In this week’s Growing Your Firm podcast, we’re welcoming back Seth David, owner of Nerd Enterprises, Inc. He specializes in online software consulting and training to help businesses use social media tools, web video, and automation. His company has helped over 20,000 small business owners in the accounting space.

In this podcast, we’re going to do a deep dive into automation tools you can use to save time and help your firm to thrive. If you’ve been curious about where to start, or want to take automation to the next level, you won’t want to miss this podcast!

Summary

  • What you need to do first before choosing software solutions
  • Best solutions for new remote companies
  • The magic of Zapier to make it all work together

Resources

Related Links

Automating In a Suddenly-Remote World

Many firms have had to switch quickly to a fully remote, cloud-based way of doing business due to the outbreak. If they haven’t done their research beforehand, the number of solutions for solving this problem can be overwhelming. How do you start navigating the field?

Seth recommends against looking at any software solution for automating your firm until you list out the problems you need to solve. Once you create this list, then you can assess automation tools. After all, technology is meant to solve problems. Make sure you’re solving the problems that will make the biggest impacts on your company. Always think about why you’re using a particular tool.

When evaluating tools, you might be torn between two (or more!) softwares that solve the same problem. How do you decide? Seth says to go with your gut. Does it feel good to use? Do you feel like the tool gives you a handle on the problem? One of the reasons there are so many tools is that people have different tastes in software. Find your own taste.

If you’re looking to try out some of the solutions out there, one app that Seth recommends is called Dynalist. He describes it as “bullet-points on steroids.” If your company is looking to scratch a technological itch but doesn’t have a list of problems yet, this is a good app to start with so your team can capture their thoughts. 

There are some problem domains that any remote firm will need to solve. Communication is one of them. How do you plan to stay in touch with everyone at the office? You’re unlikely to fully stop using email, but some tools are far superior to using emails to talk to everyone. Seth recommends a few automation tools for your firm, including communication, documentation, and the ultimate integration tool between any cloud softwares.

Video Conferencing – Zoom

If you haven’t heard about Zoom yet, you’re seriously missing out. It is the simplest screen sharing, recording, and video conferencing software out on the market right now. Once you install the Zoom client, you can join a meeting by clicking on a link and sometimes enter a password for security. Compared to past video conferencing solutions, it’s far superior.

Communication Continuity – Microsoft Teams/Slack

Zoom is great for talking with people, but you can’t keep a record of conversations with it. If your firm is deep into the Microsoft infrastructure using all of their cloud features, then Microsoft Teams is the easiest way to keep everything working together.

However, if you’re not very Microsoft-based, then consider chatting on Slack. Done right, Slack can replace much of your need for email and has simple message searching features. You can organize chat conversations by subject, limit conversations to certain parties, and avoid spam. Slack is also easy to start using because it’s free. By the time you reach 10,000 messages, you’ll know whether or not you want to invest in upgrading your plan.

Seth uses Slack as his single point of communication with clients. All conversations happen in there, and he has a method for forcing clients to use it that he explains in the podcast episode. One caveat with using Slack, though: it likes to notify you a lot. Pause notifications if you want to avoid distraction if you’re in a dedicated timeblock. You can change your status to a message like, “in a work block; push if you need me.” This tells coworkers and clients that they can still message you, but you won’t check messages you’re not mentioned in during this work block.

Taking Notes – Dynalist, OneNote, EverNote, Google Docs

Another system your team will need is a way to keep track of more detailed notes. Slack is good for short notes, but not for process documents or larger, more complex documents. Having a centralized place where people can read and edit documents is another must.

Dynalist is a good option If you’re using Microsoft products, then OneNote is their solution. EverNote is another popular choice for this. However, most of us have a Google account, and Google Docs is one of the simplest and cheapest solutions for sharing documents and taking notes. 

Pro Tip: When using Google Docs, click on the URL bar in your browser, type docs.new, and hit enter. If you’re using Chrome, you’ll get a brand new blank document!

