How To Actually Sell Bookkeeping Services (Real Life Example)

How do you sell bookkeeping services if you've never had a client before?

In this video, I'll walk you through my bookkeeping sales process and show you exactly what happens during a discovery call. You'll learn the questions I ask, how I identify a prospect's needs, how I present my bookkeeping services, and how I confidently discuss pricing without feeling like a salesperson.

Selling bookkeeping services doesn't have to be complicated. The goal isn't to pressure people into becoming clients. The goal is to determine whether you're the right fit to help their business.

In this video you'll learn:

• How to sell bookkeeping services
• How to conduct a bookkeeping discovery call
• The questions I ask every prospect
• How to present your bookkeeping services
• How to discuss pricing with confidence
• How to close your first bookkeeping client
• What happens after a client says yes

This is Week 6 of my 10-part series on how to start and grow a bookkeeping business. If you're just joining the series, I recommend watching the previous videos first so you can build your bookkeeping business step by step.

Whether you're starting a bookkeeping business, becoming a virtual bookkeeper, or trying to get your first bookkeeping client, this series is designed to give you the practical roadmap I wish I had when I was getting started.

Next week's video:
How To Onboard A Bookkeeping Client (Step-by-Step)

Subscribe so you don't miss future videos covering bookkeeping, QuickBooks, pricing, client onboarding, monthly bookkeeping workflows, financial statements, marketing, and growing a successful bookkeeping business.

