Explore every episode of the podcast Business Strategy for CPA's
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 317 Bring the CPA Firm You Envision to Life with Belita Blasingame, CPA | 02 Oct 2024 | 00:36:26 | |
Belita Blasingame knew she was up to the challenge of reshaping a firm she had purchased into the one she envisioned. … Link to full shownotes: https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/ … If you feel trapped by your own accounting firm, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours without losing revenue or hiring. Join 5000+ other CPAs who get my single-tip daily emails. . . Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … Want more client interviews? 310 From Exhausted to Having Her Life Back: Wendy Norman, CPA 304 From 55 Down to 15 Hours; Same Take-Home Pay with Melissa Downs, EA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA Complete list: geraldinecarter.com/client-interview-episodes … Three ways I help overworked CPAs go down to 40 hours without losing revenue or hiring: THE EMAIL COURSE – Free THE BOOK – $9.99 geraldinecarter.com/book THE VIDEO COURSE – $497 … | |||
| 316 Pricing vs. Value-Billing | 25 Sep 2024 | 00:07:27 | |
Do you think like someone who bills, or like someone who prices? If you think like a person who bills, you might be leaving profit on the table. Learning how to price requires thinking like a person who prices. This episode will help you get this concept into your bones so you can start thinking like a pricer and bring in more revenue for equivalent work. … Link to full shownotes: https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/ … If you feel trapped by your own accounting firm, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours without losing revenue or hiring. Join 5000+ other CPAs who get my single-tip daily emails. . . Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … Want more client interviews? 310 From Exhausted to Having Her Life Back: Wendy Norman, CPA 304 From 55 Down to 15 Hours; Same Take-Home Pay with Melissa Downs, EA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA Complete list: geraldinecarter.com/client-interview-episodes … FOUR ways I help overworked CPAs go down to 40 hours without losing revenue or hiring: THE EMAIL COURSE – Free THE BOOK – $9.99 geraldinecarter.com/book THE VIDEO COURSE – $497 CPA MASTERMIND – $9500 | |||
| 307 Take the shortcut!! With Hector Cantu, EA | 24 Jul 2024 | 00:22:14 | |
You can figure out how to make the changes you need to make to your firm out on your own. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I talk with Down to 40 Hours CPA Masterminder Hector Cantu about the difference between DIYing and taking the shortcut. – “It would have taken me years on my own to figure out the changes we made in less than a year.” In less that ten months, Hector cut his hours by 19% and increased his revenue 32%. His prices are about 3x higher than where he started. Now he has time to think about hiring, training, and growing his practice. And he doesn’t feel as rushed or stressed when working with his clients. … Hey CPA firm owner, glad you found the podcast. If you feel trapped by your own accounting firm and are fed up with PiTB clients who get you their stuff late, don’t appreciate the value you provide, and complain to you when you don’t turn it around on a dime, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours without losing revenue. If you like the podcast, join 4200+ other CPAs who get Vitamin G, my daily dose of single-tip business strategy delivered straight to their inbox: Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … If you like the idea of working less, you might enjoy these episodes from client interviews: 295 Niche Journey and 5x Higher Prices than 24mo Ago with Sheila Hansen, CPA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA 281 4 Pricing Problems Solved with Kathy Hayden, EA Freedom to Choose Not to Double Revenue with Prithi Daswani, CPA When you need to explore, with Rebecca Driscoll, CPA 15 Hour Weeks, $200K, 70%+ Margins, with Erica Goode, CPA 130% Revenue Increase While Working Less with Paige Gott How to Build $250K in CPA Advisory Services in 4 Months, with Prithi Daswani, CPA From Scratch to 6 Figures in 9 Months with Shaan Afridi, CPA Want to get your life back while protecting your revenue? Here are a few ways I help overworked CPAs: GO DOWN TO 40 HOURS THE EMAIL COURSE THE BOOK Down to 40 Hours – A Roadmap for CPAs to End Overworking Without Losing Revenue $9.99 THE VIDEO COURSE A 1:1 CONSULTATION CPA MASTERMIND
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| 217 Get Down to 40 Hours with CPA Mastermind | 23 Nov 2022 | 00:18:56 | |
*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe In this episode, I share with you how you can get down to a 40-hour workweek, work with great clients you enjoy, all without forsaking revenue. It's what we do in Down to 40 Hours with CPA Mastermind, my four-month program designed to help CPAs like you build simpler, more profitable, easier to run businesses. It is the best program out there for the CPA who wants to get down to a 40-hour workweek, and now is the best time to give it to yourself. So an episode today in five parts:
If you're a CPA who is ready to have a practice you love making solid money, working with clients you enjoy and doing rewarding work without the insane hours, check out CPA Mastermind and get on the waitlist: https://geraldinecarter.com/waitlist If want more details, and have questions, check out https://geraldinecarter.com/cpa-mastermind. And if you still have questions, email me at gc@geraldinecarter.com.
Highlights: — “When you sell work, what that means is that you're going to do work all the time because that's what you're selling.” — “Focus on the value that you can create for your clients.” — “We help you get better at communicating value so that you don't have to feel like you have to justify your prices or your bill to your client after the fact.” — “When we focus on exactly your ideal buyer who you want to work with, and you begin to work with only those kinds of clients, you generate efficiencies as you see ways to improve systems and stop doing all kinds of stuff to please all kinds of people.” — “Knowing what to do is only half the battle. The other half of the battle is having your head in the right space and having a mindset that works in your favor.” | |||
| 216 Inside CPA Mastermind, with Sheila Hansen | 16 Nov 2022 | 00:35:19 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe
We're talking with Sheila Hansen, who is a participant, a masterminder in my program, Down to 40 Hours CPA Mastermind, to get her perspective on the experience of what it's like, and the value of being in this program. Sheila helps female-owned creative businesses understand their numbers while increasing profit and scaling to $500K-$2M in revenue.
Highlights: — “One value of this program is really digging into niching. In some ways it was giving myself permission to go the route that I wanted to go.” — “We don't have to have it all figured out exactly today.” — “Clients care about if we can provide a solution that helps them see where their cash is going, and how to keep more of it and spend (or not spend) in a way that aligns with their goals.” — “In the 10 weeks since we started, I have grown my monthly recurring contracts by 65% in revenue dollars. And in doing so, I only grew my client roster about 25%.” — “The mindset coaching sessions help me go from being paralyzed and not taking any action or avoiding it all together, to actually moving forward and getting something accomplished.” Connect with SHEILA: Website: https://www.hansenllc.net/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheila.hansen.cpa/ Get first access when CPA Mastermind enrollment opens: | |||
| 215 How to Disengage Clients to Strengthen Your Accounting Firm | 09 Nov 2022 | 00:32:44 | |
*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Today we're talking about disengaging and disengagement letters and the process of letting go of some, or many of your clients so that you can free up space and bandwidth in your business to focus on generating high-margin revenue. I want to share with you what this looks like, sounds like, and feels like, so that you have a sense of the experience, so that you know that this is doable for you. Not only is it doable for you: it is imperative if you are a CPA, especially when working 70, 60, 50 hours a week, and you’re exhausted and worn out and want to keep being a CPA.
Highlights: — “There's more revenue to be created when you focus at the top end of your client roster and figure out and design higher-value, higher-margin services that are designed to solve problems for your clients.” — “The risk of not appropriately disengaging so that you can get your time and your bandwidth back is that your best clients, who can't get your attention, leave.” — “Your position is your north star: it informs your strategy, packaging, pricing, and how you promote your business. Without a north star, a business owner wanders all over the map.” — “The strategy is universally the same: isolate who you want to work with, decide what problem you're going to solve, choose your prices and your packaging, and then focus on selling to only those people.” — “Disengaging is good for you. It's good for your business, and it's good for your clients.” Episode mentions: 211 Pricing For Improved Profitability https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/211 201 Effortless Value https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/201
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| 214 Communicate Your Value More Effectively with Six Elements | 02 Nov 2022 | 00:12:39 | |
*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe As an accountant, chances are good you don't like selling: you don't want to be dirty, pushy, smarmy or gross. Nor do you want to have to convince buyers that accounting is good for them (they should know)! If you’re stuck believing “sales is dirty,” you will hinder revenue coming in the door. When you believe that what you offer solves problems for people, and you work in service of your buyer, selling becomes a conversation where you seek an understanding of the problem and the solution, and explore ways to work together that are mutually beneficial. When you understand the six elements to be looking and listening for, selling gets so much easier. It also helps you see how your buyers view what you offer, which simplifies what you need to communicate when promoting your tax practice, and having discovery conversations. These six elements help you understand your prospect more deeply, which makes for conversations that get to the heart of the matter more quickly, quickening the sales cycle and improving your conversion rates.
