You’re Not Being Dedicated — You’re Being Expensive

Why the smartest thing you can do this quarter is stop doing half of what you’re currently doing.

Let me ask you something, and I need you to be painfully honest with yourself.

What did you do yesterday?

Not what you planned to do. Not what your calendar said. What did you actually spend your hours on between the time you walked into your office and the time you finally dragged yourself home?

If you’re like most of the tax professionals I coach, your answer includes some combination of the following: preparing a handful of returns, answering client emails, chasing down missing documents, troubleshooting a software glitch, reconciling your bank account, scheduling appointments, formatting engagement letters, scanning paperwork, and maybe — if the stars aligned — doing 45-90 minutes of actual high-level advisory work that only someone with your license, experience, and expertise could do.

Here’s the problem. You billed eight, ten, maybe twelve hours yesterday. But how many of those hours required you? Not a competent staff member. Not a $49-per-month software subscription. You, specifically, with your credentials, your years of experience, and your hard-earned expertise.

I’m going to guess the answer is somewhere between two and four hours.

Which means you spent the rest of your day being the most expensive administrative assistant your firm has ever employed. Read that again. That should hurt you deep. You earned (or saved) $15-50/hr for that time but LOST $150-300/hr. Sound like a fair trade?

The Math That Should Keep You Up Tonight

Let’s do the quick arithmetic behind my last statement, and I promise this won’t feel good.

Say your target effective hourly rate — the rate you need to earn on productive hours to hit your annual income goals after overhead — is $250 per hour. That’s a reasonable number for an experienced tax professional running their own practice. Some of you should be higher. We’ll keep it simple.

Now let’s say you spent three hours yesterday doing tasks that a trained staff member paid at $25 per hour could have handled. Document chasing. Data entry. Scheduling. Filing. Formatting. Basic bookkeeping for your own firm.

You didn’t save $75 by doing it yourself. You lost $750 in potential revenue. Three hours at $250 per hour that you could have spent on work that actually requires your license and your brain, gone forever. You can’t get those hours back. They’re not sitting in a … Continue reading

10 Game-Changing Productivity Strategies for Tax Professionals Who Want Their Lives Back

10 Game-Changing Productivity Strategies for Tax Professionals Who Want Their Lives Back

Alright, my friend—grab your coffee, find a comfy spot, and let’s talk about getting your life back.

All week we’ve been diving into the big-ticket productivity strategies: delegating low-value work, charging rush fees, firing problem clients, and automating everything that repeats.

Those four? They’re the heavy hitters. Implement them and you’ll transform your practice.

But we’re not done yet.

Today I’m giving you TEN more strategies that will compound on everything you’ve already learned. These aren’t “nice to haves”—they’re the difference between tax professionals who are constantly overwhelmed and those who actually enjoy their work.

Ready? Let’s go!

1. Design Your Ideal Week with Theme Days

Here’s a question that changed my life: What if every day had a purpose?

Instead of bouncing between tax returns, marketing tasks, client calls, and admin work all day every day, what if you themed your days?

Here’s an example:

  • Monday: Marketing and business development
  • Tuesday & Thursday: Client meetings (10 AM–12 PM and 1 PM–4 PM only)
  • Wednesday: Deep work on complex cases
  • Friday: Admin wrap-up and weekly planning

Why does this work? Because context-switching kills productivity. Every time you jump from a tax return to answering an email to taking a client call, your brain pays a “switching tax.” It takes 15-25 minutes to get back into deep focus after an interruption.

Theme days eliminate that. When it’s Marketing Monday, you’re in marketing mode. Period. When someone asks for a meeting on Wednesday, the answer is simple: “I don’t take meetings Wednesdays. How about Tuesday at 2 PM?”. I know your going to say ” but that doesn’t work for the client”. It’s not about them, it’s about you. When you call your doctor or dentist do they let you choose or do they tell you what is available?

You’re not being difficult. You’re being strategic.

2. Plan Your Day the Night Before

This one’s simple but powerful: Before you leave your desk each day, write down your top three priorities for tomorrow.

Here’s why this matters more than you think.

When you know exactly what you’re working on first thing in the morning, you eliminate the “what should I do now?” decision paralysis. You sit down, look at your list, and get to work. No wandering. No accidentally opening email “just to check.” No wasted first hour.

But there’s a bonus benefit: When you

… Continue reading

Why Your Marketing Confuses Prospects (And Costs You High-Fee Clients)

The Messaging Mistake That Sends Your Best Prospects to Competitors

Every week, tax professionals tell me the same frustrating story. Prospects reach out, they have a conversation, and then it becomes clear the caller wants something completely different from what the practitioner actually provides.

An EA who focuses exclusively on IRS collections work spends twenty minutes on the phone with someone who just needs a Schedule C prepared. A CPA who built an entire practice around offer in compromise cases keeps getting inquiries about bookkeeping services. A tax attorney specializing in Appeals representation fields calls from people who want help forming an LLC.

These conversations aren’t just awkward—they represent a fundamental breakdown in how you’re communicating with the marketplace.

The Disconnect Between What You Say and What They Hear

When prospects misunderstand your services, the instinct is to blame them for not paying attention. But the responsibility actually falls on us as practitioners. If multiple people are drawing the wrong conclusions about what we do, our communications are sending mixed signals.

Marketing expert Dan Kennedy has long emphasized that alignment between your message and your intended audience determines whether your marketing efforts produce results or waste resources. When that alignment breaks down, you end up attracting people you cannot help while simultaneously becoming invisible to those who desperately need your expertise.

This dynamic is particularly problematic in the tax resolution space. Taxpayers facing IRS collections actions need specialized help. They’re dealing with revenue officers, facing bank levies, watching their paychecks get garnished. These people will pay premium fees—$5,000, $10,000, $15,000 or more—for someone who can solve their specific problem.

But if your marketing looks identical to every other tax practitioner in your area, these high-value prospects have no way to identify you as the specialist they need. They scroll past your content, ignore your ads, and hire someone else—often someone less qualified but whose messaging spoke directly to their situation.

Why Smart Practitioners Make This Error

The confusion usually stems from one of several patterns I’ve observed repeatedly among tax professionals.

Some practitioners cast too wide a net intentionally. They worry that narrowing their message will cost them opportunities, so they keep their communications vague and general. “Full-service tax help” feels safer than “IRS debt resolution for business owners.” But broad positioning actually reduces response because it fails to signal expertise to anyone with a specific problem.

Others let their interests bleed into their marketing. … Continue reading