Business Strategy for CPA's

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe It's not uncommon for CPA business owners to find themselves overworked and swamped with too many clients. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, like you're losing control of your business and that it's running you rather than the other way around. But with the right approach, it's possible to turn the tide and regain control of your CPA practice. I talk with Laurie Rauk, a CPA from Calgary. She shares the steps she implemented in Down to 40 Hours CPA Mastermind to transform her business and achieve a manageable practice. Highlights: — “When I sent out a price increase letter to my clients and asked them to pay upfront, more of them signed up right away to have me do their personal tax returns this year than I was anticipating.”  — “The clients who decided to stay with me understand that if I'm overstretched and have too many clients to serve, then they are not going to get the good service that they deserve.” — “Because I have reduced my client base, I'm not feeling pulled in different directions. I feel a lot more in control of the rest of the month here because I know what I've got on my plate now and what's still coming in.”  — “I have a deeper appreciation for the value I bring as a highly trained CPA with 20 years experience and the individualized personalized service that my clients get is worth a price premium.” — “When I cut 15% - 20% of my client base, my revenue has actually gone up because of the price increases that I introduced.” Connect with Laurie: Website: https://laurierauk.ca/   Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe The need to work 40 hours a week is entirely fictional. You don’t need to work a 40-hour workweek just because that’s the standard, and because there’s a whole system, economy, business organization structure, all set up around the idea of a 40-hour workweek. As a CPA firm owner, you can work less and you can work on your business to increase your revenue. And your revenue is not reliant on the time that you put in. Your revenue is reliant on how much value you create for your clients and how effective you are at capturing that value created with your prices. So I want to talk about the process of getting down from an overworked state, be it 50, 60, 70 hours, or more a week, down to a 40-hour workweek and what that looks like. And then setting up to get down to a 25-hour workweek, and letting go of the appearance of safety of the conventional 40-hour workweek, and taking a fresh approach so that you can have the business that you want and have the life that you want, with your business that supports that and fits nice and neatly inside that life. Through this process, I also worked on my thinking, because the more I could switch myself into more productive, effective thoughts, the more time I started getting back for myself.   Steps to get down to a 40-hour workweek: 1. Disengage  2. Highgrade your best clients' package and price.  3. Deal with your most pressing challenges.  4. Organize and protect your time 5.  Work on the thoughts so that they help you get where you want to go.   It is absolutely possible for you to work the number of hours a week that you want to work, whether it's 40, 38, 32, 28, 24, or 18 and a half. You get to design and you get to decide what you want. And it has nothing to do with the 40-hour standard, which is fiction. You get to decide what you want. And you get to design it. When you do this work going through this process of getting yourself down to a sane workweek and bringing in the high margin revenue that suits you, it's better for your business, it's better for your clients, and it's better for you and you your life on your one trip through space.  Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe When you better understand the nature of your problem – if it’s tactical or mindset in nature –  you can make better sense of your experience in your accounting firm and why sometimes it might feel so hard.  We try to solve problems with tactics. And we just keep hitting the same nail with the same hammer thinking that we have a tactical problem, not realizing that in fact we have a mindset problem.  We’re not solving the correct problem.  Here are three areas of your accounting practice that are critical to your success.  Here are the tactical challenges and mindset challenges of these three areas:  Knowing who you're selling to - positioning What they want to buy - understanding your buyer How to sell it to them - selling   All of them have tactical solutions. And they have mindset problems that tend to come along with them: Positioning - “I don’t want to limit myself” & “I’ll be bored” & “What if I don’t pick the right niche” Understanding your buyer - “I don’t have time to talk to my clients” & “I know everything and don’t know how to listen” 🙂 Selling - “Selling is dirty” & “I don’t want to be pushy” & “I don’t like selling”   You need the tactical solution, and we see what happens. If it doesn't work, if you can't solve your problem with the tactical solution, then we need to explore and address the mindset challenges. A tactical solution without a mindset solution is an incomplete solution. I want you to have a complete solution.  Because giving you tactics without giving you the mindset help that you need is like giving you a one-sided zipper. Giving you only the mindset without the tactics that you need is like giving you the other side of the zipper.   And it's the same in your business.  It doesn't work without tactical solutions, and it doesn't work without mindset solutions.  Down to 40 Hours CPA Mastermind is designed to give you the complete solution. Baked into it are tactical solutions, and mindset solutions. It’s the only program of it’s kind to deliver the complete solution you need to get your time and your life back.  Episode mentions: 232 *You Can* Master Your Time and Calendar, with Dawn Goldberg https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/232   Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe I've been asking myself for a long time: What are the common characteristics among my clients who make the most progress towards their own version of success the most quickly?  What do I see among them? What are the common traits that they have? Or what are they doing? I've looked at all the different possible characteristics of their business to try and see what are the commonalities. But when it comes down to it, the most obvious commonality is that they make decisions. And they move.  