Referrals Made Easy for Bookkeepers and Accountants with ChatGPT

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You wouldn't hold me back if you could? We've hide ourselves to blame for our love?

Oh, I tried to hold you close.

But you just left me? I need to find a way out from this hell by myself.

I keep calling but you won't seem to listen? I keep walking but I can see you following? Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh? Hey y come back anymore people.

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I keep calling but you won't seem to listen? I keep walking but I can see you falling? I keep calling but you won't seem to listen? I keep but I can see you following.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another YouTube live stream with myself, Emily Cross. How we all doing? Sarah's here in the comments. From Louisiana. Sarah's one of our academy members. Hi, Sarah, how you doing? We're going to get started just in a couple of seconds on our session today is around referrals, how to win more referrals for your accounting firm, which we all know is probably one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is. So definitely an important session today and we're going to be looking at how to use AI to help with a lot of the. The process of getting those referrals as well. So we're on the hour, so I'll go ahead and get started. I've got a couple of announcements, as ever, to share with you guys. So let me just bring up my slides and I'll go through these as quickly as possible with you. So for those of you that are new here, we work with an organization called B1G1 and I'm just popping a link in the chat right now. What this collaboration allows us to do is every time you guys turn up live to one of our events, it means that we can make a charitable donation on your behalf. So you can see the QR code on the screen right now. And I've just posted a link in the chat. If you just go and click on that link, it will allow you to make your choice as to where that donation goes to. So it comes from our bank account, but it says a thank you for you being here live and you get to choose which which cause is the most important to you and where that would you would like that to go. And it's different every month. So if you haven't already done so in August, you can do go, you can go and do it now. So make sure you go and choose where you would like that to go to. We also have for you several resources. These live streams tend to be very much geared around ChatGPT Chat GPT. So I'm just letting you know of all of the chat GPT related resources that we have for you. We have a couple of ebooks. So the first one, ChatGPT for Accountants and Bookkeepers contains six practical use cases specific to the accounting and bookkeeping industry. Ways that you can use CHAT GPT So if you are new to using chatgpt and you want a couple of ideas, a couple of suggestions of ways to use it, then you can check out that ebook, it's totally free. We also have another one which we created more recently which is the bookkeeper's guide to thriving in an AI future. So this really delves into the way that the accounting and bookkeeping landscape is changing due to technology and AI and how we can stay relevant and competitive in that kind of landscape where technology is really taking over a lot of compliance work. So if you're interested in learning a little bit about that then you can, you can go and grab that ebook as well. We also have a mini course which is about two hours of training, it's introductory level so that it can get you started with chat gbt. Again specific to the accounting and bookkeeping industry. So if you are interested in a little bit more training, that is a course that Mark has filmed. So that's available for you if you want to go and check that out. I've put the link in the chat that we also do have a community. So we call this the AI community. This is a free communities join and it's, we talk a lot around various different updates in the AI world and landscape. We share our best favorite prompts. Mark films a series of video training as well which you can access in there. And the great thing about that community community is it's, it's really built around engagement. So the more you engage, the higher your level becomes and you can unlock that training for free just by engaging more in the community. So if you are interested in, in getting your hands on some free, some free training in that community you can do so just go in, make yourself known, leave some posts, leave some comments and, and start talking about AI and you can access a lot of the training in there. And then we also do have, for those that are ready to go above and beyond, we have the AI Academy, which is where we go a little bit more in depth. We have live training with myself, I did a session just on Monday. We have live training every month and also a series of pre recorded trainings in there as well, as well as access to our prompt library which has, I don't know how many, a couple hundred prompts ready to go to copy and paste accounting specific use cases which you can access as part of the AI Academy. So. Oh, and Sarah, thank you very kindly, says the community is great, highly recommend if you haven't joined. Sarah says. So that's all the announcements. Oh, actually no it's not. I've got one more big important one for you and this is a date for your diary. For anybody that wants to have a bit more training on AI, we run a couple times a year. So I think this is about the sixth time that we run this, the Virtual Summit. And every time we do it, the material is fresh, it's new because of how quickly AI changes. So we are running this again on Thursday, August 28th. If you are an Academy member and you're here, you don't have to do anything because you as ever will get a free ticket and you will