Category: 30-Day Tax Marketing Challenge

Today kicks off the 2018 30-Day Marketing Challenge! The entire month of November, we’ll be focusing on daily marketing tasks — yes, even on Thanksgiving day — that you can utilize to grow the 941 representation side of your practice.

Most of the marketing tasks across this challenge will be short, usually 10 to 20 minutes. Some may be up to an hour.

If you actually follow through on all the activities across the next 30 days, I would expect the typical practitioner to pick up at least 2 or 3 tax resolution clients this month, equating to roughly $10,000 to $15,000 in new revenue. Even more important than that, however, if you stick with it for the full 30 days, you’ll develop the single most financially important habit a business owner can eve develop: The habit of daily marketing.

To start, you’re going to need to create a small piece of 941-specific messaging that answers the classic question, “What do you do?”

Commonly referred to as an elevator pitch, this is a concept that’s older than dirt, but sadly it’s one that very few tax and accounting professionals take the time to craft. The LAST thing that should ever leave your mouth when somebody asks what you do is, “I’m a CPA.” Even though most of the general public knows what a CPA is, that answer provides ZERO information about how you can help them, or whom they can refer you to, etc.

Your answer to this question should also not be, “I do taxes”, or “I’m an accountant”, “I do tax resolution. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Your elevator pitch is what you use to communicate the kind of clients you’re looking for. It should be specific, and have a purpose. It should not be generic. You want people to be thinking about who they can refer to you when they hear your elevator pitch. You want them to evaluate their own life against your pitch to determine if they’re a prospect for you. Not everybody should be your client — this is a filtering mechanism.

Over the years, I had a few different elevator pitches. My oldest elevator pitch was very straightforward: “I help mom and pop small business owners with tax debts to screw over the IRS.” This was a message that resonated very, very clearly with my intended target market at the time.

A bit later in … Continue reading

Where are you standing two days into the challenge?

If you’re behind, then no worries. Even if you have zero intention of touching any of this until after Independence Day, that’s cool, too. That’s the beauty of these short, simple tasks, you can get caught up on five days worth in about an hour. They’ll be even shorter today and tomorrow, because I realize nobody really wants to be working during a holiday. But it’s also the perfect time to be doing these sort of tasks, because it mentally reinforces the importance of the marketing habit (hmmm, The Marketing Habit might make a good book title!).

In fact, I’m the same way. So before anybody accuses of me of “phoning it in” the next couple days, let me just admit it straight up. 🙂

Day 3 Challenge

This is going to sound a LOT like Day 1. I mean, a lot like Day 1.

But instead of LinkedIn, head on over to Google Maps and search for “tax preparers”. Pick the five non-franchise preparers that are closest to you, go to their websites, and find an email address or a Contact Us form. Write or call them and introduce yourself, and let them know you’re looking to network.

Time: 10 minutes… Continue reading

Happy Sunday!

Oh, did you think there were days off during the 30-day challenge?

Nay, nay, as we say. If you want the pay, you gotta play every day. So let’s do more lead harvesting via referral marketing.

(See what I did there? It’s the weekend, it’s ok to have a little fun.)

Before we get to today’s challenge task, a quick reminder about the next two upcoming CPE webinars:

July 6: Another presentation of the sweeping overview of tax resolution. This will be a rebroadcast of last week’s presentation, but still counts as CE/CPE. Free. Click here to register.

July 7: Inside the IRM™: Financial Analysis Handbook, Part 1. Only $10. Click here to register.

Day 2 Challenge

Birds of a feather flock together.

You and I are weird birds. We chose to build our professional careers around taxes. By most measures, that’s a strange topic to get excited about. But, we do. And since nobody else around us wants to talk about the IRS, we have to go out of our way to find other tax geeks like ourselves.

Most areas have a local professional organization for tax and accounting professionals. As in, a local-only organization. It may be at the city, county, or state level, but it’s not associated with or affiliated in any way with a national organization. Here in my bend in the creek, it’s a group called Washington State Tax Consultants (WSTC), and they have county-level chapters in the more populous parts of the state. It’s only $90 a year, and is primarily a CPE provider.

Your challenge today is to go find your local organization and join.

Now, I don’t know what yours is called, or where they’re based, or what they do, or if they’re any good or not, so don’t email me asking if I know what exists in YOUR area, because I don’t. And who knows, there may not be one (I’ll get to that in a moment). But hop on to the Googles and start searching. Spend at least five minutes trying various search terms to try finding a local professional society for tax/accounting professionals.

If you find one, do some more research. Due diligence, if you will. Search for reviews. Send a few emails to colleagues asking if they are familiar with the organization, etc.

Now, it may very well be that one doesn’t exist in your area. For example, if … Continue reading