U.S. Marshals Seize GoodAccountants.com Opportunity

For the second time in four months, GA Insider has returned to the Bloomfield, Connecticut offices of Roger Bennett, a certified public accountant who has become a Designated Service Provider (DSP) with GoodAccountants.com, the nation’s largest accountancy referral service. Bennett, who was first contacted by Senior Business Consultant, Al Chisolm back on October 21, 2010 has booked $105,000 in recurring, annualized billings from clients referred to him over an eight month period by GoodAccountants.com.

One of the clients that Bennett has landed through GoodAcccountants.com is an $85,000 yearly billing with the United States Marshal’s Office in Washington, D.C. “I got a call from Washington, D.C. from someone from the U.S. Marshal’s office and he wanted to know if GoodAccountants.com could help find an accountant whom they could work with in managing several federally seized businesses,” says Al Chisolm. “After a battery of phone calls with various officials within the U.S. Marshal’s office they were convinced that we had some of the best accountants in the country in our nationwide network and asked us to arrange contact with several of our member firms which they could interview,” adds Chisolm. “I’m happy for Roger because he’s a great guy to work with and he completely understands the marketing process as well as how to close the business owners I’ve put him in front of,” explains Chisolm.

Now with a pending outsourced comptrollership engagement with billings of $45,000 from another company recently referred to him by GoodAccountants, Bennett is closing in on his first $150,000 in guaranteed billing from his DSP membership. “I’m starting to feel like a movie star instead of a boring, old accountant,” says Bennett referring to the notoriety he’s received from the coverage that is all over the Internet about the clients he’s landed from GoodAccountants.com. “The first two marketing programs I signed up for with GoodAccountants, they filled the bucket rather quickly so I decided to go for their $50,000 DSP program which guarantees $150,000 in billing,” says Bennett.

With a growing number of its members now upgrading to its Designated Service Provider marketing programs, GoodAccountants.com has set its sight toward tapping other governmental agencies that require the services of outsourced accounting professionals. “We are in talks with several agencies regarding the outsourcing of certain aspects of their accounting operations to accounting firms that are in our network,” says Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “What many large and small companies are discovering is they can outsource their internal accounting to independent accounting firms that can do the work faster and less expensively than doing it themselves,” explains Laurent. “With the advent of cloud accounting and online bookkeeping, distance is no longer a factor for accountants who have embraced the internet,” adds Laurent.

For more information about Designated Service Provider memberships with GoodAccountants.com please contact Al Chisolm at 1 (800) 505-7861.

This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst

Here’s How To Get Six Months Of Free Business Referrals For Your Accounting Practice From GoodAccountants.com

For any accountant who joins its nationwide network between now and the end of the year GoodAccountants.com is offering six free months of business referrals.   The offer expires on December 31, 2010.

For someone like Richard Hayes, a certified public accountant who joined GoodAccountants.com earlier this year, six free months of business referrals could mean as much as an additional $80,000 dollars in new billing which is the exact amount he landed from two clients that were referred to him by the nation’s largest accountancy referral service during his first month as a member.

Hayes, like scores of other accountants across the country, swears his experience with GoodAccountants.com is unprecedented in his more than 22 years as an accountant despite the fact that he has tried many different ways to expand his client base.  Yet Hayes’ experience is not an isolated one and the phenomenal return on investment he says he’s realized is being echoed by countless other accountants across the country that are members of GoodAccountants.com’s nationwide network.  Robert Berney, a certified public accountant and MBA who is based in Miami, Florida says the particular high-tech style of marketing that is utilized by GoodAccountants.com has worked very effectively for him.  Sherri Thurman, a CPA who practices in Oklahoma City says she expects to earn more than $200,000 dollars over the next ten years from just one client she received from GoodAccountants.com within a week after purchasing her membership for only $5,000 dollars.

“Has every single accountant who has joined our network landed $80,000 dollars in new billing engagements from their $5,000 dollars investment in a GoodAccountants.com membership,” quips Johanna Laurent, President of GoodAccountants.com. “Of course not,” she proclaims as she answers her own question.  “However, we’re working on it,” she adds.  “I want every accountant in our network to make back three to four times their investment at a minimum and we’re working feverishly day and night to make that a reality,” says Laurent.

