The Overlooked Goldmine: Serving Middle-Class & Upper-Middle-Class Clients

NARRATOR
Welcome to the Growth Minded Accountant podcast where our experts will share best practices on running your firm in the digital age. This podcast is brought to you by CountingWorks PRO. Let's get started.

LEE REAMS II
Welcome back to another episode of The Growth Minded Accountant. My name is Lee Reams II and I am the founder and CEO of CountingWorks PRO and our sister company TaxBuzz. And today I'm joined by Rebekah Barton, our chief visibility officer. Rebecca, if you want to say hello real quick.

REBEKAH BARTON
Hi everyone. I am excited to talk about this with you today.

LEE REAMS II
Well, what are we talking about? Well, we'll get to that. I was I was on a I don't know if I call it a vacation. I went on a tour, a college tour, East Coast college tour with my daughter. We started in Boston, went all the way down to Philadelphia, saw 10 different schools. and a lot of that experience actually kind of motivated me to do what we're talking about today and to create a podcast. Basically, what I'm calling it is tax conciergege services. And I was really focused on kind of the whole dynamics of education planning and all the different issues on education grants, how to save for college, you know, student loans and all this kind of stuff.

So, I was like, you know what? There's so much more that CPAs, EAs, tax professionals should be doing for their clients that I thought we should actually do an entire podcast about it and really articulate how you can move a lot of your clients. And this is advisory services, but it's a group of clients that mostly is left behind and not really targeted. So, I'm not talking about the super high-net-worth clients. There's middle to upper-middle-class clients that 100% can enjoy the benefits of year-round tax planning. So today's topic is how small firms can bring advisory services to middle and upper class clients. So think of it like this. The middle and upper class, I'm talking like dual-income families, tech professionals, small business owners, real estate investors are really stuck in somewhat of a no man's land, right?

They're they're too complex for DIY but not really wealthy enough for high-end advisory services, family office type of services, and they're really desperate for someone to be proactive. Basically, if they continue to go through as a tax prep-only client, they are missing out. Unless you're doing a bunch of tax planning inside that appointment, which is also leaking revenue to you, they're missing out on a lot of these opportunities. So, you know, doing an historical type tax preparation engagement with a client really is not giving them kind of the returns on the investment to you that they should receive, right? so, today we're going to talk about this opportunity. We're going to talk about the client pain points, how to package, price, and market conciergege services.

Rebecca is going to have a bunch of insight there, and then the broader areas of advisory where you can focus on, right? And this will bring the ROI to your firm. Trust me, all the things we're talking about are if you have an existing robust client base, you're going to be able to increase your income this year, if not immediately. Right? Even with September 15th coming up, you have October 15th. There's a lot of ways you could package maybe introduce a lot of this in the year end and then kind of set it up for next tax season. So we're going to talk a little bit about the tech involved how AI tools can assist and make this really easy for you to roll out.

So let's jump right in. so let's talk about the opportunity here. the standard-size firm you know and we're talking firms not just solopreneurs those you know it's about a 350 but the standard-size firm might have 500 to 1,000 individual clients 50 to 100 business clients and if you think about it let's say you did have a thousand clients right so you're you're larger you have a couple you know two partners let's say and you converted 25% of that audience to advisory or tax concierge. That's a significant number, right? And if you took them from, let's say, a $600 a year tax prep now to perhaps a $1,500 or $3,000 annual engagement, that is significant revenue.

Okay? And what's nice is small firms, they're more nimble and you kind of have an unfair advantage over big box chains, right? You can offer personal touch. trust, you know, you know, if someone's going and using in it live or whatever, TurboTax live or whatever some of these services are, you know, it's a it's a it's one of thousands of people in a processbased platform meant to sell software, you know, that's not there for, you know, helping people reach their dreams. You're not giving advice that's beyond the little box, right? So, there's a lot of ways that you guys can really jump on this. and what you'll notice is firms that if a traditional firm has 500 to 1,000 clients and 50 to 150 business clients, a more advisory focused firm often will have fewer clients.

