Jim Kmetz, CPA Reviews GoodAccountants.com’s Performance Over Three Year Period
Jim Kmetz has been an accountant for the past forty years and maintains a small CPA accounting practice in Willowbrook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. Kmetz became a member of GoodAccountants.com in the fall of 2008 and has maintained his relationship with the company ever since. Over the past three years says Kmetz, he has received numerous referrals from GoodAccountants.com of which many have turned into some of his best clients. “The first referral they set me up with did not work out because of a personality clash between myself and the business owner which became evident during the interview that it wasn’t going to work out,” says Kmetz. “But I stuck with GoodAccountants and over the past three years they have provided me with approximately thirty clients, all quality clients with nice sized businesses,” explains Kmetz.
Among the clients GoodAccountants.com has referred to Kmetz has been a dentist with annual billings of approximately $2,500 to $3,000. Another is an owner of a Federal Express mailbox store also with recurring annual billings at between $2,500 and $3,000. Another client referred to Kmetz by GoodAccountants is a long distance trucker and a fourth an insurance investigator both with recurring annualized billings at between $2,500 and $3,000. “All the clients they have referred to me have been high quality small businesses along with about ten tax return clients,” adds Kmetz.
What Kmetz has to say about other accountants who do not believe in the value of the Internet as a source for obtaining quality clients is they are probably not serious about growing their practice. The trends are clear for anyone who has been an accounting practitioner for any length of time says Kmetz, that fewer and fewer clients are coming from the phone book. “Over the last few years I don’t believe I’ve gotten one referral through the phone book,” say Kmetz. “Today, everybody is on the Internet,” he adds.
Kmetz says he immediately abandoned his plans to purchase a small accounting practice when he was recently approached by GoodAccountants.com, Senior Business Consultant, Al Chisolm to upgrade his marketing program to that of a Designated Service Provider which requires a $25,000 investment. His rationale was the small accounting practice which was valued at $60,000 would cost him $90,000 whereas GoodAccountant’s DSP marketing program automatically guaranteed him $75,000 in billing for only a $25,000 investment. “The decision to go with GoodAccountants.com over purchasing the small accounting practice I was contemplating was a no brainer since they’ve already proven to me that they can deliver the clients,” says Kmetz.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Hau & Associates Lands $15 Million Company and $50,000 In Annualized Billings
Dan Hau is the founder and managing partner of Hau & Associates, S.C., a four partner, Milwaukee, Wisconsin based, accounting firm comprised of twenty-five accounting professionals. The firm is among an emerging group of accounting practices across the country that exclusively utilize the Internet and cloud computing to grow their client base. A member of GoodAccountants.com since May 2010, Hau & Associates was first approached by Stephen Mack, a senior business consultant with GoodAccountants to meet with Homestead Independence Inc., a $7 million medical products company based in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Deeply frustrated with the lack of QuickBooks competency of the accounting firm they had been using Homestead Independence turned to GoodAccountants.com to find a new accounting firm for them. “The billing for Homestead was $30,000 and although Hau’s group was one of the company’s top two candidates the deal did not work out for them,” says Mack. Undaunted by the experience, Hau & Associates continued meeting with other companies that were referred to them by GoodAccountants.com and most recently landed a $15 million agricultural seed and chemical wholesaler which has resulted in annual billings of $50,000 for Hau. According to Sherry Reisenauer-Stillman, a partner at Hau & Associates, this one client could ultimately bring in more than a half million dollars in billings to the firm since they have committed to a long term relationship with them.
“Hau & Associates is one of our top member accounting firms,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “They’re a joy to work with because they take advantage of every marketing tool we provide our member accounting firms here at GoodAccountants.com and are what I call ‘internet ready’ as it relates to their grasp of the role of technology in today’s accounting industry,” adds Laurent. “They were among the first of our members to completely develop their GoodAccountants.com Profile Page and they never meet with any of our clients without immediately submitting feedback to us through our proprietary instant messaging platform,” explains Laurent.
