Building a Niche Practice: How Digital Proposals Helped Us Specialize in E-commerce Clients
Once we had chosen to concentrate on bookkeeping for e-commerce businesses, it dawned upon us that offers had to reflect this speciality. The proposal software for bookkeepers became the decisive factor in the conversion of our generalist practice into one in demand as an e-commerce financial partner.
Our journey began with a detailed study of the needs of our existing e-commerce clientele. E-commerce clients were just in need of very specific services that were not easily defined in conventional bookkeeping engagements. Each of the different reconciliations—from marketplace integrations to multi-currency transactions—needed thorough explanation and a very clear scope definition.
From there, we set out to educate ourselves broadly on the various e-commerce platforms. We created detailed service matrices, covering everything from Shopify to Amazon FBA, WooCommerce to Etsy. While the software allowed us to maintain unique components for each of these platforms, it enforced consistent pricing and service descriptions across all our proposals.
The transformation in client conversations happened almost overnight. No longer were our discussions generic ones around bookkeeping; we were able to show our niche right away. No longer did our proposals avoid topic-specific language addressing common pain points—inventory management, payment gateway reconciliation, sales tax compliance, and so forth—common across a variety of jurisdictions.
Case studies turned out to be our secret weapon. The software built for us enabled maintaining a library of e-commerce success stories while automatically referencing applicable examples based on prospect platform and business model. A Shopify store owner, for example, was able to see case studies from his or her cohort, thus making our expertise immediately relevant to their case.
Another specialisation in which we earned was in pricing structure. We packaged tiered packages exclusively for e-commerce businesses with scaling options clearly outlined based on transaction volume and marketplace complexity development. The software helped us to project these options simply while showing the value progression without drowning in technical details.
The increase in conversions was up to 400% on e-commerce prospects. In just 6 months, we went from 30% successful conversion of general bookkeeping proposals to 70% successful conversion of all e-commerce proposals. The fact remains that, with increased specialisation, there was an 85% increment in average value per client as companies began to love the very specialised knowledge we brought to them.
The best outcome from it all is that we gained reputation within the e-commerce community. Nowadays, several of our proposals find themselves in the virtual seller groups, serving as the ideal model of proposals for what to look at when engaging with a bookkeeping partner.
What started as a strategic pivot has turned out to be a really genuine competitive advantage, thus proving that growing in a way sometimes tends to require smaller and narrower thinking.