So, they might have actually 100 to 200 business clients because that's where the advisory comes in and maybe 50 to 100 high-value individual clients. But the reality here is they generate the same or more revenue than fewer clients. But if you're dealing with middle- and upper-middle-class, you may not have to, you know, just go upstream. You can now introduce these tax conciergege services and maybe just significantly grow your practice. I mean, you could double, triple, you know, and really hit up these clients in new ways. So, let's talk about the typical client mix. individual clients, let's say that's 50 to 70%. What does that mean? W-2 employees, retirees, gig workers, high-net-worth individuals, right?

these are usually lower value per return but high volume and what we're going to try to do is get those t into tax conciergege so I'm not as worried about the volume anymore and that's when you're working that 14 hours a day during tax season you know killing yourself to get things done and then only charging you know less than now what TurboTax is charging with their live product right so that's a problem that's a red flag for you typical firms business clients 20 to 40% sole proprietors LLC, S corporations, perhaps some nonprofits, some partnerships. each business actually often represents a lot of different engagement opportunities through the year, right?

So, tax return prep, tax planning, payroll, bookkeeping, advisory, right? even business succession, business entity selection, there's a lot of different ways that you can engage clients and drive revenue through the year with one entity. Okay? So business clients tend to be to make up a smaller portion of headcount but a majority of revenue because each account has some higher fees and then there's always you know some niche clients and real estate investors perhaps some lawyers medical dentists things like that tech contractors that make up the balance. but what you'll see with firms with niche positioning they often flip the ratio meaning they have fewer clients but higher revenue per client.

So what we're talking about today is, you know, it's it's the thing right now. It's the emerging model, but some firms that are transitioning from a complianceheavy mix, you know, meaning hundreds of individual returns to fewer high advisory value clients, they're seeing now these advisory clients make up 60 70% of their revenue. Okay. and that is the real change. So when you talk to Rebecca, I'm talking to you now. Sorry, that was my beginning. I have a whole another rant coming up here. but when you're talking to our clients about kind of making this move, what are some of the, you know, the concerns, what they're they're risk adverse, are they going to test it out, maybe put their, you know, toes on the water thing.

So, what is kind of the discussion and feedback you're getting from our new clients as we're as onboarding them and kind of showing them the model and how to do this?

REBEKAH BARTON
Right. So, you kind of hit the nail on the head. The risk aversion is definitely there. people are scared. It's a big change to change your entire client model basically in the mix of people that you're going to be working with. Dipping your toe in is a very popular way to start. A lot of people don't want to just say, "Okay, we are going to completely flip today. We're going to just stop serving all of these individuals who have, you know, just standard 1040 returns and we're going to go head first into advisory work." doing that kind of niche marketing where maybe you do take the tech contractors or the medical professionals you work with, maybe you have a lot of positions already working with you.

You could take that group, roll out these services, see how it goes, see how much it increases your revenue, and then from there roll out other industries, start serving other client demographics. I think that is really the most popular way I see people do it. They will pick an industry that is maybe not their sole niche, but something they're very comfortable with and a place where they have a lot of clients and kind of dip a toe in there, then continue rolling it out season after season, year after year, until they've kind of completed this client rollover of having the advisory clients making up the majority of their revenue.

LEE REAMS II
Yeah. The good news is if you have an existing client base, if you're starting from scratch, you know, it's easier to say, "Okay, this is what we're going to do. this is how we're going to build it out. You actually have an advantage. So, if you have a thousand clients already, you just can start upsell campaigns. You can start segmenting your client base and say, "Okay, these clients fit this demographic. Maybe this group is for my high-end advisory. Maybe this group is what I'll call for my tax conciergege advisory." and with this then you can have targeted campaigns that kind of slowly drip out marketing funnels that kind of educate why it's important, what is the opportunity, what are you missing out, what is the ROI by utilizing my service this way.

and that's kind of to me it's a it's it's a low-risk high-reward option. So I want to frame this for you to what I mean by kind of this middle income, middle- and upper-middle-class income type of client. So this is probably most of your clients, right? So you know when people hear tax planning, they think hedge fund owners, you know, VC managers, billionaires, whatever. But the truth is middle inome families, especially dual earnner households, meaning one makes 75, the other one makes 75. That's $150,000, right? And where it gets complex is one spouse maybe is a W-2, the other runs a small business. there's a lot of opportunities there to maximize the post tax return, right?

