Facing competition

The challenge:

A bookkeeping service was meeting resistance from prospects who were worried about angering their accountants. The bookkeeper's list of services so closely mirrored those of a CPA that a prospect couldn't help but believe that he was being courted by the competition. Because they needed accountants for tax filing, prospects seemed more concerned about their relationship with their accountants than with the money and time they could save by working with a bookkeeper.

Insights:

The work that bookkeepers do is not necessarily the work that accountants like to do. We talked to some CPAs and learned that accountants would just as soon not have their clients deliver information to them in shoeboxes. A bookkeeping service that can teach clients how to use QuickBooks® and get them organized prior to their meeting with their accountant was seen as a real blessing.

Remedies:

We positioned the bookkeeping service as friend to the CPA, rather than competition. The firm was already consistent in communicating the benefits it provided -- that it can save its clients time, and therefore money. We added an additional benefit -- that it can save its clients' accountants time, and, therefore, the clients money. We used lots of testimonials from happy clients -- and happy accountants -- to support these claims in marketing materials we developed with the help of graphic designer Jennifer Walker. The bookkeeping service has recently expanded its operations to New Zealand.

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Copyright 2001, Victoria Lynn Jones