Everyone’s doing it! Mergers, product development, and additional services are the “name of the game” in virtually every industry. Why? Because that’s where we find the greater profits. Services like the following are excellent companions to a traditional bookkeeping service and can be terrific money makers.
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There are two reasons why you should offer more than the traditional bookkeeping service:
- More services mean more revenues. Any fees you earn on additional services to existing customers/clients comes to you virtually free. You’ve already earned the money that you have spent finding the client. Any additional services are gravy.
- The one-stop-shop concept applies here. Why do people hire a general contractor to build a home, rather than deal with the subcontractors themselves? First, they don’t know how, and secondly, it’s a hassle. The same principle exists with their financial concerns. They don’t know what needs to be done, plus they appreciate it when someone who does can remove the bother.
Traditional bookkeeping is the core to financial services. Certainly, you will offer to provide those services yourself. However, you can provide these other services, or you can sub-contract them out to others. In other words, you do not have to be an expert in everything. And, even though you contract these out does not mean they’re not profitable to you since MOST PROFESSIONALS WILL PAY YOU A FINDER’S FEE OR COMMISSION on the service.For instance, say that a business owner approaches you and asks for your accounting help for his business. Then he asks, “Do you do taxes?” If you haven�t prepared taxes in the past, you may be inclined to say, “No, I don’t.” Wrong! Instead, simply say, “I have an associate that is an expert at tax preparation. I’ll take care of it. No problem.”I’m sure you would admit that the latter response sounds much better, and will provide better results than your first thought. Then, all you need to do is contact your associate.Consider the services above, then determine which ones you can and want to do. Find associates that are interested in doing the others.Most of these services can be performed by people you already know. For instance, you probably know a tax preparer, a payroll accountant, a notary public, and a typist. I’m sure they would love additional business. By the way, if you don’t know somebody in these areas, you can find them listed in the yellow pages.
They will gladly share their fees with you.
When you contact them, explain your purpose in calling, and ask them if they are looking for more business. If so, do they offer a discount, or “finder’s fee”, for referrals. If their answer is “no”, you probably want to look elsewhere. Not because of greed, but it is usually an indication that they are not experienced, sophisticated or networked enough to be an asset to you.For the more pricey services like income tax preparation, or loan applications you should expect between 15% to 30% of their anticipated revenue to come back to you. For less expensive services, such as notary public, getting a finder’s fee is unusual and not enough to worry about anyway.
Your associates are a marketing tool!
In addition to the finder’s fee, there is another great advantage about having associates — the client resource. Each of these professionals is a potential resource for referrals for your business. You should fully expect to find business from each of them. I have gone as far as changing associates simply because one is better at referring potential clients to me than another.Tax preparers are an excellent source of new business. Most tax preparers don’t know a debit from a credit; and they don’t need to. Their job is to transfer information to the right forms, and calculate the taxes. They can do this very successfully with a set of financial statements prepared by an accountant. Without the financial statements, they are often like a fish out of water in an area they know little about.Tax preparers, as much as anyone, understand the value of well-prepared information they can use to complete the taxes. They will gladly refer business to you, if they feel comfortable you�ll refer business back to them.
With a little ‘know-how’, you can provide all of these services yourself.
You can offer everyone of these additional services, yourself. Although they may require a little training, none require a special license – not even incorporating a business.Let’s consider loan applications, for instance. After you’ve completed a couple, you can normally prepare a loan application in eight to ten hours and charge $700 (which is about one-third of what a CPA firm would charge). Many of the forms are simply ‘fill-in-the-blank’ once you’ve created them the first time.Here’s just a quick glance at what you would include in an average application:
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At first gaze, these might appear a bit intimidating. But like most things, after you’ve done a couple, they’re a piece of cake. Like I mentioned above, most are simply changing the information to fit the new business. One student of mine was making $7,000 each month just doing loan applications part-time! Once she learned how it was done, she completed the forms for her husband’s jewelry business, and was successful in getting the loan for him. Then a neighbor approached her asking for help, so she did the same for her neighbor. That’s when it clicked. She put an ad in the newspaper: “If you are having trouble getting a loan, call me 555-5555.” THE PHONE BEGAN RINGING WITH 12 TO 14 NEW PROSPECTS EACH DAY. She narrowed it to the best ten each month, and charged an average of $700 each. The last time we heard from her, her husband had sold the jewelry store, and began helping her in the business. I’m not suggesting you do loan applications exclusively like she did. There’s more money to be made providing accounting and bookkeeping services. I’m simply suggesting it can be another source of income. If you’re not familiar with the loan application forms listed above, there’s a terrific book called, “Financing A Small Business,” that leads you step-by-step through the loan application process. You’ll learn how to market your service, work with clients, and calculate the fee for this part of your business. It even has the forms with blanks to fill in, so that you can get all the information at the first interview with the client. The system is so simple that anyone can do it. I don’t know of any book that’s better, or more complete, for small business loan applications than this one. The cost is only $69 and you may order it over the phone by dialing (800)343-4827. By the way, for information on how you can get this book for FREE, see “Accounting Made Easy.”
