Making your mark in accounting can be incredibly rewarding but is difficult, especially when just starting. The industry has become more competitive; thus, many struggle to find their way and achieve success. However, if you go into the business with a good plan, you can not only survive, you can thrive.
Here, you’ll find a step-by-step plan for selling accounting services. This guide will walk you through the process of retooling your approach to the services themselves and your interactions with clients. Follow along to find out more about selling accounting services!
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Table of Contents
1. Determine Your Product
The first step in selling accounting services is to determine what you will offer. Accounting is a diverse field with a lot of different jobs. One accounting job may feel entirely different from another, even though both are technically still in the same field.
This is why it is important to determine what services you will offer. Simply stating you offer accounting services only tells your clients very little. Explaining what those services are is more helpful.
Many people end up choosing rather basic accounting services. These include tax preparation, bookkeeping, and other similar services. While these are common options, they aren’t always the best choice you can make. Many people already offer these services to the point where the market for them is saturated, and the profit potential has been diminished. Luckily, there is more potential to be found if you offer more advanced services.
2. Offer Advanced Services
If possible, it is advantageous to offer more advanced accounting services. This allows you to stay more competitive while also opening the door for higher earnings.
Services like CFO services, financial coaching, tax planning, and wealth management are more complex. They require a level of specialization and knowledge that most accountants cannot provide. However, if you can provide these things, you can excel in this industry.
This is because offering services like these make you unique among your competition. A potential client may be able to go to anyone for tax preparation or bookkeeping. The chance you will stand out against the crowd of this competition is low. However, services like financial coaching or tax planning are not offered by everyone. If you offer them, the crowd is less intense, so you have a greater chance of standing out.
Advanced services are also worth more. Basic services are common; thus, competition naturally drives down the price of those services. However, advanced services are less common. This creates less competition which naturally keeps the price higher.
Ultimately, you will have a greater potential to get new clients and make more from them. There really is no downside to tooling your business in this way!
If you don’t feel like you have the skills or expertise to offer advanced services, you may feel like this is not an option for you. However, this is not true, as you can leverage technology to make it an option. For example, TaxRobot’s R&D tax credit software makes it easy for you to automate the R&D tax credit process. This means that you will be able to offer this service to your clients without having to go back to school and learn something entirely new. With it, you simply enhance what you already offer.
Want to learn how you can set yourself apart by providing more value to your clients? Learn more about our R&D tax credit software!
3. Find Clients
Once you have your own business approach lined up, you need to find clients. This starts with identifying clients, then identifying their problems, then identifying how your business will offer a solution to their problems.
Identify Potential Clients
This is the most traditional part of the process. Finding clients for an accounting service is similar to finding clients in any other industry.
A great place to start is by looking for clients that need your services. If you offer services geared toward small businesses, start by looking at small businesses. If you are offering services geared toward a specific industry, start in that industry. Your exact approach here will depend on if you are staying local or reaching out over large distances online. You may even want to consider choosing an accounting niche to get the most success out of the process of finding clients.
You can also start advertising to have clients reach out to you. Targeted advertising allows you to limit your advertising to people who are specifically interested in what you offer.
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4. Identify Clients’ Problems
Once you’ve identified clients, you need to give them a reason to choose your accounting services. You can do this by identifying their problems.
For example, a small business experiencing major growth may be struggling with its outdated payroll system. A company developing new business components may neglect to claim the R&D tax credit. Or, a company struggling with its financials may require robust CFO services.
Ready to get started offering R&D tax credit services? Contact us today!
5. Identify and Present a Solution
In many cases, a business is aware of the problems they have. If they aren’t, they will be likely to admit them once they are pointed out. However, most businesses struggle to identify a solution. After all, if they already knew the solution to their problems, they would be able to fix them and wouldn’t have a problem anymore.
This is where you come in. You need to show how your accounting services will fix their problems. To do this, emphasize the problem and explain how exactly it is hurting them. Then, explain how what you offer will directly tackle this problem.
This can happen in a number of different ways. The company struggling with payroll may benefit from a payroll system you have created and implemented. With R&D tax credit software, you can easily solve the problems of companies who have yet to claim this credit. And, if you offer CFO services, these can be your solution to a wide variety of problems.
In any case, it is a matter of matching a problem with a solution. Once you learn how to navigate this, you will be on your way to landing plenty of new clients.
Selling Accounting Services
If you want to sell your accounting services, you need a plan. Start by developing the advanced products and services you plan on offering. Then, you can work on preparing your pitch for clients and start selling your accounting services.
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