Four ways to become an enterprising CPA

The accounting industry has been abuzz with trends around automation, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence. It’s an exciting time to be around to witness any form of technological disruption. But this also means there will be a shift in the way CPAs work.

While technology is just one aspect that defines a CPA’s success, how they tackle branded competition, how they diversify business offerings, how they market are equally important. The bottom line is as a CPA you must be enterprising.

We firmly believe scaling your accounting operations should forever be your goal, no matter how long you have been in the business, who and where your target market is! Here are four ways to become an enterprising CPA:

1) Be a consultant, offer advisory services

As a CPA, you should provide advisory and asset management services. You should market this offering in such a way that when clients think of availing such services, yours is the first name to pop in their mind.

To create a buzz, establish communication through newsletters, postcards, emails, and more. Encourage your clients to ask you questions and develop a habit that whenever they have a financial problem, they come to you instead of wondering and wandering.

What do you think?

2) Upgrade to cloud technology ASAP!

Absolutely! Cloud technology is scaling at a rapid pace, and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon. However, a 2016 Wells Fargo survey states checks are still being widely used by at least 90% of small businesses in the US; only 30% of small to mid-size companies make payments via a mobile POS, such as PayPal.

This shows that there’s scope for businesses to upgrade to the cloud and enjoy the following benefits:

• Reduced system maintenance and administration cost of the organization
• Flexibility to edit data and view real-time information anytime, anywhere
• Avail a backup service to minimize the likelihood to lose valuable data

3) Utilize social selling to fill your pipeline

Social media is used extensively as a networking and marketing platform. But the social landscape is now getting an upgrade. LinkedIn, for example, has introduced features around lead search and sales conversion to assist its premium users to network better.

On the other hand, Facebook Messenger bots are already being used for client communication in both B2B and B2C industries. Social media is multi-faceted and is not just considered a customer engagement tool but a consumer conversion platform.

Make the most of going social!

4) Dive into influencer marketing

Of course!

Did you know 92% of people trust recommendations from people even if they don’t know in any way? Take Twitter for example. When influencers exposed the consumers to content coming from them on the platform, the platform observed a 5.2X increase in intent to purchase.

Therefore, network aggressively within your industry community. Make sure the whole process of getting to know them is organic. Influencer marketing isn’t all about spending money to get people to talk nice about your accounting firm.

People will do it for you for free or at reduced pricing if they like you, believe in your value offerings and appreciate the hard work you put to grow your business. Therefore, it is up to you to create such an environment for the influencers.

Over to you

Would you like to know more about your CPA firm can benefit from accounting outsourcing solutions? Why not give us a call 1 800 310 9312 or write to us [email protected] for a free, no-obligation consultation?