The 2 Biggest Limitations of Freelance Bookkeepers

Do you feel like you’re being held back from building your business and your income as quickly as you might want?

Actually, there are several hurdles successful freelance bookkeepers must typically overcome, but most of these obstacles can be traced back to two main areas:

• Not enough clients (or sales)
• Not enough time (or capacity)

One of the most common questions I hear from new and even seasoned self-employed bookkeepers is, “How can I find more clients?”

Why would a freelance bookkeeper lack clients? Every business on the planet needs bookkeeping done, right? And many of them don’t have the time or the expertise in-house to do it themselves. The demand for bookkeepers SHOULD be quite high!

And the truth is – the demand is very high.

Part of the problem is that bookkeepers are not necessarily self-promoters. And unless potential clients know that you exist, they can’t hire you! That’s why marketing your services is so important. But that’s usually not something we relish.

Many seasoned freelance bookkeepers will tell you that clients come naturally from word-of-mouth referrals. And it’s true! It’s because, as we’ve all heard, good help is hard to find… including the finding of a good bookkeeper. If you’re good at what you do, the word will get passed around and new clients will find you.

But there’s a problem. How do you get your first few clients so they can get the referrals rolling?… or what if your referrals have slowed down and you need more clients NOW?

Answer:  You need to market yourself. You need to attract potential clients who are a good fit for the services you have to offer.

Like it or not, the reality is, if you’re running a REAL business – even if it’s a business of one – you will need to do some marketing to stay in control of how many clients you have at any given time and to maintain and grow your cash flow.

There are easy marketing methods, however, that are well suited even for freelance bookkeepers who are shy. (More on that soon)

Lack of Time and Capacity

Why would a freelance bookkeeper lack time?

For the simple reason that when you sell a service, it takes time to get the job done (as opposed to selling a product that is limited only by supply). Your capacity is limited by availability of adequate production time.

Since there is also a level of expertise needed to provide accurate bookkeeping services, your capacity is further limited by the amount of available skill.

Typical Solutions

When availability is the problem, most businesses will seek to hire additional staff.

• SIDE NOTE: By the way, the problem of availability is the very reason your clients hire YOU!

For the freelance bookkeeper, you can choose one of two basic solutions:

1.  Get help – hire staff or subcontract to other freelancers

2.  Become more exclusive or specialize – raising your rates, specializing in a particular area of bookkeeping or specific industry, and turning away potential clients who do not fit your ideal client profile.

One option is not better than the other. Your choice will depend upon the primary goals for your business.

But there are new variations on how you can implement these choices that may have a huge impact on the success and growth of your business.

Technology and New Solutions

The Internet is adding some exciting new twists to conquering the limitations of both attracting new clients and available capacity to get the work done.

In fact, it is actually opening up ways to helps us attract an unlimited number of clients, as well as ways to work far more efficiently!

Building a virtual bookkeeping business – that is, providing your bookkeeping services to clients regardless of location because it is all done through the Internet – is an ideal way to find and service many more clients than those in your local area. (Although you can also work for local clients on a virtual basis)

Because the geographical limitation is removed by working online, you can also have greater access to a virtual staff and/or colleagues with whom you can collaborate to take on more clients than you might otherwise serve offline.

All of this adds up to far greater earning potential.

These developments are very exciting! We are now at an important time period where we can truly be of service to many more clients and quickly grow our own businesses at the same time. There is even more good news about the benefits of adding a virtual bookkeeping component to your business.

So that’s why I’m doing a FREE webinar LIVE on Thursday, October 21 at 8:00 PM (Eastern Time) to share with you what I’ve been doing with my own business, as well as the other “virtual” opportunities that are now available to all of us.

If you could use more clients or are frustrated with not being able to get enough billable work done in a day, then I think you will really find the information in my new webinar invaluable.

Find out more HERE.

How about you? Have you ventured into the world of Virtual Bookkeeping yet?

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Tagged As: bookkeeping business, freelance bookkeeper, online bookkeeper, self-employed bookkeeper, virtual bookkeeper, virtual bookkeeping

Are You Ready To Take Your Bookkeeping Online?

The doors are now open for my latest FREE online training class especially for freelance bookkeepers.

It’s happening LIVE on Thursday, October 21st at 8:00 PM (Eastern)

“Taking Your Bookkeeping Services Online”

Register Here for FREE

You’ll discover why bookkeeping services delivered through the Internet is the wave of the future, and why getting on board now will make your life easier and your business more profitable, while giving you a BIG advantage over your competition.

