3 Essential Steps To Stay Amazing

Well, are you panicking yet?

Or are you complacent?

It seems every day there are more pundits out there in the online and social media world wringing their hands and lamenting about all the dramatic changes going on in our world. Typically, bookkeepers have two reactions to all this:

1. Oh no, I’m going to go out of business! Nobody needs bookkeepers any more — they’re all doing their own books with new technology!

OR

2. Oh I don’t need to worry. All these changes are affecting accountants, not bookkeepers. We’ll be fine.

Well, in fact neither of these is true.

1. Yes, some small business people will try to do their own books using whatever version of the technology someone happens to sell them. Some will take one look at the instructions and never even begin. Many will give up in frustration over the learning curve or the time it takes, and some will even come back begging their bookkeeper to take it all off their hands again.

Others will recognize from the beginning that they don’t want to do their own books, because they want to concentrate on their business. They don’t want to take the time, and let’s face it, many just don’t have any aptitude for “the numbers”.

2. This is definitely not true, and if you adopt this head-in-the-sand attitude your business probably will be in trouble.

But all is not lost. We truly believe that Bookkeepers will be around for a long time. But, they will need to make some decisions if they want to remain relevant and prosper.

Here are 3 ways we believe you can keep your bookkeeping business relevant — and profitable — despite all the changes.

Always Be Learning

Stay relevant by keeping up with ever changing technology and digital solution tools — such as QuickBooks Online (QBO), the current standard in accounting software, along with all the apps and ecosystem being developed around QBO. If you haven’t paid a visit yet make sure you take a look at https://apps.intuit.com/ for just a sampling of the over a thousand available 3rd party apps to add greater functionality to QBO. Browse these regularly, try them out and learn how to use them efficiently.

Keep Building Your Business

If you are not growing, you are dying — or so the saying goes. But, growing doesn’t always mean getting more clients, sometimes it means finding more of the right kind of clients — the clients you actually want to work with. And today, these folks are all online, and that’s where they’ll expect to find you, so you need to make the most of your website, email marketing, content and social media marketing to connect and start building a relationship with them.

Manage Your Business Effectively

Finally — and this is something we all forget from time to time — remember that just as your clients are small businesses, so are you! Running your business effectively means, not only keeping up with the changes, but also finding, hiring, training and retaining the best talent. It also requires more efficient workflows and improved business operations to accommodate the changing technology and client needs. And don’t forget productivity, which doesn’t mean doing more. It means getting more done in less time — or simply taking less time doing what is needed so you have more time for you and your family!

This blog is for you and we hope you will enjoy the content. We will be providing you with more information to help you Learn, Build and Manage your Firm in future posts, so stay tuned.

Please let us know if there are any specific topics you would like us to address in the future.