get all of the recordings as well. But if you're not part of our academy and you want to go and save your seat, then the link is in the chat, the ticket is free, you just need to go and register to save your seat and you will get all of the information about logging in and all of that sort of good stuff. So that's on Thursday, August 28th. It's around three hours of training and we're looking at, you know, basically how to win back your time, how to raise your prices and how to stay competitive in an accounting area, an industry that is becoming ever more reliant on AI. You know, how do we stay ahead with that and how do we utilize AI to the best advantage? So it's three hours of training with Mark and myself on, you know, how to really implement AI into your business and take advantage of that. So if you're interested, the link is in the chat now and we'll put it in the description after this livestream as well. Go and save your seat. We'll see you there. Okay, so that's all the announcements. So today's session we are looking at how to win more referrals for your Accounting firm. So normally I've kind of given away the answer to this question, but normally what I kind of do is the first question I would ask ask you to leave me a comment in the chat box as to what you think the most powerful form of marketing is. And generally when I ask that question across the board, sweepingly, everybody understands and they all know that referrals are the most powerful form of marketing. If anybody says otherwise in the chat, please feel free to do so. But generally speaking, what we see is that everybody understands and they know that reflection referral marketing is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. So we've got a couple of people popping in there saying, yep, the referrals are important. So we all understand and we all recognize that referrals are the best source of bringing clients in. But then the follow up question that we generally ask is, okay, we all know that referrals are great and important. Now what systems do you have in place to get those referrals? And that's normally where we get the tumbleweed. And a lot of people kind of say, I don't really have a system. I just kind of hope and pray that somebody at some point will very kindly graciously give me a referral. But they don't actually have any systems in place for bringing those referrals in. So that's something that we really need to be aware of and we need to start building systems into our business so that we can be more routinely and more consistently and efficiently getting those referrals because we know how powerful we are. Referrals require very little effort, but they tend to bring in the best clients. Particularly if you are asking your best clients to refer people similar to them, then they're bringing in great clients for you as well. So why does hoping that we'll get referrals not work? Several reasons. You know, mainly clients will forget to refer. So it may be that you, you kind of ask them loosely at some point and then you hope that they will send a referral, but then they leave the meeting or you sent an email and they get moving on with different work. And for whatever reason they forget. They, they get stuck back into their, the work of their business. Or they, they thought like, you know, I'll sit down in a, in a few minutes and think of a couple of people and nobody comes to mind, but they forget. Okay? So we have to have system, systematic ways of repeatedly asking for referrals and not worrying about that being an issue and overwhelming people, because sometimes people need to Hear the message 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 times before they actually take action on something. So we need to have systematic ways of asking for referrals throughout a relationship with that client. It may be that even if they do refer that perhaps they're not referring the right kind of client. So we also need to be quite systematic in and give, and give the person that's giving us those referrals, give them some guidance on the kind of people that we are looking to bring in and make that system as easy as possible for them to give those referrals. Okay? So referrals are super powerful. We need to have systems in place to bring them in and make it as easy as possible for those people to give the referral. Okay. Before we even contemplate asking for referrals, something that's going to make your referrals easier is we first need to create a service that is worth referring if you're not delivering great value. If your clients are not happy, they're not going to refer you to other people. In fact, they're probably going to complain. They might spread bad messages about you if they're not happy with the service and they would refer somebody else. So first of all, we need to be focusing on delivering so much value in our business that we are creating a service that is worth while referring. So this means delivering great value. This means getting results for your clients. This might mean going above and beyond with creating extra reports or summaries or giving great business advice. Okay. It may be having regular check ins with your clients where you ask for their feedback and then take that into consideration and make improvements and make it really clear that they are a part of that, that kind of journey and that discussion and that improvement system. It may be implementing things in your business like AI and automation so that they have a very smooth experience when they, when they work with you. You know, whether that's that they get loads of onboarding emails nice and smoothly so that they're onboarded nicely into the business or the portal that they use is really, really great. The communication between you is really quick and easy. You know, whatever we can do to create that great service first that makes