I am considering starting a services business to help small businesses in my area. I am an experianced staff accountant and have a great deal of background as an analyst for a large corporation. I’ve learned a lot along the way about helping to maximize cash flow and profitability using tools and metrics that most small business just don’t have. A lot of small businesses simply don’t want to pay a bookkeeping service or for consulting concerning the nature of their businesses, but I think that;s a mistake. Given the lack of actual business and accounting experience most SB owners have. The question is, could you be convinced as a small business owner to use my services on a consulting or an ongoing basis, if I can make the case that I can help you make your business grow and thrive? Honest answers only please.
It is not the people here on Yahoo you should be asking, but the owners of the buisinesses you want to have as clients. i think you’d be better off doing some old fashioned marketing the old small town way.
Call around, or just walk around, and contact some business owners of the type of businesses you are thinking of as clients. Buy them coffee or whatever. Don’t try to sell them anything. Just tell them about yourself and the type of business you are considering. Ask them how they do their bookkeeping and accounting, and what is good about it, and what they wish would be better about what they do now.
this will do several things, it will introduce you to them when you are not trying to sell them on something. You will get a better picture of the local businessmen and what they see as their needs. It will give you ideas about how to approach them, maybe set up bundles of services differently that helps them with what you needs, while you get a reasonable fee for.
Plus, you’ll have a good idea how to approach them later to sell them on your services.
"John, the things you told me about sounded exactly right, so I set this up. I’d like to show it to you, can I?"