These elements are: symptom, pain, solution, process, result, and value.
Highlights: — “Your clients are coming to you because they believe that you may be able to help them get from where they are now to where they want to be.” — “When you talk to your buyer, in their buyer's English, that's how they know that you're listening and that you actually understand them.” — “When your buyers know that you understand them, and you have a process for helping them, it deepens trust which accelerates their journey of working with you.” — “The more you can create a repeatable process, the easier it will be to systematize, the less work it will be for you. The more you systematize, the more time you get back, through delegation or otherwise.” | |||
| 213 Coaching Confidential: Where One Multi-Six Figure Coach Invests Her Cash | 26 Oct 2022 | 00:18:43 | |
*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe at https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Many CPAs tell me they are looking for high-paying clients. They wonder where those clients are, and “how to get them to spend more.” Knowing what I'm about to tell you will expand your view of what's possible for you when you have a deeper appreciation for what's valuable to me as a multi six figure coach and what is less so. This episode is born of a conversation that came about in CPA mastermind, my four-month coaching program for CPAs to help them build businesses that are much easier run and much more profitable. They were asking about what my experience as a coach is, so I shared with them where I invest, and how I think about the value of each of the services I receive from my tax return-only CPA to my cashflow CFO/CPA, to my business coach. This proved to be a helpful way for them to see where I was investing my money in my business and to help them think about their clients and their buyers and where they may be able to capture and create value that they might not have already been seeing.
Highlights: — “When you don't know where or how to create value, that's value that you cannot capture with your prices.” — “Working with coach helps me see what's possible for me in my business that I couldn't have seen myself.” — “I think of my tax return CPA as somebody who tells me what I owe on what I made. I think of my cashflow CPA as somebody who tells me what I need to make. And I think of my business coach as someone who tells me how to make the money I want to make.” — “When I invest in expertise, the dollars I give to that expertise come back multiplied.” — “If you have a roster of smart clients running solid businesses, you have latent high-paying clients.”
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| 212 Hold My Beer and Watch Me Niche, with Josh Lance, CPA | 19 Oct 2022 | 00:40:19 | |
*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Many CPAs serve all kinds of clients, from service-based business owners to manufacturers to nonprofits. It seems like accounting is accounting and tax is tax, and you can do these things for anyone who needs them. The problem with generalism is that it leads to broad but shallow expertise. And shallow expertise is not worth as much as deep expertise. Acquiring deep expertise requires focusing on a specific type of client. Focusing in this way can feel scary and limiting: the thinking is that it will be harder to find clients because there will be fewer of them. Or, “it's hard enough to generate business as it is, so why would I want to limit the kinds of clients I work for?” Here today to talk with me about his journey taking his CPA firm into niches is my guest, Josh Lance. Josh is a CPA CGMA and the founder of Lance CPA Group.
Highlights: — “You can't just leave that expertise in your brain. It has to be freely shared within your organization.” — “If we are really experts, and we are good at what we do, and we're going to solve our clients’ problems and help them achieve their desired outcomes, there's a price to pay for that.” — “If you want to niche, you have to go all in on the niche.” — “Specialization is going to be a bit messy at the beginning. But in the long run, it's good.” — “There's so many more clients out there than we could ever imagine to serve that there's no worry where we box ourselves.” Connect with JOSH: Website: https://lancecpa.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshualancecpa/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/lancejd1 Email: josh@lancecpa.com | |||
| 211 Pricing for Improved Profitability | 12 Oct 2022 | 00:48:05 | |
Do you wonder how to price accounting services? Stop wondering, stop pricing accounting services, and start pricing for value you create. When you front-load your services with value, you have more latitude to price in a way that ensures both you and your client are mutually profitable in the exchange. ///// If you want to know more about working with me to increase your profitability, put 15 minutes on my calendar: https://calendly.com/geraldinecarter/15min
Let me show you how 1:1 VIP coaching can help your business be more profitable and easier to run, in less than 5 months. ///// This episode is a summation of everything that I've taken in over the years on pricing and how I've effectively used it for great results for my clients. Topics covered:
Highlights: — “Part of figuring out your pricing is also getting your packages together with your prices on the right track, so that you can stop having a million underpaying clients, and you can get your time back.” — Remember, “It is good for your clients when your prices are higher.” — “Value creation helps you increase your prices.” — “When you can create a situation where it's high profit for you, the seller, and it's high profit for them the buyer, you create a win-win situation where you love selling, because it's nicely profitable for you, and they love buying, because it's nicely profitable for them.” — “If you want to get your firm's packages and prices on the right track, if you want to stop having a million owner paying clients and you want to get your time back, start with value and use pricing as the tool to capture it.” Earmark CPE podcast | |||
| 210 Selling Experience and Transformation Instead of Services and Deliverables | 05 Oct 2022 | 00:10:33 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe
I want to talk to you about experience and transformation. Why? Because if you deepen your understanding of these two aspects of what you provide to your clients, you'll be able to make more money without working as hard. Many accountants are selling only services and deliverables. And they're missing out on selling transformation and selling an experience. And your buyers tend to value transformation and experience more highly than they tend to value services and deliverables. I want to show you how you can sell these or how you can think about selling transformation and experience. When you think first of the transformation you want your client to have, and the experience you want your client to have while working with you, you set yourself up to attract higher-paying clients. Your work is higher margin. And then you don't have to work so many hours trying to tie everything up at the end of the month and during tax season.
Highlights: — “Many of your clients are looking for transformation in terms of the revenue in their business and in terms of their understanding of and their sense of the handle they have or don't on their money.” — “Where you can create effortless value is in the onboard experience and your ongoing experience with clients.” — “Your prospects and clients value transformation and experience much more than they value services.” — “When you can create value in ways that are divorced from actually doing work, that's how you get paid better without having to work as hard.” Episode mentions: 201 Effortless Value https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/201
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| 209 How to Communicate Value More Simply and Effectively | 28 Sep 2022 | 00:17:57 | |
Do you wish you could communicate your value more effectively? Today I cover how to communicate value in more simple terms and more effectively so that your buyers and clients have a better understanding of what they're buying and why, and to make it more compelling for them to buy from you. If clients don't understand the terminology that you're using, they will have a very difficult time connecting the dots between the things that you're doing for them, the tasks that you're performing for them, the deliverables, the services, and how that is valuable to them in their businesses and in their lives. Here are six terms – deliverable services – that accountants and CPAs regularly use, where you can communicate value in more simple terms and more effectively: Accounts payable - Make sure you're paying your vendors. Accounts receivable - You need cash to run your business: make sure that you're getting paid on time by your clients. Payroll - Avoid costly unforced errors - you don’t want to mess around with the IRS. Set this up right the first time. Cash flow, including forecasts and projections - Make sure you know how much money you have available to invest in the growth of your business. Running your bank accounts dry is a recipe for running yourself ragged. Revenue recognition - Get a more accurate picture of your books and it will map more accurately and better represent how your business operations are running month-to-month. KPIs (key performance indicators) - Know when your business is on track or if it's deviating from the plan that we've set, sooner than you would have had we not been tracking KPIs. Tie out your books, month-end-close - Make sure all your money is accounted for, at the end of every month. Those are seven different places you can communicate value more simply, more effectively to better help your buyer see the value in what you're selling so that they appreciate the value more. When they appreciate the value more, they're willing to pay more for it. And when they pay more for the very same thing, because you've communicated the value more effectively, it's one piece of you being able to earn more while working less. | |||
| 208 Minting New Niches for CPAs: Inside the CHIPS and IRA Bills | 21 Sep 2022 | 00:31:50 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list
There's a giant new bill that just came out that we're trying to get on top of and underneath to understand where the business opportunities are. Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, Randy Crabtree, co-founder and owner of Tri-merit Specialty Tax Professionals, and the host of the Unique CPA podcast.
