Optimise your QBO Profile - Part 2: Getting prospects to click your profile

Welcome. If you are a QBO Pro Advisor and you want to optimize your QBO Pro Advisor profile, then in this video you're going to learn what are the three things that you need to do to get prospects, potential clients to click on your profile. And you'll also discover what do you do with negative reviews. Now, this is an extract from a live seminar that we did, a live webinar for our Value Pricing Academy members. It's delivered by the amazing Jessica Fox. She's a bookkeeper from Florida over in the US and if, by the way, you missed the first video, this is video number two then actually before you watch this video, I do recommend you watch the first video. We'll tell you about it somewhere on the page here, so you can go and check that out first. And at the end of this video, I will share with you some free stuff. Okay, so I will see you later. But for now, let's go and check out Jessica Fox.

Now, you worked the algorithm, you were able to improve your ranking. Do play around because sometimes, depending on the area, you may not be number one in your zip code, but you may be number one in the next zip code just because there's less pro advisors and it's still nearby. But you need to get people to click on your profile once they find it.

When you are looking at the results, they don't see all of the information at once. So there are several things that you need to do to make sure that you stand out. And the first one, the first thing that will catch your eye is your picture. So it is very important that you do not use your logo as your picture. Because this directory is built on personal relationships. It's per Pro Advisor. So if you have a firm with multiple employees that are certified, technically, all of them can have their own ProAdvisor profile. So it's not for your business, it's for you. And this is our relationship business. So you want to make that connection and there are different things that you can do to make sure that your photo is more engaging and more inviting without needing to spend a lot of money on professional headshots. So the first one is make sure that it's a photo of you, not your logo. You need to smile. I had a business coach that he used to tell me, show me the Chiclets because back then my profile photo was a Mona Lisa smile. Yes, my lips are curved up, but it was not a full on smile. And when people see a full smile, they are more drawn to you and more likely to want to make a connection with you than if it looks like you're just sitting there waiting for that photo to be taken. So make sure that your smile you need to have good lighting. Even if you're taking a selfie or you're just having your spouse or child take a photo of you, be mindful of the lighting. Make sure that the light is in front of you, not behind you or off to the side. If you are outdoors, make sure that it's not peak noon where the sun is so bright you're squinting. Make sure that there aren't any odd shadows that obscure your face. There's lots of little things to keep in mind to get the optimal photo. You want to have a clear view of your face. Sometimes there are shadows blocking or you may have big bulky sunglasses or it may be a crop photo from a bigger photo and it seems like part of your hair is cut off. Those are not necessarily the best option for your profile. I've seen some photos that is like oh my goodness gracious, they couldn't take a time to take a better selfie because the photo looks like something that they just took quickly while driving. And you can tell that they have their seatbelt on and you can see the headrest behind or that it was something better suited for a dating profile where they are showing things that would attract people that are not looking to the business.

Or perhaps they just rolled out of bed and you can tell that they really like teddy bears in their pajamas. And while those photos may be great for your Instagram, they do not belong in your Pro Advisor profile. So also avoid fancy filters. Not too long ago I was helping somebody find a Pro Advisor in their area and one of the results you could tell it was those Snapchat filters that gives you an animal face and they had the ears and the whiskers that may be cute, but it's not professional. Now you do not need to feel like you need to have a very cut and dry professional photo. I encourage you to let your personality shine through. Just keep in mind your intended audience. If you have an ideal client, for example, you are wanting to target creatives, artists, interior designers. They are probably not going to be drawn to a picture that looks like a realtor's face that you will see on a bus bench. But that would be very appealing to a lawyer or an engineer. So think about who your ideal client is and then that can help you determine what type of photo you should aim for. The photo that you saw of me, a lot of people think I paid A lot of money to a professional photographer to do. I did not, I did pay a professional photographer for photos and I did not like them. I never used a single one because I didn't feel like it reflected me. So that photo that you guys see almost everywhere, it was taken in my office with my phone in a stand and I just had lots of light, diffuse aiming at me. So it was nice and bright. And once it was taken with my phone I went into Canva and I removed the background and suddenly, voila, perfect headshot. And I could add any background backdrop that I wanted. So there are some ideas for you so that you don't feel intimidated and that way you can take action.

So definitely your photo is the first thing that's going to catch their eye. When you are searching and you are scrolling, you are going to want to make sure that you stand out, that you look friendly and, and welcoming. Like somebody that will understand because we are not just selling that.

