Hey, this is Veronica Wasek with another episode of BK Biz: How to get bookkeeping clients – Identify your ideal client
How do you get bookkeeping clients? That is a great question and that is the question that most people thinking about starting a bookkeeping business are asking themselves. They may be wondering how do you go out there and get clients and even how long will it take to get clients.
Identify your ideal client
The very first thing that you have to do in figuring out how you will get those clients is to actually figure out who your ideal client is first. So, if you look at any sort of marketing materials, they talk about identifying your target client (your target market). It’s the same for bookkeeping – it’s a business and you have clients and you have customers. So, you have to first identify who is your ideal client.
If you go after the wrong client from the start, you run a very big risk of building your bookkeeping practice with all of the wrong clients. Why? Because, your clients will refer other clients. If you have bad clients, they will refer more bad clients. So, you definitely want to be very clear on who your ideal client is. How do you know who an ideal client is? Well, first of all, you have to decide… For me, they were QuickBooks online user. So, my ideal client is a QuickBooks online user. Age group would be another criteria. My ideal client is generally between the ages of 30 and 50, because they are more technology-savvy.
Make a list of your ideal client’s characteristics
Then, what you need to do is figure out all of the characteristics and criteria that you would like an ideal client to have. Are they male primarily? Are they female? What age group are they? Where do they live? Are they in your city, or in your suburb? Are they throughout your country? And, can you find them online? Are they in a particular industry? Are they a doctor, a dentist, a professional, a consultant, a HVAC repair person, a contractor, or a construction company? Where are they in their business cycle? Are they a startup, are they growing, or are they a more mature business? Each business cycle has very specific business needs, so it’s important to go after clients in a specific business cycle, because then you’ll be able to address some of the common problems that they have.
What is your ideal client’s annual revenues?
Another criteria for identifying your ideal client is the amount of annual revenues that they have, because if your client is a startup, they may have very low revenues. Also, they may not be able to pay as much as a company that’s growing because growing companies generally have higher revenues and have more profits to be able to pay for your services.
What is you ideal volume of clients?
Also, think about this: Do you want to have a lot of clients? Do you want to go high-volume, and maybe low dollar, in terms of what you’re charging your clients? Or, do you want to be like me, where I have a small number of clients at a higher dollar amount. I, very purposely, have created a boutique business so that I don’t have to deal with hundreds of clients and instead I can give very personal attention to a few clients.
Closing
So how do you find bookkeeping clients? The number one thing that you have to do is identify your ideal client.
This is Veronica Wasek with BK Biz.
