In this interview, we talked with Josh Bauerle, who came on to talk about how he got his first 100 accounting clients and kickstarted the success of his firm.

In this interview, we talk about how to get your first 100 accounting clients as well as:
+ How Josh found his first opportunity to start his own firm
+ How we landed a “Dream Client” that catapulted his firm
+ How he packages his services and builds in retainers
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Part 1:
+ How Josh found his first joint venture
+ His transition into owning his own firm
+ How he got his first 100 accounting clients on board

Part 2:
+ How content strategy when he started out
+ How he created recurring, packaged tax services
+ How he landed his “dream client” & grew past his first 100 accounting clients

Josh’s Website: http://cpaonfire.com/
Josh’s “Runaway” Youtube Success video:  

Back To The Beginning

Josh Bauerle has had a sporadic career progression so far.  He went from trying out many aspects of the CPA world to starting his own advisory business.  He is the Owner and Operator of JDB Business Solutions (www.CPAJDB.com) and the Founder of CPAonFire (http://cpaonfire.com).  
Josh was able to make an accelerated leap from first starting as a staff accountant at a Fortune 500 firm.  Then he moved onto a CPA firm where he got his CPA license and did some tax and audit work.  After that, he moved on to work at a financial advising firm for a year.  

When To Determine What You Want

He was “all over the place” as Josh said.  He was not enjoying the work at any of these places and realized that he had to work for himself.  He did enjoy doing tax work mainly for business owners where he finds himself doing that work today.  

Josh “figured out how to make money doing taxes,” and so can you.

In realizing he was going to start his own business, Josh took active steps to make it happen and had a bit of luck along the way too.
It is all about niching down and focusing on a specific service offering.  Then sprinkle in some content creation with blogs, videos, and podcasts, and you will start seeing traction around your efforts.  

How To Transition To Your Own Firm

Josh first had the idea to run his own practice when he was working at the financial advisory firm.  Their business strategy for growth was to buy a CPA firm to leverage additional business from their financial advising clients.  However, the financial advisory firm “got cold feet,” according to Josh.   

But Josh did not.  He put in his two week’s notice and took the leap to find his own CPA firm to buy.   

And he put in an ad on Craig’s List.  

Yes.  He put an ad on Craig’s List to buy a tax practice in the Denver area where he was located at the time.

Although Josh and the business seller could not agree on a price to buy firm outright, they reached a compromise.   

Josh would work for the owner doing tax returns for the existing client base and earn a 35% commission on each return.  Also, they agreed that Josh could find his own clients on the side and work for himself in that way.   

“It was almost an H&R Block style business,” says Josh.  They were doing tax return on the spot and “cranking it out” at low rates and high volumes.  

For Josh, it was a “huge learning experience” and he enjoyed the tax work.  On Day 1, he hit ground running to start his own side business, all while earning a guaranteed, recurring income during tax season.

After year 1, Josh pulled in $10,000 revenue on his own.  Then he built it up to $40,000 in revenue in the following year.  

He thought, “I can grow this.”  And after just two years, he walked away from the tax business arrangement.  Since then, he has been on his own.

Josh found that most business owners did not have an option to complete their tax returns at a reasonable price.  Josh knew he could provide quality tax return service at a better price than the larger firms could.  

Embracing The Creative Angles To Win Business

First Josh leveraged the business owner network through his mother who is also a business owner.   

Josh created his website right away.  On the site, he posted new content frequently – up to four blogs posts a week.  

Then he launched YouTube videos on “How Tos” for the everyday person, such as “How to fill out a Schedule C” or “How fill out a Form 1065.”  

Josh had no background on marketing his business through social media and YouTube.  It was just his mindset.  He thought, “hey people need this information and there’s pay here,” so he found the quickest way he knew how to take advantage.

His impulsive courage and passion matched his action.  He just figured out how to make a simply good, explanatory video.

Josh posted many videos.  Some were more successful than the others.  What was important was that he made steady progress with his content creation and that consistency provided recurring value.

Friends asked why he would share all he knows to everyone for free.  It worked to his benefit, actually.  Some of his YouTube videos got significant views, including one with over 35,000 views, a level that is a big deal for the subject of tax, Josh notes.  

It turned out to be the Number 1 search result on YouTube and the Number 2 search result behind the IRS link on Google.

His YouTube videos brought in about $10,000 worth of business and that business is now recurring.  While people who watched the videos became informed, they still were frustrated, so much so, they reached out to Josh to have him do their tax returns for a fee.  

The YouTube video sessions worked well as a free promotion tool for his business.

