Discussion:Expanding tax practice

Recently, I lost my full time job as an Accounting Manager at a large national company. My goal is to double my practice this year and not have to look for a full time job. I received a fairly decent severance package that can keep me afloat for about a year.

Please let me know how best to market my services. I don't have a very high degree of confidence in mass mailings even if they are targeted. Someone suggested that I should obtain a list of newly formed businesses for the local county office. I think my by best bet would be to buy a small portion of an established practice.

Any advice from the pros in this forum will be invaluable. As always, I am grateful for your time and help.

teach seminars and local schools , better business bureau.

I think the teaching idea is great. Do some community ed stuff to get your name out there, especially if it's geared to small business owners.

My practice bought another practice a couple of years ago, and the lesson learned was that the seller should have been more involved in the crossover. People go where it's convenient unless they have a reason to go elsewhere.

Offer a referral coupon/discount to the clients you have. And also a new client one.

http://www.taxalmanac.org/index.php/Discussion:Marketing_an_accounting_and_tax_practice

Marketing programs on the other hand are more risky - if you have a market niche then the odds improve dramatically to the point where you will make more than buying a practice.

Since your economic opportunity cost of your time is low at this point in time, I will also do what others have suggested here and do some low-cost seminars (eg. at the library, senior center etc.), handout business cards/fliers at malls etc. The costs are very low compared to direct mail. The downside to these methods is that it will take a long time to see a lot of revenue. This can be a good supplement anyway -- assuming you have time.

BTW Wwtaxes, I am working with accountingparacticesales.com to buy a running practice but client retention is my big concern. They sent me an article co-authored by their founder that says seller's continued involvement in the practice after the buyer has taken over is counter-productive. But they point of view is understandably biased towards the seller.

So far, all the due diligence I have done suggests that the most effective way to gain clients is word of mouth ....networking, keeping a high profile in the community, etc.

I used accountingpracticesales.com last year when I bought my first practice. The broker was really good to work with, but they sent me the same article on seller's continued involvement... I gave my seller his asking price, but the broker was really pretty good about helping me be creative and I ended up keeping the seller as a free consultant for the first year- specifically to help with transition. Now, after having been through one season, I can tell you my retention rate was about 67%. When I made the deal, I was hoping for closer to 85-90%, since we were keeping the seller involved, but a big part of those that didn't follow was convenience, I'm sure. The seller only offered tax service, so it was one trip a year for those people to see him, and as long as they were forced to change anyway, they probably just went to someone closer. But without him offering the endorsement and meeting with nervous clients, I believe I would have found myself deeper in debt without the cash flow to alleviate the first year operations. I feel good about my investment and will grow it with the clientele that I want from here on out. Word of mouth will build me up to a full-time practice in a couple of years. On the other hand, I'm not a salesperson, so for big expansions, buying practices is going to have to be my solution.