I am new to the QB ProAdvisor community and I am curious if any of you receive leads through the find an advisor page. I have not had any in @ 30 days and dont know if my ad is not written well or if my market is saturated. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance, Josh
I have been a ProAdvisor for close to four months and not had a single contact from the ProAdvisor page. If you are operating in a large metropolitan area it may be difficult to feature very high on the listings particularly as the search defaults to 30 miles radius of the zip code.
In due course it will help to get the Advanced certification as that will put you further up the list.
I am treating the ProAdvisor listing as just one of many possible referral sources and not the only one that will generate business.
I personally think being a ProAdvisor is a great way to generate business. But, it takes much longer than a few days, or even a few months, to really start paying off. My advice would be to ask for reviews and referrals. People want to know you know what you're doing before they hire you.
Then again, if you're in the St Louis Area, I'd say you should probably give it up. If it hasn't worked in 30 days it probably never will. ;)
Thanks for the feedabck, although im in New England, what makes the St. Louis area unique?
There are several things you can do to help rank higher:
1. Get Certified in the current year (i.e. 2012 is now out -- do it ASAP).
2. Get Advanced Certified when you're eligible (do the 2011 certification too)
3. Get reviews / ratings from clients
4. Include a pic
5. Fully complete all areas of the profile -- focus on the benefits you provide and not just the services you offer.
I get a lot of calls & referrals from the Find a ProAdvisor website but I'm in the top few in my metro area (Kansas City). It takes some time to work your way to the top. As mentioned, the Find a ProAdvisor website should only be one of your marketing methods. :)
Josh,
Having replied a few days ago that I had no referrals from the Find A ProAdvisor web site, lo and behold on Thursday evening I got a call from somebody who had found my profile on the site. On Friday morning I was out setting up classes for them and networking their two computers. Got 2 hours of paid work. :-)
So have faith, you will get that first call eventually.
The only referral I've had was a client who already acts for one accoutancy firm I work with! Ok it's something but that's 1 client in a couple of months and I live in Portsmouth, UK, which doesn't have that many Quickbooks advisors around.
Granted maybe some things like a photo, client reviews, etc would help and if someone can say how you do that (i.e. is there an edit part on the website, etc) that would be a great help.
What's this Certified thing? Is it US only or can the UK do it as well?