Create Recurring, Packaged Tax Services

Josh was finding that 90% of his business revenue was coming from tax season, and so he wanted to figure out a way to create additional, recurring revenue to earn throughout the rest of the year

He kept looking at what clients wanted.  He noticed that after reviewing the business entities of his clients, he would conclude often that LLCs or Sole Proprietors should be converted into S-Corporations.  He saw this opportunity as a massive, recurring value for his clients and for his business.  

So he launched a consulting service for his clients.  For a flat-fee package of $1995, he would provide tax-return services, business entity reviews, 30 minutes of consulting per month over the year period.  

In switching business elections, he was able to save $7000 in taxes for his clients, and in paying $1995 for the package, his clients were still “coming out $5000 ahead.”

Clients saw the value and wanted his services right away.  Josh sold 5 packages in the first month he launched this service.  He earned $10,000 in revenue “for a tax preparer without doing tax return.”

He played around with the price.  Josh said the more he upped the price, the more his consulting packages sold.  It is the psychology of price where higher prices evoke a certain expectation of quality services.

How To Land A Dream Client To Catapult Your Firm

Then Josh got his big break.  He connected with the popular podcaster, John Lee Dumas of Entrepreneur On Fire who has 500,000 recurring listeners per month.  Josh is now featured monthly on the podcast show.   

“Find an influencer that you can do work for free.  Put your name out there.  Offer value for free,” Josh recommends.  In return, that person would want to help reciprocate in some way.

Josh was smart.  He reached out to John and offered his help for free on a few of John’s business projects.  Josh helped John “save a ton on taxes” and eventually landed a spot on the show talking about tax tips.  

He is in the middle of his 5-part podcast series talking about how entrepreneurs can save money on taxes.  And it has worked: 75% of his clients have come from listening to him on the show.

What is next for Josh?  He is launching his own podcast show for accounting and tax entrepreneurs and is working on creating a community for CPAs and attorneys to start firms and grow businesses.  Also, he continues to maintain his exposure by posting content on YouTube videos, his blogs, and his website.  

The moral of the story:  Sometimes it is not worrying about how much you can make on the front end.  It is establishing that relationship and adding value for your client.

Eventually, good business is going to come back to you in some way.

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2. Lesson Five: Where to Find Leads Part 1
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We all desire to serve our clients in better ways.  In implementing high impact strategies, we can add great depth to the client relationship while growing the business.  This week’s guest is Steve Pipe, Founder of ImproveYourPractice, and we dive into how to deliver proactive value to your clients, charge premium fees, and right-size your client base.

In this episode, we cover…

• How (and Why) You Should Intentionally Work with Fewer Clients
• How to Build Greater Connection and Increase Prices with Your Client Price
• How to Build Recurring and Predictable Revenue for Your Firm

and so much more:

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• http://improveyourpractice.co.uk/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevepipe
• Reach out to Steve : steve(at symbol)stevepipe.com
• Steve’s Books

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We all know how stressful the life of a CPA accountant can be, especially during the busy season.  We work incredibly hard over long hours during the week, and that work creeps into the weekend.  The volume of work – it never ceases to end – wears us down, and we feel unappreciated by clients.  Plus we are working to deliver what now seems to be a commoditized service.    

But that can all change.  You can intentionally choose to work with fewer clients, therefore build greater connections and increase your prices.   

This advice is from Steve Pipe who is known as the world’s most highly rated advisors to accountants.  He is the Founder of ImproveYourPractice.com.  Steve is an industry speaker, strategist, and author, and has over 470 LinkedIn testimonials and counting.  

“Accountants are the heart of the business communities and are making the business community more successful,” Steve observes.  So why does the industry see their role as a backwards note-taker, he wonders.    

His suggestion is for accountants to deliver premium services.  The “root of issues” are that “accountants simply don’t charge enough,” says Steve.    

Premium Price Your Services
With low rates, doing an “incredibly good job” can be at risk.  “Income, work-life balance, or service quality” are negatively affected, and it is inevitable all three will be compromised,” Steve thinks.

In his Blueprint for Better Accounting Practice work, Steve found that in a sampling of industry work, over 40% of cases in the UK there were mistakes, errors, omissions, and 30% of those are judged to be major errors.  

Steve tells the industry to have the “courage to stand up for premium service.”  “We hide behind the illusion that there is a market price.  We can’t charge more than the market price.  We will lose our clients.”  

But he finds a huge variation of prices across the board.  “Price is a choice.”  In making better pricing choices, you will have the time and the money and the budget to deliver premium services.”

Increase your prices, implement value-based pricing, and reduce the number of clients.  

By charging higher prices, you will find the quality of clients improves and you have less of the hassle.  As a result, you receive better monetary rewards and better emotional rewards.  

And that pricing is justified through the quality work you deliver.  