Automation’s Swiss Army Knife – Zapier

We’ve talked about Zapier a few times on this podcast, and it’s the secret weapon for today’s automation. It links the data between hundreds of apps so your team doesn’t have to move data from one to another. If you find yourself doing repetitive tasks and feel like you’re wasting time, especially in the cloud, then you must check this out. It already has integrations with many accounting software packages, including QuickBooks.

One example of using this software is onboarding new clients. Many of the firms that Seth has worked with have poor onboarding processes. Seth sends new clients to an online form that gets the information he needs into his CRM system through Zapier. When that happens, Zapier also starts the client on an autoresponder sequence that spells out everything the client needs to do so you can get the job done. Seth also reassures the client that they can reach out to him at any time through email with questions, but he lets his automation do the heavy lifting. 

Want to learn more tips on automation? Listen to the full episode on the Growing Your Firm podcast! You can also listen to Seth’s previous talk with us.

See Jetpack Workflow In Action

Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.

For thousands of years, humans have dreamed of getting work done without requiring humans to do the work. This is the basic principle behind automation; it’s getting work done with little-to-no human intervention. We’ve been achieving for as long as we’ve been trying.

brief history of automation infographic

Automation often sounds like the best solution for any inefficient process in your business. If you automate a process, you’ll get more done with less time and effort in the long run. But, you often have a large upfront investment of time and resources which can be an overwhelming hurdle to overcome. Just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should.

Instead, consider all of the possible approaches to increasing efficiency in your firm. The three major approaches include improving existing processes, automating, and hiring.

  1. Improve: Start by examining your current procedures. Next, identifying areas for improvement, brainstorming new processes, putting the processes in place, and managing the change in process. Operational efficiency can involve automation, but it doesn’t always. Sometimes, you can take tasks which must be completed by human hands and make them more efficient.
  2. Automate: Automation can offer the most value for your dollar. After all, hiring and operational efficiencies can be expensive and time-consuming. Automation allows more work to be done with less human effort or intervention.
  3. Hire: You hire another human to take over a portion of work your firm already does and work you’ll add in the future.

This specific order is important, as you’ll see in each breakdown section. Let’s dive into each step of the process.

how to increase efficiency in your accounting firm infographic

Improve

Start with an attempt to improve the efficiency of a process and standardize it before trying to automate it or hire more people. The first step of improving a process is to map the current steps needed to fulfill that process.

How to make an underlying process more efficient:

  1. Map the steps of your current process.
  2. Collect input from stakeholders about which steps can be improved or changed.
  3. Identify which step takes the longest time, or is the least efficient.
  4. Brainstorm ideas with stakeholders about how to improve the process.
  5. Solidify buy-in from stakeholders about the proposed improvement.
  6. Train your staff on the new process.
  7. Go live with the new process.
  8. Lead the change management to ensure the improvement becomes permanent.

Making a process more efficient isn’t always easy, but it can be the best option and often provides the best ROI.

Importance of starting with mapping current steps of a process:

  1. This exercise will tell you what people are actually doing right now. This will sometimes be enough to help spark ways you can improve it.
  2. It will help you to gain buy-in from the stakeholders who execute the process on a daily basis. You get the chance to listen to them and figure out what’s important to the people with boots on the ground.
  3. It will encourage alignment within your team. Creating a process map allows people to visually agree on the current method.
  4. A map of the process will help you to automate the process later if you decide you need to automate.

The main benefit of starting with improving is that it requires the least amount of upfront investment of capital. You don’t need a new budget to map a process. You don’t have to hire someone new. You only need to solicit feedback from existing team members, then make a priority of improving the process.

WARNING: Automating a task is often suggested during the brainstorming stage. This is where many firms go wrong in their priorities for increasing efficiency. People might lean into automation before they’re ready or have sufficiently optimized the underlying process. It’s hard to hold back from the lure of, “just let the robot do it.” Instead, start by “doing things that don’t scale.” Put in the manual effort first, then apply the wonders of computers after you fully understand the manual effort to never have to do it again.