Highlights: — “Probably the major winner from somebody who's looking to build out a niche is something to do with the construction industry.” — “There is a new rule regarding R&D, which probably tech startups are going to benefit.” — “Anybody that is helping manufacture equipment, potentially that's going to support the manufacturing of semiconductors can benefit from the CHIPS Act.” — “There are two different investment tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. One is tied to semiconductor manufacturing, and the other one is tied to green and energy-efficient manufacturing of equipment or recycling of equipment or renewable energies.” — “There's an incentive for companies that deal with tech startups doing Research and Development. Startup companies can take the R&D tax credit, and at least a portion of it and offset payroll taxes.” Connect with Randy: Website: https://tri-merit.com/ Webinar mention: Pricing for Improved Profitability: Practice Management Webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EkcAAQQlOA
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| 306 25 Hours for Everyone, Team Included with Rebecca Warnick, CPA | 17 Jul 2024 | 00:40:06 | |
Running and growing your accounting practice can feel like a lot –– and maybe sometimes a hair more than you care to manage. Yet, how to change, what to change, and in what order to change things can be far from obvious. In this conversation, I want listeners to hear what it sounds like to make a bunch of progress in four months, while being owner of a company where the baseline is 25 hours for everyone. Find Rebecca at www.thewarnickgroup.com/. … Hey CPA firm owner, glad you found the podcast. If you feel like you’ve become trapped by your own accounting firm, you’re fed up PiTB clients who get you their stuff late, don’t appreciate the value you provide, and complain to you when you don’t turn it around on a dime, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours, without losing revenue. If you like the podcast, join 4200+ other CPAs who get Vitamin G, my daily dose of single-tip business strategy delivered straight to their inbox: Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … If you like hearing client stories, you might enjoy these episodes: 295 Niche Journey and 5x Higher Prices than 24mo Ago with Sheila Hansen, CPA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA 281 4 Pricing Problems Solved with Kathy Hayden, EA Freedom to Choose Not to Double Revenue with Prithi Daswani, CPA When you need to explore, with Rebecca Driscoll, CPA 15 Hour Weeks, $200K, 70%+ Margins, with Erica Goode, CPA 130% Revenue Increase While Working Less with Paige Gott How to Build $250K in CPA Advisory Services in 4 Months, with Prithi Daswani, CPA From Scratch to 6 Figures in 9 Months with Shaan Afridi, CPA Want to get your life back while protecting your revenue? Here are a few ways I help overworked CPAs: GO DOWN TO 40 HOURS THE EMAIL COURSE THE BOOK Down to 40 Hours – A Roadmap for CPAs to End Overworking Without Losing Revenue $9.99 THE VIDEO COURSE A 1:1 CONSULTATION CPA MASTERMIND
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| 207 The Flat-Rate Pricing Debate: Cost Plus or Value Minus? | 14 Sep 2022 | 00:06:18 | |
Making better use of pricing tools is among the longest levers you have in your business to change your profitability, fast. Some say that Flat Rate Pricing is Cost Plus and not to use it, but I disagree, and I tell you why Flat Rate Pricing is a useful pricing tool in your accounting firm. If you want more business strategy and pricing tips, be sure to subscribe to my Daily Newsletter at geraldinecarter.com/subscribe. | |||
| 206 Breaking Away from the Mainstream Medical Model with Dr. Lewis Weiner | 07 Sep 2022 | 00:36:38 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Long time listeners to this podcast know I am on the hunt for a better business model for CPAs, than the traditional time-for-money-for-reports model. In many cases, that model doesn’t work well for the client, and for CPAs who are working long hours, that model doesn’t work great for them either. CPAs may want to do things differently, but lack role models and examples they can point to to convince them they have other available options. Here today to talk with me about his journey switching from the traditional model to a more limited size practice in medicine is Dr. Lewis Weiner. Dr. Weiner is an internal medicine physician in his own private practice in Providence, RI. He offers the MDVIP program - a different approach to primary care with a focus on prevention and a better healthcare experience. Highlights: — “The breaking point comes when you feel like you're forsaking the patients you're caring for.” — “The fear of the status quo, the risk and the knowns of doing nothing were scarier than the potential for change.” — “What was scary about transitioning away was that people may not, or will not understand this thing. Why is this physician that we all know and has been a part of this community for so long, breaking away from the mainstream?” — “What helped to get past the angst was that there was so much belief in this being a valid, appropriate and positive option that's being offered to people.” Connect with Dr. Weiner: MDVIP Website: https://www.mdvip.com/
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| 205 Create High-Paying Clients: a 5-Step Process for CPAs | 31 Aug 2022 | 00:18:52 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list One of the most common questions I get from readers of my email list is: “How do I get high-paying clients?” This process need not be a mystery. There is a formula for creating high-paying clients, that gets you out of being at effect of outside forces, and gets you in the driver’s seat. These five steps are ones you can start implementing right away. Here are five steps you can use to create demand and attract high-paying clients: STEP 1 - Front-load the crap out of the value your service provides. Find all the ways to provide Effortless Value (listen to episode 201) and build those into your services.STEP 2 - Undercharge relative to the value to the buyer. Make the price an easy win for your client. This is much easier to do when your service is packed with value, because it allows you to float the price up in keeping with the value you added. Of course, make your price profitable for you too. STEP 3 - Always create demand. Always. Always does not mean sometimes. Or intermittently. Or once in a while. Or when you need a client. Or when you “feel like it,” or “don’t feel like it.” Always means always. You have 4 types of followers: new and existing, ready or not yet ready to buy. Cultivate all four groups by always creating demand. STEP 4 - Limit supply for your HIGH-VALUE package. The more demand you create, the more limiting supply becomes necessary. And limited supply enables you to select the best clients from your pool of prospects. STEP 5 - 100% control over 100% results. While you could focus on that which you cannot control, you are better off focusing on that which you can control. Much is within your control. Much more than you realize. If you're thinking, “Creating demand sounds great. And boy, I could use help with this.” This is what we work on throughout CPA Mastermind. We help you niche so you can figure out who you want to provide value to. And we help you build that value out. We create packages so you know what you are selling, and so do your prospects. We price so you understand where your money will come from, how much you need to sell, so your clients know how much the thing they are buying from you costs. And then we build demand for high value, high-paying clients. CPA Mastermind is the only program out there of its kind. We're enrolling right now for the fall cohort. Enrollment is open until September 4th. Get in on this round. The next round isn’t until 2023. If you want high-paying clients and you want to take the mystery out of where they come from, get in on this round. You can go to https://geraldinecarter.com to enroll. Episode mentions: 201 Effortless Value | |||
| 204 130% Revenue Increase While Working Less with Paige Gott | 24 Aug 2022 | 00:25:04 | |
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Sometimes you want to transition away from your current situation and create a new set up. But between knowing what exactly to create, and how to create it, while transitioning away from the old thing can be a bit daunting. Here today to talk with me about this is my guest Paige Gott. Paige is the owner of Tidewater Consulting, and successfully navigated this transition over the last 18 months. Highlights: – “I am making basically 130% more per month per client. And I have half the amount of clients than I did at that time.” – “The best thing I did was go through my client roster and figure out what clients I had outgrown, or who didn't necessarily want or need the level of services I was going to be providing on a regular basis.” – “My clients are grateful that they can make decisions based on real evidence.” – “Getting my first client at four figures per month gave me a huge confidence boost, after which I felt better about giving people my prices.” Connect with PAIGE: Website: https://tidewater-consulting.com/ | |||
| 203 Killer Niche: Farm + Ag CPA with Catherine Ozment | 17 Aug 2022 | 00:32:37 | |
