Michael Ly, founder of Burlington CFO and Reconciled It, knows the secrets to growing fast and building multiple accounting companies. After just a couple years of starting his CFO consulting practice, he swiftly opened his bookkeeping firm.

What he found out after working with his initial client base was they struggled with hiring and maintaining quality bookkeepers. Rather than simply referring out the new bookkeeping work, Michael built a separate company to meet this need and grow his brand.

In this episode of Grow Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Michael Ly uncovers:

1. Steps to networking for your first clients when starting your firm
2. How he built a second company after just starting his first
3. Empowering your team in order to grow faster

ADDITIONAL LINKS

• Burlington CFO
• Reconciled It
• Implement Value Pricing – Ron Baker Interview
• Turn Networking into New Clients – David Fisher Interview

Starting his CFO practice:

A son of Cambodian refugees, Michael Ly knows what it means to forge your own path. He spent many years, after graduating from Arizona State, working in various Controller and CFO roles including with Top 10 Firm Eide Bailly. In 2011, he moved across the US to Vermont.

A few short months later he opened the door to his CFO consulting practice, Burlington CFO. His firm advises CEOs and business owners on their financial business decisions and serve as an interim CFO. Most clients fall under the $3MM revenue and less than 40 employees umbrella.

Finding his first clients:

Moving across the country typically means a clean slate. Michael needed to grow his client base. His first strategic move was to look for networking events.

He googled various Chamber of Commerce events, startup events, and local groups. There, he went to learn about the area, the best places to meet others and grow a company.

Michael’s Strategy:

At an event, Michael’s plan was simple. Morph into a sponge and simply learn about the various companies. It’s a mindset.

He introduces himself very briefly and immediately starts asking questions about the person’s business. Especially with business owners, they pitch themselves and their business all the time, but often don’t feel “heard.” Michael built up a reputation for asking about their business but then also listening and responding. Keep the conversation focused on the other person.

The more he did this, the more he built trust.

“The person who listens controls the sale.” – Michael Ly

Frame your questions based on how they run their business and what’s their strategy. Let them brag a bit about successes.
To keep the conversation flowing, make sure you have follow-up questions in your back-pocket:

• “What inspires you?”
• “What stage of the business are you in?”
• “What are you frustrated with right now?”
• “What challenges do you regularly see in the industry?”

Sales people tend to talk so much about the product they sell and try to fit it into the lives of whoever they speak with. This is backwards.

Michael took the opposite approach. After awhile, his contacts began to trust him and introduced him to their contacts.
After digging into their challenges and realizing their problems, at some point, they would ask Michael what he did. Immediately, he could re-frame his skills to what their problems were. In no time, he was signing clients using this one approach.

Building up his practice:
Michael started off with hourly rates. He needed to start charging and, like a true entrepreneur, figured it out as he went along. Charging hourly allowed him to get his feet wet.

As he got better at what he did, he slowly crept up the price.

“Until you are being told ‘No’ for your prices, you are leaving money on the table” – Michael Ly

Soon after, Michael started dabbling in Value Pricing. He created a hybrid model where clients could buy “batches” of his time i.e. prepaid time. It was “use it or lose it” and if they accepted, they paid and received a discount upfront.

DAVID’S TIP: Find ways to predictability in your business. It makes life less stressful.

A new venture:

While consulting with clients, Michael found a major need. His client’s hired bookkeepers who proved to be inconsistent and stressful. Michael knew a great bookkeeper was paramount to smooth financial decisions.

A client asked if Michael could hire and vet his own bookkeeping team to relieve this pain point. What first seemed like a wild idea turned into a new company! Reconciled It launched in early 2015. Michael started it cheap, building the site on Weebly and finding his first trained bookkeepers.

This proven valuable to Michael’s CFO practice as he knew the client’s books were up to par and it made his job easier in making correct financial decisions.
Customers would essentially land on Burlington’s site, then click over to Reconciled It. ‘

An innovative way to introduce clients proved to be holding a 14 day Free Trial. Normally, you’d see trial runs with software products, but not with a service like bookkeeping.

“How can you afford to work for free?”

Michael knows there are always slacks in realization with bookkeepers. All the trials do is fill up that blank space.
It paid off.

Free trial to new client conversion is close to 100%! Unheard of with free trial offerings.

DAVID’S TIP: If you’re already spending money on marketing i.e. radio ads, print ads, etc. having a Free Trial is just another tool in your belt for marketing.

Starting your own company (or companies…?)