The accounting firms that fully understand and take advantage of all the technology that GoodAccountants.com offers them according to Laurent, are consistently among the highest billers in her network. “Whenever we provide Hau & Associates a lead from our website they are in touch with the business owner literally within minutes after we have downloaded the information to them,” says Laurent. “Their utilization of all of the marketing tools we make available to them is making a huge difference in the number of clients they’re converting from the leads we send to them and it makes our job so much easier,” explains Stephen Mack. “When we send a profile page to Google for indexing without the accountant’s photo on it we find that page will rank lower than a profile page with a photo attached, yet some accountants still do not respond to our requests for their photo,” he adds. “We now live in the age of ‘social networking’ where people who use the Internet are accustomed to seeing whom they are interfacing with especially when it comes to entrusting someone with your financial information,” says Laurent. “If you are a financial professional and you want to gain clients through the Internet but yet you refuse to put a face on your accounting practice then you had better think again,” she adds.
Hau and Associates has billed a total of $60,000 with GoodAccountants.com in the first year of their membership and has just upgraded to the company’s $25,000 Designated Service Provider marketing program which guarantees a minimum of $75,000 in billing for the accountant.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
David Love, CPA Says He Loves GoodAccountants.com
David Love is a certified public accountant whose practice is based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Three years ago he became a member of GoodAccountants.com, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service and has continued to use GoodAccountants ongoing as the primary source for generating new clients for his practice. Now a staunch believer in Internet marketing, Love says ten years ago the accounting industry was a very different world because most accountants relied almost entirely on ‘word of mouth’ as the most cost-effective way to grow their practice. According to Love, there was no real need for accountants to advertise because people weren’t so driven to the Internet to find professional service providers as they are today. However the Internet along with present economic realities have completely changed the landscape of the accounting industry and like other businesses, accountants too must now advertise to stay competitive and to keep attracting new clients to replace the ones they have lost as a result of the downturn in the economy.
The real question for most accountants remains how exactly should they approach Internet marketing where the cost to effectively advertise can run into tens of thousands of dollars each month. According to Love, the answer for him has been GoodAccountants.com. “I have realized between $30,000 and $35,000 in yearly, recurring billings from GoodAccountants.com,” says Love. “My experience as far as the quality of clients I’ve received from GoodAccountants.com has been excellent and these are people who legitimately need a good accountant and are not folks who are just price shopping,” he adds. Although Love says he has used other forms of marketing to produce leads for his accounting practice he acknowledges that GoodAccountants.com is uniquely positioned to help accountants build their practice. “There’s nothing to figure out,” says Love, referring to the turn-key system that GoodAccountants.com provides accountants nationwide through a highly sophisticated marketing platform that taps directly into all the major search engines.
Starting out with one of the company’s intermediate $5,000 marketing programs Love has recently upgraded his membership to become a Designated Service Provider which required him to invest $25,000 for which he received a $75,000 billings guarantee from GoodAccountants.com. “GoodAccountants is perfect because there is so much Internet use now and the concept of somebody going to Google or Yahoo and typing in ‘I need a good accountant’ and up comes GoodAccountants.com, I think it’s very unique marketing that they’ve come up with and I don’t think there’s anything like it,” says Love.
Although GA only offers a 3 to 1 guaranteed return on investment (ROI) on its Designated Service Provider marketing programs it does however offer a standard guarantee to every accountant who joins their nationwide network which states GA will keep advertising on behalf of the accountant until such time they have recovered their initial investment from billings to companies they retain from GA’s marketing efforts. In effect GoodAccountants.com has eliminated the risk of loss for every accountant who wishes to enter the field of Internet marketing.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Roger Bennett Earns $25,000 in Billings with GoodAccountants.com
Roger Bennett vividly recalls the day he received a phone call about a church that was looking for an accountant to do their accounting work and how puzzled he was by the fact the person contacting him was calling from Lynbrook, New York while the church was located in Old Lyme, Connecticut. “I first came in contact with GoodAccountants.com through a cold call,” says Bennett. “I picked up the phone and there was a GoodAccountants.com person on the other end,” he explains. Although calls like this are routinely screened out by his receptionist there was something about the person on the other end that made Bennett feel comfortable so he continued to listen and in little more than fifteen minutes had committed to spend $5,000 to become a member of GoodAccountants.com, a decision that has proven to be extremely prudent. Bennett has since booked $25,000 in annualized billings from clients, referred to him within months of becoming a member of the nation’s largest accountancy referral service, in exchange for his $5,000 investment.
