Jamie Gruol: Welcome back to another episode of Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. I’m so excited to have Jessica back with me today. Jess, how are you?

Jessica Smith: I’m doing well. And how are you?

Jamie Gruol: I’m good, thank you. Well, we have a spicy episode for you guys today. We want to talk to all of you practice owners out there who are thinking about bringing on new clients.

For next tax season. Maybe it’s tax planning and preparation for next tax year. Whatever that is in your practice, if you are looking to grow and bring on new clients, you need to be thinking about how am I going to manage these new leads? Well, at workflows for tax pros, this is one of the big areas that we help our clients with.

And that we do that through our new lead management process. I wanted to hear her journey to the virtual practice that she is today and how she got there because it wasn’t overnight, I’m pretty sure, right Jess?

Jessica Smith: Not even a little bit. 

Jamie Gruol: I wanted to

Jessica Smith: like it’s not completely finalized. Right. It’s always a work in progress

Jamie Gruol: Always. And that’s the growth mindset, right? Like it can always be better. And I love that about you because you’re always looking on how you can improve your client experience. And that really starts at the moment they find out about you, right? So Jess, would you break down for us in just, A short kind of overview of where you were like maybe three years ago and we’ll get to where you’re at today because it’s pretty awesome.

But where were you before you had this beautiful system that you have today?

Jessica Smith: crying because how embarrassing it was that people would refer me business and I would like forget.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, who can relate with that? Yeah.

Jessica Smith: to think, you know, I can manage all of my clients. I don’t need a system. I don’t need this. Right. When you have 30 clients. Yeah. It’s really easy to think about. Not needing something to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. But as you start to grow, any of us who are out there with either an online presence or even just like a local presence where people are looking for tax practitioners, you’re getting leads like up the wazoo.

That’s all that I’m seeing on Twitter and Facebook is people saying, how am I going to manage all of these potential clients coming to seek my services? I’ve already. at capacity or I have no way of, you know, qualifying them to get into the door. And that was me, I was getting more leads than realistically I was capable of handling. And because I was trying this like manual system where, you know, someone would email me. And then of course, at that point you’re, Oh, here’s my, my booking link. And I’m just immediately booking, you know, an appointment to try to get them on the phone which was bad in of itself, because then I realized. I was trying to do, what I was calling a discovery call was actually a unpaid consultation. So was, I was literally spending like 40 minutes to an hour on like, what should have been a short, like, Hey, let’s just get to know each other kind of situation. And I would miss. of referrals. Cause they were just all coming in through email.

And if you don’t have somewhere to put them in to like trigger the next step, you know, those leads go cold in two to three days.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Jessica Smith: that was very manual and honestly awful. Absolutely awful.

Jamie Gruol: What were you, so were you like, did you have like a Google doc or like a spreadsheet or an email in by like, do, how are you like managing them

Jessica Smith: gosh,

Jamie Gruol: you at all?

Jessica Smith: I had that. I don’t even think I had that. I honestly think that I was, I think that at that stage, In where my firm was going, I was still kind of like head in the clouds, like, Oh, this is so great. And then you, you start to really have reality sink in and then you realize, Oh, but I don’t know where the work is.

I don’t know when the last time this client connected with me, I don’t know if I followed up with this client. Like you have to go through like having to go constantly to my sent emails and say, did I contact this person? When was the last time I heard from them? Just a lot of. A lot of broken inefficiency kind of stuff going on.

And that’s really what led me to find like a better solution. Cause it was. I was concerned, like I was generally concerned with how I was going to actually grow and make clients like want to work with me if I couldn’t even remember to like send them an email, like, Hey, let’s book an appointment.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think, I do not think you were alone in that feeling. I’m sure a lot of people listening are like, yeah, I’m feeling it’s hard because until we do have the systems in place and there often is a breaking point where you’re like, okay, okay. I’m like doubling down and I know I need to grow this season.

And so I need, like, I need to get it together. And I think a lot of people will like, kind of like piecemeal things together. They’ll be like, I’m going to put everybody in a spreadsheet. I’m going to make sure that everyone gets tagged with this tag in my inbox. And it’s like, okay, that’s great. But you’re again, just kind of putting a bandaid on like a gate, like your arm being cut off, right?

Like you’re like bleeding out at this point and that bandaid is not going to stop it. So I would love to hear about kind of your journey. Then you decided like I need to change, like I need better systems. You’ve been through several iterations, like as your knowledge around systems and technology and taxonomy grown, it’s gotten better, right?