It’s happening THIS Thursday, October 21 at 8:00pm (EDT)
That’s 7:00pm Central, 6:00pm Mountain and 5:00pm Pacific

On this brand new free training, you’ll discover…

• Exactly WHAT Virtual Bookkeeping is and WHY you need to pay attention to it NOW if you don’t want to get left behind this powerful – and profitable – trend in business (and how the current economy is only fueling the change)
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• Specifically how virtual bookkeeping saves you money and increases your profit margins, as soon as you start using even the most basic components with your existing clients
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• The different levels of workflow in a virtual environment (and what you should know about security)
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• The tools of the virtual bookkeeper and recommendations for where to begin if you’re just starting out Roadblocks and challenges you may face, and what to do about them to avoid frustration or getting into any serious trouble
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• And much, MUCH more!

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Properly applied, the strategies revealed during this new training will put you in a position to finally get the freedom and flexibility you probably envisioned for yourself and your family when you first started your freelance bookkeeping business.

This class is going to fill up quickly, especially because it is free. So there’s a very good chance that those who wait will get shut out.

Grab your seat here while you can.

Don’t delay and kick yourself later.

Looking forward to seeing YOU on Thursday night.

Gabrielle

P.S. – I also have some special news to share with you near the end of the webinar, but only those who register will find out what that is.

P.P.S – If you have a schedule conflict and you just can’t make it live, no worries. The training will be recorded and a free replay will be available for a limited time to everyone who registers. But you must register to get the replay.

REGISTER NOW

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How To Boost Your Bottom Line Online

What better way to kick off the Fall than by getting some useful information on how to effectively promote your business and increase your bottom line?

If that’s what you want, then you’ll want to read this article by my favorite online marketing expert. It cuts to the chase to solve the mystery of effective marketing using the Internet. You’ll find it on this brand new blog especially designed for small businesses.

Small Business Marketing Weekly

Although I’m primarily a freelance bookkeeper and QuickBooks trainer and consultant, I love to learn what makes small businesses really prosper – and apply it to my own business, as well as suggest improvements for my clients’ businesses.

I’ve learned a lot through the MANY books I’ve read and seminars I’ve attended. And the vital conclusion I’ve come to is this: As business owners, marketing is really job #1 for all of us.

That’s what keeps the sales coming in and the cash flowing. And as we all know, cash is the lifeblood of your entire business! No sales = no business.

And I can tell you honestly, out of everything I’ve studied over the years and all the people I’ve learned from whose techniques I’ve actually tried in my own business, there is no one that has given more high value and true nuts-and-bolts information that really works like Jim Edwards.

No one.

So I wanted to pass along this article to you in hopes that it will be as helpful to you, too. It’s a great a big picture reference for what we really must to be doing to pull more business in locally or virtually with our websites (and beyond). This one’s a keeper:

Small Business Marketing Weekly

And it looks like Jim will be writing a series of these helpful articles, going into more depth. I’m definitely going to be following them, so I thought you’d like to know about them too.

Enjoy!

Gabrielle Fontaine, PB
BookkeepingDirect.com

By the way – I’m a long-time member of Jim’s monthly training program, The Net Reporter. As I said, I think he’s the best (and I’m picky!) because he tells it like it is… AND shows you exactly how to market your business effectively online. (My business is proof of that!)

Most of his training, though, is primarily geared toward building an information-product based online business. So I usually have to try and translate what I’m learning to work for my own QuickBooks consulting business.

But this month he’s doing something I’m really excited about… Tomorrow he’s starting a 2-webinar training series entitled:

“Using Internet Strategies on a Brick and Mortar Business”

No translation needed! So I’ll definitely be attending this one LIVE! If you’d like to attend the first webinar on Tuesday too, just join The Net Reporter and try it out for a month (you can get two of these live webinars – replays if you can’t attend live -  AND get access to Jim’s “Fast Track Video Coaching” for less than what most other people charge for a single webinar!) Highly recommended.

The Net Reporter

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Tagged As: local business marketing, online marketing, website marketing

What Are You Really Offering Your Clients?

It’s an important question.

I was reminded of this the other day when I happened to see an email that was sent to a potential bookkeeping client by an accountant.

The email left the potential client confused and overwhelmed. And this is also how it goes when I see fellow freelance bookkeepers attempting to offer their services to their potential clients too, whether in person or in writing.

The email was intended as a way to persuade the potential client into doing business with the accountant by illustrating the services he had to offer. In his lengthy message he ran through a technical list of all the customized functions he could perform for the client.

