hello reditors, this ones for the people who work as freelance bookkeepers or have a bookkeeping firm or anything in between. I'm 16F I've taken any and all intuit courses on accounting and bookkeeping as well as I've completed my high school university level accounting course with a 90%. I started bookkeeping to get paid back in june 2022. up to date I've gotten 2 clients. one from fiverr and one from a paid kiji ad. until December when i posted the ad i wasn't taking this business seriously, now that I'm looking to get into university. ( i should have mentioned i am an aspiring accountant or to work in the finance field and i don't have the strongest average. its an 86 at the moment. my extra curriculars and other interest are sports teams, business clubs etc etc yk all that uni jargon. I'm doing this business to have a competitive edge and more experience cuz the job market for accounting is looking mad).

anyways back to my post. yeah so the competitive edge thingy. i started taking the business seriously and i want a roster of clients. I'm not a complete beginner to bookkeeping however getting clients is a completely different challenge when i don't know anyone personally (parents friends) that has a small business or anyone in my immediate circle i could get work from even for free. so I'm looking towards cold calling, email, msg my more local CPAS and bookkeeper, so far I've been cold calling business owners as a sales tactic (doesn't work) i realized the only way I'm going to get clients is by referrals or posting ads. i got the ad part but I'm running out of money (no job). so my plan was to cold call CPAS or bookkeepers nd try to provide value by working for free but also gain experience and like a recommendation letter.

what should i do?

TLDR: I'm writing here today because i want to know if its completely dumb to think i could call a cpa and first of all get to work for them or would they even take me seriously because I'm still in high school. Also if its not dumb how should i approach them since this is usually when they're busiest. Thanks