TLDR: Start by improving the process without automation first so you better understand the underlying process. This will help you to locate the point for maximum leverage to use for future automation.

Automate

After you’ve improved the process as much as possible without automation, it’s time to consider automation. What tasks should you start automating first? Highlight the steps in the process which do not require specialized training or client interaction.

Ideal steps to automate include tasks like data entry between systems. Manual double entry can be a big timesuck; this is where redundancy-reducing tools like Zapier come to the rescue. If you can automatically update your client list in all existing locations, then that’s often a great place to start.

Pro Tip: Automate the flow of information from your chosen single source of truth (SSoT) out to the dependent softwares.

Your SSoT should always be accurate. Accountants often choose a billing software as their SSoT. Your billing software will need to have an up-to-date customer profile because it helps to ensure you get paid. Multiple sources of the same kind of information could place you in an infinite loop: one software updates the customer information, another sees that update and updates its own version of that information, then the original software sees that update and tries to update itself again… Your automations should be one-directional.

High Value vs. Low Value Tasks

In your accounting firm, any automation focuses on taking low-value tasks and making them automatic. High-value tasks require some sort of skill or expertise to perform. Low-value tasks do not require a lot of training or experience to perform.

high-value vs. low-value tasks comparison graphic

You get the same 24 hours in the day as Beyonce. The difference is she figured out how to best leverage her time for maximum results. Automation is a great way to leverage your time and effort; you’ll be the Bey of your firm in no time!

Benefits and Risks of Automation

The benefits of automation are simple: with more low-value tasks automated, you save time on each low-value task. That time adds up when automation frees you up to focus on more profitable, high-value tasks and strategy to move your firm forward.

Conversely, consider the time it will take to set up an automation. Hard work is necessary to automate a process correctly. Automation is not a set-it-and-forget it solution; you’ll need to manage and maintain any process you automate. It may not be a Catch-22 situation, but it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of automation before diving into an automation project.

benefits & risks of automation comparison graphic

 

Behind-the-Scenes Example: How We Messed Up With Automation

Back when we were a small software company of 6 people, we once tried to automate how records were updated in our CRM. We thought we had everything set up correctly and set the automation live. The initial tests said everything was a go so we set it and forget it. Can you guess what went wrong?

We didn’t monitor the system after we set it up.

The automation went bonkers and wrote new attributes to every contact in our CRM. What should have been a time-saving venture became a large data clean-up project and a slight reticence to automate processes in the future. Heed our warning; this too can happen to your firm!

Hire

Hiring should be your last resort when increasing the capacity of your firm. If you’ve improved the process and automated what you can, then you can consider hiring new employees.

Hiring is an expensive and time-consuming process. There is always a possibility you could hire someone who doesn’t work out for your firm. And, even if they do work out, you’re going to have to manage that employee, ideally, forever.

Traditionally, this is the first step firms consider because that’s how firms operated for hundreds of years. The tools did not exist to manage teams or automate processes like they do today. Now though, you can easily automate a process to increase productivity, then shift your human resources to more intellectually demanding tasks. If you jump right to hiring before you improve and automate the process, then you could end up hiring an employee to do a broken or extremely inefficient process. You may have increased capacity, but you’re sacrificing your margins before you actually have to.

Conclusion

Humans have always been searching for ways to get more work done with less human effort. If necessity is the mother of invention, then human laziness was the mother of the invention of automation.

Looking to save more time in your firm? Automate your workflow with a 14-day free trial of Jetpack Workflow today!

See Jetpack Workflow In Action

Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.

As regular readers know, automation is one of our favorite topics. But what about taking it to the next level? Can you automate a consulting business?

