Add new revenue streams to your firm or practice! How many time shave you had that headline dumped into your email inbox? It’s the current mantra of vendors, trainers, consultants and, yes, even membership sites and professional associations. For sure there are a cornucopia of apps from an ever-expanding universe of accounting software and applications vendors that make such vague promises. But where are the revenue streams?
Consider the pain point for a majority of SMBs: cash. It’s the key to a successful business and a happy life. Keeping track of cash flow is an art and a science. And there are now apps for that. Indeed, it’s a lay-down misere for a bookkeeping firm to add this into their service packaging as an ‘extra’ (read revenue stream). After all, it’s a service that is dedicated to helping the SMB owner master their cash flow and eliminate one of the most common causes of SMB failure.
Building your capability
Whether you are a sole accounting or bookkeeping practitioner or an owner of a firm, there are significant hurdles to surmount before the nirvana of new revenue streams arise. First, is the need for a mindset shift: “Am I technician or business owner?” Once there is an acceptance of being in business there is the hurdle of building resources to discover and implement new business.
It takes business development skills and an investment in marketing to build new revenue streams. It also requires a serious commitment to building systems with processes detailed and put into a workflow that lists and sorts all your procedures.
Become the expert
Doing a bunch of clicking around and manual data entry to bring a client’s books up to date every month is resolving the pain of the business owner but it is perceived as having no added value. Reporting when done as a custom service not only offers the potential for additional revenue but also has the potential to position you as an expert in that industry sector.
Consider for example how this could look for a restaurant owner who might be struggling with cash flow and only have visibility of top line revenue and the wages and rent bill. A report that highlights trends and benchmarks for the cost of goods might well transform the business into a cash flow generator by better understanding of the business’s strengths and weaknesses, backed by some industry best practice benchmarking.