Marketing for a relatives business with no budget?

Whether you think that is total rubbish or not is not my concern, I can tell you for a fact, he is on a limited budget. The reasons for this, I do not know, I will maybe try and help him with his overheads to reduce his outgoing but I'm not lying, and neither is he.

Thanks for the suggestions, actually he been in the business for a while but the recession has hit hard, as I stated before I don't know and don't want to know why he has limited funds but I might move onto that subject if needed.

I'll consider your advice and definitely look at ways to work smarter not harder. As for the payment that is not my motive, you may want to take money from a family member (sorry if that sounded bad), but I am not like that, a relative is in need of my help and is struggling financially.

I am not going to take even more money from him, that is not why I'm doing it. I have other ways of supporting my self and do not need the money, he does.

Thanks for the advice man, it's a good thing you get me, was starting to think it was wrong to do something for free

These are actually some useful tips, I might just use some of your ideas.

1) He has a job, an Accountant

2) What form of paid advertising are you talking about (considering it has to be local)

Okay is he Partnership or solo?

Do you know if he is ACCA or ICAEW by any chance? Doesn't matter of you don't just curious.

I'm off out now. Won't be back until Saturday so I will either post or PM you.

Dan

PS: Ad can be classifies for £29 plus VAT and that will get some business. Depends what he charges. £250 pm is nothing for an Accountant fees so 10 responses already puts him at £30k.

My Girlfriend/Partner whatever they are called these days got 13 in one week simply having an Ad that said 'If you are a Small Business I'll cut your taxes by more than double what you will pay me. Call Charlotte on 0118 9xxxxxx'

As I have said here:


I have already done that, but thanks anyway.

Is your accountant relative a specialist in anything? I ask because if he is, you would have an easier time... at least targeting.

Also, because I know an accountant who specializes in import/export companies, reason being, there are rules that apply (at least in the US) that, according to her, some 60% of accountants don't even know. Yet some of them do work with import/export companies, causing damage. The accountant I know can show business owners how large the damage and how easily it can be fixed (hiring her).

I know another accountant who specializes in working with restaurants and bars (take cash) to prevent the state of Illinois from auditing them. He has newsletters and speaks to small groups, scares the pants off 'em with some cases of bars and restaurants getting in trouble... and then shows them how easily they, the people in the audience, can stay out of trouble, if they hire him.

In my part of the world, public libraries can be relatively easily induced to let accountants use a conference room (sometimes the equipment is not state of the art; sometimes it's not there) for free. They also have a business librarian, who gets asked a lot of questions by local business owners. Which he/she tracks.

In other words, it might be worth your while (assuming public libraries work where you are the same as they do in Illinois) to go talk to the business librarian: they might already have a list of names of business owners who have questions about accounting and might be willing to let your relative make a presentation and invite those business owners to it.

At the presentation, your relative would hand out a newsletter, free report, something... and an invitation to visit the website to get some other free report... or a more detailed version.

He could choose a particular type of business he likes to work with. He would create a survey about the top accounting-related problems business owners in the target business have. He would then email the survey to a bunch of business owners and ask them to fill out the survey. If they do, he'll give them a copy of the ebook he's writing about... They'll see how they compare to other business owners.

You'd, of course, do all of that for him, create the survey, send it out, compile the results.

When you get enough of them - doesn't have to be that many - you put them in an e-book format, and email them out as promised.

But now you have a few problems they have... so you can create solutions especially for them.

I cant agree, some of the most powerful ads on the internet only cost 40 bucks... Its not about financial reources, its about creativity.

What if you specialized in preparing taxes JUST for online marketers only, and wrote copy around that and just used the classifieds in forums like this one to market.... "I specialize in working with IM'rs because I understand their special needs, where others are clueless about the tax laws that pertain to IM... I know specifically how to get IMr's the breaks they need..."

A million dollars wont work, throwing money at bad headlines doesnt work, not unless you have a good idea and a good hook and you are matching a market.

If you have "That" then you can do it without a million dollars.

Creativity is better than excess working capital. "What do I already have, that I can leverage to get what I want,?", thats always my first question.

A good headline in a free ad spot or cheap one is worth more than an ineffective headline in a big ad.

Be creative. Dig deeper, you dont need money. Heck even a handful of clients is good in his industry- you can get more than a handful without any working capital if you are creative.