Q:

Subject:  Accounting Business Question

Mr. Kerstetter,

I read some of your blog posts by reading up on tax strategies on the internet and found your blog and posts very informative and interesting to read through. My question is less accounting based than many of your other readers. 

I guess a little background might help first, I am a single dad and currently a CPA who was a financial auditor in my former life. Not even a year after I received my Masters in Accounting I found myself at the brunt of a fairly awesome child support dispute at the worst time possible (due to the state of our economy), it effected my work product and I lost my job. I decided not to waste my education and find a way to begin my own accounting business providing bookkeeping and tax services. 

Long story short I was able to mediate a successful workable support agreement with the mother which will allow me to move to Nashville to be close to my son and to attend a night law school to bolster my legal and tax background so that I will be able to offer additional services in the future and potentially save my a** in case I encounter any additional legal troubles in the future (I was not prepared for how fathers are treated in family court). 

Anyway, In the mean time I will begin the slow task of acquiring new clients in Nashville. My question is this, can you give me any good tips on how to attract clients. I use TaxACT as my tax software and have began familiarizing myself with Quickbooks Accountant and Pro. I have a few clients but they were acquired simply by luck almost. I have a basic fee structure but how do I know if this is competitive or if I’m under/over charging, I was used to billing myself out at $200 an hour at BDO Seidman but that seems a bit much for a new CPA on the block plus it was audit work. If you know of any good books I could read or could offer any advice I would be more than appreciative. Also, how did you go about getting your own domain address for your email? Is it expensive?

Thank you for any help you can give, it means a lot.

A:

I have discussed this a number of times in my blog; so you should search past postings.

I haven’t changed my opinion that having an online presence, such as a blog, is the best way to develop a nationwide client base.

Giving free speeches to local service clubs is still the best way to grow a local client base.

Paying a marketing firm to steer clients to you is a waste of money. Those services are scams.

The right billing rate isn’t an easy answer.  I would probably start in the middle of the current rates for other CPAs in your area.  That will give you room to raise your rates in future years as you become more proficient and the clients become more dependent on you.

In regard to the email address, most web hosting companies allow you to have 20 or more email addresses for each domain that you host with them.  It’s obviously a subjective issue, but I have always felt that someone is more professional who has an email address based on his/her own domain rather than using one of the freebie email services.

Good luck.  I hope this helps.

Kerry Kerstetter

Follow-Up:

I will definitely look through your blog posts for the information you mentioned. Thank you very much for responding so quickly!

I’ve lost track of the number of CPAs and tax professionals who have asked me for advice on building up a clientele.  I always advise against paying those “marketing” firms that promise to attract new accounting and tax clients via their deceptive advertising.  Those are scams. 

I have been telling several people that doing a blog and showcasing what you know and how you feel about tax and business issues is the best way to attract new clients.  In spite of the fact that I have made it known for the past few years that I am not accepting any new clients, I continue to receive requests from people to take them on as clients on practically a daily basis.

In fact, if blogs had been around in the early 1990s, I could have saved a lot of time driving around Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma presenting my Realtor seminars and built up my practice via the internet.  That’s how I would do it if I were starting out in a new market today.

I mention these obvious points in conjunction with this article on CPA blogging from AccountantsWorld that Ohio CPA Dana Stahl forwarded to me.  It has some excellent tips and creative ideas on how to overcome the “writer’s block” that scares most tax pros from undertaking a blog.

Closing the Information GAAP – Interesting look at plans to replace GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) with IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) here in the USA.  I always get a kick out of non-accounting people who fell for the stereotype of tax and accounting being so cut and dried as to be boring because nothing could be further from the truth.  Tax and accounting rules are constantly changing and evolving and will never stop doing so.