How I find my Management Accountancy Clients

People outside of the accountancy world often don’t know what a Management Accountant does or what value they can bring to businesses. This creates a problem in finding new clients for a practice which focuses on this in particular. However, I have had a fair amount of success in this and am here to share my top tips with you.

How do I explain what Management Accountancy is?

Most business owners know that they need someone to complete their statutory accounts, and maybe a bookkeeper to keep their software up to date but think the help ends there. They can pull reports from their software and think this is enough to keep them in the loop to the business finances.

The simplest way I have found to explain is that we sit in the middle. You have a bookkeeper who might post all of your transactions, and an external Accountant who does your year end & tax returns – then we do everything in between! We take the information your bookkeeper posts and turn it into meaningful reports to help you, the business owner, make informed decisions about your business.

So how did I find my clients?

1.        Bark.com (https://www.bark.com/en/gb/) is a website on which people post jobs that they need help with, you buy ‘leads’ and can quote for these jobs. Someone recommended it to me right at the start of my journey but told me to exercise caution – only ‘buy’ the leads where the poster has included some extra information about their job. It’s free to post jobs so there’s a lot of time wasters on there, if they’ve put some extra info in then it might mean that they’re a bit more serious.

I found my very first client on here, though I have to say it was rather serendipitous, one of those ‘right place, right time’ moments. She happened to be local, I met her for a coffee, sent her a quote, and she has been my very well paying client ever since!

2.        Ex-employers. Another way I started out was continuing to do some freelance work for my ex-employer. I have to say, it’s not always ideal, but might mean you have a bit more freedom about the work you choose to do for them/the hours you want to work, and it is a great way to bridge the gap to entrepreneur.

3.        Partner with an Accountant. A couple of my current clients came from an Accountant I did a bit of work for a couple of years ago. She has plenty of clients who are growing businesses and suddenly find they need some extra support. It works well for the Accountant because she gets better financial information too – win-win-win.

4.        Networking. Urgh, this horrible word. It feels me with dread too! But I have found a few local networking groups in which I am more comfortable. If you’re an introvert like me then those big business breakfasts will not appeal but a more relaxed setting might suit you better. Ask your friends/current clients if they know of any you can attend.

What I’m planning as my next steps

I’m currently pretty busy with work but know that a couple of my clients only had short term projects in mind, so I’m thinking ahead. I will certainly be speaking to more local Accountants to see if I can offer my services to their clients.

Additionally, someone advised me that most of my potential clients will likely search for my services on Google (duh!), so I’m looking at SEO and improving my website. If you want to check it out, see it here.