In hindsight says Bennett it makes sense that a house of worship located in southern Connecticut would contact GoodAccountants.com to find an accountant for them just as much as it makes sense to companies all across the country when they go to any major search engine and type in the phrase; ‘I need a good accountant and the first result that comes up for them is GoodAccountants.com.
The reality is everyone looking for an accountant is ultimately searching for the same thing; a reliable, trusted source that can point them in the right direction in an industry that is highly fragmented. Given the fact that accounting services can vary dramatically from one service provider to another then why not look to a central authority so to speak that can help guide you through the maze of accounting practitioners that are out there to one that can deliver the highest quality of service. This is exactly what GoodAccountants.com does for business owners and individual taxpayers all over the country no matter where they may be located. What’s most compelling about their service is they provide real ‘live’ business consultants that work directly with the business owner throughout the entire process until they have engaged the accountant that is most suited to their business and they do it at absolutely no cost to the client. Although they’re headquartered in New York their services are internet based and can be accessed from anywhere in the world via a cell phone or computer. For business owners and individual taxpayers alike the results are amazingly rewarding; a referral to a local, qualified accounting professional who understands their business and can hit the ground running.
Roger Bennett is definitely a qualified and seasoned accounting professional having started his career with Deloitte & Touche and then operating his own practice for more than 24 years. As a result of his success with GoodAccountants.com, Bennett has upgraded to one of the company’s $25,000 marketing programs which guarantees him a $75,000 return on investment. The fact is Bennett already has a pending $12,000 audit engagement with a franchisor, also referred to him by GoodAccountants.com , which franchises investigative services for insurance companies. The question put to Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com is can her company deliver this level of success to every accountant who joins her organization. Laurent’s reply was the level of success that a particular member accountant will enjoy will vary from one accountant to another depending on a number of variables. “Sometimes we hit a brick wall and no matter how much advertising we do in certain geographical areas we do not achieve the exact same level of success as we do in other parts of the country,” says Laurent. The one thing however accountants can rely upon is the iron clad guarantee that GoodAccountants.com offers its members which is to continue marketing for them until such time they have at least recovered their initial investment.
“What’s most rewarding for me is when we get phone calls from business owners all over the country asking if their accountant is a member of our network,” says Laurent. ”This means they see us as an official clearing house for accountants,” she explains. “As long as this holds true the accountants in our network have little to worry about unlike the ones who aren’t,” adds Laurent.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
My First Client From GoodAccountants.com Is $23,000 Yearly Billing
“They called me out of the blue and asked me to join their network and I did,” says Jim Williams, a certified public accountant based in San Jose, California. Like a growing number of accountants across the country, Williams has decided to try his hand at Internet marketing as a way to attract new clients to his accounting practice by purchasing a membership with GoodAccountants.com. Within days after the phone call from Senior Business Consultant, Kristin Palapoli, Williams engaged the international construction materials company that she arranged for him to meet with, for a total of $23,000 dollars in recurring annual billings. It would become his first referral and very first client as a member of GoodAccountants.com.
“Five or six years ago, a phone call placed to an accountant during the middle of the tax season from someone offering a business client paying $23,000 in billings would have been regarded as a prank call,” says Palapoli. “Today, as a result of the radical changes the accounting industry has undergone, it is more routine for an accountant to receive a phone call from us than from a banker or lawyer that may also be a source of client referrals,” adds Palapoli.
As the nation’s largest accountancy referral service more than 10 million business owners have used GoodAccountants.com as a resource for finding local accountants. The company specializes in Internet marketing that is targeted to business owners and individual taxpayers who require the services of an accounting professional for their business or personal needs. ”The power of social networking as a marketing tool can no longer be ignored in an era where governments are being toppled by the single most important force in our lives today which is the Internet,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. ” Just as Egyptian protesters harnessed the power of Twitter to help bring down Hosni Mubarak, many accountants are using the power of the Internet in a similar way to grow their business,” she adds.
Accounting services like most everything else is something that is now predominantly searched for through the Internet which is why accountants like Jim Williams are increasingly taking advantage of the turn-key Internet platform that is afforded to them by GoodAccountants.com, which can connect them directly to dozens of new clients.
