Maybe you just started your own business as a bookkeeper and are looking to lock in your very first client.
Maybe your accounting firm has hit a bit of a rough patch.
Or maybe you already have a comfortable client base you’re looking to add more clients to.
Whatever the case, this post is here to help you explore different ways to find bookkeeping clients!
Not only have we included a mix of social media marketing strategies, online advertising advice and in-person networking opportunities you can explore as a business owner, but we’ve even given you specific examples you can replicate and tips you wish you’d thought about sooner.
Let’s dive in and help you find clients!
1. Build relationships with CPAs and accounting firms
Our #1 recommendation for finding prospective clients is to start reaching out to other professionals in the accounting industry.
Spend some time compiling a list of CPAs, accounting professionals, and accounting firms in your same geographic region (and even remotely) that you can reach out to for referrals.
The thing about CPAs is that their clients often need bookkeeping services, but either the CPA doesn’t have the bandwidth to offer the service or it just isn’t part of their service offering.
This is a huge opportunity for you to get in there and fill in the gaps for them. The same is true for accounting firms that don’t offer the service or other accounting professionals that don’t deal with bookkeeping.
Get your service offering ready
Searching up prospects and putting together a list of potential clients you can reach out to is half the work but don’t stop there. You don’t want to pick up the phone or send out an email and then blow it because you’re unprepared!
Put together a one-page document outlining a concise list of your services and your pricing so that they’re clear on the problems you can solve for them and the value of taking this service off their plates. The more dialed your service offer is, the better your chances of winning their referrals.
Offer to trade referrals / be a referral partner
To take this a step further and deliver value early on in your new working relationship, offer to trade referrals with them rather than just ask for theirs.
In your initial conversations, tell them you’ll happily refer year-end clients to them for all other accounting services in return for their bookkeeping referrals. It’s a lot harder for them to say no when it’s a win-win for all!
2. Make the most of social media networking opportunities
No surprise here that social media sites are great lead-generation tools for finding bookkeeping clients. Here are a few key places to start on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook:
Leverage the reach of your personal profiles first
Whether you’re an Instagrammer, spend one too many guilty hours scrolling your Facebook feed, or check Linkedin for business news periodically, start sharing the news of your bookkeeping services where you’re already active and have an existing network.
Make a few posts letting your connections know you’re offering bookkeeping services and tell them where to get in touch with you. You never know who might see this and need your help!
Here’s an example of a Facebook post doing exactly that:
The benefit of posting on your personal profile is that your post will be seen by friends and family members, who already trust you, and who will likely be happy to contribute to growing your career.
Set up official business Facebook and LinkedIn pages
You’ll eventually want to pivot from your personal profile to running an official Facebook business page and LinkedIn business page to give yourself or your accounting firm more of a professional presence.
Once you’ve set these up, you can do some final posts on your personal profiles asking your connections to follow your page. Easy way to get your first potential clients for your bookkeeping firm!
Next, you’ll want to start providing value through your pages. Here are a few ideas on what you can do with your social media posts:
- Share stories of your experience as a bookkeeper and some bookkeeping tips that businesses in your niche can benefit from.
- Share your insight into some of the challenges your clients have faced in the past, and how you came to the rescue.
- Reshare links, industry news, and more content published by others that are relevant to your target market.
- Leave simple reminders of the services you offer and share seasonal discounts if you offer any.
Building professional pages with high engagement doesn’t happen overnight, but you’ll be glad you spent a little bit of time every day further down the line.
Although this one is shared through a personal account, here’s a great example of a social media post created to attract more clients.
Pro tip: find new clients using the “looking for recommendations” feature
Okay, so this is probably our favorite tip on how to get more bookkeeping clients.
In the LinkedIn search bar, type in (looking for recommendations) AND (bookkeeping) as shown below.
This will pull up all posts and jobs with the keyword “bookkeeping” in them.
Use the filters at the top to narrow down your search to “posts” and sort by “latest”.
Bingo! You now have a list of everyone who’s been posting on LinkedIn looking for bookkeepers.
Then, go ahead and send them a message letting them know you saw their post. Send them your service offer and invite them to set up a quick call to discuss.
Doing this weekly, or better yet every day, is a great tactic for finding prospective clients and bookkeeping leads that you wouldn’t find on traditional job sites.
Join and post in relevant industry groups
Both LinkedIn and Facebook are home to plenty of industry groups with strong group page dynamics that you can join to do some networking and build your client base.
Spend a bit of time searching and you’ll easily find dedicated groups home to professional bookkeepers, tax professionals, small businesses, business investment consultants and other businesses who make for great prospective customers.