The key to Laurent’s strategy is to utilize every facet of internet marketing that is available including tapping into social networking websites such as YouTube and Facebook.  According to Laurent her company has recently undertaken a massive effort to develop a profile page for every single accountant in their network which includes a photograph of the accountant along with a videotaped message describing the list of services the accountant performs.  These profile pages are not only served up to the business owners and high-net-worth individuals that frequent the GoodAccountants.com website but are also disseminated across social networking websites so that her accountants get more exposure across the Internet.  “Today when someone is looking for an accountant they don’t just want a phone book listing with a name and phone number on it they want to see and hear from the accountant in his or her own words as to what they can do to help cut their tax bill or expand their business,” says Laurent.  “When our customer service reps are on the phone talking with prospective clients that call in on our toll free number, we often email the accountant’s profile page so that our website user can become familiar with the accountant we’re referring to them even before they meet with them,” explains Laurent.

Although the question remains unanswered as to whether or not the Internet can consistently produce enough business to satisfy tens of thousands of accountants across the country, it does appear that the folks at GoodAccountants.com are burning the midnight oil in their quest to change how accounting firms obtain their clients.  “We give every accountant in our network the ability to receive a business lead from us in real-time and to actually speak with the business owner over the telephone within minutes, sometimes even while they’re still on our website submitting their information,” says Laurent.  “Our objective is to turn every serious internet surfer that is looking for a good local accountant into a paying customer for one of our members within a matter of minutes,” she adds.

Laurent’s strategy appears to be working based on feedback from scores of accountants in her network.   With the advent of cloud computing along with widespread internet connectivity it appears that accountants across the country that are members of the GoodAccountants.com network are experiencing something that has never been experienced in the history of the accounting industry: widespread conversions of web surfers into clients.  Upon closer examination of her company’s GA Access platform, which can within minutes deliver to the accountant such information as the business owner’s website address, number of employees and current accounting budget, it becomes evident why so many GoodAccountants.com member accountant’s are landing clients.  “We now track how quickly the accountant contacts the business owner after we transfer the business owner’s information to them” says Laurent.  “Speed is everything in this digital age in which we live and particularly when it comes to web surfers who we want to stop in their tracks before they can move on to another referral source other than GoodAccountants.com,” explains Laurent.  “If a business owner receives a phone call directly from an accountant within minutes after leaving our website there is a pretty good chance that accountant will get their business,” says Laurent. “But not all of our members appreciate our technology and still want to be contacted only after someone in our customer service department has talked with the business owner and prescreened the lead before it is presented to them and that’s okay too,” says Laurent.  “They want us to prescreen each client for them although this approach may not provide the fastest delivery time in terms of getting the accountant together with the business owner,” explains Laurent.

Upon examining the company’s website tracking information it is evident that thousands of accountants across the country are spending considerable time logged onto GoodAccountants.com’s website retrieving information about prospective clients that have been assigned to them.  “Advertisers who want to reach our network of accountants are taking notice of how much time our members spend logged onto our website where they retrieve and manage their leads,” says Laurent.  “This alone tells me what we are doing is something that is very unique to the accounting industry,” she adds.  “With GA Access we have the capability of converting a web surfer into a paying customer for an accountant in our network in less than 15 minutes,” says Laurent.  “For an advertiser we have the ability to put their message in front of an accountant who spends as much as an hour or two each day on our website,” she adds.

This article was written by Omar Reed, a freelance business writer and financial analyst

GoodAccountants.com Now Provides Accountants Direct Online Access To Its Clients

On October 1, 2009 GoodAccountants.com will officially launch “GA Access” a designated area within its website designed to give accountants direct access to thousands of companies and individuals that use GoodAccountants.com in their pursuit to find an accountant to service their business or personal needs. Through the use of a unique username and password, accountants will be able to plug directly into the company’s database and review the profiles of local companies and individuals that are requesting a referral to an accountant. Not only are participating accountants able to view profiles of prospective clients before meeting with them they get to see the prospective client’s profile in “real time” just as the request for an accountant is being generated online.

