by StacyK | Aug 20, 2014 | Mobile Maven, Move Online |
Hello Dear Readers! This is our last installment of our Moving Online series. You can check out the other installments here:
Step 1:Join the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program
Step 2: Find Technology that will allow you to work remotely
Step 3: Offer an incentive to your existing clients to go remote
Step 4: Bring new clients on as remote right away
Step 5: Provide flat fee/value pricing
Step 6: Specialize
Step 7: Market yourself
Step 8: Use video conferencing to meet with clients
Step 9: Create a Network
Step 10: Form Strategic Alliances
As I mentioned in the original article – you want to make sure that you have a website, and that you have a blog. Remember, you don’t have to write something every day, but you’ll need to be committed to keeping it current. Opening up a website and checking out the blog to find it hasn’t been updated in a year gives the impression that the person or business might not have their sh*t together. If you’re not actively keeping up with it, then update the site and remove the links!
That being said, I think once a month is a decent frequency and make sure that your content is written for the appropriate audience – your potential clients. No need to do lengthy articles, and trust me: almost everyone loves a list! Ask people in your network to contribute to it. Clients, vendors, your peers – it’s way for them to get themselves out there, can make it more interesting for your readers, and takes the pressure of you to keep coming up with ideas.
Why is this so important? (Here comes a list!)
- It’s one more aspect of your online presence
- It’s a way to establish yourself as an expert
- It forces you to keep working ON your business and not just IN it
So there you are, my friends. I hope this series has helped you – now go out there and go remote!
by StacyK | Aug 5, 2014 | Move Online, QuickBooks Jet-Setter |
We’re finally nearing the end of our Moving Online journey! This is the second to the last step in the series.
A strategic alliance – which needs to be nothing more than an agreement to share referrals back and forth – is an important aspect of owning a business, and I think this is especially important for those in the accounting industry. They can help you grow your client base, help you to develop new service offerings, and expose you to new products to help not just your clients, but your own firm as well.
For instance, I have select few local CPAs to which I refer clients; whom I send the client to depends on their needs. I also have relationships with some QuickBooks add-on developers that know I have extensive experience with their applications that refer work to me, and that I regularly recommend to clients and other accounting professionals.
However, a few thoughts about forming these relationships before jumping into them:
- Make sure the “partner” has been vetted. You don’t want to recommend a product or service provider with which you’re not familiar enough to speak about in detail, or that you cannot 100% get behind. A good rule of thumb is to ask: Would I hire this person for my own business? Would I pay for this product to use in my practice?
- The relationship doesn’t always have to be within your industry. Believe it or not, one of my biggest referrers is a plumbing company that I worked for prior to starting my practice. We are both aware of each other’s level of quality and regularly refer clients back and forth.
- Don’t overlook other practitioners that do what you do. While you many think: “That ProAdvisor 6 miles away is competition”, that might not be necessary. I have a handful of what look like on the outside to be competition, but they have different specialties than we do at Kildal Services LLC.
When deciding on creating a new alliance, you want to make sure the prospect in line with your company’s core values, that they offer similar, but not identical products and/or services – the key word here is complementary. As with any new venture, determine what your goals are, plan it out and dig right in once you find that perfect match!
Read Step 9 – Create A Network
by StacyK | Jun 11, 2014 | Mobile Maven, Move Online |
When I say “create a network”, I mean that you have to find people that are smarter than you, that have not just MORE knowledge and experience than you, but also DIFFERENT knowledge and experience.
One of the steps in this Moving Online series that we’ve talked about is the need to specialize – what I call finding your jam, and what Darren Root refers to as becoming an Intentional Accountant. Part of the process for moving your practice online and working remotely with your clients is not just finding your gig, but also finding others that know what you don’t.
For instance, I know the construction industry really well. My dad was a builder, my brother is a carpenter, one of my brothers in law is a builder and another does heating and cooling. I worked for a plumbing company for 4 years before starting my practice.
You know what I don’t know really well? Car dealerships. So when I have a client that comes to me that buys and sells used cars? The first thing I’m going to do is tell that client that their industry is not one that we’re familiar with, but I know just the person. Then I’m going to email my girl Deb Kilsheimer, because I know she has a kick-ass way of setting this client up in QuickBooks.
