Jassen Bowman EA
Jassen Bowman EA

Have you written your book yet?

It’s the final few hours of the NAEA national convention here in Las Vegas. It’s been a blast getting to meet some long-time Tax Marketing Tips readers face to face, plus being introduced to many new readers as an exhibitor here in conjunction with NTPI. Many thanks to everybody that has dropped by to chat!

This week I want to touch on a subject that is a little off the beaten path of my normal messages: Authority positioning.

We live in a culture that loves to love expertise and authority positioning. If you think about it carefully, it’s the reason NTPI itself exists. As a profession, we tend to embrace anything and everything that that let’s us display expertise (I’m quite opinionated on the subject of “credentialitis”…).

Within the general public, however, it’s a whole different ballgame. Our clients and prospects don’t have a clue (nor do they care…) about all the alphabet soup we put after our name. As an EA, for example, I’m stuck with the challenge of having to explain what I even AM — so I generally don’t bother (it’s rarely questioned by tax resolution prospects, by the way). CPAs and attorneys have built-in designation recognition, but anything beyond that, in terms of public perception, doesn’t mean anything to them.

But if you do something that positions you as an authority, that displays your expertise in a manner that is highly valued by the general public, then that suddenly becomes worth a LOT.

When you write a tax advice column in the local newspaper, or appear regularly on a local business talk radio program, or write a book — you suddenly attach to yourself much higher perceived expertise in the eyes of the general public.

When I wrote my first book over Christmas weekend at the end of 2011, it was driven by being snowed in. But in retrospect, it became one of the best marketing moves I’ve ever made for my tax practice.

After publishing “Tax Resolution Secrets“, it quickly became the best selling tax resolution book on Amazon. It began to routinely generate two to three leads per week coming into my tax resolution practice. With this steady trickle of free prospects coming in, I was able to pick and choose the clients I actually wanted to work with.

Did the book generate perfect prospects every time? Absolutely not. There were definitely a fair number … Continue reading

Where do you really want your tax practice to be in ONE year?

Most tax professionals that I speak with aren’t really sure where they want there practice to be. They’re doing this thing that they do, week in and week out, but don’t really have a vision for where they want to take it.

Many motivational speakers will talk about having a 5-year plan for your life. They talk in terms of very long-term goals and planning. But I think on a much shorter scale, and there’s no reason not to. Amazing things can be accomplished in twelve months or less, particularly in a professional services business like tax or accounting. There’s absolutely no reason for us to look on a time horizon longer than a year, especially if you focus heavily on tax services, due to the natural annual cycle of most things in tax.

Have you given any thought to where you want to be a year from now? If not, this is the time to think about it. We’re in the lull between tax seasons, and it’s convention and seminar time, so practice management and planning are probably near the top of your mind right now. In fact, if you haven’t yet registered for one of my live workshops, I’d encourage you to do so. See the workshop schedule here.

It’s completely possible to take an accounting practice from one person and $60,000 per year in revenue to 10 people and $2 million in revenue in one year flat: It’s been done. If your ultimate goal for your practice is to grow to this level, then what are you waiting for?

If your goal is to never have employees and remain a solo practitioner, but want to double your revenue and live full time in a foreign country while serving your American clients, that’s been done, too. There’s nothing stopping you from doing it, and it’s very doable within just a few months.

Go for a walk and give serious consideration to what you want your practice to look like a year from now. If it’s growth, then there is a marketing solution. If it’s location independence, there’s a practice management solution. No matter what you want out of your practice, you can have it.

Remember, you created your business to serve you, not for it to be the master of your life.… Continue reading

How to leverage written tax articles to get more leads

Today it’s called content marketing, but the reality is that it’s one of the most effective marketing strategies in the history of capitalism.

The core idea behind this strategy is to create engaging content that entertains and educates your target market, while simultaneously reminding your prospects that you possess the solution to their tax problem.

That problem can take numerous forms, from the frustration of completing their tax return to the nightmare of owing millions in back taxes.

In my tax resolution practice, ALL of my marketing leverages the concept of content marketing, in one way or another. Everything from my free reports offered in response to letters and postcards, to 24 hour recorded information lines, to my books written for consumers — all of this is content marketing.

What’s this about writing articles?

Despite the prevalence of video on the Internet today, the fact remains that the Internet is a platform built with and for the distribution of the written word. We still use words to search for things on Google, and Google must still use words on pages to determine the relevance of web sites.

On top of that, direct mail is still one of the most effective means available for reaching new prospects, reactivating lost clients, and keeping existing clients coming back. From reaching out to new movers in to the neighborhood for tax prep season, to tax lien marketing, to client newsletters, direct mail, and it’s inherent use of the written word, is something that should be part of every tax professional’s marketing arsenal.

The written word, despite the audiovisual world in which we live, is still a remarkably valuable form of communication. Aside from being a tool for appearing high in search engine results, the written word is a vehicle for attracting new prospects and converting prospects into clients.

Why is this? Never forget that, no matter what services we actually provide to our clients, we are in the people business. People do business with other people, something that some really big accounting, legal, and consulting firms seem to forget.

Before a new client ever gives you a dime, three things in particular must happen:

1. They must come to know who you are (which is why we do marketing).
2. They must come to trust you and your ability to address their needs.
3. They have to like you (this is the step that … Continue reading