The guest for this podcast is Jan Haugo, the founder and CEO of Jan Haugo and Associates. She is a tech-savvy accounting and bookkeeping professional who helps firms really think about how to enhance their processes. She shows firms how they can strategically leverage their technologies to maximize their efficiency and productivity.

Summary

  • Jan’s Auditing Approach
  • Case and Point
  • A Consultant’s Tip
  • MacGyver of Apps: False Integration
  • Zapier as a Solution

Resources

Related links

Jan’s Auditing Approach: Three Pivotal Areas

Jan’s firm has been assisting businesses since 2000, so she has ample experience in offering effective solutions to business processes. When asked about how she begins her work in auditing businesses, she said, “We always start with the end in mind, and then we start working backward.”

According to Jan, the roots of many problems exist alongside data, files, and information in your business. Sometimes these roots include people who actively work with the information, like someone mishandling a case. Other times it’s actually the technology that is used to handle the information that causes inefficiencies and pain points to businesses.

By identifying the technologies a business is using, Jan is able to also find a paper trail or manual processes that often take a lot of time to complete. Thus by working backward, we get a clear picture of the three pivotal areas that substantiate the audit:

  1. The People
  2. The Technology
  3. The Paper or Manual Processes That a Business Uses

For many of us listening and reading, this can seem pretty abstract. So that we understand, Jan offered a clear and real example.

A Short Case Study

Jan recalls how a business owner had approached her. The owner thought that their processes were wasting a lot of time. It seemed as though the bookwork was generally inefficient, and there was a lack of visibility into the work. This lack of transparency created difficulty in detecting the root of the problem. However, there were several other symptoms of the firm’s problems.

The business owner’s main symptom was that he was simply not receiving his receivables in a timely manner. His pain point was that his accounts receivable was at the highest it had ever been and people weren’t paying because they were getting late billing. This ended up causing a lot of dissatisfaction with his clients. Imagine coming to a client with 3 months of billing at once: this could cause harm to a firm’s reputation.

Jan explained how the business owner had implemented new software for handling billing, but there was one caveat: the software was sorely inefficient for the needs of the business. The business owner didn’t expect the technology to be a problem. In fact, the business owner genuinely thought that it was working well.

However, the real-time experiences of people handling the billing tasks proved otherwise. In reality, employees were having to work around the technology being used, taking up to 18 hours just to send out invoices to clients. Clearly this was also causing burn out for the employees. This was one of the factors causing the lack of visibility in the work.

By sitting down and talking to the business owner, Jan’s business added in several key pieces of tech and removed about four key pieces of their tech-stack they had been using that weren’t well integrated into their processes.

After the audit, Jan and her team were able to decrease the time it took to complete billing from 18 hours to less than 2. That’s 9x’ing time in a business!

A Consultant’s Tip

Though it’s great to find the solution to a business owner’s problems, it is equally important to act in their best interest. This is especially the case when speaking to their employees. A careful balance must be struck: on one hand, information must be taken for the audit to solve a problem the business owner identifies. On the other hand, our reputation is also on the line, so care must be taken when presenting solutions.

Jan explains that when talking to the team members, it is important to give great visibility: be clear about how your presented solution will improve their work experience. Ultimately, you don’t want to leave and have employees angry at the owner for something that was implemented.

MacGyver of Apps: False Integration

When asked about which apps she prefers the most, Jan stated that she doesn’t really have a set of go-to applications or pieces of technology. “I’m pretty agnostic,” she said. There are amazing pieces of technology everywhere, but there is a time and place for everything, and not every situation calls for the cheapest or most advanced application.

There are some people who believe that because they are stockpiling different pieces of technology, they are well integrated into their processes. In a way, this is similar to fixing a car with duct tape and chopsticks. Care, nuance, and consideration of business needs and situational purposes must be taken when integrating technologies. For example, in the case study, the business needed software or an app with certain billing date functions.

You have to pick the right toolkit that works for the culture of the company. Furthermore, for whatever tech-stack or application , you also need discipline and dedication in using it, and the discipline is almost completely detached from whether the tool is successful or not.