Michael believes if you are going to start a firm or open a new branch of your parent company, the leaders must be entrepreneurs. There are just too many decisions and risks to make and take that only an entrepreneur would face them correctly. It takes some guts and determination.

Also, know your numbers. Understand the Lifetime Value of a Client (LTV) and plan accordingly with finances.

In terms of building your team, at some point, you need to empower them with your clients. You cannot be present 24/7 as you look to grow. With his bookkeepers, Michael has one tag along to new client meetings so the bookkeeper knows from Day 1 what needs to be done.

For your clients, you must show your team and your clients your service offerings. Your prospects may not know everything they need and they certainly don’t understand all your offerings. You must Listen, then Understand, then Provide the Solution. Offer all services you believe the client might benefit from.

Michael’s built two impressive companies and in a short time-frame. He found a need within his own client-base, he was able to spin into another profitable machine. Sit down with your clients, listen, and dig into their challenges. There might be some hidden profit centers you didn’t know.

Related Articles:

1. 3 Crucial Steps to Building an Effective Accounting Team
2. Building a 7 Figure Firm: The Darren Root Interview
3. The Accountants Beginner Guide To Building A Personal Brand

Salim Omar, best-selling author and owner of Straight Talk CPA, has a new book, Million Dollar CPA Firm. He’s stopped by the podcast to give a peek at some of the top secrets he’s learned in his 20 years as a Firm owner.

He’s systematized his firm to the extent that clients will come in during tax season and ask Salim, “Aren’t you supposed to be locked in your office doing returns?”

Salim smiles, as he’s built a firm around his lifestyle where he doesn’t need to work 24/7.

In this episode of Growing Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and Salim Omar dive into:

1. The 3 steps to being a successful and profitable Firm owner.
2. Exact questions to ask your clients which lead to more engagement
3. Asking yourself “Am I doing $10 tasks rather than $100 tasks?”

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

• Straight Talk CPA – Salim’s Firm
• CPA Marketing Genius – Salim’s Coaching Service for Firms
• Million Dollar CPA Firm – New Book

——————————————————————————————————————————————–
Building the Foundation:

Salim Omar, Founder of Straight Talk CPA and now author of Million Dollar CPA Firm, started off as a CFO in “corporate America.” There, he worked 80+ hours a week and making a good living.

What he realized was he valued his time freedom over his monetary freedom. He had read the benefits of being self-employed — he made the jump.

The honeymoon phase as a new Firm Owner didn’t last long before Salim was again working 80+ hours a week and NOT making as much as he did as a CFO. For awhile, he thought about going back to corporate America as the stress was lower and the pay higher.

DAVID’S TIP: You might think working 80 hours is being productive, but your clients can feel the tension and stress you carry and it will affect your relationships.

Fast forward 20 years, now he has a fully-optimized practice, 12 employees and growing, best-selling author and achieved his dream of a lifestyle practice in New Jersey.

What changed?

Making the Switch to Become a Million Dollar CPA Firm:

Salim wrestled with how to optimize his firm. He turned to some of the best business minds out there:

• Michael Gerber
• Dan Kennedy
• Jay Abraham

He held all the pieces to the puzzle, they just won’t lock together correctly. For you, the first step to change is realizing you have a problem.

Then, you need to remind yourself: It doesn’t need to be this way. You can have a profitable, growing firm without slaving all week and weekend to get work out and be a good accountant.

Optimizing and running your firm like a well-oiled machine gives you the time freedom back. You can start by removing mundane, boring, low-cost admin costs.

“I can’t perform for my clients if I’m buried in paperwork.” – Salim Omar

Here are the steps he recommends…

3 Steps to Growth and Freedom:

Salim holds 3 core pillars to a successful million dollar CPA firm:

1. Team Development — have a vision your team believes and coach them
2. Bring in New Clients — nurture them to stay and refer
3. Work only on High-End Billable and Technical Projects — pick top ROI pieces, delegate the rest

As the one who runs the Firm, these are what you should be laser-focused on day-in day-out. Many Partners will argue, “I just don’t have the time.”

You won’t have the time if you don’t delegate relentlessly.

$10 vs. $100:

The problem most Partners face is they dig their heels in when it comes to delegating. They spend wasted hours on admin tasks i.e. $10 tasks. As Salim pushes above, when you do your accounting work, focus on the high billable pieces.
You can charge more for your status and your expertise. You can’t expect higher incomes if you don’t work on high-end projects.