And that often sees some of the biggest wins. So $150,000 a year income family isn't necessarily rich, but they've got complexity and complexity is where planning saves money. So I wanted to give an example and I just want to walk people through so you can see in your own client base where we're going. So spouse one, W-2, steady income, they have withholding. Obviously, you need to consult with the holding, but spouse 2 is an independent contractor or consultant. They make 7580 net, you know. So, where do they save with tax planning? So, there's an entity optimization, right? Should the contractor have an escort? Could they save money in self-employment tax annually?

What should they do with retirement planning? What should they do with education planning? health savings account, health insurance, fringe benefits, right? you know, is a solo 401k, right? is a spousal IRA. You know, what are they trying to do to shelter some of their income from taxes as well? There's a lot of ways to do this. And then obviously, especially with the contractor, maybe their business is up and down. Quarterly tax alignment, you know, adjusting W-2 withholding to cover contractor liability. It could go both ways, right? Maybe they're doing even better than they were and suddenly now, you know, you have estimated tax. There's a lot of ways to plan for this client.

And more importantly, there's a potential $10,000 a year in savings year after year from strategies that don't require them to be millionaires. What is the time value of money of $10 to $20,000 in savings? That's a lot of money, right? So, you know, I think your clients would be like, "Oh, light bulb on." instead of them just sending all their information to the client hub and uploading it and you just go through his autopilot and do the tax return. This is what you owe. This is what you're getting back and that's the end of the day, right? so, you know, the $150,000 household with one W-2 and 1099 income is the perfect tax planning client.

They're leaving thousands of dollars on the table if they don't have a plan. so, the idea is okay, now what do you do with that savings? You can also consult them on time value of money. t creating custodial accounts for their children, perhaps employing their children in the business, right? there's a lot of different ways that you can help them build their retirement accounts. U hopefully build a nest egg for a child or their children. and even save for their college educations, right? So every tax dollar saved is a future wealth dollar earned. So that's kind of like a takeaway, a sound bite, so to speak. So what is the conciergege execution plan?

So there's a lot of different ways to do this. I'm just giving examples. you all do your thing your own way. We know that we've been dealing with tax and accounting firms for a long time, right? My suggestion, maybe meeting one, review last year's tax return, check your W-2 withholding, assess entity status, set retirement contributions. meeting two, and that could be spring summer, right? So, right after the tax return is done. meeting number two, maybe that's the fall winter. Adjust, you know, right before December 31. finalize any retirement planning, charitable giving, income expense, expense timing. Do you need to bring income forward or backwards? Right? So, there's a lot of different ways that you can plan here.

and in between, you just want to keep engaging them. You know, what to know alerts, right? You include that in your client newsletter. Perhaps you're using something like our CountingWorks PRO playbooks that we automatically filter out this kind of information to your clients. Right? So that's kind of what the execution plan looks like. And you can you can sell this in two different ways. You can have a tax planning only option. So dual dual-earner W-2s plus contractor. We're going to charge $1,500 to $2,000 annually. Covers both our meetings and our year-round planning access. Right? So that could be an option one. Option two could be bundled with the tax prep.

So I have tax conciergege as planning and prep. Same household, but now we'll charge 2500 to 3500 annually. So let's just say you were charging that same person $600, $750 for a tax return. Do the math. it adds up and it also spaces out your labor side. You know, you're able now to keep busier during the off season. you're not as stressed out when tax season comes because you've done so much planning that it's almost like okay now we're just finalizing what we executed on all year. So how do you frame this value? If this family saves $12,000 $15,000 in year one, so let's say $12,000 and they invest $3,000 in conciergege planning, that's a 4x ROI on their investment, right?

