Another way to Network – Get Involved.

Another great way to get connected to potential clients is to get involved in local groups and organizations to promote yourself and get your business name out there.  I have been a member of the American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA) for the past year now but was never really actively involved other than attending meetings.  I recently decided to be more involved in the Northeast Florida ASWA Chapter by becoming Chair of the communications committee, handling their website updates, and also have taken a seat on the Board.  This is another great way to meet people, stay in the loop on the latest accounting trends and also get some CPE credit.  Check out your local chapter and get involved.

Intuit ProLine Accounting Council – Sharing my Thoughts

I applied for the Intuit ProLine Accounting Council today.  I thought this might be a good way for me to share my business experiences and learn about what Intuit has to offer which can directly impact the issues that we face as accountants in our businesses and with our clients. Here is some of the information below about the deadlines for applying, so check it out.  Anyone can apply.

The Accountant and Advisor Customer Council is a broad forum that will solicit the voice of accountants and consultants on issues of strategy, product development, and programs and services.  Applications to participate in the Accountant and Advisor Council are accepted year-round with review and selections for open positions in July. All applications received by May 31, 2010 will be considered for the 2010-2011 council.

Scaling New Heights Conference in Atlanta

I registered today for the Scaling New Heights Conference for Intuit ProAdvisors and I am excited to get some hands on training as I am definitely a visual person.  And of course the added benefit of getting up to 26 CPE credits is always nice as well.  If you haven’t signed up yet there is still plenty of room, so get with the program as there should be lots of networking as well.

Great Customer Support from ProAdvisor!

So I can’t say enough about the customer support from the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program.  One of the many benefits in the program is having your own dedicated customer support line to answer questions for you and even help you walk you through steps of how to accomplish certain tasks.  I found this especially helpful today as I exported my first accountant copy file to send the file back to my client with all my changes.  The whole feature of the dividing date is fantastic in that your client can continue working on the file while you are making the necessary changes from the date you set going backwards.  It even gives you the option to print out or save all the changes you made so you have a record of them.   This feature definitely allows you to work remotely from your client and hopefully gain clients in other cities with the ease of data exchange.  This is great!

Scaling New Heights Conference in Atlanta

I have seen tons of advertising for the “Scaling New Heights” an Advanced Training Conference for Intuit ProAdvisors in Atlanta at the end of May on Facebook and Linkedin and I am considering attending this event to get some hands on training and meet some other QuickBook professionals.  I have always enjoyed going to conference not only to get my CPE hours but to mingle with other professionals like me who are learning new software and trying to get an edge on the latest and greatest to help our clients.  Does anyone have any thoughts about this conference or can share some insight as to the benefit?

Another Lead: Large CPA firms can be a source too.

I got a call yesterday from the Audit Manager of  LBA Group,  the firm I used to work with at my previous employer.   He has a business contact that is looking for an Accountant and/or CPA to help them with their Quickbooks for their small construction consulting business.    His firm does not work on these smaller type of clients, so he thought of me and my new business venture.  One of the best reasons to stay in touch with the people at firms you’ve done business with in the past, as he knows first hand what it’s like to work with me, as I was once his client.  It’s great to get referrals like this one.  Now it’s my job to turn it from a referral to billable work.  Who says CPA firms can’t be a good referral source for you?  Not me.  Thanks Andre!

Advertising and the Social Media Network

Along with all my face to face networking, in an effort to get my business name out and attract new clients, I have entrenched myself within the social media network.  Setting up my free website, a benefit from being a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, was one of my biggest advertising steps but linking my new website to my Linkedin page, Facebook and Twitter page have also benefited.  The more people who know about my business the better and what better way to get the word out there than to use these websites where I already have made connections over the years.  Another perk of the ProAdvisor program, is a free Business Directory listing which serves about 14 million small and medium businesses in the United States and also makes your listing ranked higher through the various on-line search engines like Yahoo and Google.  Another step in the right direction.

Reconnecting with Old Friends; Another Networking Avenue.

 Although I’ve only lived in Jacksonville for a little over a year now, through the powerful social website LinkedIn, I had a friend reach out to me who lives in the area to reconnect.  Turns out she did the same thing I did and has her own business as well.  Her company is Business Solutions Unlimited, LLC  and she provides consulting in the areas of management, HR, marketing, business development, office organization, program development, internal/external PR, event planning & overhead reduction.  We met for lunch and discussed how we can partner up to provide clients both operations and accounting resources.   Check out her website as well.  Oh, the power of networking!

Check out my website!

One of the best benefits of joining the QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor Program is all the free marketing tools and discounts with other vendors that are provided to you.  With the ProAdvisor Program, you are given access to create a free website and have it hosted for free for 12 months through Homestead.com.  It was pretty simple to create my website as they have standard templates for you to use and give you 3 pages for you to write your own content and upload pictures as well.  There are tons of other features available that are provided at a cost as an upgrade but I felt that the free standard template did the job for me on my current budget.  Please feel free to check out my website at www.alfonsocpa.homestead com and let me now what you think?  As I am realizing, websites are forever a work in progress and are always being updated.

The Power of Networking!

So, I never considered myself a social butterfly personally but one of the biggest things I have learned in my career is the power of networking in the business community.  I always thought that I would have nothing to say or contribute at a networking event unless I was at a high level in a company.  Over the years, I have made sure I was always actively involved in outside organizations; whether it be Treasurer of CFMA (Construction Financial Management Association) when I was a Controller in the construction industry or Secretary of AAA (Association of Accounting Administration) when I worked in public accounting or simply attending various FICPA or AICPA events as a member.  I recently went to an event hosted by the Advantage Business Magazine where the guest speaker was Jason Sadler, Owner of “iwearyourshirt.com“.  He inspired me, with his entrepreneurial story ,to get more involved in social media and although I am a “Gen X” girl, so computers are not my expertise, I am trying my best at it (hence my blog!).