Tell us a little bit about that journey and, and how you. I think the mindset of it, right? Like how did you like say, okay, I’m taking this first step and then the next step, like take us on the journey.

Jessica Smith: So it kind of all started with, I mean, I was a canopy user. And you know, at the time canopy was still like, they had workflows, but it was still very manual. Like it was more or less like just tasks. Here’s what you do in these tasks that need to be done. I didn’t even understand what automations were. So, You know, I was using canopy, just had a bad experience with canopy, looked for another solution. And when I started looking at other solutions and I really started to learn more about like what automations were, I remember I was looking and using Dubsado for a portion of client process and that system is super cool, but it’s got a pretty steep learning curve on its own. and I, you know, hire somebody to help me and that kind of like opened my eyes on what systems were capable of.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Jessica Smith: an automation perspective. And this was just what I felt was like right? You know, this action, you know, you have this client that fills out a form and then get a task to look at it.

And then you, you know, after this form is received, you mark it complete and then. An email is sent for them to book an appointment, right? Like very, very basic

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Jessica Smith: But those basic things were things I struggled to do manually.

Jamie Gruol: yeah,

Jessica Smith: you know, sometimes I would get five leads like in one day, which seems crazy.

Cause I’m not a huge, you know, content creator. I’m not, I don’t have like a large client base, you’re talking five referrals were coming in, you know, a day. Especially these were unqualified referrals, right? These were people who were going through a process that didn’t vet, you know, to make sure they were a good fit. So I was really running myself ragged with getting anybody and everybody on the phone. And again, they turned into consultations more than they were like discovery calls. and so the exposure to like the automation space, even in its most basic form was just like super intriguing to me because I’m like, Wow, I don’t have to remember to send this email to this person.

I don’t have to remember to ask them to book an appointment with me. I don’t have to remember, you know, what they said to me. During the meeting because we had a form completed before we met. So I at least had something to like, understand about them before we got on that meeting, at least what their needs were.

Jamie Gruol: yeah,

Jessica Smith: so that was really intriguing. And I think to the, just like the sales process in general, I had to learn to hone that in.

Jamie Gruol: right.

Jessica Smith: it took a while because I was. Free consultation, just get on the phone with me and you know, whatever your questions are, I’m going to answer them. Yeah. And, and, and that, unfortunately, you know, that didn’t serve me.

I, what my conversion rate was like abysmal at that point. Cause everyone’s like, Oh great. You just gave me all the stuff that I need to know to not work with you. And so that there was like this gap that I needed to bridge, like, where can I have This gatekeeping of the information and expertise that people realistically are going to be paying me for versus getting the information that I need to see, will they work with the way that I work and are, you know, do I actually like this person?

You know, how do they operate kind of thing even agreeing to like work with them and sign them on. So it was, a long and still sometimes is a long process developing and maintaining that lead kind of like management. It’s, it’s still something that I’m continually working on.

Jamie Gruol: But I think to, you know, like you pointed out, like in the beginning, you won’t meet with anyone and everyone, right? Like you, you want to work to build your business. You’re hungry. That’s right. You, you need to be making the revenue to support yourself in this new. business. And so totally get that. The thing that I think a lot of people don’t think about is the, the, the things that you pointed out, like you sent out this form.

Well, that was your first iteration. You had then the next iteration where you’re like, I should ask this question. And maybe then I will identify that this person is not a fit because they’re a construction owner, right? Like I don’t need to come with construction owners because I serve online people.

Okay, great. So I’m going to ask them a specific question around that. And it becomes this like iterative process of gaining the skills that you need to, or not the skills, but gaining the information that you need to then have the boundaries. Because I think you and I were talking about this before, like, People, what I love about systems and having these types of tools set up for your business specifically is it gives you boundaries to the decisions that you’ve made.

So you make a decision like I’m going to serve online, coaches, consultants, and service providers, right? Like that’s who you serve. That means that you don’t want to talk to anybody that is a contractor in Atlanta, right? Like you may be really great at tax planning, but you’re not going to have the, the, the knowledge to serve them.

So let’s get them out of my hair. How did you make those determinations through your process of learning what you wanted to do and then putting those into play? Like, how did you put them into your systems?

Jessica Smith: So there, there’s an exercise that I see a lot of just like business coaches. And they, they kind of call it like your ideal client avatar, I think is just kind of what they refer to it as. And those were actually always really uncomfortable for me because they’re like, do they live? How old are they?

