Hi Lawason.

if you are thinking of sending letters to local accountants send the letter to them with their name on it and aimed specifically at their practice, don't send them a mailshot. They get those all the time and they never even make it past the secretary.

Accountants are having a hard time at the moment as well. Work that they might previously of outsourced to us is currently being kept in house in order to keep their own staff employed in the hope of an imminent upturn in the market.

You need to offer something to the accountant to gain their interest. A good introduction is where you want to form an alliance of sorts with a practice.

Many small business start ups that come to you to put there books in order will need an accountant to take the books to the next stage. Also you may have cases that are too complex for you and would want to pass them to someone further up the food chain.

I wouldn't go in asking for work as that's likely to be filed with the mailshots but for starters just try to get yourself known by them. Let them see the quality of your work and as the market improves you will be in a good position for them to start passing you work.

In addition to the above I wouldn't bother them for the next couple of weeks as they'll be mopping up the end of January rush and be taking care of all of the companies that they couldn't deal with for the last couple of weeks.

Mid to late Feb is better. But remember that you only get one chance to make a good first impression so take the time now to draft those personal letters to selected practices... I say selected because if you send letters to all of them you may end up shooting yourself in the foot as how can you form a dozen local alliances!

For business startups a card on the board in a chipshop is likely to bring in more work than hours spent traipsing around industrial estates posting letters through every letterbox.

Your not going to be busy straight away. It almost never works that way. It takes a lot of time and effort to gain a good client base but if you make a good job of each one it can be like a snowball rolling down a hill.

Good luck and hope that this helps,

Shaun.

Just reread my posting from last night.

Yes, I know that Alliance was the wrong word but it was almost three in the morning.

Alliances are something that can only be negotiated from a position of strength which isn't the position that your in.

For Alliance, read affiliation.

-- Edited by Shamus on Sunday 31st of January 2010 11:19:17 AM