For two months now, I’ve been telling you to get ready for second season. Well, guess what?
Surprise, it’s here!
Unless your lifestyle plan revolves around shutting down for the rest of the year, there is absolutely no reason for you to make less money in the next several months than you did during tax season. In fact, the smartest of tax professionals will actually make more money than they did during tax season.
Here are six quick strategies to employ to help you achieve this:
1. Put in place a year-round client touch strategy. Maintaining regular, year-round contact with your tax return preparation clients is the absolute best way to ensure that they come back next year.
2. Don’t stop your seasonal lead generation efforts. Most tax professionals stop their active lead generation after tax season, which is a massive mistake. Taxpayers need their tax professionals all year, so be sure to provide your ideal target clients with the opportunity to discover who you are and what you can do for them. Shameless plug: If you haven’t yet created your online lead generation strategy, learn how here. You can also jump straight to pre-ordering the manual, before the price goes up by $30 on Saturday.
3. Look for additional opportunities to serve your existing clients. How can you assist them with ACA compliance? How can you save them money on their 2014 tax bill? Who can you help in setting up payment plans for their 2013 and prior tax bill? Be of greater service to your existing clients, and reap the rewards.
4. Fire your worst clients. There are some clients that simply aren’t worth your time. They aren’t worth the stress they create for you, and some clients simply aren’t profitable. Trim the fat, and live happier and more profitably within your practice.
5. Seek out networking opportunities. Network within your professional sphere to find sources of referrals. For example, if you have an extensive examination representation practice, then seek out other tax professionals that do not practice in that arena to connect them with their clients that are in trouble. Simultaneously, network within your local community to find new business and individual clients for your various services.
6. Test a lot of brand new marketing campaigns simultaneously for all your services. I already said to continue your seasonal tax prep marketing campaigns. But when was the last time you tested all new marketing tactics for your other services? Do some test advertising in local business publications to secure new full service business clients. Do a letter campaign to a local new movers list to establish a relationship with new local residents NOW, well before next tax season. Conduct new campaigns to local high net worth individuals to offer tax planning and wealth management. Get started with those tax lien marketing efforts you’ve been sitting on for months (or years).
Use these six strategies to focus on your business, rather than just having your practice be a J.O.B. Think beyond tax season. Heck, think beyond tax resolution, too. Despite my tax debt representation background and my frequent emphasis on that service, you should extrapolate the same marketing and practice management strategies into every other facet of your practice.
The most successful tax professionals are constantly working on improving multiple aspects of their practice simultaneously. From systems implementation to multiple, ongoing marketing strategies, by focusing on the right things you can have an absolutely amazing second, and even third, tax season in 2014.
