The Best Social Media Platform for Bookkeepers

The misconception: I’ve heard this from too many bookkeepers: “I don’t need a social media presence to attract new clients. Word of mouth is enough. Referrals from family and friends are enough.” But it’s not enough, not nearly.

The power of social media: The most reliable avenue for client referrals is—you guessed it—social media. If you don’t have a social media strategy in place, even if it’s out of your comfort zone, you have to develop one. The growth and success of your business depend on it.

The right choice for you. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn … where to begin? The good news: you don’t have to be everywhere, just where your clients are. Find out where they spend their time online and focus your energies there. From my own experience, LinkedIn is the best social media platform for bookkeeping referrals, so I encourage you to start there.

Get that network growing! Create a LinkedIn profile. The process is simple and fast, and immediately your new business—even if it’s just getting off the ground—will be visible to local, national, and international accountant firms who are looking for professionals like you. You’ll be amazed at how sudden visibility can affect your business connections positively.

A LinkedIn tip or two. For a start, 1) use a professional photo of yourself as your profile picture. 2) Write a few posts on best practices in bookkeeping to show your knowledge and expertise. 3) Leave comments in posts written by your connections, to develop new and better relationships, and reach out to businesses and other LinkedIn members on your own to expand your network.

Next steps. Going forward, as we work together, I’ll share other effective strategies to help you harness the power of social media and grow your business. There’s a lot you can do from home to attract new clients beyond the limits of acquaintance referrals and word of mouth business. So, let’s get started!

Let’s Schedule a 1:1 Call with me and find out more

5 Reasons Embrace Cloud Based Accounting

Cloud Based Accounting improves the way you do business as it makes your workflow efficient giving you more time to concentrate on other areas of your business.  The best part about cloud-based accounting is it allows you to be mobile.  Instead of storing your information on a hard drive, you are storing your information on the internet.  The advantage of storing your information on the internet is you will have access to your information anywhere and anytime as long as you have an internet connection.

It can be tricky to navigate this change in technology if you have spent years keeping track of your finances in another way.  To modernize your accounting, and bookkeeping, consider making the change to cloud-based accounting.

To help with the transition, Accounting By Sal will walk you through the steps showing you how to efficiently manage your finances going forward.  There is a multitude of benefits to migrating to cloud-based accounting – let’s take a closer look.

• Accessing your business data anytime, anywhere 

If you need to review your business data, you can review it quickly and easily with cloud-based accounting as long as you have internet access.  Having easy access to your up-to-date financial information will provide peace of mind.

• Go paperless and declutter your office

If your company is going green, this is the perfect time to embrace cloud-based accounting.  You will have the opportunity to implement a paperless system doing your part for the environment and saving your company money.

• Real-time business financial reporting 

You will have access to your financial statements in real time. There will be no waiting to access your hard drive as you will be able to pull up-to-date accurate reports wherever an internet connection is available. Any member of your team can have access to numbers as needed.

• Ability to automate many manual accounting and bookkeeping tasks 

When you are managing a team that is spread out in different locations, you can automate bookkeeping tasks to any location. This will allow several team members to simultaneously have access to real-time financial data.

• Cost Reductions 

Moving to a cloud-based system will eliminate the need for paper reports and hard costs.  You can save time searching for the data you need which in turn saves you money and allows you to focus on other aspects of your business.

Working with Accounting By Sal will allow you to understand why cloud-based accounting is the best system for your business. Learning this system will allow you to be as efficient as possible when managing your finances as you have the ability to share your full financial picture whenever you need to do so.  Let’s Schedule a 1:1 Call  and discuss how cloud-based Accounting can help you improve your business practices – I look forward to working together!

Let’s Schedule a 1:1 Call

The Benefits of One on One Training

Have you had the opportunity to experience one on one training? One on one training is a great way to manage your time as you will have the chance to enjoy personalized service that pertains directly to your business. Let’s explore the additional benefits one on one training provides.