To save you time, here’s a list of The best accounting forums and communities.
Join groups, engage in them regularly, and reach out to any connections that are in your niche once you’ve established some rapport. You never know what might come of it.
3. Offer your bookkeeping services on popular gig sites
If you’re just getting started with your bookkeeping firm, a good way to find new bookkeeping clients is to set up profiles on gig sites like:
You’d be surprised how many freelancers and accounting firms have built up their businesses from scratch through remote working positions shared on sites like these.
Of course like with any marketplace, you’ll run into competition with other service providers. Don’t let that discourage you though, you just need to start, and the business will come. The more bookkeeping projects you complete there, the more testimonials you’ll get, and the more business you’ll start bringing in for your accounting firm.
Helpful tip — once you sign up, we recommend taking a look at some of the top bookkeepers’ profiles for inspiration on what to include on your profile.
The next thing you need to do is figure out a way to stand out, whether that’s:
- Offering competitive pricing, low-cost consulting, and quick turnarounds to get your foot in the door.
- Working your personal brand by sharing who you are, how you work, and what your values are to align with people who are on the same page.
- Showcasing case studies that tell the story of past accounting clients whom you’ve helped.
- Share specialized services or more complex bookkeeping that no one else seems to be offering.
4. Attend in person networking events
Sharing your business online is definitely easier to do from the comfort of your own home, but we can’t stress the importance of networking in person too to help bring in new business.
It’s worth finding out where your audience goes and investing some time into attending these events. Search the web and Linkedin to find industry conferences, local chamber of commerce meetings, workshops, or other more casual networking events that sound up your alley and go prepared with a good attitude and your business card.
To save you time, we covered a list of Top accounting conferences for 2023. Read the post and mark down the ones that interest you that you can still attend in the rest of 2023, or remember to register for them in 2024.
Showing up in person is a tried and true way to connect with local businesses and other professionals, do some initial networking, and find bookkeeping clients.
… Plus, you can usually enjoy some good eats and a bevvy!
4. Piggyback off of job postings and job search sites
There are two ways that you can use job posts and job sites to find new business.
Apply for casual, part-time, and freelance work
If you’re looking for casual or freelance work, search job sites like Indeed, Linkedin, Monster, and others for job posts that match your skills and apply with your resume and a strong cover letter outlining your successes with past clients.
Convince recruiters to consider outsourcing
Keep an eye on local job ads posted by recruiters who are looking for part-time bookkeepers. Then, get in touch with the job posters and let them know you can do it for cheaper if they’ll be open to outsourcing the work to you instead. This tactic isn’t always effective as sometimes the recruiter is adamant about finding an in-house bookkeeper, but it’s always worth a shot!
5. Invest in your content marketing
If you’re serious about growing your accounting firm, then it only makes sense to invest your time and resources into initiatives that will help your business build some credibility. Here are a couple of ideas:
Hire a copywriter to write your website
Whether you have a website set up already or are about to set one up, it’s worth hiring a skilled copywriter who knows exactly what to write on your website to make sure it ranks well on search engines for keywords like “bookkeeper in New York”. Totally worth your money if the writer can get your website ranking right at the top when people search for solutions to their bookkeeping needs.
Want to take a crack at this yourself? Read SEO for accounting firms.
Host workshops or webinars
A great way to attract clients is to deliver value for free by teaching what you know on relevant topics to your audience. Whether you want to do this online through a webinar, or in-person to foster more intimate networking opportunities is up to you. But when you can give away helpful information for free, you’re more likely to earn the trust of others and have them come to you when they need your bookkeeping service.
Tip — if you’re able to do this, offer a prize of 1 month of free services to people who attend your webinar or event. It’s a good way to incentivize attendance, and assuming you do a good job on that free trial, the client will want to continue working with you.
For more marketing tips, read Marketing for bookkeepers: 9 ways to get more clients.
Final advice on how to get new clients for your bookkeeping business
We’ve shared a wealth of tactics in this post on how to get bookkeeping clients. To help you guarantee the best chances of success, here are a couple of crucial final tips:
Know your niche
Before you run off and join groups, hire a copywriter, or register for networking events, make sure that all your efforts are focused on your target audience, whether that’s business startups, small business owners, creative professionals, or large enterprises.
The more specific and targeted your marketing and service offering is for your specific niche, the more successful you will be. No point in going out there and spamming the masses who don’t need what you’re offering.
Use a mix of tactics
Limiting yourself to one tactic to grow your business will limit the growth of your bookkeeping business. For the best results, use a mix of the approaches we shared.
Best of luck finding new clients!
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