Type of business where it's just compliance, we are selling relationships. Now then, another thing that is important to get your prospects to click your profile is you need to have an engaging and eye catching first line of your about me. Your about me is the section of your profile where you can write your bio. It's just open ended. You can add as many paragraphs as you like. Some people have a lot of writing and they can go into a lot of detail. In my experience, most prospects don't read most of what you write. So you don't need to stress about having the perfect bio or description in there. Because the only thing that's really, really important and that you cannot skip out on and you want to be intentional with is that first line. You have 90 characters to make that prospect. Want to click more? For some profiles for some reason it's 89 characters for me. It cuts me out at 89. I don't know why they took a character away from me. But it's very important that in this first sentence of your about me description that you're not just stating the obvious. And I've seen some people that they start with an introduction. I am Jessica Fox and I am a pro advisor. They already know that that has no place in that description. Other people may use it to talk about the services I offer. Bookkeeping, quickbook, setup, training, tax preparation. The prospect already knows that because they know everybody that is in this directory offers those services. And there's other parts in the profile where they can see the specific services that you offer. So do not waste your characters Stating the obvious. So if you have an elevator pitch, this is where you would put it. If you have a mission or vision statement, this is where you will put it. But you need to be concise because it's going to be cut off in the search results. When somebody searches the profile and they're scrolling through, you're only going to see the first 89 to 90 characters. So you're going to want to make it so that it's about them. It's not about what you do, it's not about what you offer, it's not about your bio or your experience. People don't care what certifications you have, people don't care how long you've been in the accounting industry. They care about what you can do for them. So my bio starts with I empower and then I say who my ideal client is because I don't want everybody and their mother contacting me like I used to do when I first started. So I empower small service based businesses using QuickBooks online to make something financial decisions. I don't remember the exact wording but I am talking specifically to them, to what I offer and who my ideal client is. Because before I did that I was getting less clicks and the clicks that I was getting were less qualified profiles. I was getting a lot of people that use desktop, even though I don't serve desktop, only because I had buried that information below the fold, meaning it was after those first 90 characters. Nobody was reading that once they made it to my profile. So that helped me narrow down on who I attracted and it made them want to click more because I'm like, wow, I want to be empowered. It's not oh, I just offer bookkeeping or hi, my name is Jessica because they already saw my name at the top. I don't need to introduce myself.

So this is one of the things that I identify as most people needing help with. There were several members of the academy that very graciously gave me permission to look at their profiles as profiles of looking for things to improve. And this was the most common area for optimization is tweak that first line, especially being mindful of Those first, first 90 characters.

Now there's other things that you also need to consider to get them to click your profile. And this applies to any directory, not just the QuickBooks one. I mean when I am searching for an electrician, one of the first things that I do is I look at their stars. How many stars, how many reviews? So it is important to collect reviews on your profile if you've been in business for a while and you don't have reviews or you have one or two. This is an easy fix. You can send a mass mailing to everybody right now and you let them know how easy it is. I tell my clients it takes 60 seconds. Just please click here, give your rating and in a few words tell how it was working with me. Now, not everybody will jump over and do it immediately just because you ask. Because let's face it, our clients are busy. So if needed, you can always offer some sort of incentive reward. You know, I've seen some people that they offer. Anybody that enters our review this month will be entered into our drawing to win an Amazon gift card. Or you may offer them a lead magnet. Everybody that enters our review will get this checklist that I created or I may offer you a coupon or a reward on a service. Think creatively and you want to make it easier because just telling people, hey, I need reviews. Please go into the ProAdvisor directory and give me a review. It's not going to help because that's work. Our clients or business owners, they are overworked. They are. They just don't have time to figure things out or anything that feels like it's going to take too long or that feels like additional homework. So you give them the link to your profile and you tell them exactly what you need them to do and you give them an estimated timeline. You can play it safe. It takes two minutes. And if you are giving them an incentive, then they are more likely to do that. Now it's important you want to ask clients if you don't have clients yet because you are starting out, you can offer services and ask for reviews as you're getting it an easy way. I saw another advisor when they were starting out. They were struggling to get new clients. They didn't wait until they finally got a prospect to sign before they got a review. They went into a networking group, volunteer to speak about bookkeeping and QuickBooks and ask every attendee in there if they could review her presentation. They did not pay monetarily, but they did receive a service from her and she was able to get some reviews that way. And when I was starting, and still to this day, I do sometimes offer incentives for those that commit to giving a review within a certain amount of time after I complete the service.

