Our New Website

Last week we met Oliver and Barbara Rose and the marital tax case with evidence from Oliver and Revenue. In case you missed it see here. This week we are going to talk about our new website. The main things to chat about are

• Why a new site?
• Who are we?
• Our Audience
• Niches
• Next steps

Why a new site?

It wasn’t that our old site was that bad. It worked well for us to a point. Our clients didn’t complain and when prospects checked us out it wouldn’t have put them off. So why change? The main reasons are

1. A need to speak to our target audience
2. More pics of the team so you get to see who we are. [Oh, I can hear you say what an attractive bunch, they must be models!]
3. To show that we have different skills in areas clients need
4. We niche in a few areas like bookkeeping and business transfers
5. To get across the partnership approach
6. To confirm our values and that we want to work with people who have similar ones and
7. Move from a Rocketspark site to a WordPress one [Too technical for me but we trust our marketing firm]
8. For our site to be more concise and helpful so it is easier for people to navigate through it
9. To show that we love doing what we do and how this saves our clients money and helps them

Who are we?

Ours is a general practice that niche in a few areas and has all the services that a client would need. We don’t do liquidations, but we know someone very good that does. We are a team of accountants, tax consultants, bookkeepers, and auditors. I was going to say we are highly skilled but that’s not up to me to say. That’s up to our clients to say or not, and that depends if they are happy with the service we give them.

There is a mixture of Waterford, Kilkenny, Moldova, and a lady from Lithuania who is starting with us shortly. To meet the team, see here. You will see that we have plenty of differences and some would say flaws. Kilkenny supporters, Man Utd fans, and even a Spurs fan. We won’t say who that is to save HIM from the shame of it. Many team members are working for a lot of our clients now. You can have Aedin or Brenda doing the bookkeeping, payroll, and Vat. Barry or Cathy putting together the accounts and Ludmila doing the taxes. Ger and I are in the background reviewing the accounts & taxes and Dee helping the clients.

We sat down with Karen Reyburn from WEAREPF about 3 years ago to look at our branding. The first part of that exercise was to see what our values were. This is what we are strong on and believe in. We got these up on our walls as a reminder to us and our clients about what is important to us. Words like protect, honest, approachable, problem solve, proactive, and enjoy are our values. If you want to see these in greater detail and our wall see here.

Our Audience

The audience we are after is our target client. So, it is a company or business that wants a partnership approach. A business that is growing and profitable and the owner wants help along their business journey. Someone you know, and is honest and proactive and has a genuine interest in helping you grow and improve. When you think of it, we are looking for clients that have similar values to us. You must trust us and that isn’t something that happens straight away. That is something that you build up over time. And how do you build trust? To me, that is to do what you said you would do and when you would do it. Honesty.

Many people have excellent businesses, and they are brilliant at what they do. They have grown businesses from nothing and continue to expand. They have a brilliant product or service that people want to buy. But they are not good at bookkeeping, or accounts, or payroll or Vat or Tax. They don’t know it, are not qualified to do it, yet persist at it because they think they can do it. It’s different if you have a qualified bookkeeper or an in-house accountant. But if you or the other half is trying to do this, then that’s madness.

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Our best clients are the ones that we do everything for. They would be some of our most profitable clients too. As Aedin said to me recently the more we do and the less they do, the better. When we do all the bookkeeping, we see the numbers, and getting them right builds a solid foundation. Numbers up to date, Vat and PAYE paid on time, cash in the bank, accounts, and taxes all done and on time, and no Revenue issues. This is a great place to be. It relieves stress and gives them the headspace to do what they are good at. It gives us great satisfaction too to see them do well. Some of our proudest moments here are when

• A client sells their business and retires with minimal taxes
• A client buys a business and runs it well and it is profitable
• A business moves from one generation to the next and we helped with that
• A client becomes more profitable, increases their salary, and starts a company pension
• A client gets finance to expand their business. Adds an extra shop or buys their business premises
• A client sells assets, and we look after the taxes

This stuff is interesting and exciting for us to be part of their highs. Sometimes there will be lows and we are there to help in those times too. After all, our clients are our business. We wouldn’t be living up to our values if we didn’t stick with them in the bad times.

Niches

Some accountants out there have a niche in a particular area, and they are excellent in those spaces. This is truer in the UK than here, but you will find ones that specialise in doctors, dentists, and salon owners. From a website and marketing point of view, it makes it easier as you have a very specific target audience. We are more of a general practice that has a few niches in

1. Bookkeeping
2. Company setup and
3. Business sales and transfers – exit planning
4. Non-resident tax returns

To tell you a bit more about these areas of the business we have a landing page on our site. See here for the bookkeeping landing page

What Next?

Now that our new website is here doesn’t mean that it’s finished. There are always things to add in there that will help clients and help prospects to find us. I see that we don’t have a landing page for Business sales and transfers, so will need to get working on that. The website is one part of our marketing, and we must speak to our target audience. Up next for us is to get the team involved in marketing. They do this already by delivering a quality service to our clients. The next step is to get them writing about what they are doing to help clients in their areas of expertise. So, I won’t be boring you as much in the future! A big shout out and thank you to Alan Magner for the pics and Elaine Reid and all the super team at wearepf for your patience and hard work in putting this together.

Looking to invest in your finance function or need a partner to help with your business? Call Deirdre on 051396703 or fill in the form here.