DAVID’S TIP: Audit your time for a week and see where are you getting bogged in “$10 activities”

Salim recommends writing down 5 things you are going to stop doing. You’ll be amazed at how much time is spent on low-level activities or, worse, non-billable work.

Keeping Your Best Clients:

Another pillar mentioned above is nurturing your client base. Salim isn’t a big fan of “meetups for dinner.” A few times a year, he will meet clients in his office to go over issues and solutions.

As your firm grows, it’s tempting to just let clients float without giving them much attention except at deadlines (to save capacity.) This is wrong.

Schedule 3x a week — Calls, meetings etc. with various clients. Give them a touch-point they’ll appreciate. What should you say in these meetings…?
Ask them questions!

• What are your challenges?
• Where are you looking to go?
• What’s holding you back?

If it’s a trouble client, you can figure it out with these questions. You need to be strict on who walks through your doors as a client. You can bring up issues you’ve had with problem clients with those specific questions. What Salim noticed was if he confronted a client about parting ways due to certain red flags, they would come back (somewhat) begging and saying they’d do better.

Great spot to be in!

Becoming a Track Team:

Team Development was the first pillar for Salim. Keeping great employees and weeding out the bad ones.

You must be a sporting team. One that works together and knows what the others are thinking/doing. You must “brand” your culture in a special way to keep employees interested.

“No one’s excited about sitting behind a desk and doing tax returns.”

Employees want to be engaged with and enjoy their time in the office. You must mold the culture so you attract the employees that are right fit for you.

Core Values:

The CEO’s job is to develop a set of core values and get the team to follow. Have core values the team responds to and defends. Your mission as a Firm will set the mood and level for the entire year. When you interview, you need to be matching the candidate with your current culture.

Think about: What are the skills your team is trying to develop in the next 3-6 months? When you have a team jazzed up to learn these skills, they become experts in the field.

Salim strongly believes that setting up the right system for these pillars will turn your firm into a growing, lifestyle powerhouse. Salim can help you even further. His new book, Million Dollar CPA Firm,is out online and you can grab your copy HERE.

Salim has had great success building his own Firm for over 20 years plus showing other Firms how to do the same. He can show you the stepping-stones to a million dollar

CPA Firm.

Related Articles:

1. The Secret To Turning a Prospect Into A Long-time Client
2. [Double Your Firm] One Trick to Double Employee’s Capacity
3. How To Create The Perfect Accounting Firm

David Fisher, keynote speaker, author and coach, has seen all the mistakes financial professionals like you have made when networking for accounting clients.

Most spend zero time networking or they don’t spend their time correctly when networking for accounting clients. David’s built a catalog of books you can use to learn more advanced networking strategies whether you’re a : freelancer, business owner, Linkedin user and more.

On this episode of Grow Your Firm Podcast, David Cristello and networking guru David Fisher dissect:

1. The best way to network without doing “traditional networking”
2. How just a few minutes a year could turn into new accounting clients
3. Advanced strategies for closing the sale

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

• David Fisher’s Website
• David’s Twitter
• David’s Linkedin
• David’s Books
• Interview: How to Handle the Top Rejections (podcast)
• Interview: How to Generate Your First 100 Clients (podcast)

The Beginning:

David Fisher started out his career in one of the toughest gigs — selling knives door to door with Cutco. It was this experience that taught him sales, failure, rejection, getting back up and becoming a top salesmen to put himself through college.

After honing his chops for a few years in the industry, he branched out and started his own company, Rockstar Consulting, to help businesses and individuals succeed in networking and sales.

His book series, “Networking in the 21st Century,” came from the issues he’s seen professionals and owners make again and again when it came to networking.

Most people go to networking events in order to find new clients, but they don’t do what they need to in order to secure new contacts as new clients.

The Right Way to Network:

It’s fine to take the time to sow seeds and reap benefits down the line, David says. It doesn’t need to be “sleazy” or looked down on for going after new accounting clients. Many accounting firms pride themselves on relying on simply referrals. But, there’s opportunity out there.

Approaching networking doesn’t have to be “awkward” or “uncomfortable.” Yes, walking into a room with strangers is nerve-wrecking for even the most confident people.

How you should approach an event is by thinking “I simply want to make connections.” Don’t go in looking for clients or looking to chat about yourself and what others can do for you.

Networking is a long term strategy. David recommends a new approach to your networking.

“You can be good at networking without going to events.”  – David Fisher

David recommends reaching out for a new conversation each week. Invite them to coffee. Make sure while you are meeting these connections, do more listening than talking.

