04-Finding Your Perfect Clients
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Welcome back bookkeepers and accountants. that was really lame. Okay. Today, this week's episode is all about how to find your new bookkeeping clients. I am like this it's I'm batching some episodes. I'm getting a little bit ridiculous. It's getting kind of late and I feel so dorky right now. Okay. One of the most common questions bookkeepers have is how do I find clients?
Before you decide on where you, where to look. [00:01:00] You first have to do a little bit of work ahead of time. Okay. You have to do a little bit of work to identify what kind of clients that you actually want. So you know where to look for them, where to focus your efforts. It's really common for people in our industry to say, you have to have a niche and it's, it's true.
Finding clients does get a lot easier once you have a niche, but no one is really talking about how to identify your, your niche. Quote, unquote, I'm doing air quotes when you're just starting out and you have no freaking clue what you want your niche to be in. And that's okay. That's why I'm here. It's literally like why I'm here.
Um, this is how, this is why I started the blog that I started, because there's a gap. There's a huge gap between like all the people that have been doing it forever and ever, and they. All these new people come in and they're like, oh, I don't know what to do or where to look. And all the other people that have been doing this for years and years, and years, or decades are like, I don't know why it's so [00:02:00] hard.
You just need to find a niche. Well, no, one's telling you how to get there. So here we are. This is, this is the podcast. Okay guys. Okay. So if you have your niche, great, I'll help you figure out how to get even better clients within that niche. But otherwise this is the process that I recommend following.
To start developing a niche. Maybe we should start saying niche. Maybe I should flip flop. I really don't know how to say this. I'm pretty sure nobody knows how to say it. And I'm going to, I'll just do half the episode calling it a niche and half of it in niche. I think I started calling. I'm going to just do a little tan side tangent right now.
I'm pretty sure I started calling in a niche because of the quote the riches are in the niches.U can't say you can't say their reeshesare in the niches. Okay. So here's a process I recommend following to start developing. I should probably cut that whole thing out, but I'm not gonna [00:03:00] first. You want to identify who your ideal client is.
Um, I've recently started calling this your perfect fit client. Okay. Figure out who that perfect client. Um, and there's a process for that, of course, but not going to dive too deep into it today. Uh, number two, you can start to follow your passions and where you have experience and knowledge, right? You can start developing an edge based on where you used to work.
The type of industry or the type of clients you've previously worked with, or it doesn't honestly, it doesn't even need to be in accounting. For instance, I started my, um, my accounting career, I guess, if you will, in the back office of a grocery store, but before I actually was doing the accounting, I was cashiering.
I was, uh, Washing produce unloading trucks, uh, just doing basic back-office stuff, answering phones. [00:04:00] So I learned a lot about the operations of a grocery store that my friends counts, especially if you understand the operations and you understand the language and you understand what types of vendors that client's going to be working with, because you understand the industry you're like leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.
Okay. You can start to narrow it down by following your passions or your, your previous knowledge or experience. And then you can just narrow it down later as you go. Okay. You don't have to figure out who your perfect client is now and only take clients exactly like that. You can still take other clients and narrow it down based on what you feel like you jive with.
All right. So let's. Now get into kind of the nitty-gritty on identifying step one, identifying your perfect fit client. Your ideal client is someone you have in your mind when you think about the type of person that you want to [00:05:00] work with. So behind every business is a person. Figuring out the core values you want in the clients that you work with is the first step.
It's also really helpful to make this into maybe a list and keep it in mind when you're evaluating whether or not to work with a client after a discovery call, like literally make a list of the core values that you want to hold true to. Um, even if you have an idea of that type of industry, you want to work with, you still want to work with good.
Am I right. You don't want to work with like shady people with no ethics or clients that are like price shopping. And they're always going to negotiate with you and maybe treat you like an employee. Okay. So identifying your ideal client avatar or your perfect client, perfect fit client, whatever you want to call them will help you focus is your marketing efforts and networking efforts.
The more specific you are, the easier it becomes to attract the right class. I'm going to say that again, the more specific you are, [00:06:00] the easier it becomes to attract the right clients. Okay. So if you're into writing things down, list out some of those core values that you expect your client to have, for example, ethical, coachable, charitable, maybe they value doing things the right way.
And if it's hard for you to list those, you can list the characteristics you don't want. Um, there is clarity in contrast, for example, if they complain about taxes, if they don't follow up, follow through on requests, they're hard to get ahold of, they complain about your prices. They're always trying to bend the rules, like just choose the opposite of all those things that you don't want.
Um, another facet to consider is what your ideal, client's a minimum revenue. And this is really important if you actually want to charge a premium price because they actually do need to be able to afford you. I know there's a lot of businesses out there that will hire coaches and consultants for a lot of money because they promise that you'll get an, a huge [00:07:00] ROI, but we are in the business of building trust.
For one, you can't really promise an ROI, uh, and two, you want them to be with you longterm. It's a recurring revenue model. So you don't want to lock them in at a ridiculously high price that you know, that they can't afford, because then they're just going to end up having to cancel you. So if you're wanting to charge a premium price, but you only want to work with solopreneurs, just starting out, you have a mismatch.
Um, it'll also make it really difficult to attract those. Once you have those core values decided on, we'll go back a little bit. You can then look at some areas of your life or experiences that you were passionate about. Like I mentioned before, following your passion. Um, and I kind of already went into this, but this is where you're going to get a little more granular in your industry.
What industries might your ideal client be in? Is there an industry that you have experience in? Like I said, [00:08:00] either in accounting or operational. Did you work in retail? Like I did at any point in your career or in the restaurant, um, you may have some operational knowledge. That'll be really valuable to your clients, uh, because you'll automatically understand their business process on a higher level.
Um, you can also look at helping industries that you're passionate about. Not necessarily like you have any experience in them, but if you maybe really love music, like I do, I've honestly thought about, um, trying to help out music. Are you totally into crafting, um, and want to help out crafters or Etsy sellers with their books again, knowing the language of your client is going to be really helpful in attracting and, uh, communicating with them.
So if it's something that even is just a hobby for you and you understand the lingo, you're a shoe in, okay. Step three, narrowing it down. Now that you've added your industry layer on there, you can start putting yourself in the room with them. Perfect fit clients. Um, [00:09:00] maybe check out some industry, Facebook groups, networking groups.
They're great for that. Uh, you can still take on varying industry, client type clients, but after a while, you can reevaluate the clients you do have and figure out what they all have in common and then narrow down your focus even. This is when it starts getting really fun, because then you can really systematize your business.
Um, as you take on clients, you'll start to learn the types of businesses you more enjoy working with, but mostly it's about the clients and their personalities. And. So this is something you'll always be tweaking as you learn and grow. And I don't want you to be afraid to make a shift. So if you'd like to learn more of more places, you can find new clients and how to close those clients.
I do have a mini workshop series called the bookkeeping client closer, and I will link it in the show notes, but the website is ambitious. bookkeeper.com. Slash closer. That is [00:10:00] ambitious bookkeeper.com/closer. I don't know why Adrian did that. Like a commercial. Um, sometimes we get awkward when we're selling.
Okay. Alrighty. That is all my friends for today. I hope you found this useful. Once again, subscribe to the podcast, shout it out, send it to your friends, share it on Instagram. I appreciate you. And I'll talk to you next week. Bye.