It is the ability to make decisions and learn from the decision that enables those ones to make progress toward their goals the most quickly and the most consistently. In this episode, I want to share with you three advanced decisions that you can make in your business that you can start implementing right away so that you start holding onto the steering wheel of your business bus:   making decisions about your prices making decisions about your deadlines making decisions about your capacity   Advance decisions are critical for your business because they help you make progress in your business much more quickly. Making decisions ahead of time is just one piece of the puzzle that helps you work less and make more, and enjoy the business and the life that you want to have. Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe How can CPAs grow their accounting practice when they’re over capacity, underutilizing their talents and not providing optimal client support?  Many CPA firms still rely on the hourly billing business model, where the firm has to log more work hours providing services to increase revenue. It focuses on hours and deliverables, not on results and value. A compelling alternative is the subscription business model, where the provider enables serial transformations to the buyer, and continually adds value to the experience. The subscription model creates an opening for predictable, recurring, higher margin revenue.  In this week’s episode, I talk about the subscription model with my guest, Ron Baker.  Ron is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally, and is a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. Ron has authored seven best-selling books, including: The Firm of the Future; Pricing on Purpose; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Implementing Value Pricing. His latest book, co-authored with Paul Dunn, Time’s Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, was published in November 2022.   In this two-part conversation (episodes 233 and 234), we talk about: Sale prices and multiples How AI can help scale businesses Disney and other big businesses using the subscription model Ways to “plus” your offer How CPA firms can shift to subscription model Highlights: — “We need to stop charging for the means and pricing the end.”  — “Strategy is about what you don't do. It's about the customers you don't have, the services you don't provide. It's all about trade offs. You simply can't be all things to all people.”  — “It's very difficult for a business to disrupt itself.”  — “CPAs have the ability to enable transformations. It's a privilege and a duty to help our customers, to make that impact on their life.” Connect with Ron: Website: https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/ Ron’s book: Time's Up: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/timesup Episode mentions: Subscription Business Model: Build Greater Wealth in Your CPA Firm, with Ron Baker https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/147 Time to Rethink Your Pricing Strategy?, with Ron Baker, Founder of VeraSage Institute https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/081 Breaking Away from the Mainstream Medical Model with Dr. Lewis Weiner https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/206 Selling Summit CPA for Multiples, with Jody Grunden https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/225 Hold My Beer and Watch Me Niche, with Josh Lance, CPA https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/212   Book mentions: Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense by Jules Goddard https://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Sense-Common-Nonsense-Organisations/dp/1846686024 Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow https://www.amazon.com/Built-Sell-Creating-Business-Without-ebook/dp/B004IYISQW Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe How can CPAs grow their accounting practice when they’re over capacity, underutilizing their talents and not providing optimal client support?  Many CPA firms still rely on the hourly billing business model, where the firm has to log more work hours providing services to increase revenue. It focuses on hours and deliverables, not on results and value. A compelling alternative is the subscription business model, where the provider enables serial transformations to the buyer, and continually adds value to the experience. The subscription model creates an opening for predictable, recurring, higher margin revenue.  In this week’s episode, I talk about the subscription model with my guest, Ron Baker.  Ron is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally, and is a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. Ron has authored seven best-selling books, including: The Firm of the Future; Pricing on Purpose; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Implementing Value Pricing. His latest book, co-authored with Paul Dunn, Time’s Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, was published in November 2022. In this two-part conversation (episodes 233 and 234), we talk about: Why Ron wrote his latest book, Time’s Up Pricing strategy and positioning  Subscription model and DPC (direct primary care) doctors How the subscription business model can help CPAs transform their clients’ life Highlights: — “If you go to the market with a common offering, you're going to command a common price.” — “The true value of accountants lie in guiding transformations. They have the power to advance their customers.” — “To differentiate, CPAs should be able to guide the customer to the desired future state.”    Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Many accountants and CPAs (and business owners!) struggle to manage their time and use it to get done what they want.  When they lose a grip on time, the tendency is to work more hours than they want to.  Here today to talk with me about this is Dawn Goldberg, the author of “The Smarter Accountant.” Dawn shares how accountants and CPAs can get better and more effective with their time.  It includes 5 simple steps: 1. Plan your time.  2. Avoid running off of to-do lists.  3. Manage your mind before, during, and after.  4. Follow through on your plan.  5. Assess so that you can learn from your experiment.    