Client acquisition: how a practice with a team gets its own clients

You hired a team. New clients still want you.

New clients come to you because you're the only part of the practice they can find. The practice has no public face of its own. It starts to get its own clients when its pages say what it's known for, and name the people on your team beside the work they do.

Client acquisition that still starts with the partner

The call comes from a man you used to work with. His brother-in-law needs help with his books, so he passed along your name. Now the brother-in-law is on the phone, asking for you.

A month later it's a friend of a different client. He wants you too.

People refer a person, not a practice. Even when the work will go to someone on your team, the new client wants to meet you first.

So your week fills up with first meetings. The people you hired wait for you to hand the work over.

How to get clients to see the practice, not just you

Open the practice's website and read it the way a stranger would. There's a phone number, a photo of the office and a list of services. And you.

If anyone else on staff is there, it's a first name on the team page with nothing beside it.

A buyer who was handed your name looks the practice up before he books. Everything he finds points back to you. Your senior accountant may run most of the year-end work, and no client has seen his name before the first meeting.

That's not a role I'd want. My fave part of this work is the people I work with, and getting to know them.

Every buyer calls with the same three questions. Who'll do the work. When it can start. Whether you'll be there.

The site doesn't answer any of them. You do, on the phone.

Referrals cannot grow client acquisition past your hours

Referrals bring in good clients, and they always will. They come through your hours, though. The lunch with the lawyer who sends you work, the call back to a former colleague, the coffee after a board meeting.

Your hours run out. In your busiest months the lunches stop, and new work slows down a season later, right when the team has room for it.

The practice's own pages get found at nine at night, and on a Sunday in August while you're at the lake.

Client acquisition starts with one kind of work

A buyer who's never heard of you types his problem into Google. Google works out what he means and looks for pages about it. If the practice has no page about it, he never sees the practice.

The practice needs one kind of work it's known for, said plainly on its own site. It might be cleanup for owners who are two years behind on their books. Tax work for farm families. Helping a family hand the business to the next generation.

Choose the work the practice already does well and wants more of. I'd pick that one kind of work before changing anything else on the site.

How to get clients asking for your team by name

Each professional on staff gets a page on the practice's site, with a name, a photo and the work they lead. Your senior accountant leads the year-ends for owner-run companies. Your bookkeeper is the one who sorts out a shoebox of receipts.

Now a buyer can see who'll do his work before he calls, and he can ask for that person by name.

You're still the partner, and some buyers will want you in the room.

Client acquisition through your own website

A page gets found when it says what the practice does in the words a buyer uses. The site around it has to be quick, and easy for Google to read.

Our Canadian SEO services cover that work. On-page SEO, local SEO and technical SEO, plus building the authority and trust that decides which practice gets the call.

A buyer close by will still check the practice's map listing and its reviews before he calls. That's part of the same work.

Get clients through the practice, not your calendar

If every new client still asks for you by name, that's what I'd want to hear about first. Book a call and tell me what you want the practice to be known for.

Frequently asked questions

I have a team now. Do I still have to bring in every client myself?

For now, probably. A new client can only ask for the people he can see. Once the practice's site shows who does what, some will ask for them and not for you.

Does a practice with staff need different client acquisition than a one-person practice?

Yes. A one-person practice sells its owner's time, so the owner is the right thing to be known for. Once you have staff, there's more work to fill than your own week can bring in, and the practice needs a name of its own.

Which client acquisition channel keeps working when I stop working it?

The practice's own website. A page that says what the practice does keeps getting found while you're busy with clients. It still needs an update when the work or the team changes.

How long before client acquisition through the website produces a client?

Nobody can give you an honest date. It depends on how many practices near you want to be known for the same work, and on how much your site already says. Each month, check whether new calls ask for the practice or for you.