#BookkeepingBusiness #Bookkeeping #QuickBooks


*Learn more about my investment fund targeting 8% to 12% fixed returns*
https://www.zipcapitalfund.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How to actually sell bookkeeping services. My name is Zach Pascarello. I am making a 10-week video series teaching you everything you need to know how to start your very own bookkeeping business. I'm doing it all for free right here on YouTube. Check out my playlist if you missed the previous videos and also subscribe to my channel so that you can get notifications for future videos. If you are starting or growing a bookkeeping business, this video is going to be perfect for you. Let's not waste any time. Let's jump right into it. What is the purpose of the discovery call? So we've already done sales, we already have our bookkeeping business set up. We already did sales and marketing. And congratulations, you just booked your first consultation. I want you to think of this as a discovery call, not necessarily a sales call. We are not necessarily trying to convince them that they need to hire us. Instead, we are more so trying to discover what they need. Once you figure out what your potential client needs, then it's easy to sell them. The whole point is for us to solve their problems. And we're going to do that through this discovery call. And so we're going to start by asking them questions. Very basic introduction. Hey, this is Zach Pascarello. Is now still a good time to talk? Okay, yes, great. Let's jump right into it. So why don't you tell me a little bit about your business? What do you have going on? Here's the key. First of all, these conversations can feel awkward at first. You're talking to a total stranger. You don't know who they are, they don't really know who you are. Never talked to them before. It's just a phone call. Keep it short, keep it simple. Introduce yourself. Be polite. Make sure it's still a good time to chat and jump right into it. Cut the small talk if you want. You don't have to talk about the weather and sports and family and vacation for 10 minutes. You don't have to waste time. Chances are they're probably busy. Chances are you're probably busy. Nobody wants to waste 10 minutes. So jump right into it. Introduce yourself. Ask if it's still a good time, good time to talk, and jump right into it. Ask them about their business. Now let them do the talking. Let them talk as much as they want. People love talking about themselves. And number two, this is going to be your opportunity to discover what they might need. Don't think of it as a sales call. Think of it as a discovery call. Discover what they have going on and what they might need. Your whole goal during this call is to determine if you are going to be a good fit for each other. So learn about their business and then you're going to explain your business and then move on to next steps. Ask more questions than you think you should. Collect as much information as you possibly can. This is going to help you quote them appropriately. This is going to help you onboard them, but it's also interestingly, it's also going to make you seem like an expert. It's going to put you in a position of authority. You are the one asking questions. You are collecting information. I don't know why, but it just makes it make it makes you seem very professional and very legitimate when you are seriously collecting a lot of relevant information. And then finally, not every prospect should become a client. This is a very difficult concept to understand in the beginning. I know you're desperate for a client. I know you're excited to get your first client. So you get your first sales consultation, you're probably thinking, Oh my goodness, I will do whatever it takes to get this person as a client. But not every prospect should become a client. And this goes both ways. You are not going to be the perfect bookkeeper for every business owner, and every business owner is not going to be the perfect client for you. So use this discovery call, use this sales consultation as an opportunity to interview the client. They are interviewing you, but you should also interview them. By the end of the conversation, you should have a pretty good understanding of their personality, of their communication skills, of their organization skills, and you should, of course, have a very good understanding of their business overall. And once you understand personality, organization, communication, and business fundamentals, then you should understand whether or not this client is going to be a good fit for you. That's the introduction. How's that sound? Does that sound helpful so far? Let's jump into topic number two. Here are the specific questions that I ask every prospect during a sales consultation, during a discovery call. This is a real example. These are real life questions that I actually ask. Number one, like I said in the beginning, tell me about your business. Not really a question, more so just an introduction and just an open invitation, open opportunity for them to tell you about your business. I recommend be in a quiet, calm environment. Don't take a sales consultation while you're at the gym. Don't take a sales consultation while you're driving your car. Take a sales consultation in your office. Don't have your kids running around in the background screaming in your office, watching TV in the living room, distracting you, distracting the person you're talking to on the phone. Calm, quiet, in your office, computer open, ready to take notes. Tell me about your business. During this time, you should be writing down everything that they say. And then ask a few very specific questions. If are you currently using QuickBooks Online? If they are, great. If they're not, ask them, are you open to using QuickBooks Online? For me, I work exclusively with QuickBooks Online. So if they're not, if they're not using QBO and they're not willing to start using QBO, unfortunately, the discovery call ends there. It's not a good fit. And I'll be honest, I will tell you straight up, I'm not trying to waste my time. I don't want to waste your time. Straight up, not gonna be a good fit. I only work with QBO. Now, after you say that, they might change their mind. If they still don't change their mind after you say that, the call's over. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do to help. If they are using QBO, or if they are willing to start using QBO, great. How many bank accounts do you have? Who do you bank with? Okay, you've got two bank accounts, one with Chase and one with Wells Fargo. Got it. How many credit card accounts do you have? You got two credit cards. Perfect. American Express, Capital One, got it. What about loans? Vehicle loans, mortgages, lines of credit, any other loans that that I don't know about? Okay, write all of this down. This is going to be very important during the quoting process. Who was doing your bookkeeping before? Nobody? Spouse? Friend? Family member, office manager, administrative assistant, maybe the business owner, or maybe they had a bookkeeper before. Why aren't they doing it anymore? What happened? Previous bookkeeper was terrible. Office manager, overwhelmed, not enough time. Myself didn't know how to do it. Nobody haven't filed my taxes in two years. Nobody was doing it before. I'm about to hire my very first bookkeeper. This is very important. Listen to their reason. If they had a previous bookkeeper and it didn't work out because they never responded to emails, or they never gave them their profit and loss timely, or they were always making mistakes, or they never answered the phone, listen to that. And this is a great opportunity for you to provide high quality customer service for you to go above and beyond. If this client tells you they were frustrated because their previous bookkeeper never answered the phone, guess what you can do? Next time he calls, answer the phone. You're immediately going to be providing high quality customer service by doing what his previous bookkeeper wasn't able to do. So listen, actively listen, take notes, and keep this mindset. I am here to solve their problems. That's it. If I can solve their problems, I am incredibly valuable. Do you have employees? Are you currently running payroll? Do you have a CPA, tax accountant, enrolled agent, accounting firm? Is somebody filing your taxes? These two questions lead perfectly into these are my services. I do three things. I actually don't do payroll. I actually don't file taxes. Sounds like you already have a company doing that for you. That's great. If you don't, I actually have a few recommendations. I have a few referrals that I could send you to help with payroll and tax filing. I only do three things. I only record transactions, reconcile accounts, and generate financial reports. That's it. I do all three things exclusively inside your QuickBooks online. Keep it simple. When do you want me to get started? Explain the monthly bookkeeping. So if it's July 2026 and you want me to get started right now in July 2026, that's great. I can absolutely, but if you if I get started now, that means I'm not going to touch January through June 2026. Any transactions that occurred in January through June, if you only want me to start in July, that's fine. I'm just not going to record transactions or reconcile accounts from January through June. Oh, you actually do need bookkeeping for all of 2026. Okay, that's totally fine. So I can start in January 2026. I I really want to clearly communicate this distinction because a lot of people think I want you to start right now. I want you to start in July. And a lot of people think I want to pay you one month fee to start in July, and you're just gonna be my bookkeeper and do anything that I ask for the month of July. That's not how it works. The monthly fee only applies to transactions that occurred in that month. So if you want me to start in January, then that means I'm going to have to charge separately for every month: January, February, March, April, May, June, and July. And then we will pick up monthly recurring billing starting August 1st. So it's really important to explain that distinction. And I would start the conversation by just simply asking, when do you want me to get started? And so if they tell me July, then I'm going to say, okay, that's fine. Does that mean that you already have all of your bookkeeping done for January through June 2026? And then see what they say. If they say yes, okay, perfect. That's great. I'll just start in July. If they say no, they say, well, okay, if I just start in July, then you're not going to have complete financial reports for the entire year of 2026 because January through June might be missing. So just explain that distinction. And then this will lead you perfectly into the final question: what's your budget? Hopefully they give you an answer. Sometimes they will. Sometimes they'll say, Well, previous guy was charging me a thousand bucks, so figured it'll probably be around a thousand dollars. Or they might say, I've got no idea. But you've got nothing to lose. You might as well ask, what's your budget? And then that naturally leads into the final part of the sales consultation discovery call. I can't give you an exact quote, but what I can tell you is that right now my clients pay anywhere between $300 per month and $2,000 per month. With my smallest and my biggest clients, I'd imagine you might be somewhere in that range. Also, on average, my clients pay about $600 per month. So you'll probably be somewhere in that range, but I can't give you an exact quote until I see your three most recent bank statements, or you could simply invite me to your QuickBooks Online. Okay, so those are the questions that I ask during my sales consultations. Whenever I present my services, I try to keep it super simple. I know it might almost sound counterintuitive. I you almost probably want to think, you almost probably want to make it seem like your job is super complicated. I want to sound super high-tech, really complicated, really experienced. That way they think that I'm an expert. I want to make it sound super complicated what I do. That way they think, oh my goodness, there's no way I could do that. I need to hire this guy because he's talking about all this IT and security and online and reconciliations and recording transactions and chart of accounts and journal entries and debits and credits, like, oh my goodness, this is so complicated. There's no way I could do this. You might be thinking you want to do that. Honestly, I'm a much bigger fan. Keep it simple. I record transactions, reconcile accounts, generate financial reports. I do those three three things inside of QuickBooks Online. If that's what you need help with, I'm your guy. I'm a bookkeeping expert, I'm a QuickBooks expert, I do those three things very well. That's all I do. That is all that I do. You want to explain exactly what's included in your services. That way there's no confusion. I don't do sales tax, I don't do payroll, I don't do budgeting or forecasting or tax filing. I just do bookkeeping. I just do those three things. That's it. You want to set clear expectations from the beginning. From the beginning, I don't I don't want to trick these people. I don't want to, I don't want to trick these people into thinking I'm a full service accounting firm. I don't want to trick them into thinking that I can do more than I actually can. I don't want to have this mindset of, oh, I want to get this client, so I'll just kind of leave it open, leave it up in the air, keep it ambiguous, so maybe he thinks that I can do everything, so he's more likely to hire me. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's going to lead to so much frustration and confusion and disappointment in the future. I would much rather lose a client on the sales call because they, for some reason, want a bookkeeper who does payroll and budgeting and bookkeeping all at the same time. I would much rather lose that client today, right now, during the sales call, versus getting them. And then two months down the road, they're frustrated and leave and give me a bad review because I don't actually do budgeting and forecasting and payroll. So set very clear expectations from the beginning immediately, day one. Your marketing, your advertising, your social media marketing content, your sales consultation, your discovery call should all align perfectly with the actual services, the actual customer service that you provide. And the the bridge between all of that is the engagement letter, the client agreement. So you want to clearly outline all of the services that you provide in the client agreement. And you want all of that to align with exactly what you talk about during the sales consultation, exactly what you talk about in your Instagram videos, in your social media marketing, in your Facebook posts, in your LinkedIn messages. You want everything to align. You want to be on the same page with everything. Don't promise services you don't offer. That's a very fast track to frustration, disappointment, and bad reviews, potentially. Talking about price, this is where a lot of bookkeepers get nervous. I already said before, you can give general guidelines, you can you can give a min, you can give a max, but I would also say you could potentially be more, you might be less. I can't give you an exact quote. I can tell you rough ballpark where current clients might be, but your quote totally depends on the size and complexity of your business. You want to be confident when you're presenting your price, even if it's your first time, you gotta be confident. Don't immediately justify or apologize for your price. Don't immediately say, I know 500 bucks might sound like a lot, but I promise it's worth it. Just be confident. Sometimes, oftentimes, almost all the time, the less you say, the better. Keep it short, keep it simple, keep it straightforward, and be confident. My my clients pay between $300 and $2,000, average is $600. Can't give you an exact quote, but I can once you send me your three most recent bank statements or invite me to your QuickBooks Online. Super simple process. If I get all that information today, I should be able to send you a quote before the end of the day. Super simple, super straightforward. Remember, the cheapest option is almost never the best option. I am not in the business of price matching. If somebody else did it for a thousand bucks, but you fired them because they weren't doing a good job. Obviously, if you want me to do a good job, probably going to be more than a thousand dollars. I'm not going to match the price of the previous bookkeeper you just fired. I am not in the business of price matching. I'm in the business of value surpassing. I would much rather simply provide high quality customer service and charge a premium for my services, and my clients are so happy they're never going to leave, and they're going to be so happy they fired their old bookkeeper, they're never going to look back. I always say you can have three things. You can no, there are three options. You can only pick two: good, fast, cheap. You can't have all three. You can either be good and fast, but you won't be cheap. You can be good and cheap, but you're not going to be fast. You can be fast and cheap, but you won't be good. I always try to be good and fast. I'm never going to be the cheapest option. That's just the way it is, unfortunately. So what are the next steps? Quote, get info on the call. Get the three most recent bank statements. Get their email address. Get invited to the QuickBooks Online. Set up next steps for the quote while they're on the phone. Don't wait until tomorrow or the next day to send an email. Get the information immediately while you have them on the phone. Follow up with next steps and send the quote as fast as possible. Same day. This is high priority. There is nothing that I'm doing today that is more important than quoting a new client because sometimes they might have two other discovery calls with two other bookkeepers that afternoon. Imagine if it takes those two other bookkeepers a week to get back to them and you get them a quote or an estimate before the end of the day. How much more likely are they to hire you instead of those two other bookkeepers who took a whole week to get back to them? I hope this was helpful. Everybody, seriously, keep the discovery call short and simple. 10, 15 minutes phone call. Doesn't need to be a one-hour in-person meeting. Nobody has time for that. Ask questions, take notes, explain confidently, simply, keep it short, keep it sweet. If you want, okay, last thing, last thing that this is it for this video, but follow along. Next week, I'll be posting more videos in my 10-week series, how to start a bookkeeping business. And finally, I forgot to talk about this halfway through the video. I have an investment fund targeting 8% up to 12% fixed returns, and it's zip capital. There's a link down below in the description of this video. Check it out. If you want to learn more, I would love to schedule a time to chat with you. I am actually not taking on new bookkeeping clients. Instead, I'm going all in trying to grow zip capital. So it's my investment fund. I do Pennsylvania real estate loans, Pennsylvania only. It's really cool. If you want to learn more, I'd love to chat. Of course, the fixed returns are not guaranteed, and the investment is only open to accredited investors. But either way, if you want to learn more, if you're interested, I'd be happy to chat. It could be an interesting alternative if you have $25,000 or more sitting in a bank CD or something similar and you're looking for slightly higher returns. This could be an interesting opportunity. So check out the link in the description of the video, zipcapitalfund.com. I love to chat with you if you're interested. I would love to hear your feedback. Let me know in the comment section if you have any questions about bookkeeping or this video or this 10 week series. I hope this is helpful. Thank you so much. I appreciate you watching.