When a company is expanding, identifying opportunities and overcoming obstacles require meticulous planning and a thorough understanding of the market. The past year has been particularly challenging, with the pandemic forcing businesses to modify their working methods and move routine duties online. Accounting firms have also had to handle their own and their clients’ furloughs, as well as prepare for Brexit. Yet, despite these challenges, they continue to provide essential services to their clients.
If you are nodding your head while reading this, we see you and appreciate the work that the community of number crunchers has performed over the past year. After a prolonged lockdown, businesses expect to recover now that the British market is progressively opening up.
Here are our seven suggestions for doing so immediately:
1. Review Your Current Prices
Increasing prices will undoubtedly increase your revenue. Even if you increased your fees by 5 percent and lost a small portion of your clients, you would still earn more money given the current circumstances. Consult with others to determine the potential price increase. Ask other proprietors of accounting firms for a rough estimate.
Some accountants may find the idea of a price increase unsettling, presuming that their clients may be price-sensitive and desire a change. However, you must recognise that setting your prices too low is detrimental to your business.
2. Take Care of Your Current Customers
Utilise this time to strengthen your client interactions. Initiate in-depth conversations with them to learn about their business objectives, desired long-term changes, and expectations for your service in the forthcoming fiscal year.
Once you have clarity on this, create opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, and an accurate representation of your services. Consider the scenario below: If one of your previous clients has been utilising your bookkeeping services for the same number of hours, you should analyse the time you are spending and justify a fee increase.
Similarly, you can combine your bookkeeping service with another offering, such as self-assessments, if a client considers the price to be excessive. The key is to concentrate on what they want rather than what you can provide. The retention of clients over the long term can be improved by adapting your offerings to their requirements.
3. Expand The Range Of Available Services
To remain competitive in the market, accountants must provide more than just the services that are required. Therefore, expand your service offerings. When accountants have more to offer, their clients are less likely to pursue services from competitors. Therefore, begin by offering new services to existing customers. If they have previously requested services such as budgeting, cash flow forecasting, or strategic business planning, include them in your portfolio.
Train your workforce in the selected expert areas via virtual training programmes and certificates, or recruit new team members to prepare for the same. Such specialised services may also be outsourced to experts who can effectively administer them. Providing support beyond the scope of typical services will increase consumer loyalty and boost your company’s sales.
4. Start Outsourcing
Does it make sense for you to outsource your accounting so that you can focus on high-end consulting work? You must concentrate as an accountant on providing your clients with excellent service. If outsourcing will relieve your practice’s employees of time-consuming duties such as bookkeeping, tax return preparation, and company registration while saving them time and effort, do not hesitate to do so.
Due to the availability of numerous industry experts, accountants can outsource their work with caution. The first step is to determine their expertise and conduct a trial run to determine if they can meet the requirements. Here are six factors to consider when selecting an outsourcing firm: Depending on your requirements and workload, you can utilise their long-term and short-term assistance.
5. Acquire Advanced Technology
Timely service delivery is essential for retaining consumers. The newest technologies can aid accountants in providing greater value to clients. In the past, you may have used paper slips and eventually Excel documents. but no longer. Accounting cloud technology has advanced more rapidly than ever in the past five to seven years.
With the development of automated accounting systems, accountants are now able to automate a variety of tasks, such as the real-time submittal of payroll data, mobile client database access, and the detection of tax return data irregularities that require examination. These software programmes facilitate enhanced performance, optimal resource utilisation, and accurate service delivery. QuickBooks, TaxCalc, Xero, IRIS, and FreeAgent are some of the automation solutions employed for billing, payroll, taxes, and cost management.
6. Ask Customers For Recommendations
Networking is imperative. Equally essential to cultivating prospects is taking care of existing consumers. If your clients are satisfied with your service, they will gladly recommend you to other accounting firms that could benefit from your outsourcing assistance. For increasing sales, the most effective marketing strategy is still word-of-mouth advertising. However, it does require time. Therefore, you should never cease trying. Find important customers in your portfolio who are willing to sing your praises.
Seek innovative and novel ways to keep your clients satisfied. Consider what they have to say, and then make adjustments accordingly. Why not offer a discount if you have begun selling new services? Assign them more specialised assistance in an area in which you are aware they struggle (which may also prove advantageous to you in the long term). Client-facing materials such as instruction letters, email signatures, and invoice footnotes are the best places to promote your referral programme and encourage clients to refer your accounting services to those in need.
7. Refresh Your Website and Digital Marketing Strategy
If you haven’t updated your website’s content in some time, it may be prudent to do so immediately. If you lack in-house marketing experts, employ a marketing firm to handle the task for you. Utilise relevant keywords throughout your site to enhance SEO and increase search engine visibility.
With the advent of social media, connecting with target audiences is now easier and faster. Through company profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, you can highlight your practice’s achievements and client testimonials.
Regularly update your blog with accounting advice, business expansion strategies, and industry news. Demonstrate your expertise in the area. Promote these journals through your email signature, social media accounts, and newsletters (if applicable). Even if you are not excessively aggressive in your marketing efforts, maintain consistency. When the budget allows, run Google Adwords or LinkedIn promotions to reach a larger audience of potential customers.
OVER TO YOU
You may feel overburdened by the task of increasing revenue and acquiring new clients for your accounting practise. Sometimes, the concept of “growth” is portrayed as enormous, difficult, and frightening. If you follow the correct advice, it is relatively simple.
Yes, tenacity and effort are essential. However, proper instruction is also crucial. In addition to employing the aforementioned methods, you should value your customers’ concerns and complaints and respond appropriately.
Please contact us at +44 736 205 2566 or schedule a consultation here if you are interested in outsourcing.