So this is kind of like value pricing, even value marketing. you know, and let's I'm going to stop there real quick. So Rebecca, as far as like a marketing copywriting standpoint, when we start framing things in their minds, how does that help them convert and see value versus just kind of using the words tax prep or tax planning? So now I'm using an example, a case study, social proof to kind of get across a message differently while I'm selling tax planning.

REBEKAH BARTON
Precisely. So we definitely want to focus on the psychology of what we're doing. Marketing is psychology. That's a huge part of it. So, if you're just saying tax planning, that doesn't really mean a lot to people. not in a practical sense. And we're so inundated, especially during tax season with commercials, billboards, radio ads, whatever it is, that are saying, you know, we offer tax preparation and tax planning for $50. It just becomes kind of this wrote phrase that you hear constantly and it doesn't have any real meaning. So in this case, if you really position yourself as providing value and telling them how you're going to provide that value, in other words, focus on the solution you're offering, not just the service name.

That can be a really good way to hook people. It's also important to let people know that this is an investment. This is an investment in their future. It's an investment in their financial future, not just another bill that they're going to pay. And I think what you said, Lee, about the ROI is really important. If you're getting four or 5x ROI on this investment, that really is investing in your family's financial health as opposed to simply adding another bill to your monthly payments.

LEE REAMS II
No, absolutely. And it's framing from a commodity. Tax planning is a commodity. Marketing 5x ROI on your investment working with me is not a commodity. You kind of own that. You've framed it. they won't look at you in the same way as they do the 20 other local CPAs or EAs or tax pros in the area. So planning plus prep means one team knows your numbers year round, right? So no handoffs, no surprises, just proactive savings. I think it's a big deal. So kind of the takeaway here from this example and then we'll continue on and kind of how to frame this and execute on it is a 150,000 dual-earner household isn't wealthy but they actually can be and they do have a lot of complexity right and complexity is an opportunity so with a couple meetings a year bundle prep you know they stop overpaying the IRS and start building wealth that's what our goal here is right and that's the heart of the tax concierge model simple proactive guidance that pays for itself many times over.

I think your clients will really appreciate it. So, let's talk about a little bit about your client pain points now. and I'll go through kind of different categories. So, dual-income households, specifically if you have a freelancer that's kind of going like this, underpayment penalties hits a lot of people. AMT miss Roth opportunities. small business owners confused on entity structure, mixing business and personal, payroll versus draws, no exit plan, no succession plans, no planning for selling an entity. a lot of different opportunities there, right? Real estate investors, they have depreciation errors. There's all sorts of, tax traps, maybe not using 1031 exchanges. There's a lot of different ways to do that.

You got tax professionals. tech professionals have stock options. They have vesting. they have the ability also to tax loss harvest. that's a big deal with AI tools now. making it much easier to do that proactively. We have done research and we have a tool a partner we worked with. It was a 1% higher yield just by doing proactive tax loss harvesting. Big deal. So, what are some of the broader pain points based on my recent trip to the east coast and my 10 schools and listening to all their pitches? And last night, now that I'm back home, SMU came to Corona del Mar High School where my daughter goes to school and we sat in to listen to their pitch.

Completely different by the way than the East Coast schools. It was it was refreshing and interesting how they kind of look at how they sell themselves, but the reality is they all are talking about how do you fund education, how do you get grants, how do you get scholarships, what are the opportunities to make it so when your children graduate, they are not stuck with this awful loan repayment plan that kind of stymies them for years and years advance. so 529 plans financial aid planning. There's a lot of different ways to go with this. We actually built out a campaign. We called it cradle to education to like gra cradle to graduation I think is what I called it.