Accountants can respond to a particular business owner’s request for assistance within minutes of the request being made at GoodAccountants.com’s website. After logging into the GoodAccountants.com Admin Panel to review a referral sent to their mobile device or computer the accountant then directly contacts the business owner or individual by phone, sets up an appointment and subsequently meets and greets the client, but only after making the decision to do so. Participating accountants are notified by telephone, email or text message each time a new referral is downloaded to their computer or mobile device from GoodAccountants.com’s website. The new system will also allow accountants to decline a meeting with a prospective client in those cases where a particular company’s profile may not be suitable for the accountant.

The cost of the program is a semi-annual fee of $5,000 for unlimited access (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) to prospective clients who use search engines to find their accountant. As the nation’s leading accountancy referral service 3 out of 4 internet queries for an accountant that are generated by search engines such as Google or Yahoo are resulting with GoodAccountants.com which subsequently needs to push the referral “out the door” as quickly as possible to a local accountant or accounting firm that can deliver the services.

“This new program allows us to get referrals out the door within minutes of a business owner logging onto our website and requesting a referral to an accountant,” says Johanna Laurent, GoodAccountants.com’s Chief Executive Officer. “The integrity of our screening process will not be compromised by this new system because the accountant can decline a referral for any reason or request a phone call from a live business consultant to obtain more information before making a final decision about a particular lead,” Laurent adds. We love it because we can now make referrals in ‘real time’ before the lead gets cold,” says Laurent.

The GA Access login panel is constantly accessible to accountants directly from the GoodAccountants.com Home Page through a link entitled “Accountants Click Here” which has also become a portal for viewing the company’s newly launched ‘reality television show’ which features stories about both the accountants and business owners who come together at GoodAccountants.com. The first episode which began airing on September 17th highlights Ray Nowicki a Certified Public Accountant based in Buffalo, New York whose first referral from GoodAccountants.com resulted in a $26,000 monthly client along with second referral to a company whose annualized billings exceeded $100,000. To watch this episode now click here.

This article was written by David Samuels a freelance business columnist and financial planner

Here’s How To Recession Proof Your Accounting Practice

“Acres of Diamonds” is a story that was purportedly recited more than 5,000 times by Russell Conwell, a Baptist Preacher.  The story is about a Turkish farmer, Ali Hafed, who sells his farm to pursue his fortune after becoming enthralled with a Buddhist priest who convinces him that diamonds hold the ultimate key to great power and wealth.   After many unsuccessful and exhaustive years searching the world for his “Acres of Diamonds” in frustration Ali Hafed throws himself into a river and is never to be seen or heard from again. While at the very same moment the man to whom he had sold his farm stumbles upon a huge diamond just beneath his feet as he walks in a garden planted years earlier by Hafed.

Had Hafed remained at home and in his own garden instead of trekking across strange lands only to endure hunger, pain and suffering he would have found his “acres of diamonds” which had been right under his feet all the time.

Most of us at one time or another have become Ali Hafed and have looked everywhere for success instead of looking for it right underneath our feet.   Today for many accountants across the country like Russell Nay, a sole practitioner based in North Las Vegas, Nevada, the Internet has become a personal ‘acres of diamonds’.   Nay says he has found success so close to home that he rarely ever has to leave the house except to meet new clients that are delivered directly to him by GoodAccountants.com through his laptop computer.   “I became a member of GoodAccountants.com on February 17th of this year and here it is March 20th and I’ve already received about $10,000 in potential billing and it has more than doubled the amount I paid in and things have been going very well,” says Nay

For accountants operating accounting practices that have fallen on hard times as a result of the current economic recession which has robbed them of as much as 30% to 40% of their client base the Internet may be the answer they’re looking for.   Increasingly plagued by slow payment from cash strapped clients along with the stress of long grueling hours that must be endured each tax season many accountants are looking for alternative ways to sustain their income year round.   Accountants who wish to attract new clients can do so by tapping into the ground swell of tens of thousands of key word searches that are conducted each month by business owners who search for local accountants throughout the year using the Internet.

GoodAccountants.com offers a cost-effective, high-tech solution for accountants who wish to expand, maintain or rebuild their client base and generate income year round through its new GA Access portal;  a new platform designed for accountants that delivers website users to them minutes after they request a referral from GoodAccountants.com.

To obtain more information on how your accounting practice can take advantage of this new technology to increase your billings call 1 (800) 505-7861.

To watch the full reality television episode you must become a free subscriber to GA Access.