Many of you know how difficult and time-consuming it can be to run a tax shop. It's all too easy to get buried under a mountain of tax, underprice services, and be in what feels like a near-steady state of chaos. My guest today is Catherine Ozment. Catherine is a CPA in south Texas who called two years ago now, wanting to get off the hamster wheel and get intentional about creating a thriving practice that is designed and built to sell at a high multiple. We're talking today about what has changed since we spoke last year on the podcast and what she has learned in the year since then, so that you can have a window into what shifting your accounting practice is actually like. Highlights: — “We have an aging industry. Yet, technology continues to consume our space. Some older and aging senior CPAs are not keeping up with those times, so there’s an opening for those who keep up.” — “When you have your sights set on excellence and you build relationships with your people, those people see that value and they are willing to pay you for that value.” — “Getting myself out of the tax factory has made it possible for me to start networking in this (ag) space, and has confirmed that the value that we're producing is so well worth it for these people. We are offering a critical service so they can continue to grow in the ag space.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list
Connect with CATHERINE: Website: https://www.farmandagcpa.com/ Episode mentions: 141 One Year: From Tax Factory to vCFO & Ag CPA with Catherine Ozmenthttps://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/141
142 From Impossible to Exponential Growth: The CPA Mindset https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/142
192 Free Time and 7 Figures Net Revenue with John Lee Dumas | |||
| 202 Selling Value to Create Better Clients at Higher Prices with Mark Stiving | 10 Aug 2022 | 00:25:02 | |
Many CPAs struggle with pricing. Some have moved to flat rate or subscription pricing, and some still bill by the hour. For CPAs who are used to getting compensated for time and effort, it can be difficult to learn how to see value and to learn how to price accordingly. But if they don't make the transition, they risk underpricing themselves in perpetuity and having to keep working long hours to make up for unearned revenue. To talk with me about this problem is my guest, Mark Stiving. Mark is a pricing educator and advisor, the host of the Impact Pricing podcast and the owner of Impact Pricing, where he teaches clients how to win, keep, and grow customers to drive higher revenue. In Mark's most recent book, Selling Value, he shares his expertise to help companies win more business at higher prices. Highlights: — “Salespeople need to know how people value products.” — “Our buyers buy products because they want to solve problems.” — “The salesperson's job is to help the buyer understand the true amount of value they're going to get from the product.” — “Buyers who don't believe that you understand their problems won't listen to your solutions.” — “If we truly believe that we're going to deliver more value, we should make sure they understand the value before we give them the price.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with MARK: Website: https://impactpricing.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com Episode mentions: 125 Value and Segmented Pricing for CPAs with Pricing Expert Mark Stiving, PhD https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/125 153 A Formula for Quantifying Value with Mark Stiving, PhD https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/153 172 Subscription Pricing Strategies with Mark Stiving, PhD https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/172 Mark’s book: Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09Y8V7FWX/
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| 201 Effortless Value | 03 Aug 2022 | 00:28:15 | |
There is vestigial thinking in the accounting space that value comes from working. “If I worked hard on a thing, then you should pay me money for it.” But that's not how money works: people don't really care if you worked hard on a thing. I want to undo this idea in your mind that working hard is the thing that is valuable. The idea is effortless value: that you can create a lot of value for your clients without actually having to work hard. When we create effortless value in our businesses, we can capture that value with our pricing without putting in a lot of extra effort. And when you can capture the value that you create with your prices, then you can work less and make more. In this episode, I list a dozen ways you can add value that are not tied to doing work:
Building effortless value into your accounting firm is a sure-fire way to help you generate more revenue without having to work so hard for it. ******** Building effortless value is something that we work on inside CPA Mastermind. If you want to know more about CPA Mastermind, check out the webpage at https://geraldinecarter.com/cpa-mastermind. If you want to get on the interest list so that you can stay apprised of when registration is open and accepting applications, go to https://geraldinecarter.com/interest. ******** Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox? Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Episode mention: 196 CPA Mastermind: Create More Profit with Less Effort https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/196
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| 200 Make Podcasting Great for Your Accounting Firm | 27 Jul 2022 | 00:22:58 | |
On why and how podcasting can be great for your business. It has been the core of my business for four years and my business wouldn't be where it is without a podcast. I share this with you because I see few accountants and CPAs with podcasts in niche spaces. I look for them because I want to get them on my podcast and they're difficult to find. Yet, podcasting can be valuable for your business and so beneficial. Reasons why that is, and why, especially for accountants and CPAs, I think you are uniquely positioned to benefit from creating and having a podcast:
Pro tip here from experience: if you want your podcast to serve your business, focus on a specific audience, focus on a specific set of problems that you solve for your people. This is the stuff that we work on in CPA Mastermind. I designed it to be the best program for CPAs and accountants who want to get their business on the right track.
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Episode mentions: 192 Free Time and 7 Figures Net Revenue with John Lee Dumas https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/192 196 CPA Mastermind: Create More Profit with Less Effort https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/196 179 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA, Brandon Hall | |||
| 199 Selling Cloud-based vs Traditional CPA Firms with Brannon Poe | 20 Jul 2022 | 00:24:07 | |
A lot of CPAs have had enough, and are looking to sell off parts or all of their business. They have options when it comes to selling. And the farther ahead they plan, the better deal they’ll create for themselves. Here today to talk with me about what he sees happening right now in the buying and selling of CPA firms is my guest Brannon Poe, owner of Poe Group Advisors. Highlights: — “Firms that have a large number of personal tax, not associated with a business, tend to have higher staff turnover, higher tax season hours, lower cash flow to owner.” — “Staffing is changing the accounting profession faster than anything. Because of staffing changes, people are having to make difficult pruning decisions.” — “Accounting firms are the slowest to change models. The cloud firm space, however, is definitely growing fast.” — “If traditional firms don't keep up with the innovation, they're going to lose clients to innovative cloud firms.” — “The full cloud firms sell for a higher multiple and they tend to sell faster.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with BRANNON: Website: https://poegroupadvisors.com/ Virtual Workshop: http://accountingpracticeacademy.com
Episode mentions: 162 How to Sell a CPA Firm for Optimal Price with Brannon Poe https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/162 Book mentions: Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It... and Why the Rest Don't by Verne Harnish
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| 198 Killer Intel for CPAs on the Real Estate Investor Niche with Tom Wheelwright | 13 Jul 2022 | 00:35:49 | |
For many CPAs, it feels risky to pick a cross-section of the tax-code, and burrow in. The fear is around losing clients, having to turn people away, and what if there’s a recession? Consequently, most CPAs work as generalists, and pay the price in the form of seemingly infinite rotations on the treadmill. My guest today has built an exemplary business around expertise in one niche, and that person is Tom Wheelwright, CPA. Tom is a tax and wealth expert and is the CEO of WealthAbility®. He is the bestselling author of Tax-Free Wealth: How to Build Massive Wealth By Permanently Reducing Your Taxes, and he is releasing his next book this summer titled The Win-Win Wealth Strategy: 7 Investments the Government Will Pay You to Make. His goal is to help people achieve their financial dreams faster by permanently and legally reducing their taxes.