Accounting Methods Explained

Different accounting methods are effective for different businesses. By engaging in one on one training, you are allowing yourself the opportunity to learn specific tips and tricks for your specific business. These learning will save you time and money as your business grows.

The clarity to Bookkeeping Services

Understanding your bookkeeping, and best practices will allow you to be efficient as you will utilize the software in a way that best benefits your needs. In a one on one training session, you will learn the shortcuts that pertain to your specific service to improve workflow.

Easy to Follow Steps

Learning with a one on one trainer provides the opportunity to review and revisit steps within your practice. Reviewing your current process ensures you are following the steps that work for your needs as a Business Owner or Bookkeeper. Learning easy to follow steps will lead you to the most efficient way to get the results you are looking for.

Personalized Service that Speaks to your Business

One on one personalized service provides the opportunity to take a deep dive into the needs of the business to learn how the software can work best for the current financial situation. Looking specifically at your business will allow the best shortcuts and tips and tricks to be reviewed. The personalized attention and improved workflow result in great value for your investment.

Business Coaching to Further your Business

Business coaching is not often included in the training, however, when training with Accounting By Sal, Sal will provide business coaching as needed. Together, you will create the best plan for your business going forward and get into some of the tough questions regarding your financial goals to garner the best results.

Working with Accounting By Sal will allow you to experience a one on one training environment that will answer questions and develop practices specifically for your business. Learning how to efficiently and accurately manage your business finances, to save time and money, provides fantastic value for your investment in your training. Contact Sal today to discover how she can help your business grow, efficiently manage accounting and bookkeeping and create a tangible plan to succeed in your business.

Contact Sal to find out more how she can coach you 1:1 throughout your business succession planning

4 Great Reasons to Use Quickbooks

Have you tried doing your own bookkeeping just to be caught spending hours working out tricky equations?  If you use a dated system to manage your business finances it may be time to update to a system that offers incredible value.  Quickbooks speaks to several other systems and is able to update your financial picture on a regular basis.  Using quickbooks also allows you to easily share financial information in a meeting, when preparing for a presentation or when reviewing monthly financials.  Quickbooks offers value in many areas and improves workflow with efficient shortcuts.

Let’s review the top 4 reasons to use quickbooks for your business finances.

1. Full-Cycle Bookkeeping through Quickbooks systems. You will easily be able to manage every aspect of your business through the quickbooks system.  This system will also allow you to create charts, manage invoices and navigate your financial needs quickly and easily.
2. Practical skills and knowledge on how to best use the software. Give yourself the luxury of time by simplifying your financial systems.  Quickbooks teaches practical skills to manage all aspects of your financial systems.  Your whole team can share information and work together to implement an optimal workflow for your business.
3. The convenience of built-in automation. Quickbooks connects to many other platforms allowing you to automate your information with additional platforms that you use within your business environment.
4. Useful tips and tricks for your particular business. Engage with tips and tricks that allow you to be more efficient with your time and with your information.  With personal training, you can implement tips and tricks that work best for your current business model.

Working with Accounting By Sal will allow you to understand why quickbooks is the best system for your business. Learning this system will allow you to be as efficient as possible when managing your finances and sharing your full financial picture. Register for one of Sal’s quickbooks course and learn to improve your business practices and take control of your finances!

Click Here to Register For 1:1 Quickbooks Course With Sal

Power of social media to market your bookkeeping business

Different Social media platforms:

I have heard this so many times from other bookkeepers saying that I’m a bookkeeper. I don’t need to be visible on any social media platforms to attract clients. I can simply grow my clientele by word of mouth and by referrals through family and friends. But that is not ENOUGH and that is not RIGHT!

You must change your mindset too and you must be able to to go far then your comfort zone if you want to grow your business and be successful. Give yourself the opportunity of leaving the door open see beyond your limitation.

Social media has become very powerful and has become the number referral marketing platform for all businesses.

All the fortune 500 companies are utilizing and spreading their branding messages through social media and that is because they know where their clients are hanging.

