3 Practical Ways to Get Accounting & Bookkeeping Clients 2022

Trying to grow an accounting business or bookkeeping business? I built a million dollar firm in less than 24 months, and this is what I would do to get accounting clients & bookkeeping clients fast.

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3 Ways to Get Accounting & Bookkeeping Clients

If you're like so many of my customers, you are trying to grow an accounting business or bookkeeping business, and you're trying to get lots of good b2b clients that would be likely to pay high retainers.

What's the best way to go out and get new bookkeeping customers?  How can you find and close more b2b customers for your accounting firm?  What's the best way to get clients for your tax firm or accounting business?

Yesterday during a coaching call, I had a new accountant ask me what I would to get new clients for an outsourced accounting firm If I was starting out today….

In other words, what should we all do to get good business clients for our business?

In this video I’m going to share with you 3 specific things I would do to get high end business clients for my outsourced accounting and bookkeeping firm, but I need to cover a couple of things so you understand the real vision and underpinning of how it is that I’m going to get clients….  So let’s dive in.

Now, If you’re wondering what the outsourced accounting model is, it’s really where you provide a full stack of services to clients, but focus on the  most valuable things to THEM, rather than transactional process things…. So what’s valuable to business clients?  It’s a number of things, but I really think it comes down to 3 primary things… First, isHelping them reduce the amount of taxes they end up paying which is super important because it’s really the equivalent of printing money for them if they do it right… then second, is  helping make their business more efficient and saving them from hiring other staff people and saving them time - this is the most valuable part of the services you provide, and then third is that you’ll provide  pro-active advice and guidance to help them scale their business and become a better business and help keep them compliant.

So save taxes, save time & increase efficiency, and then help them scale while keeping them compliant, THAT”s what’s really valuable to them.

So in this model,  you’re going to do the bookkeeping the tax returns, proactive tax reduction planning and provide guidance all for a flat monthly fee, ranging between 500 and 2500.

Now, you’ll have a handful of clients at  500 a month, a handful at 1500 a month and then a couple more at that 2500 a month range.  It’s good to know that there’s a couple different levels of service for this type of business.

What you’re going to see is that thoe $500 a month clients are really those successful solopreneurs, where they’re making maybe $50,000 to $200,000, they don’t really have any employees, and their situation is pretty basic.

Then, you’ll have those businesses with 2-10 employees, and revenues start to grow, so for these businesses, the number of new employees and contractors on the team increases, and the complexity of their operations really start to increase as well.  Their demands on you and your team will be increased and they’ll also see you as more of an outsourced employee - which means that 1500 a month is much more reasonable, because that’s the equivalent of them hiring someone for 12 hours a week, at maybe about $31/hour.   THis second group of people sees you as a staff alternative, and they are great customers for you to have.

Then the third group of businesses you’ll have will have an increased volume of help they need, the stakes on their guidance and consulting you provide is much higher, and they’ll be much more apt to see you as an alternative as an employee and start to value you as more of a CFO or as a consultant.  They also start to have much more significant tax reduction opportunities, and they need more pro-active planning around their wealth plans and tax reduction plans, so they need to meet with you more often.  

Not only that, but this last group will have the need for management reports and will be much more focused on their goals and scaling their business, so they’ll really value dashboards and reports you can create - just another much more valuable service to someone who’s business has larger stake and more problems.

So you’ll have simple solopreneurs, some mid sized businesses and then more complex businesses….. And now we want to find new customers in all of these realms - and I’m going to get into the 3 things I would do to get customers, but I needed you to understand WHO I’m goign to be looking for as potential customers…..

So now I need ot realize that ther’es a difference between marketing and sales.

If we want success, we need ot have a combination of both markteingt and sales, so that we have messaging, website traffic, and the tools in place to get synergy rolling and move our business forward.  Donald millers says that sales and marketing are like the two engines on a plane, they are the 2 activities that will actually provid ethe lift you’re looking for.

So sales is going to be use pro-actively pursuing customers and marketing is going to be running behind us as a support.  

Another little quick thing to mention is that when it comes to our marketing, the accounting, bookkeeping and tax keywords on google all trigger the google myb business or google review local maps, which means that if we consistently build up our credibility with google reviews, we can eventually become the highest rated accounting firm in the area, and once we have that on our side, a compounding effect will occur because people are very likely to click on top rated profiles and they are much more likely to close with you when you have a resume of lots of happy customers - so as you get going, you’ll want to get as many google reviews as possible.