it a service worth referring. That's something that we should be focusing on and always considering how we can add more value to our clients. Okay? So with that in mind, we want to work out when is the best time to ask for a referral. So there are a couple of different points where you might ask for referral throughout the journey of that kind of relationship with the client. So first of all, I think it's very important that you routinely are asking for feedback from your clients as to how you're doing in the business, what things they're enjoying, what are things, things that could be improved. And this should be something that you ask at particular milestones throughout somebody's journey with you. You know, maybe it's straight after they've just been onboarded and you ask for feedback. You know, how are you finding, joining us? You know, how's your first week been? That kind of thing. You might also make it something where it's a monthly or a quarterly check in with them and you're asking for feedback. But at that point that you ask them for feedback, you might also additionally at that point ask for a referral. Because when they are giving feedback and assuming that you have really focused on that first point of making your service super, super valuable, when you're asking for that feedback, they are then hopefully singing your praises and saying all of these amazing things that they have found with the business that they're enjoying this, or they've got a great, great result with that. When they are in that mind frame of giving that great feedback. That is a great point to ask them for a referral because they are in this mindset of this is amazing. I love working with this person. I'm having a great experience. And that's a good point to ask them for the referral because they are more likely to say yes and to want to kind of give that referral at that point. So asking for feedback is super important. We should be doing that regularly and we can ask for referral that next up we have as part of your sales meeting. So this could be in a couple of different ways within your sales meeting. I recommend that when you have that initial sales meeting with a new potential client, that you have an agenda for your meeting. And on that agenda, one of the items is to ask for a referral. So the, the point at which in the meeting you ask again is going to be significant, it's going to be important because it may be that you first of all communicate the value of your service and you get them to say yes to a particular package or an option. And once they have said yes and they are in that buyer's mode and they are really excited, they've made that decision to work with you, that's where they are going to start looking to reaffirm the decision and bringing excitement to themselves that, you know, I'm really excited now that I've made this choice to work with you. I'm looking forward to it. I'm, I'm, you know, this, these are all the great things that we're gonna do together. Once you've gone through that meeting of delivering the value, of communicating the value, these are all the great things that we're going to put in place for you. That's where they are in this mode of being really inspired, really motivated, really excited to work with you. So that might be the point where you then ask for a referral. And if they've already made the purchase and they've already kind of said yes and they've already got to that stage, then there's absolutely no harm in asking for a referral. The worst thing that happens is they, they just say no. Okay. But it, as having it as a standard part of your meeting agenda should be a prerequisite so that you're always asking for referrals and a systematic part of the process. Another way that you could utilize it in the sales meeting is you could offer it as a kind of incentive or as a kind of reward for a certain behavior. So if you would like us to reduce the price by 5 to 10%, then you could give us three referrals. That allows us to save on our marketing efforts because you've brought in three great people for us. And therefore we can pay for a portion of your service without having to reduce the quality of that service. So you can offer it as an exchange. If you give us three referrals, we can cut down the price of your, your service by 5 to 10%. Whatever it is you want to do. It's not a discount. Okay? Because we don't do that when we're value pricing. It's not a discount. It is a, an exchange. It's a trade off. You're getting more clientele, they're getting a cheaper service. This. So it works. And the way that we frame that as well is, you know, we can pay for a portion. So we're not sacrificing the quality by doing that. So that's a couple of ways you can do it in your sales meeting. You might also do it in your onboarding. So again, this is a slightly further along in the process. They've now had that meeting, they've signed up with you. It may be that you've sent them a series of emails or you've had a couple of meetings where they with them and a manager to get them on boarding and to get them, you know, comfortable and moving into the business. And that might be a great point to ask for feedback and then also ask for referrals because again, they're in this excited headspace where they're looking forward to the future of, of what this potential, you know, relationship could look like. We also have after a result or a success. I think this is probably one of the most powerful times to ask task after they have just got a great big win, you've managed to save them a bunch of tax or you've cleaned up all of their books so they now have financial clarity and peace of mind. You've implemented some sort of AI or system or automation for them. So they've saved five hours every week if they have some sort of tangible result that they can look to and say, this is amazing. I've got, got