How to get bookkeeping clients, and identifying their biggest pain points

Hey, this is Veronica Wasek with another episode of BK Biz: How to get bookkeeping clients, and identifying their biggest pain points.

This is part two of my series, How to Get Bookkeeping Clients. Last time, I talked about identifying the ideal client, and today, I’m talking about identifying that ideal client’s biggest pain points. As accountants and bookkeepers, we want to think that their biggest pain point are: 

• They need bookkeeping.  
• They need to get their books caught up. 
• They need to get the books cleaned up.  

In our ideal client’s mind, these are needs, but they are not necessarily pain points. When we’re talking to our prospective clients, we need to really look and listen beyond the problems of the bookkeeping, the accounting, the undeposited funds, and the lack of knowledge on how to work with bank feeds. Yes, clients do need help with that, but they’re actually telling you much more, if you just listen to them. 

What is your client’s inner need? 

One of the things that you’ll hear most of the time is that they’re frustrated because they don’t know how to work with QuickBooks. It should be easy, according to what they perceive QuickBooks to be, right? But it’s not. Therefore, they develop very negative feelings about working with their QuickBooks and actually managing their money, because it gets down to the core of their ability to manage their money and their business finances. When you hear that a client telling you about how they can’t figure out QuickBooks, then think about how they’re feeling on the inside. What is their inner need? Thier inner need is to feel in control. They want to feel like they know what they’re doing, so that they can then have confidence in their ability to manage their money and manage their business. 

Focus on emotion 

One of the most important things to do is to focus on emotion. The first thing to think about is your prospective client’s emotions. What do they think? How do they feel about their money, about QuickBooks, and about their abilities?  

Focus on money 

The second thing to focus on is money. How are your services helping your clients to save money? And in many cases, what bookkeepers tend to say is, “Well, my services are affordable, so I will give you affordable services, and that’s how I will save you money.” Well, unfortunately, the client doesn’t necessarily value affordable services. They might value more, like how are you going to free them up from the mundane tasks that they do, so that they can focus on growing their business, or they can focus on making their vision come true for their business. 

Focus on time 

Think about this: How are you going to help them grow their business by freeing them up from the things that are wasting their time with, rather than “I’m giving them affordable services.” You can still provide affordable services if that’s what you want, but the greater need of that business owner is to actually grow their business, and focus on their business. And then, that leads right into time. How much time will that business owner be able to free up because they’re not having to deal with their bookkeeping, with messy books, with trying to do their own bookkeeping manually, messing with bank feeds, or whatever that is? Also think about their pain points in terms of time.  

Closing 

Just to review, when you’re thinking about your ideal client’s pain points, you need to be able to focus on emotion, time, and money. 

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