Highlights: — “I wrote The Win-Win Wealth Strategy to talk about how taxes really work, how incentives really work, and what the government gets out of it.” — “Tax incentives have just taken off as a way for the government to influence investment behavior.” — “Tax incentives are actually investments the government will literally pay you to make.” — “You subniche to increase your focus and reduce the amount of time that you have to spend doing research, because then you don't have to know about everything.” — “One of the challenges we have as CPAs, especially the smaller firms, is we tend to rely on personal, direct oversight as opposed to having systems. The client will get to a point where they're looking for systems help. And this is something where we can provide high value services to them.” — “Don't think this is tax avoidance or tax evasion. It's none of that. This is what the government wants you to do.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with TOM: Tom Wheelwright, CPA Website: https://tomwheelwright.com/ WealthAbility Website: https://wealthability.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwheelwright/ Episode mentions: 178 Killer Niches for CPAs https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/178
Tom’s book: The Win-Win Wealth Strategy: 7 Investments The Government Will Pay You To Make Pre-order: https://winwinwealthstrategy.com/ For multiple copies: https://winwinwealthstrategy.com/bonuses
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| 305 Hiring is not the Solution to CPAs Overworking | 10 Jul 2024 | 00:14:26 | |
Working more hours than you want can be a tough place to be. A place that you want to get out of as fast as possible. It would make sense to think that hiring someone to handle the excess work is the solution. I want to show you why hiring may not be the best option and how it might actually make the overworking problem worse. … If you feel trapped by your own accounting firm, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours without losing revenue or hiring. Join 5000+ other CPAs who get my single-tip daily emails. . . Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … WANT MORE? Client Interviews 304 From 55 Down to 15 Hours; Same Take-Home Pay with Melissa Downs, EA 295 Niche Journey and 5x Higher Prices than 24mo Ago with Sheila Hansen, CPA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA 281 4 Pricing Problems Solved with Kathy Hayden, EA 259 Permission to Stop Being Superhuman with Michael Berry, CPA … Complete list at: geraldinecarter.com/client-interview-episodes … Greatest Hits 211 Pricing for Improved Profitability 178 Killer Niches for CPAs with Tom Wheelwright 179 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA, Brandon Hall 252 How Accountants Can Use ChatGPT with Jason Staats, CPA … Ways I help overworked CPAs go down to 40 hours without losing revenue or hiring: . THE BOOK – $9.99 Down to 40 Hours – A Roadmap for CPAs to End Overworking Without Losing Revenue THE VIDEO COURSE – $497 A 1:1 CONSULTATION – $1297 CPA MASTERMIND – $9500
Make progress faster and with more confidence. Your purchase is protected by my risk-free guarantee. … | |||
| 197 Listening Tour: How CPAs Can Create More Value with Less Effort | 06 Jul 2022 | 00:43:52 | |
Many CPAs work super long hours and go for periods of time where their head is down, getting the work done. But when your head is down and you’re busy, how do you take the time to find out what your clients truly want? Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, Rochelle Moulton. Rochelle turns consultants and big thinkers into authorities. She earned her consulting and big thinker stripes leading introverted brainiacs at some powerhouse global consulting firms like Towers Perrin and Arthur Andersen. But even better, she has built, led (and sometimes sold) more than a few 6, 7 and 8-figure consulting businesses. And earned the equivalent of a second MBA building authority brands and businesses with hundreds of soloists. She has recently launched a mastermind to build wealth in the form of money, time, and flexibility, for soloist women in the expertise space.
Highlights: — ”In a listening tour, you're going to ask your ideal clients or prospects a very specific list of questions to get insight into something that you're trying to figure out, like a new product or a new program.” — ”One the kinds of questions to ask, I'll open with something about their business, to make sure that I understand where they're coming from.” — ”What we think our audience wants is not necessarily what they actually will buy.” — ”A listening tour gives you a better understanding of what your clients want beyond what you think they want.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with ROCHELLE: Website: https://rochellemoulton.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConsultingChick LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rochellemoulton/ Episode mentions: 166 How CPAs Can Build and Monetize Authority with Rochelle Moulton https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/166
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| 196 CPA Mastermind: Create More Profit with Less Effort | 29 Jun 2022 | 00:38:49 | |
There are a number of mindset, structure, and mechanical components that are not working well for CPAs and accountants. Many are working long hours and are underpricing. And they continue to be busy because they are positioning themselves in the marketplace as generalists. It's difficult to create value, which means it's difficult to raise prices, which means it's difficult to do less work. There is an easier way, and it doesn't have to be thaaaat hard to make the changes that you need in order to get your business pointed in the right direction to get where you want to be. I'm launching a new program called CPA Mastermind. It’s designed for CPAs and accountants who are solos or small firm owners: to update their business model, make their business more profitable, get their business on the path they want it on, and get their life back. In short, CPA Mastermind helps CPAs create more profit, with less effort. Here are the 10 steps that you'll go through in CPA Mastermind:
If you don't want to do another year that feels like the last three that you have gone through, check out CPA Mastermind.
Get on the interest list: https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/interest More about the CPA Mastermind: https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/cpa-mastermind Episode mentioned: 125 Value and Segmented Pricing for CPAs with Pricing Expert Mark Stiving, PhD https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/125
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list
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| 195 How to Position Your CPA Firm to Stop Getting Overlooked in the Marketplace | 22 Jun 2022 | 00:45:39 | |
What I have for you today is the audio from a webinar I hosted on Crowdcast on how positioning can help you in your business. Focusing on your niche or position can be really challenging. What I want is to help you keep on moving and to continue making progress in terms of narrowing who you focus on working with and who you work best with, because it makes your business so much easier.
Highlights: — Why choose a position in the marketplace?
The moment a CPA separates himself from the crowd, he immediately opens himself up to that very type of business owner who is thirsty for his expertise and will pay him for it. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Get access to webinar slides: How to Position Your Business https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/position-your-biz-slides
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| 194 Low-Priced Thoughts | 15 Jun 2022 | 00:13:43 | |
In episode 193, I introduced a tool called The Model, which you can use to understand how your thoughts, feelings, and actions create your results. Pricing, and especially raising prices, tends to elicit fear-based thoughts. In this episode, I give you specific examples around the thoughts CPAs have about pricing, so you can see how your own thoughts about pricing might be inadvertently affecting your prices. HIGHLIGHTS: Here are three sample thoughts about pricing, that could play out as follows: — When an accountant thinks, “They might say no,” she might feel hesitant, and want to think about her new prices some more, and meanwhile not list her new prices. The result is that buyers cannot say yes to her higher price because that higher price doesn't officially exist anywhere. Buyers are effectively saying no to her higher price. — When a CPA thinks, “I've got to step up and deliver, I better perform,” he feels pressured and doesn’t think his processes all the way through. The quality and delivery are not as good. The result is that he doesn't perform when he feels under pressure about performing. — When a CPA thinks, “What if they don't think my service is worth it?” she shows up apprehensive and holds back on delivering direct but valuable advice. When she wonders if her service is worth it, she doesn't make it worth it. And then she proves to herself and her prospect that her service is not worth it. … Thoughts show up in results. And, it can help to remember that this is just the brain doing its normal brain-thing. (After all, it was designed to keep people safe from tigers and inside the tribe, so that they could live to tell another day.) There is nothing wrong with thinking these thoughts. But it helps to be aware of them, in order to choose a new set of thoughts that line up with the results you desire to create. Low-priced thoughts, create low prices.
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list
Episode Mentioned: 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/193
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| 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model | 08 Jun 2022 | 00:12:23 | |
Today I want to introduce you to something called The Model. It’s a model for understanding and making sense of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. And it is created by Brooke Castillo, the founder of The Life Coach School. I am a certified coach by The Life Coach School, and as such I am licensed to teach her methodology. So I want to tell you about what this tool is, give you a sense of what it looks like and how it works and show you how we can use it to create the reality that we want and stop recreating a reality that we don't want. What I love about the model is that it helps you understand your mind, understand your feelings, understand why you take the actions that you do and why you don't take the actions that you don't, and how these actions in aggregate create the result of our lives. Highlights: — “Our thoughts create our feelings, and we can choose what our thoughts are.” — “The Model is a tool that you can use to understand what's happening in your life, and how to create the life and the business that you want.” — “What's so powerful about the model is that you can see your thoughts showing up in your results.” — “Improving your ability to think intentional thoughts on purpose is how you create the business and the life that you want to have.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list | |||
| 192 Free Time and 7 Figures Net Revenue with John Lee Dumas | 01 Jun 2022 | 00:12:07 | |
When you run a business, getting a handle on your time can be a challenge. Keeping your time and your tasks organized, is one way to get more big things done. Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, John Lee Dumas. John (or JLD, as he is affectionately known) is the founder and host of the award-winning podcast, Entrepreneurs on Fire. With more than 100 million listens of his 3000+ episodes, JLD has turned Entrepreneurs On Fire into a media empire that generates more than a million listens every month and 7-figures of NET annual revenue 8 years in a row. He is also the author of the recently published book, the Common Path to Uncommon Success in which he shares his 17-step roadmap to financial freedom and fulfillment.
