Are you looking for a way to grow your accounting firm beyond referrals?
With the right system and strategy, you can achieve that goal.
(And yes, referrals are great, and they should still be a part of your growth plan. But you also want a more predictable way to grow because let’s face it, referrals aren’t predictable. You may get a lot one month, and zero the next.)
I’m going to share the exact system you can use alongside your referral strategy to start growing your firm more steadily.
Want to watch the video instead? See it here: https://youtu.be/7YEUXGp7TLM
How to Grow Your Accounting Firm Beyond Referrals
1. Define Your Audience
The first thing you need to do is define your audience. When I say “define,” I mean get really specific about who you’re targeting.
Many firms will say, “Okay, we work with business owners who are between $1 million and $20 million. Most are operating virtually, so they can be anywhere in the US. That’s our ideal client.”
Unfortunately, it’s not. A description like this is too vague, and it hurts your growth in two ways:
- It doesn’t speak to the people you’re actually targeting.
- It doesn’t give you enough focus.
Just saying that you target “business owners” in general is not specific enough. Same goes for niching down to service providers.
Ask yourself: have you ever identified as a service provider? No. You likely identify as an accountant.
If you see a post or video that says, “Hey, this information is for service providers,” it’s probably not going to pull you in.
A post that says, “Hey, this is exactly for accountants,” will.
In the first example, your content won’t catch their attention. You can’t speak their exact language, use their phrases or talk about things that really resonate with them.
Furthermore, niching down also helps give you focus. It helps you understand who to connect with on social media, which conferences to attend and which podcasts to get on.
Now, I want to clarify that picking a niche doesn’t mean that you can’t work with people outside of it. It just gives you a target to focus on.
Heck, I still get inbound prospects in my inbox today asking if I provide CPA services.
2. Build Visibility Through Thought Leadership
Once you’ve clearly defined your audience, the next step is to build visibility through thought leadership.
Getting someone to be your client is different from selling someone a pair of shoes. You can have a million pairs of shoes, but when it comes to your accountant? Most small business owners only have one. If you want someone to be your client, you need to catch them at the right time when they either:
- Don’t have an accountant, OR
- Are willing to switch
For someone to be willing to switch, they have to either be frustrated by their existing accountant, or you have to show them that working with you would provide so much more value.
This is where thought leadership comes into play and can expose that gap between what you do and what other people do.
You need to be showing up at all the right places to make someone say, “Hey, it makes sense for me to switch working with my existing accountant,” or for someone to start working with an accountant in the first place.
Here’s what building your thought leadership looks like:
- Getting on podcasts
- Attending conferences
- Creating your own content
- Posting on the right social media platforms
- Building your network and your community on those platforms
When you do all of these things, you build authority and credibility.
Because remember that you are essentially fighting to be the one person a potential client picks. You have to make it clear, through your thought leadership, that you are the one they should choose.
The reality is that you’re offering a high-trust service. Sending a single message to someone or making a single post isn’t likely going to be enough to convince them to trust you.
But if that person sees your content over and over again, and they start to understand how you think and the transformations you’ve achieved, they’ll start thinking, “Okay, this person is the real deal. They can help me get from point A to point B.”
That’s why you have to be the thought leader. You have to be the clear and obvious choice.
3. Have a System to Capture Information
Along with thought leadership, there needs to be some way to capture someone’s information. Firms usually have some sort of capture form on their website. It could be a form that people fill out or a spot where a person can book a call.
These are great and essential things to have on your website. But you also want to think about how you can capture the information of people who are like, “I want more of this, but I’m not quite ready to book a call.”
Here’s where it can be useful to create a newsletter or something along those lines.
4. Nurture Relationships Through Your Content
Now that you have a way to connect with people who aren’t ready to use your services or book a call, you can nurture those relationships.
Your goal is to continue building those connections through both your exclusive content (think newsletters) and your posts on social media.
For this to be effective, you have to continue to show up. I don’t mean showing up once or twice for a month or even six months. It’s being committed to showing up whenever possible.
Right now, social media is a great place to be, but you also want to focus on podcasts, YouTube and conferences.
Be wherever your prospective clients are.
5. Invest in a CRM
As an accountant, you’re often so worried about getting the right tax software, the right accounting software or practice management tool. But have you thought about your CRM?
An Excel spreadsheet can work initially. But eventually, you want to invest in a dedicated CRM that can help track your deals through a pipeline and automate things like follow-ups so that you don’t lose out on deals that stall.
6. Set Yourself Up for Success Before a Call
Before every single call, I want you to make sure that you have educated the prospect.
Here’s the reality: when you’re dealing with people who are not referrals, it’s just harder to make a sale. You don’t have that built-in trust that comes with a referral. Your content and thought leadership can help close that gap significantly, but it’s still important to prepare and set yourself up as best as you can.
What does this look like?
Before someone books a call, let’s make sure that we’re really clear about our:
- Pricing
- What services we offer
- What it’s like to work with us
Once they book a call, send out emails educating them on these points. Let them know what they should bring to the call, what you expect of them and what they can expect of you. Cover common objections, too.
The Takeaway
Referrals are a great way to grow your accounting firm, but they’re too unpredictable to be a reliable path. Use the system above alongside your referral strategy to start bringing in new clients and building authority online.
