Along with working on Email Stopwatch, I have another small business that I run. When I went to find an accountant for my small business I started by asking friends if they had suggestions for a good accountant. I didn’t get any recommendations that I loved so I went to the web.
IMPORTANT: Reviews of Accountants are Few and Far Between
I was very disappointed to find such a small amount of reviews of accountants online. Since there are so few this is a huge opportunity for accountants to bring in a lot more business, especially those who work mostly with small and medium businesses.
Why Are Reviews Important?
There are three reasons:
1. Excellent reviews of your firm will convince potential clients that you are worth hiring.
2. Google will give your business a higher search result in some searches if you have a lot of high quality reviews.
3. Review sites, like Yelp.com, have their own traffic where people look for services. If you have high quality reviews, then it is more likely that a potential client will find you.
How to get reviews on third party sites
Getting reviews online is easy. The process can be started in less than 30min and can pay large dividends. All it usually requires is for you to ask. Not everybody is going to agree, but in a small business that I previously ran, about 60% of the clients that I asked would leave a review.
Step 1: Set Up Profiles on Yelp and Google Places
I’ve put together a video on how to setup an account on yelp.com in the video below:
Here’s the link where you can setup your Yelp! profile: Setup Yelp! here
I also found this video on how to setup a Google Places page:
Here’s the link where you can setup your Google Places page: Setup Google Places here
You now have a Google Places and Yelp account. Nice work! Make sure to note the url of both of your pages.
Step 2: Get Those Reviews!
Now that you a place where your customers can leave reviews, all you have to do is ask. I find that it best to ask right after you have successfully helped out a client with a problem, as they are likely to have a great feeling about your work. You can also just generally ask (the email below is written for just a general ask).
Here is a sample email that you can use to ask your clients for reviews:
Hi _,
I hope all is well!
I’m emailing for a semi-selfish reason. We’re looking to grow our business and one of the things that we want to do is get some reviews online from our current clients.
With that said, it would be greatly appreciated if you could leave a review on my Google places page: [put the url of your Google Place page here] or on yelp: [put the url of your yelp page here]. We’re hoping that you can leave us a review because these will help us convince other clients to hire us.
It shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes to leave the review. If you can’t think of what to write about, here are some ideas on what you could comment on:
– our professionalism
– how responsive or helpful we are
– anything else that you like about our servicesThanks again!
[Your Name Here]
I’ve used a similar email for the past 6 months and almost every person that I’ve sent it to has left me a review.
Just a note that there are a few psychological techniques that I use in this second email to make it work, but I’m not going to get into them. I just want you to know that to use it and the reviews will start flowing in.
Now all you have to do is implement. DO IT NOW!
Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have any questions with this material.
I’d also love to hear about all of the awesome reviews that you’ve been getting.
Here’s a post on how to get more customers by using customer testimonials on your website.
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