Four Ways to Become an Enterprising CPA

The accounting industry has been abuzz with trends around automation, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence. It’s an exciting time to be around to witness these forms of technological disruption, however this also means there will be a shift in the ways CPAs work.

While technology is just one aspect that defines a CPA’s success, how they tackle branded competition, how they diversify business offerings, and how they market are all equally important. The bottom line is as a CPA you must be enterprising.

We firmly believe scaling your accounting operations should be your goal. Here are four ways to become an enterprising CPA:

1) Be a consultant and offer advisory services.

As a CPA, you should provide advisory and asset management services. To create a buzz, establish communication with potential clients through newsletters, postcards, emails, and more. Encourage your clients to ask you questions and develop a habit that whenever they have a financial problem, they come to you instead of wondering and wandering.

2) Upgrade to cloud technology ASAP!

Coud technology is scaling at a rapid pace, and it isn’t going to stop anytime soon. However, a 2016 Wells Fargo survey states that checks are still being widely used by at least 90% of small businesses in the US; only 30% of small to mid-size companies make payments via a mobile POS, such as PayPal.

This shows that there’s scope for businesses to upgrade to the cloud and enjoy the following benefits:

• Reduced system maintenance and administration cost of the organization.
• Flexibility to edit data and view real-time information anytime, anywhere.
• Avail a backup service to minimize the likelihood to lose valuable data.

3) Utilize social selling to fill your pipeline.

Social media is used extensively as a networking and marketing platform. But the social landscape is now getting an upgrade. LinkedIn, for example, has introduced features around lead search and sales conversion to assist its premium users to network better.

On the other hand, Facebook Messenger bots are already being used for client communication in both B2B and B2C industries. Social media is multi-faceted and is not just considered a customer engagement tool but a consumer conversion platform.

Make the most of going social!

4) Dive into influencer marketing.

Did you know 92% of people trust recommendations from others even if they don’t know them in any way? Take Twitter for example. When influencers expose consumers to content coming from them on the platform, the platform observed a 5.2X increase in intent to purchase.

Therefore, network aggressively within your industry community. Make sure the whole process of getting to know them is organic. Influencer marketing isn’t all about spending money to get people to talk about your accounting firm.