I am so happy to share some advice from one of our customers, Gabrielle Fontaine, speaker, freelance bookkeeper and author of The Freelance Bookkeeper Blog.
It’s pretty safe to say that there isn’t a magic bullet (or wand) to make your firm’s growth goals an instant reality. There is however, what Gabrielle Fontaine, who runs a 100% virtual bookkeeping service, calls “New Client Magic.”
Rest assured, this kind of magic doesn’t involve waving a wand or pulling new clients out of a hat. It does involve a three-phase plan, taught by Gabrielle as part of The Freelance Bookkeeper training series, designed to help you get the right prospects, convert them to clients and create an efficient workflow for on-boarding them. Put them together and what have you got? A proven way to leverage the organic growth potential of your firm.
1. The Screening Phase. Key to keeping a consistent flow of desirable new clients coming into your firm is to know what the profile of your ideal client is and to screen your prospects against it. Gabrielle advises that 25 to 50 percent of your prospect pool should fit your target client profile. If your percentage is lower than this, consider revamping your marketing efforts to better target your ideal client profile.
You can also use a tool like Google Forms (which is free) to create a screening survey with basic questions to help screen potential clients who contact you from your website, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page, or any online directory profiles you may have.
2. The Conversion Phase. Once you have an ideal prospect in your sales funnel, it’s time to create a little magic to help convert them into a paying client. Your success in this endeavor, Gabrielle says, will largely depend on how well you can build rapport with a collaborative, win-win process.
This is where your proposal or engagement letter needs to shine a spotlight on the value you are offering the client and the results they will get from working with you. When it comes to actually sealing the deal in a legal contract, SmartVault makes it easy to impress prospective new clients. You can use SmartVault integrated with DocuSign to send proposals for e-signature and to protect sensitive information such as online payment authorizations, usually collected at the beginning of a new client engagement.
3. Client Onboarding Phase. Once the transformation from prospect to client is complete, the real magic begins when you onboard your new client—giving you the chance to make new client workflow inefficiency disappear, and to show your client a few tricks that will cement their confidence in your firm.
For example, once your client is “officially” on board with a signed engagement letter and payment profile, you can use SmartVault to securely share files, educating your clients about the dangers of using email to exchange documents with sensitive or personally identifiable information. This will position you as valuable trusted advisor right from the start.
There you have it, three simple steps to help you grow your firm organically. Working this plan consistently for your firm should help you produce new client growth that is nothing short of magic!
Gabrielle Fontaine, PB, ASBC is a freelance Professional Bookkeeper and Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor who has been in business for over 25 years. She has been working 100% virtually since 2003. Gabrielle is the author of the popular blog, The Freelance Bookkeeper, produces online training programs specifically for virtual accounting professions, and has been a sought-after guest speaker on webinars, podcasts, and industry conferences.
Author: Dania Buchanan, Senior Vice President of Growth and Marketing at SmartVault.