Hi Shirley,

everyone at these meetings is interested in selling their own services. They didn't actually go there to buy yours so, what you need to be doing is looking at ways to increase the business of the other people there.

Go to a few meetings, meet the people, don't try to sell them anything.

I think that Rob did a really good post on this back in around March but I just can't find it at the moment.

I do remember one of his pieces of advice was to start chatting to people by admitting the your nervous rather than going straight into a hard sell.

It took Rob six months of diligently going to meeting after meeting to get his face known amongst the business community before he saw any return on his investment but once he did it was worth the time and money invested previously.

Well done for getting the bookkeeper slots, I know that only one person of any profession is allowed to go to each of the meetings... I won't ask where the bodies are of those who were in the line before you!

As for what to say... Really I can only advise on what not to say and that's don't try a hard sell. Just introduce yourself and your services and try and get in somewhere that you would be looking to introduce your clients to local businesses where their businesses needed services so you are using the meetings to get to know the people who your clients need to be talking to.

Use that as the sell and after a while you'll find that they start sending work your way.

Do remember to have lots of business cards with you don't force them on people.

Good luck and always remember that you won't be the only person there whose a bit nervous.

All the best,

Shaun.

Hi Shaun,

I definately agree with you.  I remember using the services of a couple of the other professions at the meeting before I gained any clients myself, it took quite a while of attending meeting after meeting, but it does build a good referral base of businesses for all involved.

Regards

I think the other thing I found at these meetings is that people don't really want to hear a huge list of what you can do and your qualifications. They want to know how it relates to them, what problem they have that you can solve. So rather than offering bookkeeping we offer time to do other things. We offer less of a headache at the end of the year.

Kris

Hi Shirley

Another thing you could add in is a reminder about something that needs to be done, for example next month the minimum wage increases so you could mention this. So you can try to tailor your minute around what you do and what else is happening in the accounts/business world.

Mark

I find that the more you worry about what your gonna say, the more you will mess up.

Just remember you don't have to stick to one minute.

You can talk about anything related to your trade.

Obviously just starting out it is nerve wrecking, but they have all been in the same situation so dont panic. Just be yourself. always talk as if your talking to your friends, no swearing though lol.

If you want. write down what you want to say and read it word for word.

One thing I would say is always say your name and business name when you start.

"Good morning, my name is xxxxx and my business is called xxxx" Then always state the same at the end when you finish. obviously not the good morning bit heh heh.

for the first week, I would just say something along the lines of "im a bookkeeper, i can use both manual and computerised bookkeeping software such as, sage, quick books etc.. (obviously say what you can actually use). Then go into a little detail, say you cover VAT and CIS, say you offer a professional service at affordable prices and also say a little about your clients if you have a few, the types, dont say names though and state what types of clients you are looking for. You could always state why you began networking and what you hope to achieve out of it.

Keep it sweet and dont give too much away the first time. Get people to ask you questions throughout the rest of the meeting.

then the following week, concentrate on 1 aspect, such as the vat. explain problems you encounter and how you can help them rectify it.

You can even say a little about your week or perhaps a snipped you read in the news that is applicable to your business.

Vary it up from week to week and dont worry about it lasting one minute. Some guys at my group BNSL, go way over 1 minute mainly talking about work they have done and horror stories they encounter and how they fixed it for the client.


One good bit of advice I would give, is make sure the group is for you. make sure you try and talk to everyone, introduce yourself and try to be confident. make sure people listen, if they don't, then they may not be the people you would want to get business from.

Good luck.


8)

If this is a meeting where everyone gets a chance to stand up and do their 60 seconds I would try to have a basic structure of telling the group who I am, what I do and most importantly the kind of business I am looking for. This last part is very important and you need to be specific otherwise you fall into the category of a hairdresser saying 'I'm looking for people with hair' It may seem counter productive to say I'm looking for pub landlords but it really focusses the other member's minds and many will know the people you are looking for. Perhaps if you know there is a letting agent in the group, you could ask for landlords.

So you might stand up and say:

'good morning everyone I'm Shirley and my business is Shirley's Bookkeeping Services' based just down the road in xxxx. I'm a bookkeeper and I just love to do what a lot of business people hate or don't have time for...sorting out the paperwork. I just love to get boxes of receipts and invoices and I sort them all out, file them, reconcile them and generally make sense of them. The great thing is that when they are passed to your accountant, he is really happy that he doesn't have to do this work and he can get straight to finalising the accounts and tax work and the accountancy fees are much less and he gets your accounts finalised much quicker.
Although I do bookeeping for all types of business I am particularly looking to work with a building contractor as I have lots of experience in this sector including 'Construction Industry Scheme', if anybody knows a contractor and can pass my card and details onto them I would be very grateful. Thanks, I'm Shirley the bookeeper, I do the books so you can concentrate on doing the usiness'

Obviously you need to tailor this and add your own persoanility but it gives a general gist. During the open networking section you can go back to asking questions about their business, be interested in them and eventually you will get business, especially if you are able to refer business onto otheres.

Good luck,

Rob

Hi Shirley...I'm sure you will improve on my script, I never have an actual script to read from as I find it easier to just get up and spout something, but I think if you say who you are, what you do and the kind of business you are after everything else falls into place. And it really doesn't matter if it goes wrong, people notice if you are a bit nervous and generally are more sympathetic. I find if you can disarm your potential clients and referers it helps. When I'm in front of a potential client I will often say 'I'm not a salesman so I probably shouldn't encourage this but you may want to speak to other bookkeepers/accountants too as I think it is important you are happy with who you chose'...they always come back!

Good luck with your meeting, be sure to know your hourly rate. Ask the accountant questions, are you happy for me to do work at my place or do you want me on clients premises/your premises. Do you like work completed on Sage/Excel. Tell them that you like to have all ledgers clean, you don't like to see payments on account etc or things posted to suspense (this is just to give the impression that you are ultra meticulous). What stage does the accountant want work done to, obviously bank reconciled but do they want depreciation posted, accruals, prepayments (I would guess not but if yes say that you would discuss any journals with them or email workings) and smile a lot!

Rob

Good luck with your meeting, be sure to know your hourly rate. Ask the accountant questions, are you happy for me to do work at my place or do you want me on clients premises/your premises. Do you like work completed on Sage/Excel. Tell them that you like to have all ledgers clean, you don't like to see payments on account etc or things posted to suspense (this is just to give the impression that you are ultra meticulous). What stage does the accountant want work done to, obviously bank reconciled but do they want depreciation posted, accruals, prepayments (I would guess not but if yes say that you would discuss any journals with them or email workings) and smile a lot!




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Fenjal

Hi Karen,

I do the whole lot to about 99% final account complete. Usually the accountant ends up reviewing it and putting their own fees accrual through before finalising them.

I don't do prepayments and accruals on a month by month basis (just at year end) though as it seems silly to me making adjustments for things like telephone, insurance and after date invoices every month as it just creates more work for little benefit.

But I would recommend doing the whole lot if you are comfortable doing it and it suits your clients and they are aware how it affects their figures.