Through social media platforms, people ask for business referrals therefore, why you would you avoid social media when it is absolutely free and a convenient way to market and start building a networking group.

In November 2015, my Pure Bookkeeping Canada Business Manager, Dave attended Intuit’s Thrive Conference in downtown Toronto.

Facebook and LinkedIn are the most powerful social media platforms for your bookkeeping business I always see these two as a number one game changer for my marketing efforts.

Start creating Your Social Media Strategy

Come up with your business goal and how you want to take advantage of social media marketing to reach your goal, on your goal you must elaborate if how many customers you want to reach out, who are your prospect clients. Do not waste your time make sure you actually follow your goal and build your business.

The most important action you should take is to make sure you actually reflect back to your social media goal and see the results which will best improve your bookkeeping business.

The other aspect you need to be aware is your business competitor, maybe you have to do some research here to find out how are they using social media to grow their business, what social media platform they are using?

Follow their strategies and see what they are exactly doing and then try to implement to your business and note to see if it impact your business too and how does it do it?

Whatever strategy you pick, make sure you are consistence with it, consistency is the most powerful tip of reaching out your goal quickly.

To stay consistent: create a plan and make sure you follow:

For example: once a week, post some content to your Facebook page, which your clients find it useful and next day share a video and provide some tips to your clients, i.e. how to organize your receipts. Do a 2 minutes video on this.

Whatever you share make sure it is for the benefits of your clients as well as you are adverting so they get to know you well.

And again the key is to stay consistence whatever you do or however you plan to move and reach to your prospects.

Have someone to help you with all these, maybe hire a freelancer.

Few tips to follow:

• Have a social media business page
• Do not post personal photos on your business page
• Have a professional photo of you posted with business attire
• Make sure you reach the right audience

And with the power of social media, you can always schedule your posts for later or next day, so this way you are not worried to post it later.

There are many websites that can monitor your social media activities and results.

Here are two I use to track my social media progress:

• http://sproutsocial.com/
• http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/

These sites keeps track of your Facebook mentions and other social media activity.

And honestly at the end keep track and see what really works and if doesn’t do not waste your time and things that actually helps you with your business then keep it and follow it and always look for more growth!!!

Remember not all of you are social media savvy, so take one little challenge at a time and try to work around it this is like any other challenge, it best works when you start practicing a little bit at a time.

Practise makes perfect!

And have faith in yourself and trust that once you start working on your goal and as long as you stay consistence you will see the results!

All the best,

Sal Rezai

How to Overcome Marketing Challenges Forever

If you want to start your own online bookkeeping business, you must first have a viable and personalized marketing strategy in place. More than that, you must be prepared yourself to take action.

Product, Price, Place/Distribution and Promotion. These are the four “Ps” of marketing strategy, and having an effective marketing plan will help you define the big picture of your business. It will give you focus and direction. It will also help clients find you, and that will make your product and services more useful and more profitable.

90% of the bookkeepers I’ve worked with over the last decade have not had a marketing plan in place for their online businesses. They were losing clients without knowing it. That’s when I decided to formalize my own marketing model and share it with other bookkeepers, so they could learn to sustain and expand their businesses more effectively and profitably.

My own business model is simple: Devise a marketing strategy; turn that strategy into an active marketing plan; and implement that plan to the letter. Knowing and targeting my own specific business needs, I have managed to turn hundreds of potential clients into paying customers over the last ten years, and you can do the same.

6 keys to building a successful bookkeeping business: right now you can unlock some of your own potential, by reading my free e-book. Simply join my mailing list, and I will send it to you today. It will give you a sense of my own successful marketing strategies and suggest how you can benefit by working with me.

A Roadmap to Success. Think of it this way: a marketing plan is like a map showing you not only where you are but where you want to be. Having one before you hit the road makes good sense, if you don’t want to get lost. That’s where I come in. I can help you take your business out into the digital world with resolute purpose and confidence.

Click here to book your 30 minutes FREE marketing strategy call with me