New to this but have 20 years accounts experience for various industries. AAT qualified and working 33 hours at present. Been in my current role for 2 years which I took on to enable me to set out as a self employed bookkeeper. It's taken me this long to take the plunge. A few months ago I took out an Ad in the local paper but got no clients from it, this put me off again. Last week I produced some flyers which I have just started delivering to local small units on the few industrial estates near where I live. Before I get any clients is there something which I should be doing, I'm not sure if I need to buy software, or if the free downloads are sufficient to start with. Also I've just read another post of someone in the same position and find that they have put together some paperwork to give information to potential clients. What should be my next step please. Hope someone can point me in the right direction. This is totally different to anything I've done before.
Personally I'd say you really need to get out there and drum up some business. I did the flyers and ad's but until I started picking up the phone and speaking to people nothing was happening.
You can have all the paperwork and information together, but if you have no clients it's pointless.
I started picking a profession and sending out 25-50 letters per week, then followed them up a week later with a phone call and since then my clientbase has really taken off.
As I said in a previous post when you start waiting for people to come to you, you'll wait forever.
The views expressed in this post are my own personal (HRA protected) views, and are not representative of any organisation I have any involvement with.
If you are new to this did you realise before you can take on clients that you have to be registered for MLR with either HMRC or a registered body, possibly AAT are a registered body, if they are I believe you have to have a membership, practising certificate and professional indemnity insurance to cover you. With HMRC I believe you have to pay a one off £50 for a "Fit and Proper Test" and believe it to be around £120 a year.
I would say that different marketing things work for different people, I did all the leaflet dropping that you mentioned and spent lots on it with hardly any results, my best one has been by word of mouth, getting a contact with an accountant and current clients introducing me to their friend or family member who runs their own business. Other then this the one which has worked at a certain level has been adverts in local newsagents (this has been much cheaper then any of the leaflet drops around 50p a week for 4 weeks and got some clients from this.
Would say rather than pay out a lot in one form of marketing pay a little for different types so you can work out what is best in your area then once you have a success in a form of marketing do that one more than any of the others.