Widespread internet connectivity along with the proliferation of smart phones and computer tablets has not only changed the way in which we obtain everything ranging from books, movies, food and clothing but it has also changed the way in which we seek out professional services. A recent study conducted by BIA Kelsey, a Chantilly, Virginia based consulting firm reports that nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally. Rudder Finn, one of the world’s largest public relations firms, recently announced a new survey that reports Americans are spending an average of 2.7 hours per day on the mobile Internet – connecting socially, managing their personal finances, and even as a means for advocacy. The report goes on to state the following:
“Mobile phones have become the way people organize their lives—managing finances, connecting with friends, purchasing products—and this trend will only accelerate,” said Kathy Bloomgarden, Ruder Finn co-CEO. “The mobile phone is becoming the most powerful online device, and the faster businesses can adapt their services to harness consumer mobile intent, the more rapidly they can capitalize on understanding their customers to drive growth.”
Kristin Palapoli, Senior Business Consultant, GoodAccountants.com
“Our system allows us to directly route clients, who search the Internet daily for accounting services, to thousands of accountants all over the country,” says Palapoli. “It’s an awesome thing to see a company come onto our website and ten minutes later an accountant in our network is submitting feedback to us, through our internal messaging system, informing us they have scheduled an appointment to meet with the company,” explains Palapoli. “Then to see that scheduled appointment turn into a $10,000 or $15,000 engagement kind of blows your mind,” she adds.
As a result of the colossal shift in the way goods and services are now acquired compared to the way they were ten years ago, advertisers today no longer limit their advertising campaigns to print, radio and television but more so are targeting social networking websites as a way to get their message heard by millions of potential new customers. “When you think of the fact that brick and mortar businesses like Block Buster and Borders Book Stores are now in bankruptcy as a result of their Internet based competitors, Netflix and Amazon, it is abundantly clear that consumers have abandoned the old ways of consuming goods and services and are totally preoccupied with the Internet,” says Laurent. ”If you’re an accountant operating in this Internet Age and are relying on ‘word of mouth‘ to sustain your practice while your competition is utilizing highly sophisticated technology to attract new clients the reality is your practice will only shrink,” says Laurent. “In fact they’re probably attracting your clients right now,” she quips.
GoodAccountants.com Helps Company With IPO
Energy Edge Technologies Corporation is an eight year old energy engineering company run by Robert Holdsworth who says he has always envisioned himself one day taking a company public. Having held a series 7 general securities license with the National Association of Security Dealers (NASD) as well as numerous past managerial positions with prominent financial institutions together have provided Holdsworth a clear path to fulfilling his dream. His entrepreneurial spirit combined with a penchant for spotting market trends have provided Holdsworth the impetus to start his own company.
Long before the words ‘green energy’ became a part of popular vernacular Holdsworth realized that unbridled levels of energy consumption by large corporations would one day force them to undergo radical change. Today, Holdsworth shows companies how they can significantly cut their operating costs by reducing energy consumption through the deployment of as many as two dozen different engineering and technology solutions. For example, when the folks at 3M saw how much money they could save through cutting energy consumption by almost 30 percent in just one of their plants they immediately hired Energy Edge as consultants. The company has found its primary customer base among companies that have large energy consumption footprints.
Along with making green energy a valuable revenue stream of ’green dollars’ for some of America’s largest corporations, Robert Holdsworth has also found his greatest ally within the U.S. Government. As federal regulators turn their attention to enforcing clean energy legislation, a focal point of the Obama Administration, Energy Edge has also captured the attention of Wall Street. “By this time next month we’ll have our trading symbol for the NASDAQ,” says Holdsworth. Having already completed a private placement memorandum Energy Edge has taken the steps to join the ranks of our nation’s publicly traded companies. Below is a transcript of an Interview that was recently conducted by GoodAccountants.com with Energy Edge Technologies’ founder and CEO, Robert Holdsworth:
Question: How important is green energy technology to Americans?
Answer: First and foremost it’s critical to the cost of doing business. When we talk about green energy there are really two aspects to it; there is the green of the environment which it’s critically important that we leave the world better for our children than the way we’ve received it and then there is the green of the dollar especially in these hard economic times, anywhere that a company can reduce that bottom line cost they’re increasing their profits by the same amount, which is critical to businesses out there.