Zapier as a Solution

From time to time, businesses face problems that don’t seem to have a ready solution available to enhance their processes. Jan mentions that one of the tools that helps her find solutions is Zapier. Given the versatility of Zapier to connecting various apps, Jan’s choice makes perfect sense. Zapier usually acts as a bridge for technology that doesn’t seem to integrate as well as you would expect.

But Jan also notes something rather unique about Zapier. Technology is always changing, but even if the tools you use with Zapier changes, the information still remains. Furthermore, Zapier offers more optionality, so if one of the tools you’ve integrated changes in 10 years, there will be fewer change management costs because you would simply cut off one Zapier connection.

Want to learn more? Listen to the full episode on the Growing Your Firm podcast, or reach out to Jan on Twitter or LinkedIn!

See Jetpack Workflow In Action

Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.
Featured Image Remote Work Tools Your Firm Actually Needs

This week, we’re providing a list of the best remote work tools in five categories. While we’ll recommend the option we prefer in each category, you don’t have to choose the one we use.

For each section, there is a myriad of tools available for you. What matters is choosing the tool that works best for you and your team. A tool no one uses has no value. But, a tool you’re utilizing to only 20% of its potential and the team likes to use is better than one your team won’t ever use. 

NOTE: All choices listed are cloud software options. When you work remotely, you only work in the cloud. No need to buy on-premise solutions.

Synchronous Communications

Phone calls (you know… with your phone?)

Our Recommendation: Zoom

Zoom is the clear winner. This is one of the remote work tools you’ve likely heard a ton about since the beginning of COVID-19 quarantine. Being a software company, we’ve used all of the listed tools and none of them have the ease of use Zoom does. You don’t know how many hours of our lives we’ve spent explaining to people how to download the software to join the meeting. Zoom is the clear winner for making it easy to get people in the meeting and ready to roll. There is a reason why Zoom’s Market Cap just passed Uber’s on the stock exchange. 

Asynchronous Communications

Texting (another tricky phone-dominant option)

Our Recommendation: It depends on your software stack. 

If your team uses Microsoft365 you may want to stay in the suite of Microsoft Products. Similarly, if your team uses GSuite, then you might want to stay with Google’s Product. But, if you’re looking for something outside of those two and you’re ok with potentially paying for the users, we use Slack and love it. Slack is extremely easy to use and it’s fun!

Project Management

Our Recommendation: Jetpack Workflow

It’s our blog afterall! We wouldn’t be writing this guide if we didn’t think we solved this pain point the best. If you and your firm are looking for a single source of truth for all ongoing projects, then look no further than Jetpack Workflow. You can get amazing transparency over your workflow and ensure nothing falls through the cracks ever again. 

Start your free 14 day trial of Jetpack Workflow today! 

Document Management

Our Recommendation: It depends on your software stack. 

We use Google Docs in-house because we are a G Suite Company. We absolutely love Google docs by Microsoft and have also made some great strides in the 365 cloud offering. One Drive is a great alternative for the companies that work in Microsoft. For those of you who are not Google or Microsoft shops, you can’t go wrong with Jetpack Workflow or Dropbox. Jetpack Workflow because it comes with your subscription and Dropbox because it’s the one that has permeated the minds of your clients more than any other. Chances are your clients have a dropbox account and know how to use it. This makes it a ton easier to get documents from them when you need it!

CRMs

Our Recommendation: It depends on the mission and size of your firm. 

If you’re a relatively small firm whose mission it is to scale and become huge – definitely go with Hubspot. We use Hubspot internally because that’s who we are. If you’re a huge firm already then you can’t go wrong with Salesforce (other than the price!). Salesforce is the largest game in town for a reason, just make sure you have the resources to develop to doing Salesforce right! If you’re a small firm that’s more sales focused but not looking to become huge, try out Pipedrive. Pipedrive is relatively cheap ($10 per user per month) and allows for a great sales funnel.

