Client Origination Sources

If you had to make a breakdown of your client origination sources (e.g., referrals, family/friends, paid leads, website, off-the-street, &c.), what would you say yours are? Thanks!

If you had to make a breakdown of your client origination sources (e.g., referrals, family/friends, paid leads, website, off-the-street, &c.), what would you say yours are? Thanks!

At this stage of my business 99% are referrals from current and past clients. The rest are walk-in, google search, Yelp etc.

I really want referrals therefore I stopped advertising.

When I first started it was reverse. I paid for newspaper ads, coupons etc. I also worked as a "junior" to another accountant sharing some of the revenue and paid a small salary.

100% referrals.

I'd estimate about 50% find me through the internet and 50% referrals.

This year's client list is probably 50% internet (website + Google maps) and 50% referrals. Just guessing as I stopped tracking.

99% referrals

99% referrals as well

I'm still on the front end, building from scratch. Here were my primary lead sources getting off the ground:

1.) BNI Networking Group: Many people don't like the format, but I've been adding $15,000 to $20,000 a year in new revenue from it.

2.) Centers of Influence Marketing: I have a few terrific referral sources that send me a fair amount of business. In particular, a bookkeeper, a number of financial advisors, and a mortgage broker.

3.) Dave Ramsey ELP program: I put this down because it led to more returns, but I no longer use it. The profile was not profitable nor the client profile needed to scale a business. These were consistently the least profitable returns I completed.

4.) Client referrals. This has been building as I get a few years into it.

5.) Other Business: My primary business is financial planning and investment management. I got a few early returns advertising tax services to planning clients, but not as many as I would have expected.

6.) This year I'm buying out a small tax practice of a retiring advisor. It's tiny, only about $10,000 in revenue, but a decent fee structure and easy to absorb.

I'm not a rainmaker by any means. Tax is only one part of what I do, I've been able to grow revenues to over $75,000 in 3 1/2 years starting from scratch and only marketing the tax part on a very part time basis as I have another business to run/grow.

This is for my law practice in general:
90% - existing clients have new cases or referrals
5% - random phone calls or emails from my website
2.5% - advertising
2.5% - walk-in

This is for my law practice in general:
90% - existing clients have new cases or referrals
5% - random phone calls or emails from my website
2.5% - advertising
2.5% - walk-in

Just curious. What percentage of your tax clients are also your legal clients? Which came first law client or tax client?

also 99% referral based


I don't think Ive ever used any sort of advertising, other than having my info on the IRS and EA sites.

I prefer it this way

Just curious. What percentage of your tax clients are also your legal clients? Which came first law client or tax client?

Everyone was a client for law first, though I have gotten a few inquiries from non-clients about the new tax service I offer. Tax is something a lot of clients have asked about over the years, and it has particular importance in family law matters where there are considerations of tax consequences for property disposition, etc. I just never provided tax advice because I assumed it required a lot of additional training. Although the tax law is complex, by limiting my offering to individuals and sole proprietor businesses, I think I am in a reasonable segment to start off with.

At this point, about half found and followed me after I went back into public accounting from private accounting. They were not happy with the CPAs they went to, so I became beneficiary once the word got out I was back on the block (so-to-speak). The remaining are referrals and people I have met or grown relationships with at church and networking events.

BNI is a solid source, but they rubbed me the wrong way when I tried to join a while back. They had an open CPA seat, I applied for it, and a non-CPA accountant prevented me from joining. When I explained there is a difference between a CPA and accountant, the President of that chapter did not understand and the organizer for the entire region was useless. I quickly lost interest. They are also not very flexible for people like CPAs and other professions with less steady schedules. Their members also tend to be incredibly pushy, which wears me down.

I am looking into Rotary for reasons besides networking, but I think it would help me obtain new business, too.