Question: When did you first come into contact with GoodAccountants.com?
Answer: As we were taking the company public we realized pretty early on that we really needed a new accounting firm that had the experience working with public companies and we looked online and found GoodAccountants.com.
Question: What role has GoodAccountants.com played with your company?
Answer: I love GoodAccountants.com because they did such a great job for us by first listening very closely to what our needs were. They studied our industry as well as our business model and were able to bring to us the perfect accounting firm that fit our needs perfectly.
Question: What do you think has made Energy Edge Technologies Corporation such a compelling story for Wall Street?
Answer: Energy Edge does whole facility energy projects for our customers where we’re able to bring to bear several different, literally more than two dozen different engineering approaches and technologies to treat the various energy consuming loads across a facility. Whether it be lighting loads, HVAC, refrigeration, production loads, water and gas systems and really the idea is to get moderate saves across those different energy consuming loads but really have the aggregate of savings add up for our customers. Typically we’re going to get anywhere from eight percent to as much as thirty percent or more in reduction of that bottom line utility bill for our customer and even better all those financials of the project; here’s what the customer is spending, here’s what we’re guaranteed to save, the project cost, the payback, the return on investment, the carbon foot print reduction, the financing terms so there’s no out-of-pocket expense for our customer, all those numbers, we guarantee them. We guarantee them in writing but more than that we also back them up with an insurance policy and the insurance policy is underwritten by Lloyd’s of London. Really the whole idea is to take the financial risk out of the buying decision for our customers. We’re very conservative and we’ve never missed our numbers yet but if there were a shortfall, instead of saving let’s say $200,000 dollars for our customer we only saved $190,000 dollars for them, if that were to happen, that $10,000 dollars shortfall, that $10,000 dollars gap is literally made up with a check from the insurance company to our customer to make them whole.
Accountants Submit Feedback About Clients Referred by GoodAccountants.com
Is GoodAccountants.com fundamentally changing the way accountants obtain their clients?
Six years ago on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2005 GoodAccountants.com officially launched its website. The main purpose of the site was to attract record numbers of business owners and individual taxpayers who were seeking to engage the services of an accountant. Fueled by a multi-million dollar television and radio advertising campaign, millions of business owners and individual taxpayers were successfully driven to the GoodAccountants.com website within months after its launch. However, it would not be until the company unveiled its internet advertising prowess, according to Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com, that the accountants in her network would begin converting clients in significant numbers. “It wasn’t easy six years ago trying to convince accountants that our website could attract clients for them,” says Laurent. “‘I get all of my clients by word of mouth,’ is what most of the accountants would say to us in the early days when we first began speaking to them about joining our network,” explains Laurent.
Today, GoodAccountants.com has thousands of accountants in almost every city across America that are members of its network largely because the ‘age of the Internet’ has made the company’s services extremely relevant to millions of business owners, not-for-profit organizations and individual taxpayers, as well as accountants alike. “Finding the right accountant for your business or personal needs is not as easy as it may sound, at least it wasn’t until we came along,” says Laurent. So how are accountants finding and retaining the new breed of clients that are shopping the internet for just about everything including their accountants? Judging from a review of the GoodAccountants.com internal messaging system which connects its customer service reps directly to its network of accountants in the field, it seems that the company may be impacting the accounting industry in a very significant way. When accountants in its network wish to submit feedback about clients that have been referred to them or share their experience about a recent appointment, they simply log into the company’s proprietary messaging system and submit their comments. Below are four such comments recently submitted by four different accountants who are members of GoodAccountants.com.
Screenshot from GoodAccountants.com's feedback panel (click image to enlarge)
Upon examining the comments that have been submitted by these accountants we are able to gain an appreciation for the kind of meaningful referral activity that is ongoing at GoodAccountants.com. One accountant places his potential billings at between $3,000 and $4,000 dollars to a single prospect referred to him by GoodAccountants.com while another places his initial billings to the client referred to him at around $1,400 dollars which he indicates could potentially double. The conclusion of this writer is if four accountants in succession submitted this series of feedback comments within the span of a half-hour then GoodAccountants.com is definitely making a significant impact on the way in which accountants are obtaining their clients and increasingly will continue obtaining their clients given the ongoing proliferation of internet access through smart phones and computer tablets. ”More and more business owners and individual taxpayers are turning to the internet in record numbers to search for and retain accountants who are technologically predisposed to service this burgeoning market share,” says Laurent. “We can within a matter of minutes give an accountant the technological capability to capture new clients from the internet through our turn-key system once they become members of our network,” explains Laurent.