Seek out others that do what you do, so that you don’t waste your time or your client’s money learning something that you may not want to learn, may not need to learn, and frankly, may not be that great at doing. This way, even if you can’t work with the client, they’ll always remember you as someone with integrity, someone that can be trusted – someone to whom they can refer new clients – because of your candor and for hooking them up with someone fabulous that DID know what they needed.
Creating this network is going to take some time and some effort, no doubt about it. You’ll have to utilize some of the tools I mentioned in Step 7 about marketing yourself. You’ll need to attend events to hone your specialty, and just as important – to meet other people that know different stuff.
Read Step 8: Use video conferencing apps to “meet” your clients
Read Step 10: Form Strategic Alliances
by StacyK | May 15, 2014 | Mobile Maven, Move Online |
Hey there! We’re in the home stretch of our Moving Online series. We’ve talked about the ProAdivsor Program, finding the right technology, offering incentives to get existing clients to move to the cloud, bringing new clients on as remote, providing flat fee billing, specializing, and marketing yourself. Here, we’ll examine using video to seal the deal.
This isn’t going to be a long post – it’s really more to reiterate the story I mentioned in my original article. I had a client that seemed ready to hire Kildal Services, but was stalling for some reason. I decided to ask if they’d like to do a quick Google Hangout so that we could “meet in person” and discuss any other questions they might have. The hangout went well, we covered a lot of ground during the session. After they signed on, they told me that one of the reasons they finally said yes was that they loved seeing that the human aspect – I have 3 cats, and as cats do, one of them kept continually walking directly in front of my computer monitor the entire time and I, of course, kept apologizing.
Really, the only thing I have to say here is to have a few tricks up your sleeve for this – be ready to throw out a few options, so that you can use a video tool that the client is comfortable and/or familiar with. There are many – Fuze, Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime, Oovoo, Webex, Join.me – get acquainted with a number of them.
Some pro tips – make you have a good webcam, you’re familar with the video application, and that your office is uncluttered behind you.
Read Step 7: Market Yourself
Read Step 9: Create a Network
by StacyK | Apr 14, 2014 | Mobile Maven, Move Online |
Ten years ago, when I decided to join the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program and start my own bookkeeping practice, doing any sort of marketing was, quite literally, the furthest thing from my mind. I had no idea that I was doing it already on a small scale, nor was I able to foresee the changes that would be coming to make it so much easier.
So much has changed since I started Kildal Services LLC in 2004. Back then, marketing meant brochures, some static ads and a webpage. Regarding the webpage – you were good to go if you had a webpage that had your contact information and described your services. The interaction was pretty one way – you telling potential clients what you did. These days… there’s a little more to it, and I know that it can seem a bit overwhelming.
Which puts us here, at Step 7 in the Moving Online series. It can also be titled Leveraging Social Media to Get Help Clients Find You. But really, that’s sort of cumbersome, don’t you think? Thanks to all of you for following along on the journey – it started almost a year ago and we’re a bit past the halfway point.
I cannot express the importance of having an online presence enough. And not just any online presence. You need to have a plan. There are questions that you need to ask yourself:
What is my target audience?
What channels do I use to reach my target audience?
What are the best tools to manage these channels?
Who will be the one to manage them?
Once you determine your target audience, you need to do some research to find out where they are (there are a ton of websites that will help you learn about social media demographics). Look online for industry forums, support sites, LinkedIn groups Now you find out where they are, then take a look at what channels you’re comfortable utilizing and start there – pick 1 or 2 channels to start with and begin by establishing yourself as a thought leader, an expert in that area. Don’t constantly hit them up with HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME.
Write an article on how you solved a problem for a client, or in your own practice, or link to an interesting article from which you think your target audience might benefit. A how to video or document is always good. I wrote a blog piece a year ago about job costing in QuickBooks Online from which I still get new 1-2 new clients a month. You can also start your own group, like my fellow Michigander, Reesa McKenzie did, on LinkedIn.
I spoke with a few colleagues about how they’ve used social media to create their presence, establish themselves as experts, and ultimately grow their audience and business.
Cathy Iconis, of the Iconis Group, does a weekly QuickBooks Online tweet chat, and tells me how she got started: “Just like chat rooms, twitter was a place to meet and connect with new people. I started out by following the people that were following some of the people I already knew. From there, I tried to engage people and build relationships with them online. In the end, it worked! For the first year or two of my business, I could say that all of my clients came from my efforts on twitter.