this great result since working with you. That is a great point to follow up with them. First of all, congratulate them, like, you know, revel in that joy with them and support them through that and then also ask for a success story from them. You know, we're so stoked that we've, we've been able to help you get this result. We'd love to hear your side of the story. You know, how this came about, how this has affected you, you, what's your business looking like now? How has this changed for you? Asking those sorts of questions to get that success story is another amazingly powerful marketing technique. Collecting success stories. Because we know that when other people, so assuming that this person that you've managed to help is an ideal client for your business, that you like working with other people similar to them, them, if they see that success story and say, well, my business is very similar to them, I would like to have a result similar to what they've had and it looks like it's doable. It's, it's, it's a proof that you can deliver results. It's a proof, it's a demonstration that that person could also have very similar results if they very much relate to the person who's giving that success story. So that in itself is a super powerful thing to collect. And at the same time, again, we could be asking for a referral at that point. We're so stoked. Congratulations. We're so happy that we've been able to get this great result for you. It's really brought massive joy to us. You know, this has been the highlight of my day hearing, hearing this great thing that we've done. It's what we do, it's why we are in the business. We would love to be able to help other people in the same way. So it would be great if you could refer or any other people that would also benefit from the same service. So it's a great point to, to kind of acknowledge the success that they've had and also say, you know, rather than it just being. Can you refer? Because we want more business. It's not a kind of selfish thing. It's more of a, you've had a great result, and we would like to share that great result with other people. It's more of a, you know, you're. You're speaking more to your values and your larger mission in the business rather than just, can you give us more clients? Because we kind of want more money. Right. It's more of a case of we love giving these results. We love seeing the happiness we love. We love congratulating people and joining in on that joy. Can you help us do this with more people? So it's a different way of approaching it. Okay, then also, we have quarterly or annual reminders. So also as part of a sales meeting, it may be that you put something about referrals in your proposal. So that it is, you know, it's an expectation that you give us three referrals every year. Something like that. It could be that you put that into your proposal or your agreement as part of your sales meeting. And then when you come to do this, the quarterly or the annual reminder, you can reference back and say, as part of our proposal, we. We agreed that you would give three referrals every year. So here's a form for you to fill out to give us those referrals. That's where that makes that really easier. But equally, even if you haven't got something like that in place, it could just be a good idea to set up an automatic email that goes out or a phone call that you have that happens regularly that you can just reach out to the. Those people and ask for a referral. Because if you don't ask, you don't get. Okay, you. If you ask, the worst that can happen is that they don't have anyone or they say no. And another great point as well is to ask for three rather than one. Because if you ask for one, they might not be able to think of anyone. They might not give you anything. They asked for three, they might give you one. Okay, so that's better than nothing. So that's a great point to mention as well. So we're going to hop over into ChatGPT and just have a look at some potential ways that we can use ChatGPT to create some of those systems that we've just looked at. So here we go. Let's start first of all with the feedback one. So all of the prompts that I'm showing you right now today are on the 4.0 version, they're on the free version and they are very simplistic stripped back prompts just to show you you the kind of systems that you can create. Of course, as ever, we can expand on these prompts, we can make them more complicated, we can add more context. But just for the simplicity of this demonstration, I'm showing you with quite a quite simple prompts just to show you the starting point of how we can get into this. So that first one is getting feedback and then also asking for a referral at the same time. So the prompts that we have here create me an email asking for feedback from my latest bookkeeping client. As a follow up to that feedback, it should also request a referral. Use flattering and persuasive language. Okay? And of course you want to use different kind of language. If you have a writing style guide you want to add to this so that that email is in your style, then that's what we do. So the subject line, it's got quick favor. Your thoughts matter. Hi, client name. I just wanted to say a big thank you for choosing to work with me. It's been a real pleasure supporting your business and I hope you've been thrilled with the results so far. I'm always looking to improve and would love to hear your thought on how things went. Would you mind taking just a minute or two to share some feedback? What did you find most helpful? Is there anything you think I could do even better? And then you might put a link in there to a form for them to fill out that feedback form. Now it could be that you add a question at the end of the feedback form. That is please leave us a referral, please leave us a review. You know, that sort of