Now I have moved that request outside of the ProAdvisor just because my focus have shifted. But when I started, that's what I would do. I would give them the options like please Click on the ProAdvisor profile and then if you can, can you just copy and paste that? And here's the link to my Google directory listing as well. But if you want to keep it simple for them, just ask them for one. One of the amazing things about the ProAdvisor directory is that not only is it free, but it can really help you even if people are not searching in that directory. If you do not have a website, that is an instant website right there. That is something that you can give to prospects. I know some bookkeepers and accountants that because they don't have their act together to get a website just yet, or maybe their website is being revamped. All they do is they buy the domain name and they point it to their ProAdvisor profile. So that way when they give out a business card or they share the link somewhere, it takes them there also. It can be a very good proof of expertise. I know that many of us can struggle with imposter syndrome and sometimes when a prospect may seem like they're not sure that you have the experience, you can funnel them to your profile so that they can see because they can see your certification badges, they can see how many years you've been in business, they can see what reviews you have. I've also heard of some prospects that may ask for resumes which we're self employed, we shouldn't have to give our resumes. You can give a link to your ProAdvisor profile instead. I've heard of sometimes a prospect may say I want to sign but I want to talk to one of your clients first. And because we are an industry where we deal with sensitive information that's not always feasible. Sometimes our clients don't want to be contacted by strangers to talk about their finances because that's a sensitive topic to them. But if they gave you a review, you can channel that prospect to these are reviews written by clients of mine. Let me know if you have additional questions. Now sometimes we don't get a five star review. It may have been I've seen some people their profile a negative review may be because they contacted them via the form and the person didn't reply timely and they were upset so they gave a negative review and you don't have the ability to delete that, but you do have the ability to respond. So if somebody is not completely wowed by your service.

Don'T get discouraged. You can still reply to that review. So it will show. Anybody that reads it will get your side of the story, be very Mindful about your response though, don't reply from an emotional state. If you're upset about the review, I advise you take a walk, take a few deep breaths. When you have clarity, then give your side of the story in a professional manner that is not attacking the client. And then look for more reviews. Because as you get more 5 star reviews your average rating goes up and that negative review gets buried towards the bottom. And most prospects don't scroll very far. They're kind of just scanning through. There's only select personality types that will read every word that is in the profile and in my experience those are incredibly few and far between.

Wow, that was extraordinary. If you got some value from that, then please give it the thumbs up. If you like it, please also if you've not done so already, subscribe to the channel and then hit that bell notification. That way you will get notifications from YouTube. Whenever I upload brand new videos now, I said to you at the start I have some free resources for you. The first of those is a research report we did a few years back to look at how do accountants and bookkeepers price bookkeeping services. I have a completely free copy of that. There are different versions for different countries. So if you're in the U.S. there's a U.S. version, if you're in Canada, a Canadian version, and if you're in the uk, a UK version. You'll find the link below this video. Go and grab that report. So that will help you pricing bookkeeping. Now another thing that people struggle with is how to price cleanup work. And if you'd like to grab my 28 page ebook, it's completely free again, I will put the link below. And finally, if you want some more free stuff, go and check my LinkedIn profile link below. And if you connect with me on LinkedIn, I will send you a message back with some links to some other free resources. And the other thing I want to mention is people often ask me Mark, what's the next thing I should do to learn more about pricing and growing a successful accounting firm. And I always say start with my free stuff first. Start by watching my YouTube videos, get my ebooks and other free resources. But if you're ready to move to another level then I recommend you check out the Profitable Growth Academy. It's my entry level academy. It's the best place to start. And then if you at some point want to join the Value Pricing Academy, you can upgrade later at any point in time. But I recommend you start here. I'll put the link below you'll find a page that looks like this. It'll tell you more about the profitable growth academy, what you get access to. You get video training from me, teaching you the four key foundations of growing a great accounting firm. And you also get, and this is the most important thing, you get live training every single month from the amazing Jessica Fox. So if you want more Jessica, then you can get it in the profitable growth academy. So that's video number two. We have another video for you. We are not finished. So in the next video, video number three in this series, Jessica is going to share with you what are the four action steps that you need to take. She's going to really pull it together into these four action steps. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you. I'm going to come back and share with you my three top tips for getting more reviews on your profile. So I look forward to seeing you in that next video. Bye for now.