Which remote work tools are your favorites? Which essential tools did we miss? Share with us on social.

See Jetpack Workflow In Action

Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.

Zapier is a tool used to connect applications together. It is the Swiss Army Knife of automation. David went to the most thriving Facebook groups to find the best resources for Zapier to ask a few questions. He found Brian Clare, the not-so-hidden Zapier guru in the accounting space. Brian is the co-founder and CEO of Blueprint Accounting and has agreed to speak with us about the top Zapier-based automations, or Zaps, that you need to investigate for your business.

 

Summary

  • About Blueprint
  • What Is Zapier?
  • 5 Automations Brian Can’t Live Without
  • Start Automating Your Workflow With Zapier

Related Links

About Blueprint

Blueprint Accounting operates out of Ottawa, Ontario and provides bookkeeping, virtual CFO, and controller-type of work. From “Zapier for Beginners” to advanced knowledge of the app, Brian has integrated Zapier into his firm, which allowed Blueprint to offer automation services. 

The service involves piecing apps together for automation, figuring out a workflow with the client, and discovering where businesses can use their newly built automation to work more efficiently for them. 

Their services are especially useful in our current climate where businesses have had to adapt to remote work. Just like our previous guest, Liam McIvor Martin, Brian says that the top challenge facing businesses as they shift to remote work is communication, but business owners can whip up unique solutions in various apps like Slack or Zoom to enhance communication processes using Zapier.

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See Jetpack Workflow In Action

Get under the hood of Jetpack Workflow’s accounting workflow and project management platform. See some of the top features and how it helps your firm standardize, automate, and track client work more efficiently.

We had an amazing time hosting the first ever virtual Cloud Accounting Summit. Not only did we learn a ton about how to run a virtual summit, but we also gained some valuable information from the guest speakers who made the event a success.

Full summit replay

Top 10 Takeaways from the Cloud Accounting Summit

In case you missed it or couldn’t attend all of the sessions, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite quotes and concepts from the summit’s expert guest speakers.

1. Throughput = the speed at which your firm is making money. Increase capacity at the weakest link in your business to improve your throughput. –John Bowman

Our own Director of Customer Success, John Bowman, shared one of the secrets behind Jetpack Workflow’s success: managing throughput well! Thinking of your firm as a chain of interlinked departments, which link is weakest? The slowest-working department is likely the weakest link overall for your firm’s throughput.

Putting on your throughput monocle, investigate the cause of the weakness that’s causing the slow pace of the department. Then find the tools this department needs to increase its capacity. Rinse and repeat for all departments.

2. Make sure you’re celebrating continuous improvement instead of getting caught up in the things that might not be going perfectly with your processes. Take the time to celebrate successes, because that’s what helps to truly keep the momentum going. –Arianna Campbell

Here at Jetpack Workflow, we’re all about celebrating the big and the small moments of success together as a team. Even in our summit retrospective meeting, we started with a discussion about what went well, what we’re grateful for, and what we’re excited to continue to do as a team and for future events.

Arianna’s advice is simple and critical – an easy win! Celebrating success is not only easy to do, but it helps support individual and collective morale that’s necessary for your firm’s success.

3. One size does not fit all in tax and accounting; you have to find the right client fit for your firm. –Jackie Meyer

Explaining her client retention method, F.O.R.E.V.E.R., Jackie explained how she increased her firm’s revenue by focusing more on going the extra mile for her clients. The “F” in FOREVER stands for “Fit.” Interview potential clients to make sure they’re not only a good fit for the services you offer, but also the right kind of personalities you want to work with. Identify the companies you’d love to work with and why; these will become the defining characteristics to look for in your client interviews.

To describe her own good Fit, Jackie explained that her niche of companies are high net-worth executives. The characteristics she looks for in a potential client include people that are respectful, a kind person, and tech savvy.