thing as well. And that could all be in a form. And the forms that you could use, you know, there's jot form, survey monkey type form, there's so many different ones that you could use there. So your feedback means a lot and it also helps me continue delivering great service to amazing clients like you. And speaking of amazing people, if you know another business owner who could use a reliable bookkeeper they can trust, trust. I'd be so grateful if you'd pass my name along. A quick intro or referral is the best compliment I could receive. Thanks Again, for being such a fantastic client. I've loved working with you. So I think sometimes it is actually really important to let your clients know that you are looking for referrals. Sometimes they just don't know that. And you saying something like that, it would be the biggest compliment to me. If you're looking for a way to say thank you for what we've done, giving a referral would be, would be a massive, a massive, big thank you. That would be something that we would massively appreciate. Just letting them know that that's something that you are actually interested in. Because not everybody wants referrals and they don't and they don't know if you want referrals. So just making sure that we're asking for that. Okay, so as part of that email, it suggested that we might have a form in there that collects the feedback. So I can now use ChatGPT as well to create that form. So here's the prompt. Create me a form with a series of questions that collects feedback, success stories and also three referrals. And we've got the questions we've got in here. So client feedback and referral form. Thank you for trusting us with your bookkeeping. We'd love to hear your honest feedback, celebrate your wins and if you're happy with our service, get introduced to others who might benefit from the same support. How would you rate your experience working with us? We've got excellent, good, fair, poor. What specific results or improvements have you seen in your business since working with us? This could be time saved, clarity on finances, peace of mind, tax saving, etc and on this one it's suggesting that you give a short text answer box. I would suggest even that you put a long one if that is a different, different option. But what specific results or improvements have you seen? This is going to be the great place where you could then capture the wording that they have put and use that as a feedback, as a testimonial or as that success story if they list. Since working with your business, I've had these great improvements. That's a great story to capture. Okay, what did you find most valuable or helpful? Helpful about our service? Is there anything we could improve or do differently? Would you be happy for us to use your feedback as a testimonial? That's also very important. If you are wanting to capture that as a success story, then to just make sure you've got consent for that and preferably you want consent where they are happy for you to use their name and perhaps an image of them. On their business name. Because success stories and testimonials are. Are more powerful when it looks like it's from a real person. So if it's just from anonymous, it's less powerful because it could be anybody. But when you've got the name in the business and it seems like a real person, that's just a lot more powerful. Okay, who do you know that could benefit from reliable professional bookkeeping support? So here's the referral piece. We'd love to help other great business owners like you. Feel free to share a few names and we'll only reach out with your blessing. So it's then asking for the name, the business name, some sort of contact, so email or phone. And would you like us to mention your name when reaching out? So it's asking for three. Remember, we might not get three, we might get one. But that's better than not asking and not getting anything. Okay, then at the box bottom, we've just got an extra box. Anything else you'd like to share? So that's a four that you could then just add to an email that could go into your regular email that you send out once a year. It could be that you send that specific kind of milestones when you're working with them. Okay, but let's look at a couple of other examples then. So we've also now got a prompt here. So this is referring to the sales meeting. So we want to make sure that asking for referrals is part of our script. It's part of our agenda when we have that meeting. So I've come to ChatGPT here to say, you know, if anybody is a little bit kind of reluctant to ask for referrals or they think that it's a bit awkward, then maybe having a bit of a script to follow would give you a bit more confidence to. To ask that and to follow that script. So we've come to ChatGPT to ask for some help in bringing that subject up. So here's the prompt. As part of our sales meeting process with new potential bookkeeping clients, we like to incorporate a section where we invite them to give referrals. Can you help me with a script to bring this up? Suggest at what point of the meeting I should do this, and a simple way we can collect the referral information. So ChatGPT has responded. First of all, what is the ideal timing in the sales meeting to ask ask for this referral? And it said very similar to what I said earlier. Bring up the referrals after you've delivered Value, you've built the rapport and the prospect is clearly interested or committed to working with you. So the sweet spot is right after they've said yes or when they've expressed a very strong interest. But before you wrap up the meeting, remember, that's when they're in this positive frame of mind. They've just seen how much you can help help, and they're likely thinking of others that would benefit from this at that point. So that's the ideal time to be asking for the referral right after they've said