Would you travel for advice/help?

[FletcherTax]

Apologies if in the wrong section but it seemed as good as any

My question: How do you feel about having your professional advisers such as lawyers, accountants, financial advisers etc not in the same suburb as you? ie. 40 minutes away or even interstate.

Speaking for myself, Australian tax is for all of Australia so realistically I can do tax for any taxpayer in this country. But more and more of my clients are within my suburb or neighbouring suburbs.

Should I restrict my marketing to my nearest suburbs for maximum effect?

All thoughts and experiences appreciated

[kenmac]

Hi - my feelings are that most small businesses, when dealing with accountants or financial advisors, like that face-to-face contact and, therefore, I would stick to my local suburbs. Small business people are usually very busy so I would restrict any advertising to no more than 30 minutes away.

Having said that, if you were to build a reputation for a particular industry group or niche, then potential clients would, I'm sure, be willing to travel further but probably only within the same city.

As an example and, this is just a thought, but more and more small businesses have websites and are selling over the internet. Therefore, as an accountant, if you were to specialise and have some internet marketing clients and, did a great job for them, then perhaps the word would spread and, you would get more work by way of referrals.

[sixx]

Our accountant is a case of third time lucky and we now travel anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour (depending on traffic) to see him.

I would have to agree with Emroy about being face to face. I practically need tax "stuff" (no disrespect intended) to be drawn in crayon for me to decipher it all so interstate maybe pushing itfor me.

We were using local on two seperate occasions and it wasn't a case of not being happy, probably moreso we felt our previous accountants could of done a bit more for the money they were being paid.

Our new accountant of two years (a referral) is exceptional and I would probably drive 2 hours to visit him. Not as often, but I would do it.

[Dardee]

From my experience clients are happy to have accountants/tax agents from anywhere if the accountant is willing to come to them. As was mentioned the face to face is important and the business owner is too busy to travel. But if the accountant was willing to travel to see them at their premises then they do not care how far away they are.

Unfortunately, for someone like yourself who is a sole practioner travelling all over the place to see clients is not feasible. So, in your case I think concentrating on a more localised area is more beneficial.

[PrimerGroup]

You are on the right path. Start Local. But you dont have to stay local. Like you said tax is everywhere. Start with your suburb then expand into other suburbs and then soon interstate will become a reality.

Imagine if those transcontinental organisations had stayed local

[PrimerGroup]

When you are expanding to other suburbs and cities, you have to expand your organisation including human resources.

[CruzAccountant]

John - what exactly do you mean by human resources? Do you mean internally with in the business, or externally as a service?

Janna - From my experience, people will travel and for the money they pay accountants they do expect face to face personalised service.

[tr3nton]

In the case of accountant, if you find a good one - isn't it likely you stick with them. Face to face shouldn't need to occur all that often? At least, that's what i hear/read (people having their accountants interstate based as not being happy with the level of service locally).

For me, i'd be happy to have them not in the same suburb and/or state if they offer a superior service, and give me a higher return.

[PrimerGroup]

I mean when you expand you need more staff to serve more customers.

I agree that people come for one on one personalised service. But in that case then you can only have a limited number of clients and you cant expand to other areas, because you are one person and there is a limit to the number of clients you can serve.

Instead I suggest make it personalised but build your reputation for your company and not yourself, so that your clients come to your company for the great service. Make sure that your other staff are up to standard so that your company is up to standard.

[FS Concierge]

Hi Janna,
Just my $0.02:

My instinct is that focussing on your local market initially would make your own offline networking more efficient (in terms of your own travel time), and quite possibly more successful in terms of referrals. Even if I'm prepared to travel a long way to see a fabulous accountant myself, that doesn't mean that the other ten people in my local business network that I rave about the accountant to would be prepared to do the same.

Good luck, I'll be interested to hear how you get on.
Jayne