Highlights: — “Working off of a to-do list is the most ineffective way to manage your time because the human brain gets very overwhelmed with a list of things to do, because it cannot put things into context.”  — “Planning saves so much time. When you make decisions ahead of time you reduce decision fatigue throughout the week.”  — “You absolutely have to first learn how to manage your mind before you can manage your time.” — “Our brain thinks everything is urgent and so important. So we have to decide on purpose what is important.”  — “You will be amazed at how much more you can get done if you put a boundary around your time.”   Connect with Dawn: Website: https://thesmarteraccountant.com/ Podcast: https://cpamoms.com/podcasts/   Episode mentions: 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/193 218 Mindset Coaching for More Powerful Results, with Emma Richter https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/218   Dawn’s book: The Smarter Accountant: How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain a Competitive Advantage, and More! https://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Accountant-Eliminate-Overwhelm-Competitive/dp/B0B7QFYW8N Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Lots of people don’t like change. They have enough going on, thank you very much, and one more thing to change is one more thing they have to learn, and remember to do differently.  Change, seems like work.  If we like our currently reality, then there may not be a need to change.  But many people don’t like their current reality. They want things to change, but don’t want to change things.  Because they don’t like change.  I want you to know what change is. I want to unpack it for you, so that it stops being something to avoid or resist or dislike. I want to unpack it for you, so that in seeing what it is, you can make your experience of change easier for you, you can change things more quickly, and better, and eventually, learn to enjoy change.  Change doesn't have to be this mysterious thing – once we unpack it, we can see how it works.  Here is change, unpacked, in seven stages. Learn to observe progress as you move through seven stages.  And once you know the seven stages, it gets way easier to know where you are in the progression, and you know what stage is next.    Here are the seven stages of change: Stage 1: Not aware at all. Stage 2: Aware but believing that you're powerless to change anything. Stage 3: Aware, and believing you can change things, but aware only after the fact.  Stage 4: Aware in the moment, but it happens so fast, that you don't change it in the moment.  Stage 5: Aware that it's happening in the moment and change it while it's happening.  Stage 6: See it coming and prevent it.  Stage 7: Permanent change.   I hope understanding and appreciating the seven stages of change helps you befriend the change. Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Not all accountants and CPAs get stressed during tax season. They've got their systems down. Stress isn't their go-to thing.  But for many CPAs and accountants, stress is a common experience. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.  Here to talk with me about how to go from being stressed to not being stressed in tax season is my guest, Dawn Goldberg. Dawn Goldberg has been a CPA in public accounting for over 30 years, as well as a mom for over 27 years. She has worked for large firms like Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young as well as smaller firms. Dawn is also the author of “The Smarter Accountant – How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain A Competitive Advantage, And More!”   Highlights: —  “Tax season is stressful, is actually an optional thought.” —  “Accountants have this badge of honor. If we're not overworking or not stressed, then we must not be very good at what we do.” —  “In coaching jargon, the intentional model is about thinking thoughts on purpose that are going to create the feeling that you want to generate, that will lead to the actions that you want to be taking, that will create eventually the result that you actually want to have.” —  “Ask yourself this: Do you like what that thought will create if you keep it?” —  “Using the fuel of focus gets me much better results than the fuel of stress.” Connect with Dawn: Website: https://thesmarteraccountant.com/ Podcast: https://cpamoms.com/podcasts/   Episode mentions: 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/193 218 Mindset Coaching for More Powerful Results, with Emma Richter https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/218   Dawn’s book: The Smarter Accountant: How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain a Competitive Advantage, and More! https://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Accountant-Eliminate-Overwhelm-Competitive/dp/B0B7QFYW8N Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7

Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Would you love to get paid in full up front for tax returns? There’s a long history of paying for your tax return when you pick it up at your CPAs office, or when they send the invoice, which might be weeks or months after you did the work.  Despite knowing the benefits of getting paid in full up front:  - You can have a clearer sense of how much of your capacity is now paid and on the books, and how much more you need to sell  - You have clients who have agreed to your price, so you don’t have send invoices and duck for cover - You don’t have a pile of A/R, dangling out there in space, that you need to burn time tracking down - You’re no longer held hostage by client you want to fire, but you don’t want to fire them until they pay you, for the last 3 years  - You have access to and use of the cash, and cash is queen You still get hung up on 3 common objections, which are: 1. I haven’t done it this way before, I don’t know how to do it  2. Clients aren’t used to paying this way 3. I'm worried about underpricing, I don’t know how long returns take, I can’t price if I don’t know how long it’s going to take, what if they show up with some surprise, what if I get killed on scope creep.  Each of these objections may have some validity. But each objection can be overcome – and I walk you through how, in this episode. Get your FREE 7 Pricing Essentials for CPAs and EAs here:https://geraldinecarter.com/7