QUICK TIP: Don’t answer the question you ask. For example, if you ask: “Where are you from?” and your connection answers. DO NOT follow up with “I’m from _______”. It kills the conversation fast.

When meeting new potential clients/partners, make sure you have a strategic elevator pitch down. Don’t simply say “I am an accountant.” Become more dynamic:

“I work with small businesses to lower their tax bill so they can re-invest the savings to grow their business.”

See how much more “strategic” and direct the latter is? All you need to do is find what your core values are to your clients. Ask your spouse or a friend to listen. They can direct you if it is unclear, etc.

What Can I Do After Meeting Someone:

Meeting someone for coffee is just the beginning. That’s not where it ends. But, it also doesn’t mean you need to “follow up” with them every week. Remember, the point of networking is to simply make connections which could then turn into new clients; however, it takes time.

It’s much easier to sell when a need arises than to pressure it. Social media is the perfect area where you can add those “touchpoints” to stay top of mind.

Following Up Steps:

1. Send email after meeting asking “Is there anything you need help with or an introduction?”
2. Through social, comment on their status, share their post, like their update, etc.
3. A few months down the line, offer another 15 minute call to catch-up.
4. Repeat under a referral or they become a client

The problem is most don’t want to put in the extra few minutes to do this. David had a friend who stayed in touch with his former employer. After months of quick check-ins, the old employer became a dynamic referral source for David’s friend. People appreciate when you put in a little time and effort into a relationship.

DAVID C’s TIP:Meet lots of people so you can become a great connector and referral source. It will come back to you.

Closing More Sales:

There’s a common mindset that sales is something you do “TO” someone. Actually, David says, it is what you do “FOR” someone. Sales is all about solving problems.
David uses the example of: If you tell me you are a passionate Star Wars Fan and I have tickets to the new movie I’m trying to sell, I’d do a disservice not to offer them to my friend.

All you’re trying to do when networking is connecting the dots for your connection. They might not need anything now, but down the line, they might have a problem you can help solve.

#1 Reason Firms Won’t Close a Sale

They don’t ask for it…As humans, we are vulnerable and don’t like rejection. When you ask for a sale, there is a chance you could hear “no.”

COMMON FALLBACK: “I’ll send you an email” “No Pressure, I’ll follow up soon”, “What do you think?”

WHAT YOU SHOULD ASK: “Do you want to take the next step?” “Are you ready to move forward with this?”

See how the second approach is much more direct and vulnerable. Ask for the sale, then SHUT UP. Don’t allow yourself to talk the prospect out of the sale. Simply, ask and then wait.

DAVID’S TIP: If someone is on the phone or in person and ready to sign, give them a small benefit, whether it’s a free month or a small discount. Pay for a fast answer.

Spending a bunch of time following up and having discussions are proven not to add much to the sale. Nor, is it proven to close more deals. You want to get out of the gray area as fast as possible.

Many prospects might use the old: “I need to think about this…”

That’s not the time to lower your guard. Here is when you dig in and answer confidently: “I totally understand and don’t want to pressure you.Can I ask what you need to think about?” Then ask to see what’s missing from moving forward.

You can be OK with the answer because you’re more likely to get a straight answer.

David’s tips will get you away from wasting time with unproductive networking, and get you in front of ideal prospects and closing them.

How can you implement these strategies today?

Seth David, founder and CEO of Nerd Enterprises for over 13 years, started out as an auditor before figuring out there is a major opportunity to profit on your expertise with training.

He started his company with simple Craigslist ads. Now, he has grown a YouTube channel into 2.3 million views and recently reset his business to focus on his main skills.

Seth will talk about this and the steps you can take to profit on your expertise.

On this episode of Growing Your Firm Podcast, host David Cristello and Seth David dive into:

1. 1. How he got more clients when Craigslist ads suddenly stopped working
   2. The question you should ask if you want to massively profit on your expertise
   3. A secret tactic to get clients you want

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

• Nerd Enterprises – Seth David’s Company
• Nerd Enterprises YouTube Channel
• Separate Page for Real Estate Accounting Seth Started
• Becoming an Advisor for your Clients – Interview on Grow Your Firm Podcast

The Pathway to Becoming an Expert:

Seth David, founder of Nerd Enterprises, didn’t start out as a world-class CFO trainer and Quickbooks consultant. For seven years, Seth worked in various accounting and auditing positions before starting his company in 2003.

It started off as a side gig mostly helping companies design spreadsheets while working out of his small apartment in Hollywood, California.

