When you are first trying to figure things out when it comes to your bookkeeping business, the first thing you need to consider is focusing on a particular group of business owners or picking a niche.
Initially, focusing on a niche may sound like you are only limiting yourself but just the opposite is true. Allow me to explain why this is such a pivotal thing to do.
In case you have no clue what I am talking about when talking about picking a niche, what I’m talking about is focusing on clients from a certain profession. For example, focusing solely on dentists or plumbers.
Allow me to go into more detail to further explain things for you.
Picking A Niche For Your Bookkeeping Business
Doesn’t A Niche Just Limit You?
When I first began to explore the subject of niche marketing I felt as though I was limiting myself simply because I thought everybody out there needed whatever it was that I was offering.
In reality, I realized that the people that I was marketing to could have cared less. They simply had to interest in what I was offering them.
Think of it this way. Let’s say you have the option of standing on the corner of a busy intersection passing out fliers to the first 5,000 people letting them know that you are a bookkeeper. Or, option number two, you have 100 fliers to pass out at a dentists’ convention stating that you specialize in helping dentists keep more of their money.
Which method do you think is probably going to be more effective? By passing out 5000 fliers on some random street corner, chances are, that you are going to get nowhere for a couple of reasons.
First, how many of those 5000 people are actually looking for a bookkeeper? The odds are, very few. So let’s say that out of those 5000 people 50 are looking for a good bookkeeper. What have you done that shows them that you are their guy?
You have done nothing to separate yourself from the millions of other bookkeepers out there. In other words, you have not given them a reason to choose you other than the fact that you are a bookkeeper. You are going to find it very difficult to market your services this way.
Unique Selling Proposition
With option number two you are doing a couple of different things that help to put the ball in your court. First, you are not simply saying that you are a bookkeeper. That is boring!
No one is going to remember you. Instead, you are saying that you specialize in helping dentists keep more of their money. This is an example of a unique selling proposition that is going to be an important part of niche marketing efforts.
The other half of the equation is that you are letting dentists know that you specialize in bookkeeping for dental practices. This helps solve part of the problem of why they should choose you.
Obviously, there is more than just simply focusing on the niche to gain clients but this will definitely get your foot in the door. There are many ways to add value to a potential client outside of specializing in a certain niche but that is for another day.
Be A Big Fish In A Small Pond
“But Nate, I only have 100 fliers here.” And you would be right, but your message speaks directly to every single person that you hand one to. Here is the cool part. Even if all 100 of those dentists already love their bookkeeper (this is highly unlikely by the way) dentists know other dentists.
Chances are very good that word will begin to spread to other dentists that you specialize in their field and leads will begin to trickle in simply for the fact that you are showing them that you are a pro with anything that deals with dentists.
Whether you are talking about natural selection or your bookkeeping business, it is always better to be a big fish in a small pond. So you need to be that big fish!
Amplify Your Message
You want the businesses that NEED a bookkeeper to hear your message. You are able to make this happen by focusing on a niche. This amplifies your message so that those potential clients can actually hear or read your message.
Here is another example to clarify what I’m saying here. Since I’m, a die-hard Buckeye fan let’s look at Ohio Stadium. It seats around 110,000 people. That’s a lot, right?
What if you stood on the fifty-yard line and started screaming about how you are a bookkeeper and you’re looking to help small businesses keep more of their hard-earned money.
All the while the band is playing, cheerleaders are cheering and the whole stadium is singing Hang On Sloopy. Unless you are familiar with Ohio State football that one may have just gone right over your head but you just have to trust me on that one.
Even though you are standing where everyone can see you do you think anyone can HEAR your message?
Of course not. You are simply wasting your breath. What if you were in the stands and during a timeout you stood up with a megaphone and started talking with the people only in your section.
Are those people going to hear you? Absolutely! This is because you choose to convey your message to a smaller group of people and you are standing right in front of them where they can see you, and more importantly, hear you.
Learn How To Market Your Bookkeeping Business
In a nutshell, that is niche marketing. I know I used a couple of very loose examples but hope that I was able to clarify actually how easy your marketing efforts can actually be by simply narrowing your target market down to a specific group of people.
The great part about picking a certain niche is this… after a while, you will find that you will have to do very little marketing at all simply because of word of mouth advertising from other dentists (or whatever your niche may be). It tends to take off on its own over time leaving you extra time to do other things.
This was simply a quick example of how niche marketing is the way to go but if you are a bookkeeper or looking to get into bookkeeping and want to learn more about niche marketing then please feel free to check out my top recommended bookkeeping course online.
This course goes into so much more detail on exactly how you should market your business as well as learning everything about bookkeeping. If this is something that interests you or at least curious about then you really need to check it out.
Don’t forget to drop a comment below if you have any questions or anything you would like to add. I will be sure to get back to you as soon as possible.