Since then, I have evolved on how I use the different social platforms, but the intent is always the same. I am there to engage with people and build relationships. It is no different than any other in-person networking event. You don’t want to be the one constantly passing around your business card and moving on to the next victim, I mean person. Instead, you talk to people, you listen to people, and you do what you can to help people without expecting anything in return. Without building that connection, it will be really hard for anyone trust you with their more personal part of their life – their finances.”
Woody Adams, one of my co hosts and cofounders of Radio Free QuickBooks, uses YouTube videos to help our listeners and grow our audience. He tells his story here: “When Radio Free QuickBooks came about, we created a Youtube page and I began uploading all the videos I had on my site to share with a broader audience. Currently we have nigh 200 short videos on the YouTube page, covering topics from QuickBooks Pro, Premier & Enterprise Solutions as well as QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Online Accountant and QuickBooks Accountant feature sets. Again, the goal to build awareness of what any one product can do. Our Radio Free QuickBooks goal is to provide a free resource to help any QuickBooks user be more effective, and QuickBooks consultant really be the hero for their clients. I hope it helps you.”
It’s also important to remember that you need to do in person marketing as well. Look to local Meetup groups, conferences, or chamber meetings & networking groups. Again, avoid the hard sell – I’ve found that I get more referrals by letting people know they can contact me with quick questions – and then answer them without charging if they truly are quick questions. They’ll remember that you helped them, and will you’ll get word of mouth references. Just make sure that you let them know exactly what type of clients you’re looking to take on. If you work mainly with attorneys as an expert witness, like my friend Dawn Brolin, odds are you don’t want them to send you someone looking to have their payroll cleaned up.
Obviously, the goal of any marketing plan is to create awareness about your business and attract new clients, but other benefits are there as well: establishing yourself as an expert or enabling your practice to provide transparency and customer service.
One of the most important parts of all of this – regardless of whether it’s online or in person, is interaction. The flow of any plan is to engage the audience, which will build their trust in you and your practice and eventually hire you or refer you to potential new clients.
Your call to action for your marketing plan:
– Determine your strategy: What is your goal? Who is your audience?
– Find your audience? Choose 1-2 channels to connect with them
– Evaluate and Adjust – Examine metrics and analyze what’s working, what isn’t and make changes as needed
One last parting thought on all of this – have fun with it. Everyone loves cat pictures.
Read Step 6 – Specialize
Next: Step 8 – Use video conferencing to meet with clients
Next:
by StacyK | Feb 19, 2014 | Mobile Maven, Move Online |
I hear the term “Jack of all trades” quite often, but I never seem to hear the last half of it – “Master of none”. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to be thought of as a jack of all trades. I want current and potential clients to know that I am an expert in just one or two key areas. And I say this after accidently making exactly this happen.
Welcome to Step 6 in our Moving Online series. There are the previous installments if you haven’t already read them. This won’t be a long one, but I really believe it is one of the most important parts of the process.
When others in my industry hear my name, they think of 2 things: QuickBooks Online and the Appcenter. I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to make people love QBO as much as I do, and in the process, I’ve made a name for myself as an expert in the product and analyzing what 3rd party add on will be the best for a small business to acquire the tools they need to run their back office. The motto of my company is that we help clients leverage technology to work better, faster, smarter. As I tell my husband: QBO is my gig, that’s my jam.
My advice to those of you working at moving towards on online practice, gaining clients with which you work remotely, is to determine your specialty. Find your gig, right?
I think there’s 2 steps to this, and while this might sound simple, it might not be as easy as you think.
My first bit of advice is determine what your ideal client is, and I’ll be honest: I found this really difficult to do. You have to take a look at all the clients you’ve worked with, both current and past. Who were your favorites? What did you love about working with them? It could be a specific industry, it could be they were all family owned, it could be they all needed help with a certain aspect of their business, such as inventory, or integrating systems. Were they all brand new startups? Take some time to really examine your client list, and find that common denominator that connects your favorites.
The second part is to think about things you’re passionate about – both personally and professionally. What do you love to do? What are you great at doing? What are the things you LOVE doing with and for your clients? Once you have a few ideas here, try to think of ways you can combine them with your ideal client..
When you combine them, you’ve got your specialty. THIS IS YOUR GIG, MAN. YOUR JAM.
Read Step 5-Provide Flat Fee/Value pricing
Next: Step 7-Market Yourself
