Category: Get More Tax Clients

The Internet is not the tax resolution marketing panacea that you may think it is

We are obviously neck deep in the Internet age.

With that, business owners are constantly bombarded with the message that if they’re not “all in” on digital marketing, then their business will simply implode within the next X years.

For some businesses, this is absolutely true.

For other types of businesses, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Taxpayer representation is one of the latter.

Yes, you need a website (with a blog). Yes, you need to be creating content. Yes, you need to be building an email list of leads and prospects.

These are certainly things you should be doing. I’ll never tell you otherwise.

But, like many things in business, it’s an 80/20 thing. Ye olde Pareto Principle.

The simple, unvarnished fact of the matter is that the majority of all tax resolution services sold in the United States is still done through cold call telemarketing.

You can choose not to accept this fact, that’s up to you. But fake news it is not. The large, national tax resolution firms are still primarily telemarketing driven.

What about smaller practitioners, like us? The vast majority of smaller tax practices are generating these clients through either referrals from other CPAs, EAs, attorneys, financial advisors, bookkeepers, etc., or from delivering speaking presentations to niche industry groups.

Seriously. That’s how most small tax practices are generating leads. Referrals from other professional service providers and through speaking gigs.

So if you ignored any of Dan’s emails last week about the power of public speaking, I’ve got some uncomfortable news for you. 🙂

Before I left on my current vacation, I asked readers to email me their questions that I could answer in future emails, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc (there is a marketing lesson right there, btw, for those of you inclined to learn it).

The vast majority of the questions I got back were along the lines of:

  • How do I get clients?
  • Where should I buy leads from?
  • I have $X dollars to spend. Should I do Facebook ads or direct mail?
  • I tried X, Y, and Z, and they didn’t work. What should I be doing for marketing?

Well, what you do is:

  • Network with other financial service providers and ask them for referrals.
  • Start giving Tax Talks to specific, niche groups with a high propensity for tax debt or audit problems.
  • Cold call tax liens.

Seriously, do that, and you’ll be doing 90% of … Continue reading

Referrals are the single best source of new tax resolution clients

I don’t think I need to try convincing you that referrals are the best way to grow your practice.

It’s the way that many tax firms do grow, and that way we want them to grow.

But, I also know that you’re smart enough to recognize the fact that if you want referrals, you must be proactive about it. If you’re passive about this, it’s just not going to happen.

Furthermore, as a professional in the financial services industry, you also recognize the fact that for some services, getting referrals can be difficult.

Such as IRS Collections representation.

People generally don’t tell their friends and colleagues about their financial problems. Thus, it can be incredibly difficult to obtain client referrals from existing tax resolution clients. Not impossible — it does happen — but they are rare compared to tax prep, tax planning, financial planning, and other client referrals.

But referrals from other tax pros? That’s much more common.

Over the weekend, I was reminded that I’ve already presented some pretty good training (if I do say so myself) on the subject. If you haven’t watched my webinar on the top 3 marketing strategies working in 2019 for tax resolution, then you really should.

Watch it here.

After that, I’m sure you’ll want to get more referrals from other tax professionals. To help you with that, I’ve assembled a toolkit to help you do just that. This toolkit contains:

  • Audio recordings from two Diamond member calls — nearly 4 hours of training — covering the step-by-step details for getting referrals from other tax professionals, from how to contact them, what to say during those meetings, and what NOT to do.
  • A sample referral arrangement proposal letter.
  • A sample endorsed mailing proposal letter.
  • Complete second course on networking with other tax pros by teaching CE/CPE, including materials for producing your own continuing education events and a 3-hour tax resolution PowerPoint that you can utilize in your own presentations (you can cut this down to 50-minutes by just doing the first block – perfect for local tax org lunch ‘n’ learns).

To get access to this toolkit, pick it up here.




… Continue reading

Determining How Much to Pay in Tax Resolution Referral Fees

Today, we’re going to address the next most common question that I get whenever I start talking about this process of obtaining tax resolution referrals from other tax professionals.

I am fully aware that the issue of referral fees can be a contentious one. I anticipate no less than two dozen replies to this email slamming me for suggesting that we pay referral fees.

But I’ll say it loud and proud: If you’re able, I encourage you to pay referral fees.

While I would like to say that we live in a world where we could all do each other professional favors, and they will boomerang back in kind, the reality is that it’s very difficult to do. Many times, referrals are not returned in kind, nor are all they all able to be.

Think about it this way. One tax resolution referral to you is worth thousands of dollars. If you are a resolution-only practitioner, it’s impractical for you to try referring back to every one of your tax professional referral partners an equal revenue volume of tax prep work — you’re simply not going to have the volume.

So instead of quid pro quo (hmm, maybe I should avoid that phrase these days)…. So instead of trading favors, it’s easier to simply trade dollars. Money is, after all, a medium of exchange and a method of keeping score. Thus, we might as well use it.

To paraphrase a popular saying, “Money talks, favors walk.”

With that said, the next obvious question is: What is a reasonable referral fee to pay?

As a marketing person, I view this from a very practical standpoint. Let me explain.

If I engage in a direct mail campaign, telemarketing follow up, a pay per click ad campaign online, buy advertising in a niche trade journal, etc., my objective is to get back 3x what I invested in the marketing campaign. That’s gross receipts, and please note this applies to IRS Collections cases only, not tax prep, bookkeeping or other services.

In other words, I’m willing to invest $1,000 in order to get back $3,000. That math works for me, and it should work for you, too. If that math doesn’t work for you, then you need to reevaluate your expectations about ROI on marketing expenditure through traditional media (this is part of the beauty of referrals, public speaking, etc. — much lower cost of client … Continue reading