More than anything else “we are experts in numbers,” says Steve.  Accountants used to get paid for adding numbers up.  “All that stuff is now being done with the push of the button.”

So now what we provide to our clients is an analytical, strategic layer of advisory.  Use your skills with numbers to help clients interpret and make better decisions with those numbers.  

In short:  Connect, collaborate, and leverage the cloud to reduce time.   

“Cloud technology is bringing the accounting profession in the crossroad,” says Steve.  It “just makes things easier than ever before.”

Deliver Proactive Value in 5 Easy Steps  

You can stand out to your clients in a great way through the style of your proactive services and the integrity of your work.
“Clients want for their accountant to be genuinely proactive,” notes Steve.  

Although in his many years of training the accounting industry, Steve realized that there was no shared understanding for what being proactive means.    
He believed it was critical to define the word “proactive.”  So he did, basing the determination from his extensive work with the industry.  

Ready to learn how to proactively provide services to your clients?  Find out how in 5 easy steps according to Steve:

1. Step 1:  Do something before your client requests it.  Be proactive, not reactive.  
2. Step 2:  Make that deliverable specifically relevant to their circumstances.  “A newsletter does not cover it,” because it is not specifically relevant to every client
3. Step 3:  Make that deliverable highly valuable so that it is “a real difference to their business, to profitability, to life.”
4. Step 4:  Do not “ambush bill” your client immediately after this deliverable.  “The bill will not be expected” and “it just un-done all the good you did.”  Although Steve says you could charge the client in the second instance of this deliverable.  Performing the work pro-bono for the first time can be to your advantage.  Either it builds goodwill (an emotional reward to you) or the client will ask “can I buy that service from you” (a financial reward to you).  In essence, you “made a sale without selling.”
5. Step 5:  Make this process systematic so you can repeat the process “every time for every client.”  

Steve says this process is incredibly powerful and it leads the way for you to become trusted advisor to your clients.

Focus on the 8 Areas of Client Business

Now the 8 business areas in which you can apply your systematized process to proactively deliver value to your clients can be found in:  

1. Proactive profits
2. Cash flow
3. Personal income
4. Magnitude of tax position
5. Value of business
6. Personal wealth
7. Work life balance
8. Key family members financial position.   

However, Steve says that to be able to proactively deliver work to your clients in these areas, you need to rely on your 3Cs:  Confidence, Credibility, and Competency.   
Building Your Business Self-Confidence
What happens if you do not have courage and self-confidence to perform your best for your clients?  “Until we believe that we are great and confident in our abilities, nothing is going to work,” says Steve

We will not be able to deliver great work if we “lack courage on our convictions to see things through.”  It all starts with self-confidence and self-belief.  
Convince yourself!  “Because when you believe it, then your clients will believe the same thing,” Steve assures.  

Systematically build self-confidence and capture Ideas.  Then Steve recommends using that agenda when you meet with clients.  
So to get there, Steve suggests to:

• Reflect on skills, knowledge, insights you have
• Understand what differences you made
• Remember all of the fantastic things you have done and learned and how you overcame
• Think about what you read in books, how you can start to make a difference in those 8 areas, in the additional ideas and in services you can offer
• Identify what is highly valuable to your client  
• Explore potential ideas for advice  

Now make a list of what you just uncovered.  

From there, create case studies of your completed work, collect client testimonials and success stories, and showcase specific improvements you made for businesses.

“It’s about being systematic.  It’s about saying ‘this is so important:  Being proactive, justifying premium prices, changing the strategy of the firm.  That it’s worth investing time, in creating those lists, building them into our system.’”  

Steve continues by saying that it’s all about “practicing, getting better, [gaining] more and more self confidence, and sharing those ideas with client.  Then little by little, bit-by-bit, it gets better. “

The Importance of a Written Agenda

Now take what you learned and go wow your client!  

Arrange a meeting and come prepared with a written agenda you created ahead of time.

“Having a written agenda is actually one of the most important bits of preparation.  It’s important so that the client knows you care enough to have thought about the meeting before the meeting and prepared for it,” says Steve.  

“Interaction with client is fundamentally different when you have a written agenda. “

Clients switch from one accountant to another because they may believe you do not care about their needs.  Steve attests that “a written agenda proves you care.”  
In devising your written agenda, it will be up to you to design the purpose of the meeting.  It can be a systematic and strategic approach, covering the things that you want to cover.  Include your feedback, testimonials, and referrals while you are at it.    

But Steve says the most important line in any written agenda:  What issues or concerns the client wants to address.  This point cannot be the last point on the agenda.  Start with that question first before all else:  “Is there anything else specific you want to cover today?”

Be proactive and confident in your abilities, and the sky is the limit in what you can accomplish for yourself and your clients.  
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