Expert Tips for Starting Choosing Your Niche Industry

Hi there, Linda Artesani from the Accountants Law Lab. Are you a bookkeeper that's interested in venturing into the world of advisory services but don't know where to start? Don't worry, we've got you covered. So in this video, we're going to teach you how to move your business from just doing simple basic write-up work into compliance work into doing more detailed work. We're gonna provide you some valuable tips and insights how to build your client base, establish your brand, and provide top-notch advisory services. So let's get started. Step 1 is really going to be identify your niche or your target audience. And that could be— truly, it could be any, anything. But in our case, it's working with attorneys and law firms. So we've identified that our target customer is an attorney. So you really wanna start to think if you're gonna— before you actually launch an advisory service, and there's plenty of other industries out there that you can do. You could do e-commerce, nonprofits. The list goes on and on. You wanna identify who is your client base. Who are you reaching out to? Who you, who are you trying to connect with? It's really crucial to identify your niche and target audience. This step's gonna help you focus on your marketing efforts and tailor your services to meet specific needs of your clients. I want you to consider your expertise as you're starting to delve down this road of specialty. Consider your expertise, your experience in the industries that you are thinking about maybe moving to, and the types of clients that you want to work with. So making this big decision on who is going to be your client, I want you to start to think about who do you like working with? You can do that simply by taking your client list outta QuickBooks and then dropping it into a spreadsheet and just kind of set it up to sort by client type. You can set up client types inside of QuickBooks so you'll have that data when you push it out. And then just use a simple system, 1 through 5. And I like to say it's the best way to describe who's a 1 and who's a 5 is the phone rings and a client that you think is number 1, you pick up the phone and talk to them, you know, about their family, their kids are graduating or whatever. And number 5 is like, oh God, I don't wanna talk to them now. Send it to voicemail. So that's the best way to go through the list. So you wanna do your market research in that way to understand the demand of the services, identify any gaps in that you could actually fit in a market that you knew when it worked when it comes to working with attorneys, there's definitely a niche for it because we can fill that space of that where it lacks. So there's bookkeepers out there that can do work with all types of industries, but it's so highly beneficial if you hire a legal bookkeeper, you're gonna get someone that knows the industry and knows all the ins and outs and all the quirkiness of working with law firm books. So once you have that clear understanding of your niche or specialty, You understand your target audience. You can develop a comprehensive marketing strategy, and you wanna do that to reach out to potential clients. So it's good to know the client first. So you're able to narrowly focus on your client base. It's essential to showcase your expertise, really, and align your expertise with the needs of the client to provide solutions to their pain points. So when you're thinking about your marketing your marketing practice and what you're going to do with your marketing efforts, it's best to start to think about what if you put yourself in the client's shoes, what are the issues that they run into? And our industry definitely is just like their trust is out of balance. And that's the gift that keeps on giving for us. It's something that we see over and over. Write about that. Write about how you fix it. And you're giving away information for free and you're telling somebody how to do it. But most of the time, these attorneys are so busy in our industry. They're very busy, just like if you're working with doctors, same thing. They don't wanna do this stuff. And so they're so busy, they're like, wow, this girl really knows what she's talking about. So don't be afraid of giving away the information because they're actually gonna be looking at you as like, she knows what she's talking about. They know enough about their issue and their pain point, and you provide the solutions to that. So you show that you demonstrate to them that you know what you're talking about. And that's the most important part of giving in your strategy of sharing videos, blog posts, newsletters, whatever you decide to land on. Maybe it's just posting in LinkedIn, whatever that is. You're showing them, you know what you're talking about. The next step is to develop a strong brand and marketing strategy. And that's sometimes can be difficult because you need to have that one unified presence. So if you click now on Linda at LinkedIn and Linda at Instagram and Linda at Facebook, you're gonna see the same picture kind of floating around. So no matter no matter where they land on it, they know it's me and they know my brand. We've kind of— Sarah and I have kind of got this following now. People call us the Legal Ladies because we're out there, we're talking, we're sharing what we know, and we're known for this specific, specific thing. That doesn't happen overnight. You have to really work at it, but start to lay the groundwork that you'll be surprised how quickly it can build. So you want to develop that strong brand. You wanna develop that, in my case, very professional brand where maybe if you worked at a marketing agency or only with marketing clients, you wanna be more fun. But we're very professional, kind of, you think the color's blue, you wanna pick, you know, that branding that works with the industry you're working with. And then it's vital for the success to be able to build into these advisory services. 'Cause that's ultimately what I'm gonna be talking about is you're moving towards working as doing the work, but also analyzing the data and helping your client grow and be more profitable. Mm-hmm. So your brand should always reflect your values, your expertise, and your unique selling proposition. Make yourself unique. I am unique compared to the very, very generic bookkeeper that can do anything. I stand out because I know what an advanced client cost is. I know how to balance a trust with my eyes closed. Those are the things. But you also want to, when it comes to your brand, you wanna create a memorable logo. You wanna design a professional website. Don't just go cheap and pick a Wix and go with it. You wanna make sure that you, you don't wanna pick a boilerplate template one. You want it to look good. And even if you don't have the skillset, I used Kajabi and it was fairly easy to take a template and make it your own. And you can do that with WordPress as well. There's plenty of templates out there that you can design your own look, but find a look that you like and not something you wanna