[mwb]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. I'm a new entrepreneur as well. I was laid off from my job last year & in the past few months have taken the plunge.

I am attempting to start an accounting business. I'm a CPA so I have lots of experience.

Currently, I have sent out 30 letters looking for business. I'm hoping to call at least half of those people to follow up. My goal is to work closely with my clients & limiting my client list. Most how-to books suggest sending out hundreds of letters per week & don't mention following up with a phone call. I'm hoping to be a little more personal in my approach. I'm hoping to work on my "script" to handle all the possible scenerios when making a sales call. Then I can start making follow up calls for my letters.

I hope to spend many hours here so I look forward to lots of good advice. I will be glad to help anyone I can with advice from my experiences.

[bbalfour]

Welcome to the forum.

I would reccommend sending out way more then 30 letters. Make a list of every friend and family member and send a letter to them announcing your new accounting business and what its all about. Just end it with something like "If you or anyone else you know is in need of quality accounting services, please feel free to contact me at anytime." It's casual, but yet gets the point across.

[mwb]

That's good advice. I worry about keeping up if I were to send out 100 letters per week. If my goal is to follow up with a phone call to half of the prospects who received letters, I'd be making 50 calls per week which is tough to keep up with if I start playing phone tag.

I'm hoping my diligence will yield more than the usual 1%-3% response rate. But I do realize that at the pace I'm working, it will take 10 weeks to send out 100 letters. So if I'm successful 1%-3% of the time, I will only get 1-3 "interviews". It's a work in progress so I'll have to see how it works out.

[Kenix]

Hi mwb,

Welcome to YE!

Have you thought of setting up a website to promote your service?

[NeeJam]

welcome to ye!

[youngmoneyblog]

welcome to YE and good luck!

Welcome