But it was a campaign that kind of goes through the first 10 years. What are we concentrating on? Perhaps the parents, grandparents, getting them involved with 529 plans. Then the next, you know, x years and then when you're right about to apply, how do you make sure that you're planning ahead? Because if you do this correctly, one, you can use a 529 plan to grow a significant cover a significant amount of the cost, but you may be able to get a lot of free grants that are really going to pay for the college education. So, huge pain point. Something to talk about. Estate planning, inheritance from boomer parents is happening in mass.

there's going to be the largest transfer of wealth ever happening here in the United States. There's a lot of opportunities here. You need to be talking to clients. Even if they are not wealthy, their parents might have killed a nice nest egg. So, how do we get everyone engaged and talking about it so we just don't have a situation well, oh, so and so died. We're going to probate. There was no will, there was no nothing. It's an absolute disaster. I've seen it, heard the horror stories over and over again. business succession, so exit strategy, valuations, a lot of new tools, by the way, that are using AI that do some really good pinpoint taking from data from all over the places and doing some really good valuations.

So, it might be something now you can integrate into your own service as part of the planning side, home ownership, deductions, equity management, interest strategies. How do you save for a home? How do you get to a down payment? Right? That's another way. retirement savings is obviously easy. I always say these clients don't know what they don't know and that ignorance costs them thousands of dollars each year. so, you know, if you just had these check-in calls, think of all the mistakes that you would stop clients from doing if you were more proactive. so I think there's a real value here and a better user experience. Rebecca, before I go into kind of what to offer, we are big into what we believe is the relationship layer is now your new defensible mode.

And as independent tax and accounting firms, you have all of these AI tools promising the world. I will say since we are AI developers a lot of it is happening and a lot of it is amazing but a lot of things that people thought andor are promising is not as trustworthy is doesn't have the human insight the human in the loop is a huge element I believe it's defensible with your relationship with your clients so how do you improve those relationships be more proactive educate them communicate reach out more often so how is this from a user standpoint, user experiences. We talk about that in software, but kind of explain how your relationship with client really determines the success from referrals, how much they will pay pay you, those kind of things.

REBEKAH BARTON
Definitely. So, people want to work with people they trust. That's natural. That's human. Humans need connection. We crave community. We crave people we can interact with. No piece of software is ever going to be able to fully replace the relationship you have with your client. Like Lee was saying, that the software isn't going to know that their child is graduating from high school and be able to send, you know, a gift or a care package or something like that. There are little things that you can do to really connect with these people. One, it is going to improve the referral rate. You're going to get referrals from people. They're going to be like, "Wow, my tax professional is great." They're going to tell their friends who maybe work in the same industry.

That can help you establish a niche. So there's this great snowball effect. Secondarily, you start to get multi-generational tax planning opportunities when you do this. So for example, like I mentioned, the sending a high school graduation gift to all of your clients kids, for example, if those children that are like, "Oh, wow. I really like my mom and dad's tax planner." As they start needing those same services as they get older, they're likely to return to you. Particularly if you offer a virtual service where they can move anywhere for college, they can move anywhere for work, and they can still utilize your services that they're comfortable with, that their parents trust, that's a really great way to start kind of getting these long-term three and four generation families that are going to just return to your firm for decades.

And that builds stability for you and allows you to provide real value for them.

LEE REAMS II
Yeah. And not only do they like working with people they trust, they like working people that they like, you know, they I mean I am seeing many tax accounting firms, CPAs, EAs, again tax pros, CEK tax professionals, we're not leaving anyone out who have incredible relationships with their clients because if you think about it, other than your doctor, this is the most intimate consultant and if you have a therapist, right? But you know intimate relationship you have. They know your money. They know what you're doing. They know your income. So, if they like you, that really matters on how long they stay with you. So, let's pivot now to what to offer.

I've kind of already hit on this in the pain points, but quarterly tax projections, strategy review. You can use AI tools to analyze previous tax returns and proactively perhaps find some opportunities. you can create tax plans through tools like Max makes it really easy. Cash flow planning, same type of thing. withholding adjustments, retirement contributions, different types of retirement accounts that people maybe are not looking at. compounding strategies, education funding strategies, obviously Coverdell accounts 529, balancing tuition versus retirement. there's a lot of ways to play this game. Estate and legacy conversations, gifting, gifting is a great thing, too. Specifically, as people, the boomers are getting older. Perhaps start gifting your younger children money now.