4. If you hard pitch on the first email to a new lead, it’s like proposing on the first date. It works for some people, but not for most people. Nurture your email list over time, so when the prospect is ready, they come to you. –Nate Hagerty

It can be tempting to cold call, cold email, and hard pitch prospects when you’re trying to grow your client base. But this is not always the best strategy. Nate explained that the sales strategy that works better for him is lead nurturing.

Warming up leads through a series of messages that specifically benefit them allows for a much greater chance that they will convert to becoming your clients. Continue to provide value for your leads through content that speaks directly to the problems they have, and they’ll not only stay engaged and spread the word of your firm, but will also be ready to say yes to being your client over anyone else’s when they need the services you offer.

5. Firm leaders can use scenario planning. Plan ahead for possibilities now so you’re not scrambling to resolve the conflicts if they happen in the future. –John Seiffer

Create 4-5 different future scenarios. For each scenario, really consider the details of what might happen and how your firm should respond.

Maybe in one scenario, the recession is over in 6 months. In another scenario, we have a 12-month recession or an 18-month recession.

PRO TIP: Don’t forget the best-case scenario: We can come out of this stronger. In the best-case scenario, you can hire more people, buy out your competitors, add new tools or equipment, and increase your advertising spend (especially because it’s currently cheaper than before COVID-19).

The future might not look exactly like any of the scenarios you come up with, but it will likely look like pieces of each. Taking the time to think through scenarios will help prepare you for more possible outcomes, and will reduce the anxiety and uncertainty we’ve all been experiencing during the COVID-19 era.

6. Effective marketing right now is all about support. It’s about giving your clients the resources they need during this time. –Ryan Lazanis

The three main tactics Ryan suggests for helping your clients include live video Q&As, step-by-step blog posts, and simple weekly newsletters. Choosing 3 different media (video webinar, blog post, and email newsletter) is a great way to ensure that you’re reaching as many leads as possible while limiting the workload you have to commit to.

It’s no small feat to take on three separate media for your content marketing plan, so take it easy on yourself if you don’t have a full marketing team to help you with content creation. Ryan’s advice about the frequency of posting is priceless, though: stick to publishing your content on a regular schedule (i.e. weekly newsletters every Tuesday at 7:40 a.m., weekly blog posts every Thursday at 6 a.m., monthly webinars on a Wednesday at noon, etc.).

PRO TIP: Don’t forget to add a call-to-action (CTA) to every piece of content you release. Free advice and information from your content is valuable in and of itself, but if your content is missing next steps for the audience to take to use your services or product, then you’re missing out on built-in advertising for your firm.

7. Set up things that are replicable; systems that can be repeated from customer to customer. This allows you to do value-based billing. –Jody Grunden & Jamie Nau, SummitCPA

Obviously, we love talking about workflow. So it’s no surprise that we cheered when Jody and Jamie of SummitCPA explained their tactics for how they use tools like Jetpack Workflow to automate tasks and jobs for different customers.

It was especially insightful to connect automation to value-based billing. Because they’re able to replicate tasks and projects, they’re able to charge based on a specific service instead of by the hour for all of the work they do for their clients.

8. When there’s chaos, there are opportunities to serve. You must charge for those services. Every time you charge a client, you’re saving another job in your firm, and you’re increasing your chances of being able to hire more talent off of the unemployment market.  –Andrew Argue

It’s a beautiful sentiment to want to offer services for free to clients who are struggling financially. You likely have a lot of clients in this category during COVID-19.

However, if you stop charging fees for the services you provide, as Andrew illustrated, you might make it out of the recession with your job; your employees may not. Instead, his firm focuses on offering services that directly solve the relevant problems his clients are facing, and he’s charging for them. Because he’s continuing to charge, he’s able not only to keep his own paycheck but his full payroll going.

