Can you help with our Sole Practitioner Survey please

cheapaccounting

Hi

I am trying to get a view of the Sole Practitioner marketplace and have put together a very brief survey.

http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/survey

I’ve collected some interesting results so far ....

60% of respondents do not offer remote accountancy services

54% do not use cloud accounting solutions

60% spend less than £100 a month on marketing

Please help me by adding your views.

Thank you for reading this and taking part if you choose to do so.

Regards
Elaine

Monsoon

Done!

I would also add, as there wasn't space to do so, that I spend less than £100 a month on marketing to manage my growth - my growth would be unmanageable if I tried to get more and, right now, I'm happy with the level of growth I have.

I'm surprised that so many people don't offer a remote service.

cheapaccounting

Thank you Jenni . xx

Good point on marketing. Let me counter that with 16% had been a sole practitioner for less than one year and 33% 2 to 5 years. So still growing maybe.

I am not sure how important people think marketing is and what type of marketing activities they undertake.
To be honest we don’t spend much on marketing but do spend a lot of time on it – me full time for one!

jamesm96

Elaine!

Never knew you were a member on here. Survey completed.

jamesm96

Monsoon wrote: »

My growth would be unmanageable if I tried to get more... I'm surprised that so many people don't offer a remote service.

Perhaps there's a link!

cheapaccounting

Thank you - yes I've been lurking for a bit and now with our new mang. team in place I actually have a bit more time to post on here. So you may see me a bit more if people don't mind :-)

Monsoon

jamesm96 wrote: »

Perhaps there's a link!

Nope - 90% of my growth is local right now

Elaine, you're right in the business age thing. I never spent much on marketing and my business grew very slowly until now - and I think it's the High Street presence and established nature of my business that's now doing it, that and my website which I didn't have for a while.

cheapaccounting

Thank you for the feedback Jenni.

It's funny because CheapAccounting.co.uk has grown rapidly from day one with little marketing spend and no high street presence.

I guess it is horses for courses in terms of growth – all models work. Let’s face it there is a market of over 4 million businesses and many accountants out there all doing things differently. We can all work alongside each other.

jamesm96

cheapaccounting wrote: »

CheapAccounting.co.uk has grown rapidly from day one with little marketing spend

But with no insignificant amount of Social Media and Forum activity, surely?

cheapaccounting

jamesm96 wrote: »

But with no insignificant amount of Social Media and Forum activity, surely?

Little marketing spend but as I said loads of marketing activity as is social media and forums.

Monsoon

Is Twitterholic a word?

deanshepherd

Monsoon wrote: »

Is Twitterholic a word?

Only if forumaddict is..

cheapaccounting

Monsoon wrote: »

Is Twitterholic a word?

If it isn't it should be - the rate of return on my time is fabulous.

Take my current blog as an example ...

Tax and Spending - Do I think this way because I am an accountant?
http://www.cheapaccounting.co.uk/blog/index.php/tax-and-spending-do-i-think-this-way-because-i-am-an-accountant/

Paul Lewis (Radio 4 Money Box and BBC Breakfast news) said this about it:

"If you only read one thing on the current tax imbroglio/shenanigans/fiascos read this by @cheapaccounting - brilliant"

It was then re-tweeted by loads - all free (except for my time to write the blog)

I think I am more of a blogaholic than anything :-)

anniem

Done it!

Would note that I have a twitter account, but don't know what to do with it ..... I do fb, but feel like an octagenarian when it comes to tweets. I have nothing interesting to say and don't have time to do blogs or spend my whole day on technology (the house is untidy enough just with my existing workload - but the children are clean/fed and pigs happily in flight)

Anna

cheapaccounting

Thank you for completing it :-)

As regards twitter, it does need to be part of a marketing plan. I see many start to tweet and not keep it up. Worse still are those that just broadcast sales messages.

Twitter is like attending a network meeting - you just have a much bigger audience that a physical meeting.

Happy to answer any twitter related questions.

Dean

I thought I was on UKBF for a minute then!

Welcome Elaine.

Regards

Dean

cheapaccounting

Dean wrote: »

I thought I was on UKBF for a minute then!

Welcome Elaine.

Regards

Dean

tee hee - oh I do get around :-)

I shall learn soon how to use the emoticons in the post LOL