Put it in a fiduciary account. let it grow and that could be their down payment for their house. So you have your 529 here. Perhaps you can have some other gifting strategies that really help out the younger generation. And the reality is it is tough out there. Housing is expensive. Life is expensive. Let's give as many opportunities as possible for our children to succeed, right? so what else? Business succession, valuations, entity restructuring, buyer prep. So, how do you start years ahead of time making sure their books are perfect? Making sure all their even their meetings and their notes and the corporate compliance stuff is all dialed in. I've seen it so many times when someone goes to sell it, it's a freaking mess.

A buyer is going to come in and they're going to discount what they're willing to pay. So, it's really important to include that. So, next thing is how to price this. different markets get different pricing strategies. The reason we built our new proposal tool, it uses AI to say, "Okay, if you have a client in San Francisco, in Santa Clara, and they're a tech startup, I'm going to charge them more, than I would a client that's in Oklahoma that's in similar type of dynamics because they're used to paying more. The market conditions support higher fees. And if you're just doing one price for everyone, you may be missing out on some on some money here.

So that's why our dynamic pricing tool enables you to compare. Am I up? Am I too low? Am I too high? And it can kind of guide you some ROI. Totally different podcast, totally different discussion. But if we're doing standard pricing, what do we do here? We like three packages. starter conciergege quarterly projections, annual strategy review, make it less $150 to $250 per month, something like that. full conciergege which is entity review proactive planning priority Q&A maybe access to them throughout the year $300 to $500 a month and then there's the VIP conciergege you know multi-entity that's the business succession exit retirement you're on call $750 to $1,200 a month so now you can start seeing a $600 client if they're a $1,000 a month at $12,000 that's a significant ROI for you yes you're going to be working more but you're not going to be working 12 times more you're probably going to have better relationship with the client.

You're going to be more transparent, more open. You're going to know them more intimately. They're going to have better financial outcomes. That's just the way it goes. So, I look at this, this is not an expense. It's insurance against mistakes and a strategy for building wealth. So, Rebecca, how do you recommend firms position pricing so clients see it as an investment, not a bill from a branding standpoint?

REBEKAH BARTON
Positioning, copy, and even the images you are using. There's several ways to do this and a combination of them is really probably going to give you the best ROI and the best chance to secure these clients. So content is king. Always content is king. So you're going to want to have blogs, webinars, email campaigns, all of these kinds of things that really explain what you're doing that explain the value that you're going to provide. Not only is it going to help you rank better in ChatGPT and Google and these different sorts of search engines, but also it's a great way to tell your clients exactly what you're doing. It's a new service, right?

If you're if you're building this out, you need to tell people what they're going to get if they decide to buy in. So that's important to have the content that backs up what you're doing. Secondarily, you want to provide proof, not just a marketing pitch. Anybody can say, "Oh, we're going to save you money." But if you can prove that you saved the Joneses $10,000 this year with a rental property strategy or some sort of small business deduction that is like key to their industry, that's a good way to show people that this isn't just fluff. It isn't just you writing jargon using ChatGPT. You're offering a true scenario that they can put themselves into.

That's important with marketing. You want people to be able to put themselves in the shoes of whoever you're talking about. So, if you're providing a situation they relate to, showcasing this social proof, that's a good way to make people feel very comfortable, help them understand that, hey, this is an investment. You can see similar results because these people are similar to you. Also important to kind of have a wider angle to all of this. Like Lee's been talking a lot about planning for college, planning for these future milestones for your family, maybe buying a house, maybe buying a second house. All these different things are things that people want. These are things that drive people.

So, if you can show them that your services are going to get them to these milestones, that's a really good way to get people on board. no matter what it is that you're focusing on, these kind of life milestones are a great way to hook people because it's something everyone relates to and it's something that everyone frankly needs help with. And I think the people in this category that we're talking about today, these sort of upper middle lower upper-middle-class income earners are the people who really want these things and are desperate to get to these milestones and have the capability to get there, but they may not have the capability to get there without you.

