Marketing: Where To Begin?
Posted by Gabrielle on 12 Nov 2007 at 07:26 pm | Department: Articles
If you are a professional bookkeeper, or want to be, and you want to start your own freelance bookkeeping service, one of your biggest hesitations probably surrounds the question of how you will find your first few clients. Am I right?
You’ve probably heard that most bookkeepers get their business from client referrals. But how do you get referrals when you don’t have any clients yet? Good question. And I’m pleased to tell you, there are many good answers.
The first is, start where you are. Often your first client or two will come from someone you already know. So tell everyone you know that you are doing some freelance bookkeeping work. This includes family, friends, business people you deal with regularly, and even your workmates and boss, if you are not currently working as a bookkeeper in your day job (or s/he doesn’t mind if you moonlight). Someone you know will likely know someone else who is looking for a bookkeeper.
The next best way to get things going is to make direct contact with potential clients and those who can refer business your way. That doesn’t have to be as stressful as it sounds though, and quite honestly, since there is such a shortage of bookkeepers, you won’t have to do it for long. There are various ways of doing this. And you just might find that you actually like doing some of them!
Here are just five (of many) ways to easily find people who need your services:
1. Contact all the small businesses within a mile or two of your home. Do that either by mail, telephone or in person.
2. Join local business organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce or Rotary Club and attend their networking events. Get to know the other business people in your area and be sure they know about your services. You will especially want to build relationships with local CPAs, since they can be an excellent source of referral business.
3. Join online business networking groups, especially those that are based in your local area, or have local chapters. One that immediately comes to mind is at www.meetup.com
4. Contact the local sales reps of the big payroll service companies, such as ADP and Paychex, as well as smaller, local payroll companies. Tell them you would be glad to refer your clients who need payroll to them if they will refer their clients who need bookkeeping to you.
5. Visit local office supply stores and business loan departments of local banks and let them know about your services. Be sure you provide them with a supply of your business cards. They often are asked to make referrals by local small business owners.
These are just a few ideas to get you started. But we are only scratching the surface. Trust me. There are far more clients who need your services than you can even imagine. Once the word is out about your services, you will have more work than you can handle in a short period of time.
Until then, get the ball rolling by letting the world know that you are a freelance bookkeeper and you’re presently accepting new clients.
I am just starting to look into becoming a freelance bookkeeper and this information is excellent. I would like to know what were the basic office machines and software that you started with?
Hi Melanie!
There are A LOT of opportunities for freelance bookkeepers! And I hope that you will find the information on this blog in the coming weeks and months helpful in your exploration.
As far as office machines, you can start off with just the basics, or none at all, depending on how you want to start your business. If you will go to your clients’ offices to do their bookkeeping (a popular option for many new bookkeepers), you can use their equipment.
But if you will be doing client work from your own home office, you can start off with a good computer (PC), QuickBooks software (I suggest you get the Premier Accountant Edition, if you can afford it), a printer, and of course, an adding machine. Many bookkeepers use their cell phone as their main business telephone number, at least in the beginning.
Of course, these are just the bare bone basics. I’ll be providing more detailed information in a future post, so stay tuned! Great question. Thanks for asking it.
This is great info for me as well. I’ve been doing the books for my husbands small business for 10 years and would like to go into some freelance work. My question is more about how do I need to set myself up legally like a DBA and tax numbers,reporting income etc. I want to keep this as small and hassle free as I can. Could you talk a little about that end of things?
Thanks,
Jeanne
Great question, Jeanne!
It seems I’ve been asked questions similar to this one several times lately. So that must mean it’s time to write an article surrounding this topic!
So keep on the watch for an article specifically about how to get your business set up legally and so that you don’t get into trouble, or run into a nasty tax surprise next April. I’ll post it for you within the next couple weeks or so.
Finally, I located the information I was looking for. I have been doing research on this subject, and for four days I keep finding sites that are supposed to have what I am looking for, only to be disappointed with the lack of what I needed. I wish I would have located your web-site sooner! I had about 25% of what I needed and your site has that, and the rest of what I needed to complete my research. Thank you and I will report back on how it goes!