yes. So they've also, it's also kind of created as this little bit of a script here for how you might bring that up at the end of the meeting. And this has done it in, you know, I didn't really, I didn't really give it any instructions on how we like to talk. So it says it's done it in a warm, conversational style of script. But maybe you might have a different approach. You want to do something a bit more professional or a bit more funny or, you know, however your approach is. But you can play around with this sort of thing. You can ask for different options of how to bring it up if it's, if this doesn't sit right with you. But what it suggested is the script is okay, before we wrap up, can I ask a quick favor and then wait for their agreement? And asking for a favor is also a, a psychological tactic. Asking for your help. People love to give advice. They love to give help, they love to reciprocate. You know, we've just signed on for a, you're going to help me so much with my business. If there's anything I can do to help you. People want to reciprocate, they want to help help. So asking for a favor or asking for help is, is a powerful way of starting it. So most of our clients come through word of mouth, great people referring other great people. So as we get started together, I like to ask, is there anyone else, you know, maybe another business owner or friend who's been struggling with their books or could benefit from the kind of support we've been talking about today? And then it says pause and let them think. Okay, so they might there and then come, come back with somebody and they might say, actually, yeah, I know a couple of people. You can just grab out a pen and paper, write it down. Or it could be that they don't. They struggle to, to think of anything right there and then, but they say, do you know what? I. I think I probably do Know some people, but I don't have their phone number on me right now. I can go and find that. And that gives you an avenue to then follow up with them later because you've already started that conversation and they've already kind of said yes. So you can then follow up with them afterwards. But even if they don't, you've at least had the conversation, you've at least asked. So it says you could pause, let them think and then if they don't have an answer, you could say there's no pressure if nothing comes to mind right now, but if someone does, I'd love to reach out to them and offer them some free resources or a quick chat to see if we can help them. Okay. So it frames it as helping somebody, not a pushy sale sales kind of tactic. So then how do we collect that referral? So, you know, various couple of simple methods here. We could just verbally, you know, if they mention someone, they could, they could write it down on a piece of paper for us. It could be that simple. It could be that you say, would you be happy to introduce us over email or WhatsApp? And you grab their email or you grab their phone number and then you can just, just shoot them a quick message with them in a kind of group chat or something or cc them into the email and say so and so gave us your name and said you might be able to, you might be interested in these extra resources or you might be interested in a quick chat with us to help you sort out your finances and you can start that connection. It may be a follow up form or a message. So once you've had that conversation, they might say, yeah, actually I've got a couple of people in mind that this might help. They might be interested and you can say, oh, that's brilliant. Is it okay if I send you a quick follow up message today with a link where you can pop all those names down and then of course you can set up an automation or you can follow up with a very personalized email that says, hey, it was great to talk to you today. Be really interested to catch up on those referrals that you mentioned. So having that follow up kind of message and you can create these as we said with there's lots of different tools. There's Typeform, Google forms, JOT forms. It doesn't have to be complicated. You need their name, their contact. So either that's email or phone, whatever your preference is for contacting people and how they know them. So the connection maybe you want that information. And then what also might be really powerful is, is giving a message to the person that is referring. Make it the person that you are asking the referrals from, make it as easy as possible for them to do that referral. So if that means you writing a quick paragraph of text that they can send to their friend, then do that, Send them that. Send them that paragraph of text to say, hey, I've just signed on business this with a bookkeeping deal with this great accountant, this great bookkeeping firm. I'm really excited to work with them. I thought of your business and I thought this might be really good for you too. I thought maybe you'd like to check it out. You could write that paragraph for them or get Chat GPT to write that paragraph for them and then give that to them so that they can make the connection for you on your behalf. Because if it's coming from them rather than, you know, if they've not said anything and then a total stranger is kind of ringing me to, to talk about business, it's better if it comes from them. So if you can script that kind of little introduction paragraph of what it is for them, that could be super helpful for them. So which is the same here is what we've got an email template. You know, if it's easier, I can give you the message and then you can forward it to them. Okay. If they haven't signed yet, then keep the tone soft and optional. It says you're planting the seed. So once they become a client, you can also follow up later with different, you know, different milestones. And you can even offer incentives if that's the way you want to go around.