Sole Practitioner

Starting a Practice After Moving Across Country

Goal:

After moving from Los Angeles to West Palm Beach Florida, Jennie was considering working for a CPA firm that would provide partnership opportunities. To earn an ownership stake, she knew that she would need to bring in new business. To acquire the necessary marketing training and rain making skills, she decided to attend Build Your Firm’s (BYF) Practice Development Workshop because the program instruction was provided by a CPA practitioner.

Because Jennie was not planning to develop a new practice, she did not have specific goals for developing her own practice. However, the BYF Workshop created a spark and motivated her to develop a CPA practice using BYF’s Level II program, rather than work for someone else.

Jennie’s biggest concerns with developing a new practice evolved around her lack of confidence selling accounting services, operating profitably as a start-up, and her own fear of failure.

Background:

Jennie responded to a direct mail letter from BYF and decided to take a flight the next day to Atlanta and attend our Practice Marketing Workshop. At the end of the workshop, Jennie was seriously considering developing her own practice rather than pursuing the partnership route. Then she enrolled into BYF’s Level II program.

“As part of BYF’s Level II year-long practice development program, BYF guaranteed that I would develop at least $100,000+ in fees so I set a goal of $100,000 to $150,000. They also assured me that the practice would be profitable and I could operate it efficiently with very few employees,” said Jennie.

The type of practice that Jennie wanted to develop was very unique and tailored to the local West Palm Beach marketplace. In addition to being a CPA and Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, Jennie was also a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and had significant experience working with law firms. In the end, Jennie decided to launch a generalist practice that would attract small businesses and concurrently develop two niches. The first niche would be law firms because Jennie had significant experience working with attorneys as clients and they had the potential to refer business. The second niche would be real estate because the South Florida real estate market was exploding and her husband was in the business.

The marketing for Jennie’s practice was front-end loaded to help her acquire clients quickly. Then a hurricane whipped through Broward and Palm Beach County causing massive problems ranging from power outages to lack of running water. Jennie called from her cell phone to stop the initial direct mail campaign but it was too late to stop within the U.S. Postal’s delivery system (although we tried).

Results:

“The results from this program have been amazing! After six months, my practice has exceeded my annual goal of $100,000 in projected fees for the year and could easily have been above $150,000,” said Jennie.

Despite the devastation from the hurricane and our efforts to slow down the marketing, the leads and appointments immediately started coming in the door. Very quickly Jennie had acquired eight clients. In fact, she managed to close her first six appointments and her confidence was building with each success. Jennie was now an accomplished “rain maker” and raising the bar on fees and type of client she would accept into her practice.

After four months of marketing, Jennie made the conscious decision to slow down the marketing to focus on tax season and processing the inflow of new clients. To support her, she hired one part-time employee. With the outsourced marketing services BYF provides as part of the Level II program, she now knows that she can acquire new clients with the flip of a switch.

According to Jennie, the diversified marketing program that BYF provides has worked like a charm. Each aspect has worked well independently and synergistically. “In meeting with business owners, I have been pleasantly surprised by positive feedback from the telemarketing program. BYF utilizes a great script and provides an excellent telemarketing service. I have actually received compliments from business owners themselves regarding the quality of this service.”

“To support the type of practice that I wanted to build, BYF worked very hard to design a marketing program around my special niches. For example, BYF developed a great website for me (www.bordeauxcpa.com). As a result, I have acquired clients from the internet. As well, BYF also advised me that targeting law firms for accounting services would be challenging, which it has been.”

“The BYF program has enabled me to rapidly acquire new clients and keep my staffing requirements lean and mean. After four months into the program, I hired one part-time accountant to support me. With the BYF approach, I outsource the marketing and do the “rain making” myself so no employees are on my payroll for those functions. On the processing side, I try to avoid payroll and write-up so our hourly realization is attractive and our staffing requirements are low. Occasionally, I do have to start clients as a write-up and hope to transition them towards the BYF model so they become more profitable and efficient for us. At this point, my practice runs with two people, a part-time per diem accountant and myself.”

In summary, “I am very satisfied and have been able to acquire clients at less than half the price of acquiring a practice. After six months, I have several outstanding clients and just one employee to manage. BYF has been a “trusted” resource during this transition. After the initial training and instruction, Hugh has been my primary contact for marketing coaching and internal practice management. BYF has been able to help and teach me in many ways that they probably don’t even know. Their program delivers on what they promise!”

PRACTICE DEVELOPMENT COACHING FOR ACCOUNTANTS – If you would like to operate at a higher level, call BYF at 888-999-9800.