So that's a great way to kind of position all of this.

LEE REAMS II
Yeah. And it takes you past then the value of, hey, you've paid me $3,000 and I got you 12,000 in tax savings to, hey, you paid me $3,000, but I helped you become a multimillionaire because you followed my proactive advice. And we took that money and we scaled it. We took money and invested it in the children. Whether that be education planning, whether that be custodial accounts and grandparents helping out or gifting strategies for down payments on homes. These are moving the needle type of things that again it just takes discipline and structure. And I think you're hearing more and more people even on social media kind of getting on board.

People are starting to understand sitting on your phone, sitting on social media just saying woe is me is not really a strategy. Okay? And I think it's imperative that you as the most trusted advisor available to them steps up and says fill that void. Okay? Give people a process. my daughter was reading a book that somehow it got outlawed in our public school system. I don't know how but it was about it was called cultish I believe. And what was interesting was it was a lot about how to build communities based on words, shared terminology, getting people to buy in. and Rebecca, you can join in here. But it feels like you're a part of something.

You're a part of a movement. And if you then that's why we're using terms like tax concierge. But if you could create your own kind of verbiage or talking points that kind of follow this vibe of this is how to how you should be living life, you'll make clients jump on board. They want to be a part of it. And explain a little bit about kind of how language can do that for you.

REBEKAH BARTON
I think a lot of this goes back to the psychology that we were talking about earlier, marketing psychology and just making people feel the way they want to feel, right? That's all marketing really is. You're delivering something that people want and you want to make them feel like they can't live without it. So, I think here in particular, giving people the idea that you're protecting their future can be really critical. I liked what you said earlier, Lee, about insurance, insurance for the future, that you are building something exclusive. That's another thing that people want. They want to feel like they're getting an exclusive service, like they have access to something that not everyone has access to.

So, that's where terms like conciergege can really come into play. that you're providing something that is really customized, really tailored. People love personalized service. so all of those kinds of terms, personalized, conciergege, protection, insurance, protect your assets, position your future, all of these kinds of things. Aspirational language I think is really important when it comes to tax planning or any type of advisory service. because that's what's going to get people in the door. If they can suddenly see themselves retiring to that lakehouse that they've always dreamed of and you're going to get them there, then it's no longer a bill that they're paying. It's it's protection for the dreams that they have and it's a pathway to these things that they maybe couldn't achieve on their own.

So, I think the more aspirational you can be while still providing social proof and still providing legitimate value with your services, the better off you're going to be when rolling out these types of services.

LEE REAMS II
Yeah. No, absolutely. And track it all. Show them proof of the results. show them again time value of money. Make them see that graph go up and up and up. Make them see while being disciplined. Well, people are driving around in showy cars, end up in retirement with no money versus you, you know, making the more moderate choice. And then what that means for you in your long life is really important. So, how do you market upsell to existing clients? we have full-on playbooks for this at CountingWorks PRO. And what we mean by playbooks, it's a combination of blog articles that are educational. we then take that and push that out to social media.

So the blog gets indexed by organic. So you're going to get AI tools perhaps indexing it referencing it in the AI chatbots. You'll have Google indexing your blog article. We do everything very localized, very niche. We personalize all of it for our clients. And then from there it can be shared on social that's now pushing out to audience and the extended audience, right? you can add this content to your newsletter. why advisory services? What's the time value of money? I can go on and on with tips, but then you can intermix some kind of soft cell emails, some more educational, hey, I thought you were a good candidate. I selected you as a good candidate for my new tax conciergege.