After working with a handful of clients, he branched into his expertise of accounting and bookkeeping services. At the time, he was unsure if he should go with Peachtree or Quickbooks. Lucky for him, he chose Quickbooks which is now the top cloud accounting software in the industry.

At first, he managed to get clients through Craigslist ads. He would respond to posts as well as put up his own posts such as:

“Is your bookkeeper cracking the books or on crack?”

He had self-taught himself some marketing steps and his headline worked as new clients called.

Ads Stopped Working…What to do?

As many found around the early 2000’s, Craigslist became less effective for B2B business and the ads weren’t as effective as they used to be.

Seth needed to find a new way to generate new business. He joined the local Chamber of Commerce and BNI (the international networking association). There, he met an internet marketer who would later work with Seth and provide him a turning point.

During this time, Seth was working with clients, but noticed a trend:

He kept getting asked the same questions again and again. It posed a problem as it was inefficient to manually answer repeated questions plus it was frustrating.

To counter this, Seth started recording videos on Adobe and was posting the link on his site. This saved him time and frustration for the time being. The marketer he met recommended a new platform…

YouTube.

Switching over to Camtasia, he began posting his tutorials and training videos to YouTube and currently has a catalog of over 600 videos!

Seth recommends: If you keep hearing the same questions again and again, clients appreciate having a video they can refer back to. It’s much easier to do that than to answer the same question multiple times or have the client afraid to ask the same question twice.

The Key to Profiting on Your Expertise

For many years, Seth’s website included an expanding reach of services: bookkeeping, IT help, marketing, copywriting etc.

Many prospects were confused and didn’t know what Seth was offering. He was making money from clients in all areas, but realized:

“I’m not an expert at all of these”

He was having hired hands do certain tasks he didn’t know how to do. This had to change.

While listening to a talk by marketer Gary Vaynerchuk, this rang in his ears: “If someone is so good at something to teach it, they would just do it themselves.”

This struck a chord with Seth as he sold services he himself didn’t master. It was at this point, he decided to make a big change even if it trimmed profit.

He was only going to sell training on what he, himself, was an expert in: CFO consulting and bookkeeping.

The question Seth recommends to ask — “What are 1-2 things I do better than anyone I know?”

He was best at training CFOs and training bookkeepers and that’s what he focuses on now. He cut back on speaking gigs, he ditched the marketing services and now has a goal to just focus on building this core business into the 7-figures.

Tactic to Get Clients You Want:

While he built his library of training, Seth had worked with various real estate professionals. He realized he could tap into this niche and become an expert with one simple video.

In his video, he helps real estate professionals with specific transactions they would need to do as part of their professional. It has thousands of views.

As you can imagine, his phone rang with real estate professionals wanting to do business with him.

This niche is a specialty service for him and Seth recommends doing the same with certain niches for yourself.

Expanding Services:

As Seth grows in his expertise, he’s found IT and apps to be an enjoyable and profitable niche to also dive into. He gained experience with the various apps he used internally and found the same apps can be recommended to clients to streamline their company.

Clients typically go through a two-step process with Nerd Enterprises. The first meeting consists of laying out all the applications a company might need and recording demos of each the prospect can view in their own time.

The second meeting consists of actually picking the different apps and getting them implemented.

Seth became an expert on this first and found it couples nicely with working with businesses who can use finance help as well as operational.

DAVID’S TIP: Look through your current workflows, find the gaps where problems occur…there’s probably an app for that!

Videos are an incredible way to reach your prospects, your clients as well as your internal team. It’s becoming more mainstream and you have an expertise many need. Start recording your own videos and share them with your clients and team.

You will find they’ll thank you for the ongoing and added value you provided.

Author, speaker, and advisory to the “Firm of Now”, Rob Nixon, sees the future of accounting. He’s been in accounting for over 22 years starting in Australia. He knows how to reach maximum firm profitability and, today, is on the show to discuss exact strategies you can use.

In Australia, he saw many innovations on how accounting firms can get better and improve their profits but hasn’t seen those changes translate into the United States.
He’s changing that. You’ll hear inside details on how you can improve your firm’s profitability virtually overnight.
On this episode of Growing Your Firm Podcast, Jetpack Workflow founder David Cristello and Rob Nixon go through:

1. The 3 main things to improve to boost profitability.
2. A super effective trick to cut down turnaround time.
3. Why (and how) each partner should make $1M profit

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

• Rob’s Company – Panalitix
• Rob’s Workshop – Firm of Now (enter code jetpack to receive $50 Off)
• For Partners – “How to Handle Sales Objections and Close More Sales” [Podcast]
• Value Pricing – Making Value Pricing Work for your Firm [Podcast]

The Start of Changing The CPA Industry

Rob Nixon, founder of Proactive Accountant Network and software application PANALITIX, has worked internationally with dozens of accounting firms on improving their profit.  What he’s found is most innovations start in Australia and work their way over to the West.