Highlights: — “How do you start batching when you're working a 60-hour work week? You start with the small things.” — “When the unexpected happens you just need to be ready to flow with it.” — “As your business grows, you bring in people to your organization to take more things off your plate so you can keep focusing on what you can do.” — “It takes time for people to really get a handle on their time because they're going to have to try things out.”
Connect with JOHN: Website: https://www.eofire.com/ ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list
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| 191 Pricing Mindset: A CPA’s Most Effective Multi-Tool for Profit, with Janene Liston | 25 May 2022 | 00:30:08 | |
Most CPAs struggle with pricing. After all, it’s not a topic that’s commonly taught. Even less frequently discussed is pricing mindset - in short, how to think about pricing. If you don’t think about how you think about pricing, you will run on default thinking. And if you run on default thinking about pricing, you're probably going to leave money on the table. Here today to talk with me about this problem is my guest, The Pricing Lady, Janene Liston. Janene is a Certified Pricing Professional, and she works with small businesses to improve how they price so they can be most sustainably profitable.
Highlights: — “What most people understand about pricing comes from being a consumer, especially from the retail industry.” — “Pricing is about how you set, how you get, and how you manage prices. And it's a way of being or behaving in your business. It’s a mindset.” — “There are lots of prices that are right for your business and your customers. Your job is to find the price range that you can work in.” — “Even if you're offering accounting services that are same (as other accountants), you may be able to charge more if you're better at communicating value.” — “Believe that you are in fact better than the rest, not just by saying it, but actually being better than the rest.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with Janene: Website: https://thepricinglady.com/
Download Janene’s Self-assessment Pricing Scorecard: https://thepricinglady.com/goodies/
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| 190 Pricing Sweet Spot: Cost < Price < Value | 18 May 2022 | 00:04:44 | |
What is cost, what is price, what is value? First let us clarify how these terms can be used and what they mean. The seller determines the cost, and it is based on the inputs required to produce the service or product. The seller determines the price, and it is simply a choice. The buyer determines the value, which is unique to each person and highly subjective. You can think of designing the “equation” like this:
Cost < Price < Value
So that: When the cost is less than the price, the seller sells at a profit. (The seller’s profit is the price at which he sold, minus his cost, of course.) When the price is less than the value, the buyer buys at a profit. The buyer’s profit is less obvious. It’s the value to them, minus the price. The value to the buyer is what they would have paid. The buyer’s profit is what they would have paid minus what they paid. When you design your services such that Cost < Price < Value, you are designing your service to create mutually assured profitability. It’s a sweet spot worth seeking.
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list | |||
| 189 How CPAs Can More Effectively Lead Their Teams | 11 May 2022 | 00:33:20 | |
When you set out to pursue your CPA, being an amazing manager of people was probably not in your crosshairs. Yet, as your firm grows, the need to become an effective manager of people becomes readily apparent. If you’re not an effective manager of people, one can get bogged down in staff-related headaches, pulling the focus away from working on the business. Here today to talk with me about better managing your team, is my guest, Kris Plachy. Kris is THE Thought Leader and Expert for Female Entrepreneurs. She has poured her life’s work into teaching them how to lead a team. In a space where there is a lot of ‘noise’ and advice, Kris has designed the ‘how to’ of team leadership through her How to CEO for Female Entrepreneurs™ program. She knows without a doubt, there is no challenge you are facing as a leader that she can’t help you solve. Highlights: — “You don't evolve and develop leadership and management prowess, if you don't understand the mind of a team member.” — “The world of work has radically changed in the last two years. If you aren't paying attention to that, you're gonna really struggle to find top talent.” — “If you're having repetitive problems with same kind of employee, that's just an indication that you have some things you need to work on to make better decisions on who you hire, and have better practices on how you lead and manage.” — “What's essential in delegation is telling people what success looks like as clearly as you can.” — “If you're the owner of a business and you can't hold people accountable, you are rudderless. You are operating at the whim of other people's brains, and it will make you nuts.” — “We want to have a culture of accountability, which means that when you say you're going to deliver something, you do.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with Kris: Website: https://krisplachy.com/ How to CEO Program: https://leadershipcoachinc.lpages.co/how2ceo/ Book mention:Dan Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About Motivation https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805 | |||
| 188 Stop Overcomplicating, Start Simplifying | 04 May 2022 | 00:01:51 | |
Sometimes we overcomplicate our offerings and our services for buyers because: 1. we think it's actually complicated or 2. we want it to sound fancy, or 3. we want the buyer to believe that they need our help and they can't do it on their own. We think if, “I make it simple for them, they won't buy.” Or, “If I make it simple, they’ll just do it themselves.” As if tax returns were just easy-peasy for everyone. But the opposite can be true. If we simplify how we talk about what the buyer needs to know, and we simplify the process for them, it can be easier for them to buy, because finally, they understand what's required of them, what they're getting, and what the value is to them. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list
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| 304 From 55 Down to 15 Hours; Same Take-Home Pay with Melissa Downs, EA | 03 Jul 2024 | 00:39:07 | |
Melissa Downs, EA completed two rounds of Down to 40 Hours and one round of Down to 25 Hours. A year ago, she was caught in the hustle and grind. Now, she works 15 hours a week and is testing out what it feels like to coast. Want numbers? She cut 70% of her client load, works 73% fewer hours, and kept her take-home pay the same. Find out how in this week’s episode. And be sure to catch my two previous episodes with Melissa so that you can hear the change over time: 258 Cut 74% of Clients and Have the Same Net Profit, with Melissa Downs, EA … If you feel trapped by your own accounting firm, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours without losing revenue or hiring. Join 5000+ other CPAs who get my single-tip daily emails. . . Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … WANT MORE? Client Interviews 304 From 55 Down to 15 Hours; Same Take-Home Pay with Melissa Downs, EA 295 Niche Journey and 5x Higher Prices than 24mo Ago with Sheila Hansen, CPA 293 What it Takes to Work 15 Hours per Week with Erica Goode, CPA 281 4 Pricing Problems Solved with Kathy Hayden, EA 259 Permission to Stop Being Superhuman with Michael Berry, CPA … Complete list at: geraldinecarter.com/client-interview-episodes … Greatest Hits 211 Pricing for Improved Profitability 178 Killer Niches for CPAs with Tom Wheelwright 179 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA, Brandon Hall 252 How Accountants Can Use ChatGPT with Jason Staats, CPA … Ways I help overworked CPAs go down to 40 hours without losing revenue or hiring: . THE BOOK – $9.99 Down to 40 Hours – A Roadmap for CPAs to End Overworking Without Losing Revenue THE VIDEO COURSE – $497 A 1:1 CONSULTATION – $1297 CPA MASTERMIND – $9500
Make progress faster and with more confidence. Your purchase is protected by my risk-free guarantee. … | |||
| 187 What to Do When You’re Stuck-in-Indecision | 27 Apr 2022 | 00:08:17 | |
One place that is all too easy to get stuck as a business owner, is in the land of indecision. As a business owner, I know you know just how many decisions there are to make. Sometimes it can feel like every decision has to be the right one, and often you lack all the information you need to make a clear and confident decision. When you find yourself spinning in Stuck-in-Indecision, there is no more data to be gathered. The only thing to do, the only thing you can do, is make a decision.
Choose one thing.
That choice will get you moving again, and as you move, you will create more information for yourself that will inform your next decision. This process on repeat will get you beyond the “right answer” you originally sought, and lead you to the thing you actually want. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list | |||
| 186 A Simple Formula for Writing Copy, to Sell Your Accounting Services More Effectively | 20 Apr 2022 | 00:07:33 | |
Knowing what to say on your website so that prospects quickly understand that you are (or are not) the right accountant for them can be difficult. Here is a simple structure for writing the content, that goes alongside selling your accounting and tax services.