What are their hobbies? And I’m like, I don’t

Jamie Gruol: What kind of coffee do they drink?

Jessica Smith: Right. And while I appreciate what those, exercises are trying to accomplish. It didn’t work well with me. I got down to like, literally, I don’t need to know anything about my clients to that level to serve them. Like my clients need, like, I need to know much money they make. big is their family? Obviously where they live, you know, what service or product are they providing to their client base? How are they doing that? Is it virtual? Is it in person? do they have like a good bookkeeping system in place? Those were the things that were important to me because I knew at the end of the day, what I was providing them was. You know, hopefully in an advisory tax support, tax prep thing,

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. Mm hmm.

Jessica Smith: the information I would gather from them. So when I was, you know, kind of narrowing down this like broad, Oh, here’s your ideal client. And like really getting down to like, okay, these are the core things that I need my clients to meet in order to be a good fit for me. It helped me to create a better, like application for service. And then also a better, like here, click some of these boxes and let, let’s see if these things, if we can match you with a service. And then in addition to finding out like the right client, saying like, who was not a good fit. And I have been very clear as of late with a lot of my messaging that I like coaches and consultants, basically service providers. I don’t think that product based businesses are the right fit for me because I’m not a sales tax expert. And so in even like the emails and blogs that are written, I’m very particular in that we don’t like information about a service that I can’t commit to because that’s not my area of expertise that application for service was big, big benefit for me because now I knew ahead of the meeting, Everything I needed to know.

I knew, how they were taxed, how much money they were making, you know, in most cases people were giving me prior year return. So I was able to look at, what was done in the past and see like, okay, do we have some opportunity here? I was able to come to those meetings now with like, here’s, you know, you’ve said, you’re looking to, overcome here’s where I believe I can, meet you there. Let’s talk about if we’re a good fit and we’ll discuss, budget wise, if this works for you. And then if it does, like I’ll send you a proposal. And suddenly those unpaid consultations actually became 15 to 20 minute discovery calls like they were intended. And because of the barrier to book those now, not as many, but that’s a good thing

Jamie Gruol: Right,

Jessica Smith: because I’m booking people that are ready to buy.

Jamie Gruol: right,

Jessica Smith: booking a bunch of price shoppers. Who are then listening to the fees that I’m going to tell them and be like, Oh, I, that’s something I can’t afford. Like, no, that’s even in my application. This is what it’s going to cost

Jamie Gruol: right. Yeah.

Jessica Smith: is. And 

I asked them, is this aligned with your budget? Like, is this investment, right? Cause it is an investment.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Jessica Smith: Is this aligned with your budget? And then I asked them like, what are your concerns? Right? Like I, you know, I do have a three month payment option, you know, if they are unable to pay in full, but those are all part of the qualification process because I would be wasting my time and wasting their time.

If I got on a call with somebody and the number one thing, which is, can you afford me? And the answer was, no, why am I going to get on a call with you? We’ll talk about my services. And you’re just like, no, I can’t afford it.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. It’s crazy that people would do that. And I think that those types of confidence in what you’re doing is critical in the sales process. Like any sales coach is going to tell you that, right? Like you have to be confident value you’re bringing to the table. If the other person can’t meet you at the 50 yard line guys, you shouldn’t be meeting with them period.

And one of the pushbacks I get from people is they’re like, but what about the, like building the relationship on those 20 minute on your discovery calls. What is your thoughts on that?

Jessica Smith: I mean, I think that people have to understand discovery call is never going to be a relationship builder.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Jessica Smith: if I’m being honest, think of it as speed dating,

Jamie Gruol: yeah.

Jessica Smith: right?

Jamie Gruol: Get good singles, right? That’s all you want.

Jessica Smith: I mean, nobody is expecting to go on a speed date and leave with a proposal. Like a marriage proposal. So I think we have to look at it from that perspective, because even with a good vetting process, and there’s tons of people out there in the industry that will say, you know, sometimes people who are not good fits are still going to fall through the cracks and still make it through. But really the discovery process is. If done correctly, you’re going to get enough information well in advance of the meeting so that you can actually like study this client. I never go to a meeting without. Looking at their a website, if they have one, you know, doing some Facebook stalking sometimes, but you know, getting information about like who, like who they are and, and what they do and why they do it. And then, of course, you know, the numbers are there. I usually do a couple of, you know, little analyses if necessary. So that I feel like, Hey, I’m curious what I might say, potentially working with you. Okay, well, here’s what I got for you kind of thing. But. I can’t look at the discovery call as the relationship builder because the relationship is really built over the life of the service.

