3 Hidden Profit Optimizers for Your Tax & Accounting Practice

Summary

• Repeatability 
• Making Offers
• Filtering Your Clients

Resources

• The Secret Leverage Behind Workflow Audits – Jetpack Workflow
• 3 Ways to Get More Profit – Jetpack Workflow
• Hate Marketing? Start Here – Jetpack Workflow

Connect with Jassen Bowman

• Learn more about Jassen by checking out his blog

Meet Jassen Bowman

Jassen Bowman is passionate about helping others build more profitable businesses and grow their firms. He is the founder of Tax Resolution Academy®, taxfirms.com, and the co-founder of the software startup Prolaera. He is a published author of several books, including Profit Optimizers: Twelve Big Ideas for a More Profitable Tax Firm. 

In this book, Jassen gives advice to his readers concerning growing their firms. In the podcast, Jassen talks about three of the twelve steps he created to assist entrepreneurs with growing their firms. 

From managing workflow to practicing salesmanship, Jassen is giving the best advice on how to drive profit into your firm.

Repeatability

Jassen stresses the importance of having a workflow in your firm. To have a great workflow, you need to stick to a pattern of repeatability. When you perform the actions within your firm in a consistent manner, you are making things way easier for:

• Yourself
• Employees
• Clients

While creating a workflow for your firm, it’s important to write down your process (preferably through an infrastructure tool since paper checklists end up forgotten). Go step-by-step. When you write things down you’ll see a clear picture of the process and can pinpoint areas that need improvement. It lets you go back and tweak some things in your written procedures and analyze those decisions before actually enacting the changes. 

However, if your processes are working, don’t try to fix what isn’t broken and repeat your methods! 

Following and perfecting this process will directly impact your profits. The more time you spend focusing on a well-written workflow, the less time you spend trying to remember your steps and/or making mistakes. In turn, you’ll be able to focus on serving your clients. 

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One of the most important factors of being a firm owner is driving revenue into your company. However, Jassen says that accountants–especially in smaller firms–don’t put enough time, attention, and money into business development and driving prospect as they should. 

How do you become a marketing person for your firm? 

A big part of salesmanship and marketing is making more offers. This type of communication is key with your clients. 

Jassen suggests sending a weekly and monthly newsletter to your clients. Since sending mail is not as huge as it used to be, there is less competition in the postal service, and more opportunity to catch the eyes of potential clients. 

In your newsletters, you need to include offers. You have endless opportunities to tie your offers into current media, and you have an abundance of ways to reach out to your clients. Leverage these opportunities to make a move – you are the only one who has that power in your firm!

Again, you are responsible for creating a positive client experience, and it starts with marketing!

Filtering Your Clients

As your firm grows, your dream-client list may become more categorized. If your firm is trying to transition into focusing on a specialty or serving a specific industry, some clients might not be a good fit. Jassen calls this filtering out your clients. You don’t want the wrong clients for your firm. This makes your life more difficult and can actually hurt your profitability.

If a client isn’t part of your firm’s specialty, you have to decide where they go. You could put them in the “B” or “C” pile. With filtering, you want to start with the clients with the least amount of fit and work your way up the funnel. Jassen says this process of filtering and expanding your specialty can take up to 2-3 years. 

Jassen understands that a firm might not be able to tell a client “no.” However, if you feel frustrated by certain clients or the clients aren’t a good fit, get them to move away from your firm. 

Focus on your firm’s needs and go from there.

Growing your firm may be a long process. However, in the end, the profits are rewarding. Jassen has more to say about each topic in the latest Growing Your Firm podcast! 

Listen to the podcast above and share it with a fellow firm owner who is also wanting to drive profit into their firm.