Your buyer needs to know three things: One. That you understand their challenges Two. That you know what they want, instead of what they have Three. That you have a process to get them from where they are now, to where they want to be.
Think of it as the Pain, the Dream, and the Fix.
When you have these three items clear in your own mind and on your website, it makes sales conversations so much easier. It’s the gatekeeper to your clients working with you. CPA Rebootcamp: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/cpa-rebootcamp
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/sub | |||
| 185 How to Stop Procrastinating, Self-distracting, and Avoiding Work | 13 Apr 2022 | 00:09:09 | |
I want to round out this 3-part series on TIME with one more episode on unproductive actions we sometimes take that cost us time. When you can recognize familiar patterns it becomes easier to create a new pattern that’s more productive. I talk about procrastinating, doing “small tasks” and self-distracting — some of the actions that we do - or don’t do - that are counterproductive and keep us working against ourselves. When you begin to understand how your thoughts drive your feelings which lead to your actions, which in aggregate create your results over time, THEN we can see if the wiring you have pieced together is actually the wiring you want, and if not, you can update your wiring. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Episode mentions: How CPAs Can Create More Time During Busy Season https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/180 How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and Pressured by Time https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/184
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| 184 How to Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and Pressured by Time | 06 Apr 2022 | 00:11:56 | |
I want to talk with you today about TIME, because it’s tax season, and if ever there was a time of the year that felt crunched, now is likely it. When you become aware of how you feel about time, it can help you reduce overwhelm, pressure, and stress. It can also help you become more productive, by reducing the time that gets wasted when in a negative state of mind. While the feelings a person might experience are real – the sense of overwhelm, pressure, stress, anxiety – the feelings themselves are real – but the thoughts driving the feeling might not be true. Thoughts can be tricky to uncover, so your feelings are useful because they can help reveal to you what you’re thinking.And when you can see what you are thinking, you can choose to keep thinking the same thought, or think a new thought that serves you better. Your only step to get started is to simply get curious about your feelings and how your feelings and the thoughts that drive them might be contributing to an experience or reality that you would just as soon not create. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Episode mentions: 180 How CPAs Can Create More Time During Busy Season | |||
| 183 From Billing Hourly to Up-Front Pricing of Legal Work | 30 Mar 2022 | 00:36:21 | |
Shifting off hourly billing can seem like a daunting task, but if done well, it doesn’t need to be that hard. It does require going against the grain. Right next door, much of the legal profession still uses hourly billing, but not today’s guest. Digby Leigh is the founder of Digby Leigh and Co, a legal firm dedicated to helping good people do great business. He is here today to talk with me about how he helped his firm shift away from hourly billing into pricing ahead of time.
Highlights: — “The fear of changing (from an hourly model) often comes from “Well, we're going to lose money.” — “We don't have any conversation with the clients about receivables any longer, because they know exactly what it's going to be. So our collections have become a lot easier.” — “Pricing is a craft.” — “I'm trying to create a dynamic where a client is actually comparing options, as opposed to comparing me to somebody else. And I've given them the chance to participate in the pricing discussion.” — “One of the biggest hurdles for people moving away from hourly models is getting past the thought of “I might work for free on this.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with DIGBY: Law firm: https://leighco.ca/ AltFee: http://altfeeco.com/ | |||
| 182 Time-Freedom and Productized Services with Paul Klein | 23 Mar 2022 | 00:36:09 | |
Many service providers, including CPAs, start out as generalists who take on every client who needs their services. With a broad focus and no perceived expertise, it’s hard for them to provide enormous value that would justify high fees. My guest today, Paul Klein, shares how he grew his consulting business by niching down to help an underserved market. Paul is a business consultant and entrepreneur. From his days as 1980s hair band guitarist and lifelong entrepreneur to starting and scaling a successful SaaS company to consulting for some of the biggest brands including Target, Neiman Marcus, Starbucks, Holiday Inn, and other global brands, Paul helps consultants, freelancers, and solopreneurs price their services, stop undercharging in order to build 7 figure businesses. He is the co-founder of Bizable TV and is also the host of the Pricing Is Positioning podcast and the Rock Your Pricing online course and community.
Highlights: — “Instead of being a generalist, be a specialist. That's where I really thrived and became much more successful than I ever was in a day job.” — “With residual or passive income, you create something once and it pays you over and over.” — “Niching down took us out of the commodity space to that expert space.” — “Having three pillars of revenue in our business allowed us to ride out those highs and lows of the consulting business.” — “The true definition of wealth is discretionary time.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with PAUL: Websites: https://www.paulklein.net/ Podcast: https://www.paulklein.net/podcast.html Email: paul@paulklein.net Books mentioned: Pricing Creativity by Blair Enns Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns | |||
| 181 Simplifying Your Expertise with The Sketch Guy, Carl Richards | 16 Mar 2022 | 00:51:08 | |
Some business owners have yet to learn concepts about accounting and tax that would be useful to them in their businesses. But business owners are - well - busy - and may have little time or interest in wrapping their head information large and small. Yet, when your business-owning clients understand important money and tax concepts more readily, it makes your job easier. How then, to simplify information to make it more readily understood? Here today to talk with me about this challenge is my guest, Carl Richards. Carl is a Certified Financial Planner™ and creator of the Sketch Guy column, appearing weekly in The New York Times since 2010. Through his simple sketches, Carl makes complex financial concepts easy to understand.Carl also shares about the experience of compiling his sketches into a book, offering it to his fans, and he has learned from the experiment.
Highlights: — “Nobody cares about your solutions. They care about their problems.” — “Stop selling, stop overcoming objections, and start listening.” — “If we can get really clear about what the goal is and why we're doing the work, then the prescription can be super easy, super simple.” — “There's this pile of intellectual property now. And so it all starts with believing it's actually really valuable. We just need to create it as intellectual property in a way that we can see it.” — “To those who are feeling a degree of uncertainty and also thinking there are better ways to share the knowledge and expertise to serve my clients, just try little experiments and interact with people.” ***Want to learn more about CPA Rebootcamp?*** It's a 6-week intensive starting May 9th, designed to make Big Progress fast, earn $25K new dollars that you wouldn't have otherwise, build a new website with priced services, and so much more. It is designed to guarantee your success. Either you make your money back, or I give it back, AND you can keep the website. Check it out at SheThinksBigCoaching.com/cpa-rebootcamp . Application deadline is March 26th. ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with Carl: Website: https://behaviorgap.com/
Carl’s book: The One-Page Financial Plan: A Simple Way to Be Smart About Your Money https://www.amazon.com/One-Page-Financial-Plan-Simple-Smart/dp/1591847559 | |||
| 180 How CPAs Can Create More Time During Busy Season | 09 Mar 2022 | 00:07:05 | |
I want to talk with you today about how you relate to time. It's tax season, and if ever there was a time of the year that felt crunched, now is likely it. But if we simply fall into our habits and autopilot thinking around time, we have less free time than we might otherwise. There are ways to free up some of your time simply by becoming aware of how you think about the time that you do have. Have you ever been curious to think about how you think about your time? Having different time-thoughts can change how you relate to your time, how you plan your time, and thereby improve your experience of your own time.
Highlights: — It's important to consider that our thoughts are not always facts. » Fact: The Rangers beat the Devils 5-4 in OT. » Thought: I always run out of time. Not fact. — “We've been proving the veracity of our thoughts by creating evidence in our lives for so long that our thoughts just seem like facts.” — “How we think about our time shows up in our reality.”
Catch the full episode to hear other time-thoughts that are buggy and could use an update.
