Our Journey to Xero Platinum Partner
                     Our Journey to Xero Platinum 
Partner
The journey to a Xero Platinum Partner is not a journey 
to be taken lightly. To put it in perspective, it's a journey 
that many Accounting and Bookkeeping firms aspire to, 
but few actually make it. As of writing this, there are 
only 6 bookkeeping businesses in Australia that have 
achieved this coveted status, and iKeep achieved this in 
less than 2 years.
The criteria that Xero Partners are assessed on takes 
into account:
1. How many Xero Certified Advisors we have in our 
business, and
2. How many clients we are working on.
This means that we need to have a balance between 
our internal training whilst maintaining and outward 
focus and delivering what our clients want.
As a small business owner, one of the most important 
decisions you can make is hiring the right bookkeeper. 
As well as being experienced, your bookkeeper needs 
to be highly personable and easy for you to relate to.
When I thought through, “What do we do differently to 
other firms? What helped them reach Gold Partner 
status with Xero?” I jotted down into Evernote ideas as 
they came to me, and it resulted in a list of 10 things.
Then I thought, “Hey, I should blog that list.” (Gotta 
practice what we preach!)
So I have.
And here it is.
For Xero ‘newbies’…
Forge a strong relationship with your local Xero Account 
Manager. You’ll need a partner and on-call resource on 
this journey. Don’t try to go it alone. Your Xero Account 
Manager has the best knowledge and best price point 
(free!) for helping you along your learning journey with 
Xero. (Plus Xero recruit very well. You’ll find your 
Account Manager can add a lot of value to your firm, 
through their general tech savvy advice.)
Understand the big picture WHY of cloud, single ledger, 
Xero Bookkeeping and the Add-on Partner app 
ecosystem. It’s crucial to not just understand this, but 
to live and breathe this vision. Teaching your clients 
about this positions you as a Thought Leader. With only 
10% of SMEs in Australia, for example, having heard of 
Xero (I was floored when I heard this during Rod Drury’s 
CEO address at Xerocon this morning) there is still huge 
growth ahead for them, and—by extension—for you.
If you’re a new Xero bookkeeper, quickly get the basic 
product knowledge: Don’t dabble. Dive in, learn Xero, 
use it—get hands-on—get really familiar with it in a 
practical sense. You can only effectively sell what you 
believe in, and you can only believe in what you 
understand.
Embrace it: Fully implement Xero in your own business. 
You need to 100% walk your talk if you’re 
recommending Xero to your clients.
Investigate and totally understand the software 
applications provided by the Xero Add-on Partners 
network. Focus in on those that are relevant to your 
clients. Document your recommended list of apps. 
Then master them. Many of these apps are truly mind-
blowing. It’s an exciting time to be in business. You can 
add massive value to your clients here by guiding them 
and putting them on a fast-track to transforming their 
business processes. It’s about more than accounting. As 
Rod Drury says, “Accounting is the core data, but it is 
just the beginning.”
Start blogging, tweeting, and doing eNewsletter articles 
about aspects of Xero. Get your marketing material and 
your website looking great too. Use a web developer 
who understands accounting businesses, understands 
the cloud, and who truly gets how important the design 
aspects are on websites.
Start running your own webinars and client workshops. 
You’ll achieve a big impact, quickly. Modern marketing 
is largely about education, not traditional promotion.
Decide on and commit to your new modus operandi of 
“If you want to work with us, we’ll move you across to 
Xero.” There might be some rare exceptions amongst 
your clientbase due to legacy or custom in-house 
systems they are using, but in the small and medium 
business space, adopt this as your standard approach 
with new clients.
Up the ante and really become active in online 
marketing including blogging, social media, webinars, 
screencasts, SEO, landing pages and other modern 
marketing tools. This will allow you to effectively and 
time-efficiently educate your clients about the benefits 
of cloud computing, cloud accounting, single ledger, 
social accounting/ collaboration and Xero.
Clearly Platinum Partners don’t bring 500 clients across 
to Xero by accident. It takes focus, follow-through, 
execution. If you are looking to move you bookkeeping 
and payroll to an expert, speak to one of our experts 
today!