As new technologies such as cloud computing continue to move the industry forward accountants are increasingly turning to the internet to retain clients as well as to deliver their accounting services. Widespread internet connectivity has made it possible for GoodAccountants.com to deliver paying customers to thousand of accountants across the country through a sophisticated, high-tech referral system that provides every type of accounting service imaginable. From tax preparation, investment advisory, IRS representation, compilations, reviews and audits, business owners and individual taxpayers across America are now able to connect within a matter of minutes with competent and friendly accountants in their locale, through GoodAccountants.com.
“Our name, GoodAccountants.com, is a misnomer,” says Laurent. ”People assume that we are an association of accountants looking for business which is not the case at all but on the contrary we are an association of business owners looking for good accountants,” says Laurent. “It is the many thousands of business owners and individual taxpayers that use our website as a resource tool to find accountants that have truly become our most valuable commodity,” explains Laurent.
This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst
Sherri Thurman Says She Will Earn $210,000 From $5,000 Investment In GoodAccountants.com Membership
Sherri Thurman operates a small CPA firm located in Oklahoma City, a part of Middle America where uncharacteristic to the national average the unemployment rate remains a mere single digit at around six-percent. “Although the rest of the country may be experiencing economic difficulty things aren’t too bad here,” says Thurman. Sure some businesses have shut down and the affects of the national economy can still be felt in many ways, overall says Thurman she has a lot to be thankful for. One of the things for which she’s extremely grateful is the telephone call she received one morning from Al Chisolm, a Senior Consultant with GoodAccountants.com. This one phone call she projects will earn her more than $210,000 over the next 10 years, the minimal period she says she will retain the $8 million dollar, oilfield equipment company that she has engaged from GoodAccountants.com. “This client has contracted to pay me between $20,000 and $25,000 dollars per year,” says Thurman. The bottom line says Thurman is she will earn $210,000 dollars from a $5,000 dollar investment in a GoodAccountants.com membership. “I don’t know how Al got my name but I’m sure glad he called me,” she chuckles.
“If you think about it I’ll keep this company for ten years which is $210,000 worth of billing all for my $5,000 initial investment to GoodAccountants.com which is a pretty good return on investment,” says Thurman as she reflects on her new client. Looking to grow her accounting practice by $200,000 in new annualized billings in just the next few years Thurman says she feels fortunate that she was contacted by GoodAccountants.com. ”I received a phone call one morning out of the blue from GoodAccountants and they told me they had a client that was about an hour from Oklahoma City for whom they were searching for an accountant and wanted to know if I would be interested in joining their national network,” explains Thurman. After hanging up her telephone Thurman says she immediately went to her computer and conducted a Google search using the words “find an accountant” and was surprised when GoodAccountants.com’s website came up at the very top of the list. A half hour later Thurman says she was back on the telephone signing up for a six-month membership with GoodAccountants, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service. The following week Thurman met with the owners of the $8 million dollar oilfield services company with 65 employees and immediately engaged them. “I walked out of the meeting with their previous year’s tax return which needed to be corrected along with some other work I bought back from my very first meeting with them,” says Thurman.
“The difference with meeting a client referred by GoodAccountants.com is they are highly motivated to retain someone right away because they are actively looking and they’re unhappy with their current situation which is why they’ve contacted GoodAccountants in the first place,” explains Thurman. “A few years back we decided we were going to try to increase our business and we hired a telemarketer and we hired a salesman and we bought some lists and we spent a lot of money over a year paying them and today we have nothing to show for it.” says Thurman. ”We didn’t get any good clients from it and basically we just spent a lot of money,” she adds. “With GoodAccountants.com you already have a pretty captive market because it’s people that are already looking for an accountant and you’re not calling people up trying to convince them to change from somebody they like or from somebody their currently using but instead these are people that are actively looking for an accountant,” says Thurman.