So for me, my contracts typically run 12 months you know, after that 12 months we have a renewal cycle. Obviously I have people enjoy working with me, they’re going to renew, but I don’t think it’s possible to actually build a relationship. Through that discovery process. I think it’s again to just see if you guys vibe, right?

If we look at it from a speed dating perspective, you are just trying to determine, is this person worthy of dinner?

Jamie Gruol: I love it.

Jessica Smith: but I, I’m not expecting to walk away from a discovery call with like a fully formed relationship and this person being incredibly happy with the service.

They’ve not even received yet. 

Jamie Gruol: Absolutely. And I think too, like a lot of that time, like the hour most people schedule with somebody is to gather that information That is such a tedious, like you have to make sure you don’t miss type something or you don’t forget an important thing and you’re trying to like communicate the multitasking of that is just too much for most people’s brains.

It’s exhausting for sure at minimum, and you’re possibly missing very important details. So I think those applications make a huge difference. I also want to step back in front of this process. And one thing that we wanted to touch on was the importance of having an online presence. And that is so critical.

You and I were talking about how. I, these days I won’t work with a service provider unless they have an online presence where I can go and schedule appointments and I can go and make sure that I am able to select the time that’s convenient to me as a busy mom and as a business owner. Like it’s important that I can get into the slots that work for me.

And I think, you know, people kind of, They’re resistant to going online, especially in the tax practice, you know, the tax practice space. And I want to encourage people to think about that. You are no longer trying to serve the 60 and 70 year olds are not your prime candidates for high value clients Yes, the trusts and all that are still high value, but the majority of those people are no longer going to be your high income earners.

That’s going to be the people in their 30s and 40s who are now like coming into monies and settling their families and growing that. They want to have an online presence. If they Google tax practice in my area, if you don’t have a website and you don’t have a way for me to initiate the working with you, I probably am going to find the person down the street that does.

What are your thoughts on that? Like for like your colleagues out there?

Jessica Smith: with it. With my own experience with, you know, working with my web designer and getting the website done, I get so many compliments on just the appearance of my website, which I think is great. It really does highlight the work that I do, that I’m performing. You know, I’ve got the, the fit and pricing guide.

So we’ve got that little quiz that potential

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Jessica Smith: can like complete, get some involved in the process. I’m able to get their email, right. If they don’t sign up right away, they’re going to get a series of emails, at least of, you know, about the service that I offer. And I also think too, like. It’s social proof is kind of really important.

At least with professional industries. So, you know, my website has a lot of blog content really targeted towards my ideal client. So if they want to know whether or not I’m an idiot or not, they can kind of look at like some of the stuff I’ve done in the past, I talked about in the past and some of the things I’ve written in the past and see like, is. You know, is this information that she’s providing like relevant to me? You know, I’ve got, I think like 20 blog posts on there right now. I think it’s really important to have a web presence. It doesn’t have to be as comprehensive as what I have, but I think that you need to have some information available for people to find.

And you know, when we think about some of the things that clients object over, I don’t like using the word pushback anymore, because I’ve seen a lot of people say, Oh, I’m worried about pushback. We are not talking about. Push back. Okay. I think that word needs to be erased from the vocabulary of professionals in this industry, because it’s usually centered around like critical parts. The work that they perform. Think about like, Oh, I have to get payment upfront for my work and I’m going to get pushback from my clients. No, you’re getting, they’re objecting. You have an objection a process and now your role as the firm owner is how are you going to overcome that client’s objection? Right?

Jamie Gruol: And can I add to an objection is typically a question, right? Like it’s not that they’re saying I won’t do this. It’s that they don’t have enough information to confidently say, yes, I will do this. It could be, this is my new business process and the decision that we have made to serve you more effectively.

Jessica Smith: hmm.

Jamie Gruol: it’s not, it doesn’t have to be that just cause I said so, right? Like it’s not about that.

Jessica Smith: and it’s okay to receive objections,

Jamie Gruol: Yes,

Jessica Smith: and we can reshape the way that we communicate these objections by framing the response in a way that’s, In a way so the client understands how it really benefits them because they’re asking they’re like, oh this makes me uncomfortable I don’t want to do this because I don’t like it. are you making me do this? Because they don’t care about what benefits you as a practice owner So if someone said I don’t want to sign a contract with you because it makes me uncomfortable Well, if I go back and say well, it’s so if you sue me that I have You know, a legal standing to sue you.