9. Legacy is the creation of permanence. It’s where business owners discover they have always been business stewards. –Mike Michalowicz

If you remember psychology class and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you’ll love Mike’s adaptation of the hierarchy pyramid illustration: the Business Hierarchy of Needs. While at the top of Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualization, Mike’s version leads to legacy as the final step.

Starting with sales to create cash, then earning profit to create stability, automation of order to create efficiency, using your business to positively impact lives will create transformation, and finally creating permanence through legacy. When you create a legacy, you allow your business to run without you and to have a brand so strong that it exists as its own entity.

Echoing the warnings of Andrew Argue, Mike Michaolwicz detailed the dangers of focusing too much on impact and giving services away for free. Some of these businesses have already given so much away that they’re hurting, downsizing, and shutting down. Instead, Mike advises to build up on the foundations of sales, then profit, and order before focusing on impact.

10. Double-down on relationships. The subscription model, or Value Pricing 2.0, puts relationships at the center of the business. Focus on efficiency with your processes; focus on the effectiveness with your clients. –Ron Baker

One of the founding fathers of value pricing in accounting, Ron Baker is no stranger to ebbing and flowing with the changing tides of economic change. Unpacking the concept of “Value Pricing 2.0,” Ron explained how subscription pricing is like pricing the relationship and the portfolio, instead of pricing the customer in Value Pricing 1.0.

Using the example of Fender Play as a marketing strategy to acquire 1,000,000 new prospects, Ron illustrated the importance of finding a pain point for your niche and leveraging your unique solution for them.

Expanding on Value Pricing 2.0 with more examples of successful subscription models, Ron hit us with the knowledge that accountants are similar to concierge doctors. Concierge doctors are here to help their patients’ physical and medical health; as an accountant, you’re here to help your clients achieve their financial dreams and stay financially healthy.

top 10 takeaways from cloud accounting summit infographic

BONUS: You get to decide whether or not you’ll participate in the downturn. Decide to come out stronger instead of falling with the recession.  –Dan Martell

Dan hit us with the knowledge in his fireside-style chat with David Cristello. Here are three lists of top-three tips that he offered to our audience.
Three parts to a turn on a race track:

  1. Hit the brakes. Decide how you can reduce extra costs in your business.
  2. Look at the apex of the turn, not at the possible dangers or barriers you might hit. We don’t know where or when the apex is, so we’re constantly readjusting our focus. But it’s better to keep looking for the apex than to be overwhelmed by the barriers.
  3. Power on out of the turn as you exit. Get ready to capture market share for now and when the recession ends.

Three mindset tips for thriving during COVID-19:

  1. Pivot to a business model that the current market needs. HINT: The pivots we’re making now might well be the new models for business for the future.
  2. Protect the business. Get your economics, metrics for success, and team in order.
  3. Profit is necessary. You have to generate revenue. Now may not be the time to think about scaling, but choosing what and how to monetize if your business needs to pivot.

Three actions you can take when you decide not to be part of the downturn:

  1. Evaluate how you’re consuming news. Consider consuming less news overall and choose sources that are more factual and less focused on click-bait, ratings, and fear-mongering.
  2. Move your body daily. Although some people exercise for physical appearance (an added bonus), regular workouts are more important for strengthening your mental health.
  3. Surround yourself with people who share the same belief and passion for life. You will always lower your drive to the average level of drive of the people with whom you surround yourself. Choose your community wisely.

Ok we couldn’t stop there. Here are three bonus Dan Martell-styled platitudes:

  1. Opportunity is sometimes disguised as hard work. What if what you’re going through is preparing you to be the person who’s ready for the thing you’ve been asking for?
  2. No million-dollar business was built on $10/hour tasks.
  3. Never hire a new employee until you can see that they’ll give you back 10% of your week. Use new hires and outsourcing to vendors to buy back your time from your calendar.

Want more time back in your calendar? Try Jetpack Workflow for free for 14 days, and discover how you can automate tasks to free up more of your daily schedule and focus on bigger and better things.
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