According to Thurman the accounting profession has undergone significant changes over the last several years which have made marketing an absolute necessity for accountants all across the country. An industry that once relied on word-of-mouth almost exclusively as a source for new clients has now become one that is significantly dependent upon the Internet and GoodAccountants.com.
Why Five Thousand Dollars For GoodAccountants.com Membership? Here’s Why.
Matt Brady is a certified public accountant based in Bowie, Maryland who says his $5,000 dollar investment in a GoodAccountants.com membership has returned him $15,000 dollars in annual billings from clients that have been referred to him over a three month period. When asked how he now feels about becoming a member of the nation’s largest accountancy referral network he replied that had he known a year ago a $5,000 dollar investment would bring him a return of $15,000 to $20,000 dollars in annualized billings he would have done it every day of the week and twice on Sunday. “You’ve got to realize that year after year these clients are going to stay with you which generates a new round of billings each year,” says Brady which means his initial $5,000 dollar investment could ultimately mushroom into hundreds of thousands of dollars over time.
It’s not just the fantastic return that Brady has received on his initial investment that has caused him to fall in love with GoodAccountants.com and has him truly excited about the future but it’s all of the marketing tools and support the company now provides the accountants who are members of its nationwide network. “Where can you get a website as effective as theirs handed to you on a silver platter along with six months of SEO services for only $5,000 dollars and with a guarantee that you’ll get back annualized billings from the clients they find for you that at a minimum will be equal to your investment,” quips Brady. Can any of us do all of what they do working with only $500 dollars or some nominal amount spread out over a six-month period? The answer is no. Given the cost of advertising on the Internet today along with the expertise that is required to make the advertising work in delivering the kind of clients they’re delivering would undoubtedly cost the average accountant far more than $5,000 dollars,” adds Brady.
“I’ve heard from people that they think $5,000 dollars is too significant an investment to make for a lead generation type marketing campaign and that for just a few hundred dollars they can get the same results, and when they say that, maybe that’s possible however I find it very unlikely,” says Brady. “By the quality of the GoodAccountants.com website, their practitioner tools that we can access and the various websites that they advertise on it seems to me that a good amount of my investment is being returned right back into their efforts on my behalf,” says Brady. The message that Matt Brady is trying to get across to other accountants who have yet to discover GoodAccountants.com is you cannot pinch pennies when it comes to growing your accounting practice and expect to land great clients paying large fees. “You only get back what you put in,” says Brady.
GoodAccountants.com now provides its member accountants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week access to prospective clients that are generated directly from the GoodAccountants.com website. The company has developed a free add-on to its marketing program that offers member accountants direct, round-the-clock access to leads that are being generated in ‘real-time’ from the GoodAccountants.com website itself. “We have somewhat automated our referral process so that when a website user submits a request to us for a referral to an accountant in their local area their request is sent by our website directly to one of our member accountants within 15 seconds,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. The new feature described by Laurent dubbed ‘GA Access’ essentially generates automated phone calls to member accountants alerting them that a new lead has just been routed to their GA Access In-Box which is accessible to the accountant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The entire process virtually requires no human intervention from GA’s customer service department and quickly puts the accountant together with the prospective client within seconds even before the client or website user has logged off their computer. The automated phone call is then followed by a text message that is sent to the accountant’s mobile device along with an accompanying email which prompts the accountant to immediately call the prospective client. “This new feature facilitates a fast and direct response from an accountant within minutes of a website user submitting their request for assistance to us and this has resulted in a spike in the conversion rate for the accountants participating in our national network,” says Laurent.
“In addition, the website user is provided a profile page by email, that is sent to them within seconds after their request for assistance is submitted to our website, which highlights the accountant’s services, street address and travel directions along with a YouTube video that features the accountant,” explains Laurent. “All of this is provided free of charge to every accountant across the country that is a member of the GoodAccountants.com network,” she adds.