In act, i often recommend that accountant say yest to just about anything in the beginning, so that they can build up credibility through google reviews.  So I’d do as many people’s tax returns and bookkeeping engagmeents as possible, even at th emore transactional level, just so that people can review you and you can build up that credibility.

Over time, as youre google reviews start to increase, you’ll start to see that everything gets easier and easier, because you start to close more sales as people trust you more and more, because you’re authority and credibility increases, making you more trustworthy.

SO all that aside, here’s the three things I would do to get customers

First off, I would make 30 cold phone calls a day to contractors, realtors and home services companies in my area.

I would create an email, i would setup the free hubspot CRM tool, and then I would call people with a simple pitch like this.

“Hi, was this Joe?  JOE!, my name is Rob and I own a little accounting firm right down the road from you here in Lakeville, and I was wondering if I could shoot you an email to introduce myself sot that you’ll have our info if you ever need a really good tax planner or business tax expert…”

THen shut up.

I’m telling you, if you do this, you will get emails and be able to start convressations.

I would do that with tenacity every day, getting in 30 calls a day.

I would personally focus on sub contractors in the trades, like concrete, framing companies, roofers, windows, electricians, plumbers, and home services like duct cleaning, house cleaning, lawn care and landscaping companies.

IF you’re looking for a list of business niches to target, then go to accountingwebsites.org, and hit the blog - I’ll have the article listed in the description, but I put together like 70 business niches that I think are valuable to pay attention to.

Now, I recommend cold calling, but I’d much prefer anyone that you have a mutual friendship with.  Ask your friends and family fo rreferalls, any business owners they know!  And just reach out and introduce yourself - I’ll hit on what you’ll end up doing to really close these as deals in another video.


The second thing I would do is I would start to do lunch and learns and get to know every one of the offices of real estate brokers.  

Real estate agents are a really good clients if they make more than about 60k a year, and you can even approach the brokerages and ask if you can do a littl lunch and learn….

Basically they have meetings every month or so, and you’ll buy them lunch in exchange for being able to introduce yourself and do a short presentation.  You’re going to go in there and talk about the 5 things they can do to lower their businesses taxes and then collect business cards when you’re done.

Keller williams, re max results, EXP and each of the sub brokders all have the need for your services and they’re all primed for your help because generally speaking, realtors are really busy being sales people adn get caught off guard about what they could be doing to lower their taxes.

Real estate agents are easy to prospect as well, becasue tehy have a  need, they pick up their phone and they’re really quite simple cases for you to add a ton of value!

So I would make sure you have lots of phone calls, emails, cold messages and engagement with real estate agents so you can help them with their books and their taxes as their outsourced accountants.

THe last thing I would do get clients is that i would visit every BNI group in the area, and choose a niche association to get involved with.  You can visit a BNI group up to twice, and then collect all their business cards, and then ask for a 1 on 1 meeting with every single one of the members.

You can make sure you teach and add value about how to rescue theri taxes, and then tehy’ll become and advocate for you.

Should you JOIN the bni group? It doesnt’ hurt.  The key is to visit a couple of them and get connected to as many people as possible.

Then you’ll see that each industry has an association that you can join and work.  Wether it’s the remodelers, general contractors or HVAC professionals - you’ll see a ton of associations out there.  Once you join, get really active on their social and make sure to go to their annual tradeshow and buy a booth.

You can work these shows but you need to actually engage and teach - and giving  them a presentation on the S-Corp or even 5 things they can do to lower their taxes, might earn you the ability to get a meeting with them.

Last, I would build out a marketing funnel that consists of a great website, a great video sales letter, and then a  lead generator in the form of an E-Book. I would then dive into running some simple campaigns on google and facebook - but that’s where you should just call us and head to the how it works page at feedbackwrench.,com to learn more.

So taht’s the 3 things I would do to get clients right away and i hope that’s helpfuL!

Remember, that if you build a sweet online presence, over time, you’ll start to get clients, but it just takes time and persistence.  Besides that, you need to prospect and build up momentum.

The biggest thing to remember is that once you have some clients, you can EASILY keep them for decades, and their going to be loyal and long lasting customers - so they’re worth scrambling to get them on board.

Eventually you’ll have problems around scaling and other things, but for now, stick with client acquisition and the rest will come!

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