copy, but something that kind of gives you the idea of where you wanna go. There's plenty of marketing people or web designers that you can hire as well that maybe will help guide you that aren't that expensive. They do take work. So if you have to design your website, you're gonna find there's a lot of back work that you have to do. But knowing that you've got— you put your heart and soul in it, especially if you're just starting to build your business. It's important to have that really good brand presence. So you wanna have the logo. You wanna have a professional website. You wanna have a strong social media presence to boost your credibility. And that's probably one of the best things you can do for yourself. You start to lay the groundwork. So social media, you do have to kind of saturate it, but you wanna make sure you put different posts out there to show that you know what you're talking about. My next step is to craft a robust marketing strategy that includes content marketing. You can do email marketing, you can do networking events. I can go to ClioCon and show what I know there and talk and network with people. I could go speak at the Bar Association and tell them what I know and help them learn about their trust account. They graduated from law school and they didn't know about accounting. That's not their thing. They use words, they're not into numbers. But you can learn this stuff and you can teach them the basics, especially if they're just starting out. So sharing those valuable insights through blogs, through webinars, social posts, it's the way to go. Mm-hmm. And you can also leverage email campaigns and nurture those leads to stay engaged with your existing clients. So that's also important, because you may want to get referrals, and referrals are a great way to build your base of your business. It's how Sarah built her business, was all referral-based. So that's another way of the building blocks. The more you get your name out there, the more you'd shout it to the world. If you're on Facebook, let your family know, let your friends know. That's gonna let them know your expertise. So the next thing you want to do is build that network of contacts and partnerships. So building that network of contracts, contacts, and partnerships is essential for growth and the success of your advisory services in your business. So you want to connect to other professionals in the industry by attending those networking events, joining relevant associations. It could be— this is simple as going to the Chamber of Commerce meetings, something very simple. So these connections can lead to referrals and collaborations where you can collaborate with another business owner and build your business. So it's a lot of new business opportunities. And once you get these relationships, don't just say hi and buy and meet at a network and then not follow up. You wanna nurture the relationships by staying in touch regularly. Consider partnering with complementary businesses and doing that as a— because the service that they provide, they'll to pass some to you. So we work with some really great insurance agents. They might want to be able to send us some clients. We work with various different bookkeepers and accountants. We want them to know we are specializing in law firms. A lot of bookkeepers don't want to touch it. They will say, hey, you should talk to Linda or talk to Sarah because they know legal accounting. They'll look at it going, I can't fix a trust back to 2015, but I know they can. But let them know that when you meet them, tell them some generic things about you so that they know that you have this expertise. Collaboration can expand your reach and create mutually beneficial relationships. And that's the game. That's the name of the game. The next step to building on this advisory business is you can offer valuable and unique services to differentiate yourself. So you want to stand out in that competitive advisory services industry because it is competitive. But you want to show that you can offer valuable and unique services. You can look at— we could say, Sarah and I could say, hey, we do all this special work on compensation because we know that compensation is a pain point of our client. They have this platform or plan in place, but they don't have a way to calculate it out of the books. And then we have a way of doing this specially to tie it back to the books, and that's very, very important. So if you have the special services that you can put in a box and tie with a bow. That's gonna make you stand out, especially in a competitive advisory service industry with bookkeepers. Sometimes you get a lot of bookkeepers and accountants. They're really trying to compete for these services. They call them CFO, whatever they call them. But you wanna be able to offer that to your clients as well. You get paid more for those services. So don't forget that piece of it. So if you specialize in a specific niche or industry and you establish, establish yourself as an expert in the area, you focus on that market segment and you attract those clients that are looking for those specialized solutions. That is the key. And just know that the advisory service industry is ever evolving. And you have to stay up to date with the latest trends. Definitely stay up to date with the latest software and technology because it's a very rapid-paced technology. Something that you find is that shiny new object today might be obsolete. You might be moving on to something better tomorrow. Attend those industry conferences. That's where you're gonna find your clients sitting. Attend them. Attend QuickBooks Connect. You wanna attend things that you know they're gonna be a lot of accountants at. Maybe you can collaborate with them, maybe some tax professionals there. And then that'll help you gain insights on the new technologies and trends as well. If you engage with professionals in your own field, you're gonna find that it's important to get those networking opportunities. Make sure you read all industry publications. My favorite's the Clio Trend Report. And stay on top of some blogs. There's a lot of great blogs out there. Thomson Reuters is, in our case, is really a good one. And stay on top of the newest developments. Know what you can help your client. If we don't live in some of the software that they use, but if you know the name of the software that helps them do research, you're gonna help your client in a way that they're not even expecting. And that's the best way to surprise them that lets them know that you're, you have elevated your practice above and beyond beyond just being a bookkeeper. So I hope this is helpful. I hope this helps you really engage and improve your services to accelerate your practice. If you want to learn more about all of these steps, please join us in the Accountants Law Lab Mastermind Group. We're just a click away and it's attached. There's a link attached to this article. And on that note, I'd love to have you reach out and meet us in our Facebook group as well. And on that note, we'll see you all in the next video. Bye now. Bye.