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Twelve Tips to a Five-Star Profile
By: Sandi Smith, CPA
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One of the benefits of becoming a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor (or joining professional associations and chambers of commerce) is the visibility of an online profile that describes your company or firm on the organization's website. Few practitioners take advantage of these online profiles, yet the profile can yield big returns with a small investment of time.
How much money and time did you spend on your company website? Consider your online profiles as free one-page websites that increase your marketing reach, allow you to connect more with the group you have joined, and funnel leads that you might miss otherwise.
In this article, we'll focus on specific tips to make a QuickBooks ProAdvisor profile shine. [Note 1] Once you have applied the tips to your ProAdvisor profile, or have reviewed them here, you can easily transfer these tactics to your other online profiles.
Editor's Note on Becoming a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
At Intuit we encourage all serious QuickBooks practitioners to become Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors. When certified in a current version of QuickBooks, a ProAdvisor is able to publish his or her profile via the QuickBooks Find-a-ProAdvisor Website. Once their profiles are public, many ProAdvisors also link to their profiles from their own websites or email correspondence. Benefits of certification include productivity and business gains, we're told by Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors surveyed. [Note 2]
Start with an Example
If you are unfamiliar with the ProAdvisor profiles, go to the Find-a-ProAdvisor Website and look in your service area for local ProAdvisors and choose one for reference.
Complete and Proven by Review
- Complete. Prospects will be looking at all areas of your profile, so you want to make sure you have filled out everything possible.
- Proven by Review. The ProAdvisor profile site allows clients to enter a review and rating about you and your firm and to rank it from one to five stars. Without any reviews, there is a big gap in the top right side of your profile. Prospects will look for ProAdvisors who have a proven track record with clients, and reviews make a difference. [Note 3]
Note that reviews are prominent in the summary listing of local ProAdvisors (Figure 1). They are also included in the full profile (Figure 2). In these examples, there is no review listed.
Figure 1. Summary Listing of ProAdvisor without Reviews.
Figure 2. Profile of ProAdvisor without Reviews
The order of listings may be affected by existing reviews and rankings. [Note 4] Prospects can also sort the list of ProAdvisors that come up in the search by the review rankings, so that makes it doubly important to have one.
Ask several of your clients to post a review for you. It doesn't have to be long; four to five sentences is adequate.
Contact Information
It is surprising how many profiles have incomplete contact info.
- Must Have Photo. Don't leave out your photo even if you hate the way you look. Get a professional headshot done that you can post on your page.
- Tailored Landing. When listing your web site, coordinate with your webmaster to have a special landing page for prospects coming from the ProAdvisor site. You can not only measure results better, you can also customize the message for them on the special landing page.
Your Practice
-
Direct Language. When you are completing the section, "About me and my practice," think about what you would say if you were face-to-face with a prospect over coffee. You would never start listing the services you offer (which is what many profiles do).
Instead, write like you're talking to them. Let them know your elevator speech, what you love to do, and what you specialize in. Let them know if you'll travel to their place. Let them know how you're going to meet their QuickBooks needs.
Examples
- I love working with nonprofits.
- We have 20 years experience helping new businesses get their books set up.
- We love complicated tax issues.
- We take charge of your whole bookkeeping area so you don't have to worry about it.
Savvy Tip: This description is the most important because it's listed in the column display of the ProAdvisor search. There's no need to repeat your company name in this section as it's already displayed elsewhere.
- Keywords. Carefully consider the choice of words you use in all of the narrative sections. Prospects will be searching by keywords, so you want to include the most important keywords in all your narratives. For example, if you cater to retail businesses, include words like "retail" and "Point of Sale" in your descriptions of your firm and your services.
- Free. Mention any free offers that your firm provides to prospects, such as a free 30-minute phone consultation. While you are entering your profile, Intuit has a place where you can sign up to provide a free one-hour consultation to prospects. If you can make the time to update your profile on a regular basis, you may want to consider rotating special offers on a seasonal basis.
