You build your team to be your ultimate resource for leveraging your time, your money and your expertise.  It’s your job as the freelance bookkeeping business owner to know what they should be doing. And your role is to keep them motivated.  Communication is the key for all of this to work.

One of the ways to grow and manage your freelance bookkeeping team is to have weekly meetings. And this applies to meeting together in the same location or as virtual teams.  There is something very magical that happens when you get on that meeting and you have all of these people that work with you but perhaps don’t have the opportunity to work with each other. Get them together and they start solving problems together.

The team meetings will also work out any problems and you will get really clear where a system may need to be improved or when someone needs additional training.  These meetings will also help you to determine if you need to handle a situation or if someone else can take care of it.

The main ingredient of a successful bookkeeping team is communication. Here are some things you might talk about:

• Communicate to the staff that you have high standards for client work and expect them to meet those standards all of the time.  Sloppiness and spelling errors are not acceptable.  Presenting a clean, linear appearance in your profession goes a long way in creating trust in the eyes of the client.

• Commend them when there haven’t been any complaints from the clients on a regular basis. This means everyone has been doing their job in meeting the quality standards you have set-up for the company.

• Let them know that you can tell when they’re rushing through their work to get things done. If they’re freelancers you want to make sure that your work is a priority to them.  

• Welcome their suggestions on how you can improve systems and processes to make them simpler and more efficient.

These meetings allow you to grow as a leader so you need to have them even if your team consists of only one person.  During the team meeting you want the focus to be on what is important for the week, that month and that quarter.

Better systems mean better services from your freelance bookkeeping business. Do you want to learn about essential systems every bookkeeping business should have? Click here to check out The Bookkeeper’s Club – each and every month I’ll share with you a system, including all the steps, so you can easily and quickly integrate it into your own business.

When the economy became the subject on everyone’s lips, a client of mine was going through some major downsizing.  Over the coming months they would be laying off more than half of their employees and their statement to us was, “Since our payroll will be half the original number, we expect your fee to be cut in half to correlate.” 

I have finally learned to chuckle inwardly at remarks like that, take a breath and pause before responding because fees have nothing to do with the volume of transactions being completed and everything to do with value!

The service my firm was providing to this client was payroll.  We process their payroll through a third party and then prepare a laundry list of compliance reports needed by their industry and corporate headquarters.

My first response was to express understanding.  To let them know that I understood that these times were difficult and that we would be happy to explore all avenues to determine what fee adjustments, if any could be made. 

Here is how I approached it jointly with my client.  My objective was to include the client in the process to:

• Demonstrate a collaborative spirit that is an important part of how my firm services our clients, and;

• Re-educate them on the results that were being provided.

Remember you client is feeling the crunch and is focusing on trying to get your fee lower.  It is your responsibility to remain calm and not let their emotions drive you through this discussion.  For example, if your client decides that they don’t need a compliance report to be prepared by you, it is up to you to specifically demonstrate the implications of the time needed to prepare the report, ensure accuracy and file in ample time.  Give your client all of the information that they will need to make a proper decision.

I have a proven process that I took my client through, and even though they reduced the number of employees by half, the end result was that none of the services we provided changed, leaving our fee the same.  Taking our client through this process not only reaffirmed the value of our services it also strengthened our working relationship.

Clearly having in mind the value of your services and being able to communicate well with your clients will help you to handle emotionally charged situations like this.  In an upcoming blog, I’ll outline the steps to the process that you can use to help your clients see the value of your service to them.

Click here for my 8-step easy-to-use and easy-to-implement process on How to Qualify a Prospect & Work With Clients You Love!  That way you’ll start each new working relationship on a foundation of clear communication, with the assurance that you and the client can really work together. And it can also help you to improve the working relationships you already have!

As freelance accountants and bookkeepers we work in a profession that deals with one of the most controversial and emotionally charged subjects – money! There is no getting away from it.  We deal with numbers and are usually the messengers that tell a business owner how well (or not well) their business is doing. Not only are we privy to the private information of their business, we are also experiencing their emotions around money as well as our own.  When you put that all together, it can be pretty rough waters to navigate!

That is why two of the most important skills you can adopt are…

• Deep listening  by really hearing and understanding what your prospective and current clients are saying.
• Remaining neutral or non-judgmental to what you are hearing.

So let’s start to dispel some of the emotion around money.  Money is a transaction tool that is given in exchange for a service or product. It is neither good nor bad.  It something given for something received – a balanced relationship.  When this relationship is out of balance, emotions are then attached and money becomes a highly charged subject!

Our relationship with money is a fragile one and there are innumerous ways in which it can become out of balance with difficult emotions attached.  Some of the more common emotions around money that we experience are guilt, shame and anger.  That is why, when speaking with a prospective client it is important to really listen to what is being said and peel back the layers.

 When you are qualifying a prospective client one of the most important tools you can utilize is deep listening – understanding what that person is really saying and then determining if you are the right person to help them solve their problem.  In my next blog I’ll give you some tips on how to practice the art of deep listening.

There are many business owners who like to delegate their bookkeeping by abdication.  They think that as long as there is someone else handling the books, they don’t have to think or do anything to assist in the process.  If not corrected, this attitude will result in major frustration for you which is definitely something we want to avoid!

As you begin working with new clients, it is very important to let those clients know what their role and responsibilities are in your working relationship.  Again, I will refer back to the payroll processing companies.  When you sign up with them, the sales rep tells you:

□ what information is needed to get you started on their system;
□ what information you will need to supply for each payroll, and;
□ how to supply that information.

If the client doesn’t comply with any of these steps, the service cannot and is not provided!

Create a standard “Getting Started Guide” where you begin to communicate your process to the client and what happens if they do not provide you with the information that is needed.  Bookkeeping is a little more complex than payroll processing because we work with the uniqueness of each business.  So while the debits and credits are the same from client to client, the execution (frequency, who prints the checks, etc.) will vary.

Stating it boldly lets the client know you are serious and gives them the opportunity to decide if working with you and your firm is a fit for them or not. (Remember, you only want to work with businesses who take bookkeeping seriously.)  Here is a sample of the language I use:

Your Role and Responsibilities in Our Working Relationship
The success of our working relationship lies in both my team and your team knowing what is expected and when.  It is our highest priority to provide you and your business with the best financial expertise and information that we can, which is why we need your assistance in:

□ Providing us with the requested information when due.
□ Being available for questions and occasional meetings.
□ Understanding that we work with other clients in addition to working with you.

You, doing your part, is crucial to the success of our working relationship and if you or someone on your staff cannot:

□ Routinely set aside time in your schedule to gather and submit to us the information that we need when due;
□ Be available to answer questions and occasionally meet, and;
□ Have emergency requests be the exception and not the rule,

I regret to inform you, we are not the bookkeeping service for you. 

We routinely set aside time in our schedule to specifically work on your account and give you our undivided attention.  When your information is expected and not received, or we cannot obtain answers to our questions it affects the quality of the work we are providing and creates a lot of frustration for both you and us.

We keep our requests simple and are very respectful of your time and expect the same treatment back.

The language I use clearly tells the client our expectations of them in our working relationship.  I am teaching the client how we like to be treated.  As they read this paragraph they know whether or not they can comply with the requests.  The really nice thing is that once people know what is expected of them, they will rise to meet and exceed that expectation.

Want to know more?  Click here to see all of the resources for freelance bookkeepers.  Don’t forget to sign-up for my f^ree webinar “Lead Generating Strategies That Keep Your Pipeline Full”