This is why and this is how it helps you. that's kind of a combination of how a marketing funnel would go. I would refresh my website if you're doing this. I wouldn't say tax prep. I would go to tax conciergege or other keywords like that. So you can do webinars, use tools like Max to create scripts for you. you can do short Loom videos, reels, you know, you educating while proving your expertise. So this could be to your t current clients. and also new clients, right? Rebecca already mentioned proof, not pitch. you know, how much did I save for the Smiths, right? so really important. So, you know, how to upsell without feeling pushy.

you're not upselling, you're upgrading, right? compare an April only prep client versus a year-round protection client. You know, frame this for them. You know, we caught thousands of dollars in overp payments that you didn't make. You know, nobody wants to be sold to, right? Everyone wants to feel protected. So, that's kind of the language. We kind of got into that already. So, what are the ROIs to your firm? Stickier clients, higher lifetime value. Obviously, when you go to sell your firm, if you're near retirement age, what do you think a firm worth $2 million with a higher lifetime value is worth versus the tax mill? I mean, it's a no-brainer, right?

This is recurring revenue, predictable growth, right? upselles compound, too. You can start people at starter, they can go to VIP, they can go to virtual CFO. There's a lot of different ways to do this. We've talked about the math here. Taking clients from $1,000 to 10,000 is a major growth area, right? so big deal. I'm going to start wrapping this up. I think we've covered this really well. let's talk a little bit about our playbooks and autopilot marketing and segmenting. So, and then we're going to talk a little bit about what CountingWorks PRO does for our clients with these playbooks. But Rebecca kind of understand how a busy pro has very hard time to DIY anything first of all.

technically accuracy is a huge thing. agency level campaigns are available now to you through the counting works system. So kind of explain how our new playbooks and AI automation work.

REBEKAH BARTON
For sure. So playbooks are great. They're a really exciting piece of what we're offering at CountingWorks PRO. Basically, think of this as like an all-in-one marketing system for specific industries, for specific service packages. So, let's say, for example, you want to go after dentists because that's one that we already have built out that's available to you. So, basically, what this playbook is going to do is offer emails, blog posts, social media posts that are all geared toward dental practitioners who need your services. Whether that's virtual CFO, tax planning, however you want to position it, you're going to have access to a playbook that is literally set it and forget it.

You click a button, it starts operating, it starts pushing out content to all of your connected platforms, and you are literally just doing nothing. all you're doing is funneling the leads as they come through or the emails as they come through, the responses. You're just closing the deal. You're not having to sit and physically click post, physically write things, physically respond to emails. All of that is done through the playbook system. And all you're doing is just closing the sales. So, it's a super great way to automate all of these things that you don't have time to do and that we know you don't have time to do. So, we built these to kind of take it off your plate.

LEE REAMS II
and small firms have the advantage. You're nimble, you're trusted, you're client focused. advisory obviously is the big thing everyone's talking about. It's not optional anymore. It's what differentiates you from a 1040, you know, shop, 1040-only shop. you know, become the conciergege, not a once a year tax preparer. You know, the opportunity is sitting inside your client database right now. You just have to unlock it. So, here's the bottom line. The future of your firm isn't about cranking out more 1040s. It's about stepping up as a year-round tax conciergege. your clients desperately need. So advisory builds it loyalty. it builds recurring revenue and it positions you as a guide your clients can't live without.

More importantly, if your mission is to make your clients more successful, meet their financial dreams. If you're not just money motivated, the altruistic side, you're really delivering a better outcome. And I think that's really important. So I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the growthminded accountant. I'm sorry for the miss. I was gone 10 days and I got back. I had so much work to do, but we will be back on cadence trying to do these weekly again. again, please add your comments, share them with others. again, not competitors, but we're doing amazing things here at CountingWorks PRO and a lot of the tools that we're talking about, even the strategies here, we're implementing for clients without any heavy lifting.

We just set it, forget it, and run. You grow your firm. So, you don't want to miss out for our next one. We are going to talk about how to use the proposals and market conditions to dramatically change your ROI just even in the way you price existing services. So that would be an upcoming topic and we have some other exciting things on tap. So Rebecca, any parting shots or are we good to go to close this up?

REBEKAH BARTON
I think we're good to go.

LEE REAMS II
All right. Thank you everyone. Have a wonderful Labor Day and safe Labor Day weekend. We will see you soon. Thank you.