How to Find Your Accounting Firm Niche With Jody Jordan
Jody Jordan, Founder of a Firm with her namesake, jumped to start her own practice in 2014 and can show you what she did to find your niche in your accounting firm.
She saw a unique trend in the marketplace that convinced her it was time to strike out on her own.
In this episode of Growing Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Jody Jordan unpack:
- How Jody took a “leap of faith” to build her practice and made it work
- The top 3 unlikely places where she gets her clients
- The steps she took in realizing her niche
ADDITIONAL LINKS:
- Jody Jordan’s Firm
- Linkedin – Jody Jordan
- Get Amazing Client Testimonies Without Asking For One
- Turn Networking into New Accounting Clients
Taking the Leap:
Jody Jordan, now the “Chief Number Cruncher” at her own Firm, started off as most – working in a variety of accounting practices (including one of the Top 30 in the US).
But, she wasn’t doing taxes and audit. She did client services.
She had a deep desire for a more flexible schedule and regularly clashed with her last firm in many ways. Then, she had a lightbulb moment.
In the past, many who wanted to start their own firm needed to get office space, hire staff etc. Jody saw cloud accounting booming and business owners widely accepting it.
“I could work from a home office and get clients outside of my area.”
In June 2014, Jody left her job and opened up shop in her home. Suddenly, she went from a client services position to needing to serve business owners doing bookkeeping, invoicing, reconciling and more.
The 3 “unique” places she found clients:
Jody describes herself as “not a salesperson.” She wasn’t going to be cold-calling business owners for business. Instead, she found 3 interesting places.
Thousands of bookkeepers sign up on the Pro-advisor network, but rarely see results. Jody discovered she could tap into this platform. When clients leave you more reviews, you move up the rankings until you are the only likely choice for any prospective clients.
It doesn’t need to be daunting to get these reviews. When you provide tremendous value for your clients, they will be more than happy to provide you with a review. All you need to do is ask. Jody says she is a “shy” person, and asking for a review was much easier than she thought.
Next, while she built up her client base, she attended many industry conferences. She connected with other business owners as often as possible.
“I realized I’m not competing with other CPAs, we feed off each other.”
After many meetings, she connected with many owners. Soon, these owners would call Jody and ask if she had capacity to take over work. Now, she’s contracting with large firms, gaining credibility, experience and building a revenue pipeline.
THE KEY: Network with other owners. They aren’t your competition. You can bounce ideas off each other and it might even lead to growing your revenues.
Lastly, Jody met the founder of AccountingLeap.com. Still in the beta phase, Jody was offered to be one of the small pool of beta testers. All from just her networking efforts and wanting to connect with other accounting professionals.
Finding your niche in your accounting firm:
Jody left her job because she saw the opportunities in accounting tech. She understood the tech out there many business owners could tap into.
“I wanted to bridge the gap between offline and online.”
That was the niche she specialized in: Business owners who want to update and automate their company with new technology.
Using tech such as:
- Bill.com
- Expensify
- Dropbox
- Join.me
- Hubdoc
If new clients come and aren’t open to using new tech and it causes a backup, Jody drops the client. When she first started, she went along with clients who weren’t open to her process. Now, no more.
It’s helped her grow and learn.
Even if you just started out in building your firm, there is a ton of value you can extract from this podcast with Jody. As of this writing, she’s only been in business a bit over 2 years. Building up your practice takes some creative thought and thinking outside of the box. Jody was open to many new opportunities and it contributed to her growth (even though she didn’t have a bookkeeping background).
If you had to start over, what strategies would you use to grow?
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