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list
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| 179 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA, Brandon Hall | 02 Mar 2022 | 00:40:40 | |
Many CPAs serve a general population of people, doing accounting for anyone with a business, and taxes for anyone who needs a return. Because they don’t go deep into one subject matter, it makes it hard to provide the enormous value that would warrant high fees. So, rather than grow revenue by increasing value and therefore fees, they grow revenue by increasing volume. This is a sure-fire on ramp to the hamster wheel. Instead, occupying a narrow position in the marketplace can solve the aforementioned problems. Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, Brandon Hall . Brandon is the founder and managing partner at The Real Estate CPA. The firm serves more than 700 clients nationwide and has 30 employees. Highlights: — “If anybody's going to create courses, I would recommend starting a Facebook group.” — “How do you just get people to continue to want to buy the next thing? Just offer them an incredible amount of value for whatever they've paid.” — “When you niche, you will be able to build a brand where you'll be the go-to person, and that will create multi-million dollar revenue streams.” — “To pick a niche, start with something that you're already interested in, and see if there's a market there.” — “When you create a group you're creating a community. The world is trending towards online communities to talk about your product, to talk about your services, and ultimately sell your services.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with BRANDON: Website: https://www.therealestatecpa.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonhallcpa/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhallcpa Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/taxsmartinvestors | |||
| 178 Killer Niches for CPAs with Tom Wheelright | 23 Feb 2022 | 00:37:30 | |
For many CPAs, it feels risky to pick a cross-section of the tax code and burrow in. The fear is around losing clients, having to turn people away, and what if there’s a recession? Consequently, most CPAs work as generalists, and pay the price in the form of seemingly infinite rotations on the hamster wheel. Longtime listeners to this podcast know that I am a HUGE proponent of niching, because it makes business better in countless ways. My guest today has built an exemplary business around expertise in one niche, and that person is Tom Wheelright. Tom is a visionary and best-selling author behind multiple companies that specialize in wealth and tax strategy.
Highlights: — “With the advantage of age, you learn that a very generalized practice is actually the slow way to build a business and an even slower way to build net revenue.” — “The more education you give away, the more people will buy.” — “Being mission-driven instead of money-driven makes all the difference in the world because then we can be niche-focused. Then we can actually say “these are the people we want to serve, and this is what we want to do with them.” — “We have a very clear message to the public and that's why so many people come to us.” — “An educated client is a better client. If the client gets good education, they become more successful.”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with TOM: Website: https://tomwheelwright.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwheelwright/ Tom’s book: Tax-Free Wealth: How to Build Massive Wealth by Permanently Lowering Your Taxes https://www.amazon.com/Tax-Free-Wealth-Massive-Permanently-Lowering/dp/1947588052/
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| 303 Delivering CFO & Advisory Services with Adam Lean of the CFO Project | 26 Jun 2024 | 00:36:42 | |
I talk with Adam Lean of the CFO Project about what you need to know to deliver high-value CFO / Advisory services for your clients. … Hey CPA firm owner, glad you found the podcast. If you feel like you’ve become trapped by your own accounting firm, you’re fed up PiTB clients who get you their stuff late, don’t appreciate the value you provide, and complain to you when you don’t turn it around on a dime, I can help you stop the chaos and end the long hours, without losing revenue. If you like the podcast, join 4200+ other CPAs who get Vitamin G, my daily dose of single-tip business strategy delivered straight to their inbox: Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Readers say they love it because they’re short and on point. … Check out my “greatest hits” episodes: Pricing for Improved Profitability #211 Killer Niches for CPAs with Tom Wheelright #178 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA, Brandon Hall #179 Get More from Technology with Joe Woodard #244 Want to get your life back while protecting your revenue? Here are a few ways I help overworked CPAs: GO DOWN TO 40 HOURS THE EMAIL COURSE THE BOOK A Roadmap for CPAs to End Overworking Without Losing Revenue $9.99 THE VIDEO COURSE A 1:1 CONSULTATION CPA MASTERMIND
…
Website: thecfoproject.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlean/ | |||
| 177 How Money, Automation, and Software Change Tax with Jody Padar | 16 Feb 2022 | 00:29:20 | |
With so much change happening so quickly when it comes to automation in the tech space, it can be hard to keep up. But keeping up is a minimum requirement. Here today to talk with me about tech and automation innovation is my guest, Jody Padar. Jody is known as the Radical CPA, and enjoys disrupting the profession with innovative best practices for processes and technology. She also pioneered business solutions that would later become known as Advisory. Jody brings her expertise in AI and automation to her latest endeavor as head of tax strategy and evangelism at the recently launched company named APRIL.
Highlights: — “April is a new technology company designed to disrupt the tax space. We're creating tax software that's going to be distributed through banks.” — “I don't think our software is ever going to replace the value of an accounting professional.” — “CPAs need to be aware that their job is going to change in the near future. So they have to figure out who they want to serve, how they want to serve them and how they can put the human back to serving them.” — “You have to figure out the value you're delivering and how you help your clients understand that there is value in what you're delivering because otherwise, they could just go to an automated service.” — “Accounting is ripe for automation because nobody's done anything in it in the last 50 years.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with JODI: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jody-padar-18a9711/
About April: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6889238594121158657/ | |||
| 176 Behind the Scenes: What Business Owners Want from CPAs with Shelli Warren | 09 Feb 2022 | 00:35:18 | |
Many business owners struggle with their financials, especially early on in their businesses when they can lack a basic understanding of financials and can not have the budget to hire quality accounting support. As accountants, listeners to this podcast understand that financials are incredibly important, but what they may have limited insight into is which numbers business owners really need and which they don't and how those numbers fit in context. Here today to talk with me about this perspective from the business owner side is my guest Shelli Warren. Shelli is the team and leadership coach for BizChix, Inc. and the host of the Stacking Your Team podcast, where she provides insight and practical guidance on leadership, team building, and hiring practices. Shelli has more than 25 years of experience leading technical teams to deliver multimillion-dollar projects for billion-dollar brands at Proctor and Gamble. And now Shelli puts her expertise to work helping women entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses.
Highlights: — ”Women business owners are looking for a guide who will help them to manage their money and to make qualified decisions.” — ”Women business owners are looking for someone who can ask the hard questions, and push them to be more in the mindset of forecasting for the future versus reacting.” — ”The team that got you here may not be the team that gets you there.” — ”As you evolve and the business evolves, so does the team, and then so do the requirements that you need in order to always stay out front.” — ”Women business owners are very willing to pay for reports that are meaningful to them and are designed to help them understand things easier. ”
***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with Shelli and Natalie (BizChix): Website: Biz Chix https://bizchix.com/category/podcast/bizchix/ Stacking Your Team podcast https://bizchix.com/category/podcast/team/
Instagram and LinkedIn: Shelli on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stackingyourteampodcast/ Shelli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelliwarren2/ Natalie on Instagram: https://instagram.com/bizchixpodcast/ Natalie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieeckdahl/ | |||
| 175 Paid Strategy Sessions and Half-Day Workshops with Erica Goode, CPA | 02 Feb 2022 | 00:34:34 | |
The idea of narrowing in on your target market is anathema to many CPAs. The temptation to be available to anyone who needs tax and accounting is strong. But honing in on a segment of the marketplace makes your business so much easier to run. Here today to talk with me about her own experience getting to know her custom-built market-slice is my guest, Erica Goode. Erica is a Certified Public Accountant with 12+ years of experience in Big 4 public accounting, Fortune 50 finance, and small business accounting. She is a freelance finance professional, working with a small handful of clients, focusing on financial forecasts while staying out of tax as much as possible. Highlights: — “In the world of niching, there is no manual. You get to create and make your own manual.” — “People are coming to me way sooner in their business journey than I would expect. And they're so aware that they're in need of help and that the help I provide is so valuable to them that they're willing to pay for what I might have inadvertently given away for free.” — “My strategy sessions turn into discovery calls. They almost are like a jumping-off point for a future relationship.” — “Once you've built that know, like, and trust factor, if you're the person clients want to work with, then they're going to ask what your price is, not go find the cheaper option.” ***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.shethinksbigcoaching.com/subscribe-main-list Connect with ERICA: Website: https://www.ericagoode.com/ Episode mentions: 082 [Coaching] Logic vs Intuition: How to Choose Fulfilling Work, with Erica Goode https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/082 116 From Hourly Billing to Flat Rate for Cares Act Documentation | |||