems are REAL to your target audience - how they see the reality of finances, accounting services and all that. You must offer them what they can understand and, above all, want MOST. As you know, businesses are not interested to buy hours. They don't really understand what you do, so "Accounting service" to them means nothing - and that's not worth much in terms of dollars, is it? Those professional terms that Accounting Professionals use about their services mean little, if anything, to most business owners. It is a very fine point but extremely important to understand. It is so simple that it is actually difficult. You need to offer something that you are absolutely certain the prospect would consider valuable, viewed solely from his viewpoint.
Making yourself a positively different CPAGeneralized terms like "reliable accounting services" won't do the trick - they just do not COMMUNICATE in a way needed to create interest in your prospect. Remember your prospect is not a professional accountant - the terminology means basically NOTHING to him. So the survey says - and it is backed up by experience in prospecting without ANY accounting terminology. But he needs an accountant and/or CPA - and your competitors use exactly the same professional jargon explained from the CPAs viewpoint. So, he will pick a CPA... but why would he change from one CPA to another? You need to get your target audience and prospective clients SEE YOU ARE DIFFERENT from what they currently have. You need to stand out as the positive exception by offering them what THEY want and doing so in a way they can understand. Believe me, it'll be noticed. You need to make a difference for otherwise, why would the want to change CPAs? It is here that the "group think" of Accounting Industry is not the thing to go with. Do everything in MARKETING just like everyone else... and you won't make a difference. As an Accounting Professional, it can be difficult for you to realize how totally alien a subject accounting is to your average business owner. Accounting is YOUR area of expertise. But what is so familiar and easy - elementary, in fact - to you, is an alien, confusinge subject to the business owner. It defies his understanding and that, in turn, UPSETS him to a degree. He can't see why he cannot spend the money he makes.Taxation, employer fees, all kinds of expenses here and there... he cannot understand these. He disagrees with these mandatory payments, dislikes them or some of them. And this is where the average approach of CPAs goes wrong. It is easily assumed the business owner already understands and agrees with these rules that businesses have to abide by. If they were, then business owners would understand what CPAs are talking about. However, by actual survey, it is proven that about 80% of business owners do not understand what their CPA or Accountant is telling them. This is a staggering figure and quite some datum. Once you realize that the business owners don't understand the basics of accounting and finance then you can understand why they wouldn't understand their CPA... who obviously STARTS his or her communication with the assumption that the client understands these basics. So, here is the number one item that business owners want: They want to understand those figures and financial items that rule their businesses. They want to understand what is happening with their business, how it is developing, what they should do to improve it... and so on. But, but... you say... I am already GIVING this to my clients! Yes, you certainly give them monthly write-ups, balance sheets... but do they UNDERSTAND these? See, if they DON'T, then they aren't getting this from you... looked solely from the clients viewpoint, of course. This is what the top CPAs offer their target groups. It is the UNDERSTANDING of it, not the physical actions (or hours spent in doing write-ups) that is valuable for the business owner. It is around these and other factors that effective marketing systems for Accounting Professionals today build on.
Prospecting the effective, proven wayIn our 3-year Accounting service marketing project, a new prospecting method was found. It was tested with dozens of practices, we created ready-to-use tools and piloted these... troubleshot it until it worked consistently in the hands of ANY Accounting Professional. No previous marketing or sales experience is needed. It has a clever "no-sales" approach in which you CONSULT the client instead of selling to him. So, no embarrassing situation - you never have to use superlatives about yourself. This system exist and is currently used by CPA firms, Charteded Accountants and Accounting firms in 45 states in the United States and altogether 30 countries worldwide. The best parts we have for our Modern Accountancy Marketing & Sales Course. Click the link to get a detailed briefing on the system. Funnily enough it IS something you already deliver... but the way you deliver it and the way you present it to your prospects will make a world of difference. |
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