Credentials
Intuit offers a place to include your professional designations and certifications, so be sure to complete this area as thoroughly as possible.
- WDYMBT? Don't leave us wondering "what do you mean by that?" Spell out all acronyms that you use in listing designations and certifications.
Credentials build credibility and show that you've gone the extra mile in your accounting and QuickBooks education. If you don't have any, it might be a great new goal to adopt that would be an investment in yourself. To be listed in the ProAdvisor database, you'll need to have earned certification in at least one currently supported version of QuickBooks. [Note 5]
Services Provided
Use this section to build on the section you started above and provide more details about what you do for clients. Stand out by doing more than listing your services here.
- Mini Case Studies. Provide several two- or three-sentence case studies of what you have done for selected clients in the past. Use examples that are similar to the area of business you want to grow and the type of clients you want to attract more of.
You might also want to include some testimonials in this section, especially of clients you can't convince to write a review for you.
My Clients
- The Ideal Client. In this section, you have the opportunity to let prospects know who your ideal client is. For example, if you love working with women business owners, list it here. If you prefer to take on the client who knows nothing about bookkeeping and wants you to take over the whole thing, mention it in this section.
Importance of Certifications in the Find-a-ProAdvisor Website
Another way prospects can search ProAdvisor profiles is by certification.
- Certifications Matter. The ProAdvisors with the most certifications will rise to the top when a prospect selects that column as a sort field. Getting certified in each product you consult on further builds your QuickBooks credibility and just makes good business sense. [Note 4]
Anticipating Questions
Your profile should combine both active and pro-active components:
- Active: Letting people know what services you offer and what type of clients and services you want to attract, and
- Pro-active: Anticipating and answering prospects' questions about whether they should hire you.
- Prospect's View. Intuit offers prospects guidance to business owners on how to find the best ProAdvisor for them. These pointers will help you anticipate what prospects might be looking for, as set out in this brief handout: Take a peek to glean further tips to ensure your profile is the most effective it can be.
Ahead of the Game
Since so many people don't take the time to complete the profile, you will be ahead if you simply fill it out. If you apply the strategies listed above, you will stand out and be way ahead of everyone else. Your profile will look polished and complete, and the prospects will be calling.
Sandi Smith, CPA, coaches CPAs and other accounting professionals on how to succeed in business. She is a frequent contributor to Intuit ProConnection. Her web site is http://www.BrainWaysTraining.com.
- The ability to make one's online profile public, and available through Intuit ProLine's QuickBooks Find-a-ProAdivisor Website, requires membership in the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program. Members must also become certified in a current version of QuickBooks before their profiles can be added to the public website. More information on benefits and costs of becoming a ProAdvisor - can be found here. More information on becoming certified - for which there is no additional charge - can be found here.
- Claims based on survey results from June 2009. More than three out of four (77%) of Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors surveyed say that the ProAdvisor Program support tools and training materials have increased their productivity. More than half of Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors surveyed said they were empowered to charge over $20 more an hour for their services after becoming certified.
- On average, Certified ProAdvisors who have client ratings are getting five times more clicks to their profile than the non-rated ProAdvisors, according to Intuit records from earlier this year.
- Intuit reserves the right to fine tune the algorithms by which ProAdvisors are listed to best meet the needs of small business owners looking for the right ProAdvisor. Variables likely to affect the order of display include the number and variety of certifications (Advanced Certification counts for a lot currently), along with the ratings and reviews posted. As of this writing, ProAdvisors are advised "If you want to expand your practice and make sure you are rising to the top of the Find-a-ProAdvisor site, make sure you have your Advanced Certification and get certified in ES & POS."
- "Currently Supported Versions" of QuickBooks software are currently defined as the current version of the software and two versions previous. For example, in May of 2009, support for QuickBooks 2006 was discontinued, after QuickBooks 2007, 2008 and 2009 were all released. Learn more here about Intuit's Discontinuation Policy.
Last Updated: 07/27/2009
