The financial world can seem confusing and complicated for many individuals. While everyone in the world participates in the buying and selling of goods and services, there are so many details to financial record-keeping that goes over our heads. But not for you! If you work in the world of accounting, you love untangling tricky webs, solving financial problems, and helping clear up confusion about money for individuals and companies alike. And if you’re great at your job, chances are more and more people are going to start requiring your services.
One way to make any business successful is through growth and expansion. People aren’t going to stop needing accounting services any time soon. With new entrepreneurs stepping onto the scene every day, you can be there to show them the best practices for their money. Your accounting firm can have such a big impact on the community around you, no wonder you’re excited to expand your practice. But growing your own accounting business still comes with challenges and hurdles to jump. Make sure you’re taking all the right steps to successfully expand your firm to engage more clients while bringing on new staff members. You have a great reputation to uphold. Be sure you’re continuing to provide the awesome services people have come to know and love. As you’re working on your expansion, here are just a few tips to make sure it is smoothly and effectively done.
Ensure high-quality communications.
Whether you’re bringing in new clients or adding more professionals to your team, communication is key to improve the customer experience. Depending on the size of your firm, you may have a lot of open cases and loyal clients. Find the best way for them to communicate with you effectively. Maintain call center quality assurance by monitoring 100% of your customer interactions on one local platform. With AI technology, you can be a great customer service representative from anywhere anytime. You can also ensure agent performance and quality assurance on every call, every time. In a business world where communication matters to keep clients and have more referred to you, make sure your contact center leads to customer satisfaction every time.
Present your information well.
Sometimes finding those big-name clients means reeling them in. Maybe it’s a simple meeting or a presentation about what your accounting firm can do for them. Whatever format you’re promoting yourself through, use a layout that will promote you in the best way. When giving a presentation, you’ll want to use professional PowerPoint templates with modern designs, easily understood infographics, and next-level metrics. Present yourself and your information by putting your best foot forward ever. If you show yourself as professional service providers who are organized with set business goals, other companies will have no choice but to be dying to work with you. Put yourself in the best position to expand with great professional presentation tools.
Bring in more staff with years of experience.
Expanding your firm is a two-fold situation. Bringing in new clients means you’ll also have to put out job ads for a few more professionals to join your team. While accountants may be a dime a dozen, you want to take special care to only bring on the best of the best. Identify your mission and find people who will fit in with the overall culture you’re trying to build. As a supervisor, you want to create an environment where people want to work and are being challenged at their job. With the extra help, you’ll be able to expand your business plan and take on new clients and big-time jobs with the help of your trusted staff.
Expand work from home options.
Depending on the nature of your accounting firm, you may even be able to bring on more staff from all different places. The expansion of work from home options has made remote staffing easier than ever. The right CPE solutions will ensure quality standards no matter where your staff is working from. As long as communication is utilized effectively, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to be flexible with hours and where people are working from. This may open you up to a whole new area of customers and clients for you to work with.
Update your tools.
Accounting is a very technical business. You’re dealing with cold, hard facts and numbers all day. This means you need tools with the same type of clarity to ensure you’re doing your best work. Gone are the days of working with just a pen and paper. You now need the most recent technology to help ensure you’re doing the most effective job. Make sure your quality of service is top-notch with the best accounting software and data enrichment tools. Know the analytics of your own startup so you can seek out third party opportunities and ways to expand. Data holds so much relevance to your performance numbers, so make sure you’re understanding that date in the best way. At the end of the day, you’re working on accounting but also running a business. Be sure the business and accounting sides are both benefitting from effective tools and software.
Encourage loyalty with your current clients.
Growth is great, but you need to be sure it doesn’t come at the expense of any other customers. To grow effectively, you need to first foster that loyalty with the customers you already have. Actually, most of your revenue expansion usually comes from cross-selling new products to existing clients. Remember this in your marketing plan. While bringing in fresh customers is wonderful, remember to focus on who is already in the room. Can you guarantee they will be your clients for years to come? Can you gain another customer from an existing relationship between them and your loyal customers? What are other ways you can reward your base for sticking with you and helping you grow? Loyalty is key, especially with so many accounting businesses out there. Figure out how you can stand out and keep your clients happy.
Master the art of networking.
Relationships are important in any business, especially accounting. Master the art of networking if you hope to grow and expand. You need to be able to interact with potential clients and show them why your quality process is superior to others. Perfect your pitch and have a professional look whenever you’re at a networking event. Face-to-face communication is your most effective tool to grow your business. And by expanding your circle of contacts, you’re one step closer to your strategic plan to expand your customer relationships.
Diversify your portfolio and customer base.
As you expand, you always want to make sure you can handle the amount of work you’re taking on. A big mistake you can make is focusing too strongly on one client that may cause issues with your other work. Be realistic about what you can achieve and continue to diversify your firm. The more accounts you’re working on will keep you stronger because one deal going sour won’t ruin the entire company. Devoting too much time to one client can leave you blind to those issues or negligent to your other loyal customers. Continue to grow and diversify if you want to do it successfully.