Today's accountants and bookkeepers have no shortage of competition. So, it's crucial to be able to differentiate yourself. Why should clients choose you and not the firm across town? Differentiating yourself can be especially difficult to do as a small firm, but it's not impossible. Here are 7 top tips to get prospective clients to remember your name.

What specific services do you offer? What is your speciality? How can prospective clients benefit from what you offer? To refine answers to these questions, you need to determine:

Be truthful about what sets you apart. You need to be able to follow through on any promises you make in how you market your firm. And more than that, your differentiating factor must be relevant to your target client. There's no point offering something unique if there's no demand for it.

A sure way to stand out as a small firm is to narrow your scope. By narrowing the radius of your target circle, you can specialize in helping certain clients who face a particular kind of problem. Focusing on a specific market, industry, or profession means that you can build up knowledge within this field and grow your reputation as a result. This also means that you can have more targeted marketing and clients from the niche market will be able to find you more easily.

When building your brand, you need to keep both your unique value and your ideal target market in mind so that you send out the right message to prospective clients. Good marketing is crucial to making your firm stand out.

Do your research about what prospects need from you before working on your marketing, and then build this into a story. A website is a good place to start with the promotion of your firm's narrative. However, you may also want to expand this into monthly or weekly newsletters, thought leadership articles, webinars, speaking engagements, and eBooks.

Make the most of the different technological arenas in your marketing strategy.

According to a recent article by Accounting Today:

Success will require leveraging digital tools to bring highly differentiated new services to different markets and establish creative thought leadership around them, resulting in a differentiated experience for the buyer, and ensuring that buyers can find you.

Try out different options to see what works. Once you start promoting your firm, monitor the results and then rework your approach to make the most of your unique story. Most importantly, make your expertise visible.

Having a unique culture is a sure way to stand out from the crowd, and if your culture is similar to the culture of other businesses, this may attract these businesses to you. Having a strong company culture will allow your firm to rise above the crowd and attract likeminded clients who will appreciate the authenticity of your culture.

Part of this authentic culture comes from a personal level. Having a personal story of why you became an accountant or bookkeeper, or why you chose to specialize as you did, will help you connect better with clients.

Building rapport with clients will promote client loyalty and lead to more clients seeking you out thanks to word of mouth. It's therefore very important to keep your clients happy and leave them with good things to say about your service. Over and above this, fostering personal relationships shows the human side of accounting and bookkeeping, the fact that your work isn't just about the numbers.

Having a friendly demeanor and showing an interest in your clients' lives shows that you care. As one of Syft's clients, Judah Kosky, Managing Senior Partner at Fireside Bookkeeping, LLC says about his clients:

"A lot of times, their life feeds into their business as well. They’re related, whether you like to think of it that way or not."

Work and personal life inevitably feed into each other. And by showing that your firm understands and appreciates this, you will garner respect and inspire loyalty from clients.

Technology has revolutionized the way we do business and accounting. Cloud accounting software has opened the doors to new opportunities for a paper-free future in which accountants and bookkeepers can work entirely remotely. All you need is an internet connection. And Syft's reporting software integrates with your accounting software, saving you time on client reporting, and helping you increase sales with its various reporting and analytic tools.

According to research conducted by Sage US in their Practice of Now Report 2020, 82% of surveyed clients said that their expectations of accountants and bookkeepers have widened to include services such as advising on relevant finance and accounting technologies. Having AI-generated insights at your fingertips to interpret for clients means that you can provide the kind of actionable advice that clients are increasingly demanding.

But beyond accounting and reporting software, there's a whole world of technology to immerse yourself in. If you are dedicated to a niche market, it may be worth getting to know what technological systems they implement. Becoming an expert in their software of choice will help you earn clients' trust by showing that you know what their day to day lives are like and you understand their needs.

One of the most important things for you as an accounting or bookkeeping practice is for clients to be able to get in touch with you without hassle. If you are quick to respond to queries or concerns, clients will greatly appreciate it and will also be impressed with how on the ball you are. Being quick to respond to emails, answer the phone, or return missed calls will help you build more authentic connections. This will also reassure clients that you are on top of things, and that you take their concerns seriously.

Whether businesses find themselves in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic or wearily emerging on the other side, they desperately need the help of accountants and bookkeepers. When selecting an accountant or bookkeeper, many of today's businesses are in search of experience coupled with technological know-how, credibility, and integrity. To stand out, it helps to have a unique value proposition, to attend to a niche market, cultivate a unique brand and culture, pay attention to your relationships with clients, gain knowledge of the latest technology, and be readily available when your clients reach out for help.