Competing via price kind of makes sense, right? If you cost less than the firm down the street for the same quality of work then the clients will come to you. The big problem though is that you now have to do a lot more work to make the same level of money you were bringing in before. But if you outsource your bookkeeping and your compliance responsibilities, you might find a better way to take on your competition.
Offer More Services
Instead of lowering your prices you could consider expanding your firm’s menu of services beyond the basics. Moving into more complex, higher added-value services or advisory tasks will help your company to set itself apart from the competition. You and your core team’s goal is to demonstrate that you’re experts in security matters. Once you’re regarded as their security expert, your chances to improve client retention will increase exponentially.
Offering an expanded menu of services obviously means more work for you from existing clients, and work from new clients rolling in who weren’t served by your previous menu of offerings but are attracted by the additional services that you’re now able to provide.
All set to take in new opportunities?
You’ll need to be ready for the coming changes. What are the trends in Security in your specific subsector? Are you prepared to take on new services that might be vital to your firm’s success in the near future? A good example is the Internet of Things. We’ve been reading a lot about the tech giants investing billions on it. They’ll surely need partners to deploy some of their solutions. Who and how is yet to be unveiled but one thing is clear: only companies that are ready for change will have the ability to get a slice of the pie. Another example –this one a bit more niche- is the facial and facial expression recognition devices that are being developed for the security industry, extending from crime-fighting, border control, or access control. Again, we don’t know yet when this will become main stream but few would dare say that it won’t have much of an impact.
Staying tuned with industry trends is not easy when your day to day obligations take 100% of your time. This is why freeing up some time is indispensable for decision-makers. Outsourcing accounting bookkeeping and compliance work can help your company in this regard. Additionally, outsourcing non-core tasks will slim down your firms’ structural costs, making it more agile to respond to industry changes and take advantage of new opportunities.
Meet your clients as often as you’d like
One of the immediate consequences of outsourcing is that you’ll free up some time and resources. Once this happens, you can spend this additional time meeting your clients, which is something that they’re going to love. This will automatically lead to client retention and most likely will help you increase business through referrals. It’s worth remembering that the simplest way to grow your business is to retain existing customers and provide them with additional services!
A recap on outsourcing benefits
If you outsource admin work, you will have a team of experienced accountants doing all of the compliance work for you. Plus since you don’t have any of the costs associated with the hiring process, you’re setting yourself up with a relatively small bump to your overhead costs. Remember that costs like HR, office space, consumables, superannuation and the like can be up to 1.4 times the base salary of an employee!
