Can Contacting Your Competition Help Jump Start Your Bookkeeping Business?
One of the biggest problems bookkeepers face when
starting their business is actually getting the business off the
ground.
There are so many things that need to be done such as: set up your office, establish your pricing, create a system to keep track of your clients and most importantly, landing some clients.
This may come as a surprise to you, but contacting your bookkeeping competitors can help you out with some of these tasks. I know it sounds crazy at first glance, but bear with me for a moment.
In order to set up your pricing, you’ll need to call around to your local bookkeeping competitors to find out what the going rate is. This will also help you decide how you want to bill out your clients (per transaction, per hour or on a set monthly rate).
Ultimately, you’ll have to use your discretion and base your own rates on your experience level. Obviously, if you’re fairly new to bookkeeping, you shouldn’t command as high a rate as a more experienced bookkeeper.
Then there’s the major challenge of landing clients so you can actually start billing out. This is another area where your bookkeeping competitors can help you out.
Many established solo bookkeepers find they reach a point where they can’t take on any more work because they’re booked solid.
If you’ve managed to contact these bookkeepers ahead of time and let them know you’re available for any overflow work, you’ll be in a great position to benefit from these referrals when they come in.
Just a note of caution, however. Some bookkeepers only like to refer the real ugly jobs (in other words, major accounting messes) and keep the good jobs for themselves.
Of course you always have the option of turning down any job that you don’t want to take on, but it’s hard to do when you’re just starting out and are hungry for business.
As you can see, if you’ve never run a bookkeeping business before, there are many new systems you’ll have to learn, so make sure you keep your competition in mind as a valuable resource.