Who could have imagined 10 years ago that when someone would need to find a dentist, a lawyer or an accountant they would boot up their computer instead of reach for a telephone book? The fact is people no longer use telephone books to find what they’re looking for but instead turn to the Internet where they can actually get to see and hear from that accountant in a video on YouTube. How awesome is that? It certainly beats having to plow through lists of non-descript names and telephone numbers in a phone book which in today’s lightning fast, internet-age is far too much work. Instead, companies and individuals alike are turning to GoodAccountants.com to research and find their accountant and even schedule the initial meet and greet for them.
“In the last couple of months I’ve retained three what I would consider to be large clients from GoodAccountants.com. I’ve retained a title and tag service company that does annual revenues close to $3 million dollars a year and I’ve retained a daycare and elementary private school that also does revenues between $2 and $3 million dollars and I’ve retained a private clinical evaluator that has some personal and corporate tax needs,” says Matt Brady. “I believe an accounting firm is no different than any other business out there and needs to make a commitment financially to a marketing campaign to help further their business. I think GoodAccountants.com does a really good job of making a serious effort to market on my behalf and to bring me as many qualified leads as possible and anyone who says otherwise is obviously misinformed,” says Brady.
To see Matt Brady’s YouTube video please click here. To learn more about the companies that were retained by Matt Brady from GoodAccoutants.com please click here. To subscribe to this publication please click here.
Why $7 Million Medical Products Company Turns To GoodAccountants.com To Find Their Accountants
Beth Landrum is the Senior Accounting Manager at Homestead Independence Inc., a $7 million dollar durable medical products company based in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Beth is no stranger to the challenges that face most internal accounting departments that must navigate the wild and wooly world of small business accounting. Joining Homestead Independence after years of working for various accounting firms, Landrum had become deeply frustrated with the lack of QuickBooks competency of the accounting firm her employer had been using. After looking at several local accounting firms Beth decided to turn to the Internet where she would quickly become aware of GoodAccountants.com, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service. Quickly filling out a short online form through which she submitted information about her company Landrum then received a phone call that would completely change the direction of her search.
For many small to midsize companies the path to finding the right accounting relationship is one fraught with twists and turns which can often require the assistance of a professional research consultant. The end results of engaging the wrong accounting firm can become years spent having to undo the damage done to a company’s internal accounting process; the reason many accounting managers and chief financial officers are no longer willing to go the process alone. “We wanted a proactive CPA, a QuickBooks professional that knew more about QuickBooks than we did,” says Landrum. “When we talked with Patty Schoenfeld at GoodAccountants.com she asked me what we were looking for in a new CPA firm which was very different from what we had,” adds Landrum. “Patty listened and was able to hear what our needs were and that was perhaps the best thing about GoodAccountants.com,” explains Landrum. “Patty heard me when I said I needed someone that was going to be proactive and she understood what that meant in the context of our industry and she successfully conveyed that to the CPA firms that we were talking to,” says Landrum. “Patty heard me and that was extremely beneficial to us,” she adds.
In the past when companies decided to change accounting firms they would consult their banker or attorney however today they turn to the Internet and to professional consulting firms with whom they feel more comfortable discussing the pros and cons of firms that may become possible candidates. “Years ago when we would call up an accountant on the telephone and attempt to explain that we had been retained by a local company to find an accounting firm for them the very first thing the accountant would ask us was ‘who are you and why do they need you’ to find an accountant for them,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “We don’t get those kinds of questions from accountants anymore,” says Laurent. Although GoodAccountants.com is a recognizable brand throughout the accounting industry the fact is accountants are beginning to understand that many companies prefer having a consultant that can do the preliminary research and then connect them with only qualified candidates that can fulfill their accounting needs. For the company the process becomes one that is less time consuming and more productive. For the accountants it becomes one that affords them better preparation before meeting the prospective client. “Our clients often share their inner most thoughts about what it is they are truly looking for in their accountant which is something they would never share directly with the accountant or the accounting firm,” says senior GoodAccountants.com consultant Patty Schoenfeld. “We function very much like a dating service in that we look at more than just accounting needs when we put a client together with one of our accountants; we also look at compatibility among other things,” adds Schoenfeld.
To see the full reality television episode filmed on location in Cudahy, Wisconsin featuring this company and the accounting firm referred to them by GoodAccountants.com please click here. To learn more about Goldberg Mechales Charneske & Schiffman, Ltd, Certified Public Accountants please click here.