Whenever we do that, we often defeat our purpose and snag far fewer clients than we could, for several reasons:
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• We don’t realize we are using our own accounting jargon, which the vast majority of our clients don’t understand (Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Balance Sheet, Adjustments, etc.) They have no idea what we are talking about, and worse yet, it does not communicate ANY value to solve their problems
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• We tell them WHAT we can do laundry-list style, instead of demonstrating how we can truly BENEFIT their business. In an effort to show how experienced and knowledgeable we are, we often make what we do sound like a lot of work and complicated. Again, this defeats our purpose because it doesn’t communicate value to the potential client
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• We are oblivious to the true needs of our potential clients. Instead of asking questions and finding out what they really WANT, we tend to tell them all about us and what we do and what we think they need.
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Do you really know what you have to offer your clients? How is what you do for them different than what other freelance bookkeepers offer?

If you don’t know the answers to those questions, you will be treated as a commodity, just like any other bookkeeper they can find online.

Likely, more than a few of your potential clients will try to get your rates as low as possible, since your services provide nothing of particular benefit to them, at least none that you are communicating.

And that’s the crux of the problem. Do YOU know what unique VALUE and BENEFITS you are providing for your clients? It is impossible to offer value that your clients will be willing to pay for if you are not crystal clear about the value you provide them yourself.

In my own business history, I’ve found it extremely helpful to come up with a short “elevator speech” which is what you say to someone that you meet in person who asks you, “What do you do?” It is a short blurb you give to help show WHO your ideal client is and WHAT you do for them.

But I think we need to dig deeper and know what our core offer is that we are offering as individuals and as a business. In fact, here’s a great short video I saw by Jim Edwards (my own marketing mentor) that really boils it down to four main components. These help you enter the conversation that is going on inside your client’s head when they are considering hiring you to do their bookkeeping. It’s definitely worth watching.

“Your #1 Business Problem” (6 min video)

And according to Jim, you have to be able to communicate what you have to offer in only 3-5 SECONDS! Wow! But if you think about it, that’s what Federal Express has done, and it’s easy to remember. That’s very powerful.

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”

Companies sometimes come up with a slogan that communicates their true offer (and sometimes they don’t) So it got me thinking about what my own true “sweet offer” is. Hmm…

It really takes some thought to come up with just a few well-chosen words that “say it all” about what we have to truly offer our clients.

So, I’ve decided that it’s time to come up with a laser-targeted short phrase for my own business. Care to join me? What is the essence of the VALUE you provide your clients that you can express in 3-5 seconds?

We can do some brainstorming and then share ideas and compare notes. I’ll also do a follow-up post when I’ve come up with just the right “sweet offer” for my own business and share it with you.

It sure does seem that we can always improve how we communicate to our clients and our prospective clients. And being able to get absolutely clear on what VALUE we have to offer is probably one of the most important bits of communication we all really need to master.

What do you think? How do YOU communicate what value you provide your clients that sets yourself apart from all the other freelance bookkeepers in your area?

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Tagged As: bookkeeping services, irresistable offer, offer, sales benefits, slogan, USP

Is It Worth It To Use Social Media to Market Your Services?

That’s the question I’ve been asking.

Like me, I’m sure you’ve heard all the noise about the BIG claims of mega-success by businesses who are using Social Media to promote their businesses. But is it really just that – a lot of NOISE that doesn’t mean a hill of beans in the real world? Or is this an important trend that small business owners need to pay attention to for the sake of their bottom line?

Cut through the hype and find out what the real deal is with social media. Get straight answers from an expert who’s actually doing it and knows first hand whether it’s really just a big waste of time, or if you can truly use it to market your business profitably.

Join me, Gabrielle Fontaine, and my special guest, marketing expert and social media guru, Ely Delaney as we cut through the hype and finally learn…

* How to use social media to build relationships with prospects, customer and referral sources

* How social media is changing the way we do business

* How to easily get up and running on the three biggest and most strategic social media networks

* How to attract quality “friends” and “followers” without getting caught up in the numbers game

* What free automation tools you can use to maximize your reach and save time in the process

* How to avoid getting sucked in to wasting a ton of time keeping up with your social posting

* What NOT to do so you don’t make enemies, or worse, get banned from the social networking sites

* How networking online is not the same as in-person networking

Find out for yourself why such respected business authorities as Inc. Magazine are now saying that Social Media really is worth your time.

Isn’t it time you found out how to put it to work for YOUR business? Now you can, right after you attend this cut-to-the-chase, FREE, get-action webinar.

Join us Thursday, July 8 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time for this LIVE webinar training.

“Social Media” Online Business Networking Basics”

Grab your seat as our free guest right here:

=> Register Here

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Tagged As: freelance bookkeeper marketing, marketing services, social media, social media for business, virtual bookkeeper, virtual bookkeeping