He’s ready to help firms in the United States with many issues that keep them from growing their profits without hiring more staff and increasing the take home pay of the owners.

Right now, Rob is on a major US tour stopping in many cities near you putting on his workshops. These workshops are a full day of diving into the exact steps to profitability and efficiency.

“Accountants work many hours with VERY little return” – Rob Nixon

The 3 Pieces to Optimize to Increase Profitability

Rob’s passion has been to help grow firms. Most get lost in a hamster wheel of billable hours, low profits, and inefficiencies.
Diving right in…

Rob focuses on 3 major things to grow a firm:

• Stronger Profits
• More Efficient Capacity
• Increasing Revenues

Stronger Profits:

“If you want to be a Firm of the Future, you have to do something NOW”

To increase profits, you must focus on key metrics. Most firms still focus on the billable hour. With the focus on just “billing time” most firms will hover around 25-35% profitability. You can bring in more clients, but your profit will stay the same (you’ll have to hire more and more staff).
People X Productive Time = Profit   WRONG
# of Clients X Retention Rate X Project Value X # of Projects = Stronger Profits

**Rob’s Tip:

• Price every job UPFRONT
• For special projects — use Value Pricing
• To be efficient with pricing upfront, set up communication with clients very early on (even before signing them as a client)
• KEY — take “billable time” out of the equation as a metric for billing

More Efficient Capacity

The next step, according to Rob, after you master “profit” is work on capacity.

This means working on the turnaround time for projects. One firm went from 30-day turnaround times to 5 days!

How?

Rob believes you must look at the process as a manufacturer with raw materials. Each process has a step that must be done before moving forward.

“To change behavior, change the system”

**Rob’s Tips
To increase capacity in your firm

• Move every client onto cloud accounting (it’s proven to be 50-60% more efficient and frees up 4 hours of the day)
• Work under self-imposed deadlines: Accountants work best and most efficiently under pressure. Create internal deadlines. Set deadlines internally for when a project MUST be done and be reviewed. You might even put a deadline on the time. “Complete project in under 10 hours.”

DAVID’S TIP: Tell your team the amount of hours they can spend doing a project, and watch how suddenly they become more efficient!

Increasing Revenues

After the first two steps of profitability and capacity are clear, you can then take the next step in finding new clients. This works because as capacity opens up for team members, new clients can fill in the gaps. This allows you to grow without increasing staff (thus growing profit).

The revenue generating activities of the firm should come from the partner level according to Rob. Partners should spend very little time doing compliance work as the profit just isn’t there because of how high their billable hour is.

Before looking at the partner’s position, Rob recommends first hiring a full-time Marketing Coordinator. He sees in many firms they simply have another CPA doing the marketing part-time. Marketing is a full-time position. Once someone is full-time, they can invest their days in strategies that work:

• Content marketing
• Positioning as expert
• Direct response marketing
• Social proof
• Asking for referrals

“Capacity does not refill ITSELF!”

A Partner’s Breakout of Their Time:

• 30% >>> High-end advisory work (with the top clients only)
• 60% >>> Sales — 20 sales meetings per month per partner
• 10% >>> Leadership within firm and team members

A Partner’s main job should be to get new clients. Again, a partner’s billable hour makes them doing strict compliance work unprofitable.

Partner’s should spend their time also building out profitable advisory services. These could include: cash flow planning, estate planning. Rob recommends focusing on “numbers” coaching. Advising requires too much time and “gray hair.” There is software available to take care of services like this and they can turn into quick profits with new clients.

It can be hard for a firm to hear “Partners should be doing selling more often than compliance work.” It’s out of the comfort zone for most CPAs. If you’re looking to be more profitable, these are the steps to take.

Your Next Steps:

Rob is currently (as of September 2016) on tour going around many large cities helping firms just like yours.

If any of this sounds interesting, you are encouraged to attend as the prices are very reasonable. What many firms do wrong is send 1-2 partners who then try to explain it to the rest of the partners.

This never works.

All partners must come and learn new ideas to then share together later on. The same problem exists if you just send team members.

If you read and listen to this podcast, you are looking to grow your firm. Why not take the time to invest in yourself? Action starts change.