Good Times Or Bad: You Make the Difference

When It Rains, It Pours

Some days you’re on a roll. Everything goes your way, from early morning traffic without delays right through to late-evening sports reports of your favorite team’s victory.Other days it’s just the opposite. You just seem to be on the losing side–appointments canceled without notice, long lines at the cash machines, even a flat tire when you’re heading home.

Why Does Life Never Settle Down?

Why are there such big swings of the pendulum? Where to assign credit or blame? A current theory says: on yourself. The reasoning: Your expectations and consequent behavior govern the responses of the outside world, and you get what you ask for.On the simplest level, this theory is reinforced every day. Smile at the next person you pass, and you’ll probably get a smile in return. Or hit the accelerator to bar another driver from changing lanes, and you’ll probably elicit a glare to match your own.But what about situations beyond your control? If you leave home expecting an easy trip, will the traffic clear up for you? Maybe–if only because in the right frame of mind you’re likely to leave on time and follow the best route.

What’s In It For You To Be Positive?

If you are going to speak with a potential client, having an optimistic viewpoint can help close the sale, all other things being the same. When your clients see that you are upbeat and positive, they feel confident that things will be all right. If you show concern or negativity, you put them in a state of mind where they will be more negative or concerned with what might go wrong. What kind of personalities do we most often relate to salespeople? They tend to be positive and encouraging. Why? Because being positive sells. When people are positive, they tend to ignore obstables that they would focus more upon if they were in a more negative frame of mind.Is this theory really on target? Do you make the difference between your good and bad times? Give it a try–it can’t hurt and it could prove to be a winning strategy for you. So smile…it pays!Learn Business Secrets that Work in Our Forum

Being Ready For The Business When It Starts To Flow In

For most who are running a business for the first time, you have those moments of clarity that you know if you were to do certain tasks, or underatke certain strategies you would be able to take your accounting business to the next level. But it seems, for the most part, that its all you can do just to handle and keep afloat what you now have going. Each day that comes along that you have your welcome mat out, it seems like there is a new set of challenges and hurdles.There are definitely things you can do to prevent you from getting in that rut. An ounce of prevention is most assuredly worth a world of cure and when you are able to plan, even in the smallest way possible you will be able to curb that feeling and be able to experience the success, and the feeling of success that is within your reach. Here are a few things you can do as a business owner to get that “loving” feeling.1.  Plan Out The Next Day.This may seem so simple, but it is fundamental to keeping on track and in sync with that “successful” feeling. Each day you will be able to check out the progress (or non-progress) of your accomplishments for the day. This organizational exercise will get your brain flowing to the things that need to be done that next day, and over the evening will keep your subconscience working on the next tasks on your list.It also helps, for those who aren’t the morning birds as others are, to give you something to concentrate on and be directed to do in those beginning hours of the day when you are still trying to knock the sleep out of your eyes. Regardless if your a morning person or not, by detailing out what you need to do each day will give you a great way for measuring how effective you are and what improvements you need to make to the way you do business behind your desk.2.  Set Weekly Goals.Especially when you are jump-starting your business from scratch you need to be doing a certain number of things at certain points during the week. As stated in, “In The Black” there are three things business owners need to concetrate on for success in business. Production, Marketing and Accounting. For you who have the Accounting business, Your production is the actual work of accounting you are doing for businesses. These are the hours you spend tracking, calculating, and planning with your clientele how to get or keep their business financially healthy.Marketing, telling others what you do best is vital for the growth and sustainability of a business. Yours is no different! You need to be able to ample time to accomplish the marketing you must have for your business to thrive. Who of us have that one great client that is getting us the bulk of what we live on each month? How would it be if all of a sudden they were gone, or no longer doing business with you? Just imagine how the heart palpitations would settle down if you had two or three more just like them on the line, or growing with the billable hours that one had given you?Marketing is essential, whether if it’s putting shoe leather to the pavement and knocking doors, or attending chambers of commerce meetings, it is something you need to do faithfully on a weekly basis.Your own accounting of your business, measurements and metrics of the health of your own business is as needed as it is with your clients. Without setting and working towards weekly goals what would you have to measure? As with everything it is keeping that balance of business, that will gain for you the profits you seek. Setting weekly goals is excellent to being able to gauge how healthy the business was that week.3.  Be At-The-Ready.As a small business owner you always need to be on the look out for business potential and for those things that if undertaken would do your business harm. Being always at-the-ready doesn’t mean that you are coiled like a mountain lion ready to pounce on the next available “prey”, rather it means that you are, for whatever comes into your circle of influence that you are ready to handle it which ever way it may go for you and your business.Clients’ business failures, account acquisitions, services additions, time constraints, adding employees, new office space, etc are all things that happen to all of us and how we are prepared to handle them is how well we navigate through what’s happening. One of the ways to be prepared is in the training you have to put into place for those you are servicing. If you haven’t taken the chance to familiarize yourself with Universal’s Professional Bookkeeper’s Program please do so by clicking here.When you take the steps that are needed to be prepared for the business that will come in the doors, when you start applying the training you receive the customers will come. It is up to you to be there to meet their small business accounting needs… or not.As someone who cares about the quality of the work you do, you want to be able to meet those needs head on, with confidence and with authority as a Profit Expert would have. The question that remains, “are you at-the-ready?” Click here to find out more about the Professional Bookkeeper’s Program.

Convincing Others That Your Services Are Valuable

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Running a successful accounting practice depends on your ability to persuade potential clients that your services are valuable. It can take time, an awareness of their needs, and an understanding of important tips of persuasion. The art of persuasion is not as much salesmanship or manipulation as it is the ability to compel someone to the truth. In your case, the truth is that your services enable businesses to become more profitable. That’s not just a pitch, that’s good news you should be happy to share. To help you master the art of persuasion we suggest the following tips:

1. Be friendly, not schmoozey.When you are friendly it puts potential clients at ease. Make sure that you are sincere; be yourself. Consider this individual your friend, someone you can help. And remember that while they will have to pay for your services, the time and energy you will save them, in addition to your ability to make them more profitable, is well worth your fee.2. Share your client’s perspective.In order to really persuade potential clients of your valuable services, you need to share their perspective. What are they most interested in? What do they need? What problems do they need solved and how can you help solve them? When you are able to walk a few paces in your clients’ shoes, you can better convince them of how you can help them in their journey and make it much more profitable.3. Exude enthusiasm.Your passion for what you do is often more convincing than any logic or evidence you may present. When you exude enthusiasm you convince your audience that there is conviction in your message. And when they believe that you believe what you’re saying, you will have gained a measure of trust.4. Communicate clearly and effectively.It’s difficult to be persuasive when you cannot communicate your message clearly and effectively. Often the art of persuasion rests in your ability to be articulate, to use language that appeals to your listener, and to recognize when to hold back and when to ask for a commitment.5. Provide solutions.When you truly understand your client, you recognize the problems they face and can present your services as a means of solving those problems. And you don’t stop there. You should continually think of ways you can offer improved, innovative solutions to their problems. Because when you become a crucial element in their success, you become indispensable.6.Show evidence.You’ve heard it all before. You should not only talk the talk, but you should walk the walk. If you’re attempting to persuade potential clients that your services will enable them to become more profitable, you must provide concrete examples of how you can do that. And if you can, provide examples of how you’ve made that happen with other clients. As they say, the proof is in the pudding-you need to show them some pudding.

Like everything, persuasion takes practice. But there are steps you can take to ensure that your message is more appealing to the listener. And when, at the end of the day, your client roster is evidence of your ability to persuade, it’s time to take those steps that will help you master the art of persuasion.