Jamie Gruol: right.

Jessica Smith: on earth would anybody say that?

But what I can say is I understand your frustration and contracts can sometimes be scary, but this is industry standard. And this contract clarifies the scope of services. So both parties are protected. We will understand exactly what’s expected of each other along with the payment terms. Like we can’t just sit there and say, Oh, like you said, because I said, so it’s okay to frame it in a way that’s still. Benefits them and you can even close it with, you know, and I’m really sorry that this makes you uncomfortable. I’m not able to work with someone without a contract. My insurance company won’t insure me without a contract. it’s okay to say that.

Jamie Gruol: Mm hmm.

Jessica Smith: and the same thing too with people who are concerned about like being billed for like work upfront. Literally so many industries operate that way

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Jessica Smith: to think that you’re going to do all this work and hold all the risk, pay your staff, pay the software, pay for all these things with no like skin in the game, really, that this person is going to pay great.

You get a contract sign, but if you don’t get a payment. How, you know, how else are you securing, your bag, whatever you want to call it. And, and it’s, it’s okay to hold when a client objects to something that makes them uncomfortable and to clarify, like you said, why you’re doing it. and I think we need to get away from like this fear that people have over like pushback when really it’s just, you said, it’s just a, it’s, it’s usually a concern or a question.

And we need to, we need to find appropriate ways to respond to that without just like giving it. Especially with, like, the critical stuff.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah, I so agree. So I would love to have you share with us. We’re going to wrap it up here, but I would love for you to share with somebody who maybe is still doing a very manual process. Maybe they haven’t yet. Implemented tax dome and they haven’t yet gone to the level of automation that, you know but how can they make that decision that can benefit them, their business, their clients, their future clients, like, what would be your word of advice to them?

Jessica Smith: You know, I think with anything, you know, technology is advancing very, very quickly, and the sooner you embrace it, the sooner you are going to ideally get ahead in a lot of these industry changes that we’re seeing you know, we, we know there’s a shortage of accountants out there, so there’s not a shortage of work, but there is going to be a difference in the accountants that are like a smooth Client focused experience versus the ones who are still adopting old systems, you know, and while there are clients who still like, you know, in person meetings and drop off delivery. It doesn’t have to be that we leave them, out in the dust or or necessarily refer them to someone else, but we do have to be considerate of. Are these the right people for me in the long run? Am I going to consistently have to make changes to my process to accommodate these people? And mind you, these are people who are also living in today’s world and are being expected to use online systems for everything 

Jamie Gruol: right, they’re doctors,

Jessica Smith: have

Jamie Gruol: they’re dentists, the vet.

Jessica Smith: Yeah. There’s where we are ingrained in technology and a lot of the stuff, even that most firm owners can consider and implement don’t have to be like just the brightest and brand new technology. Something as simple as using a document sharing portal to deliver documents securely, as opposed to drop off or email. Those have been around for years.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah,

Jessica Smith: been around for years. So we need to stop this concept or this idea of, you know, clients, like they don’t like change. They have to embrace it. That’s just the state of the world right now. And these technology pieces are what are helping so many people serve their clients better. And that’s just the way I’d like to think about it.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. I agree. It’s a tool to make not only your business more valuable to your clients, but to make your life better. And yes, there is a learning curve. And yes, it takes a year or two to really get into the groove. But I can tell you that the people that we have worked with, and we’ve worked with over 800 practices at this point, the people that were hesitant at the beginning that actually left in and said, I’m doing this and I’m going to make this happen

Jessica Smith: Yeah.

Jamie Gruol: on the other side of that.

They are so glad that they did it and that they took the leap and that they had the support from us to make sure that they were doing it well. But the, just the confidence that they have on the other side of this about, okay, I can see myself working now for the next 10 or 15 years. Oh, and not feel a lot of anxiety about that or a lot of overwhelm.

So, it’s definitely worth it. Well, Jess, I appreciate you sharing your journey to getting kind of your new lead process dialed in. There’s so much more to that process, but I think the application is in the, the way that you’re thinking about it is such a critical thought process for people that are listening today.

So thank you for sharing.

Jessica Smith: to be here.

Jamie Gruol: All right, we’ll see you next episode and thanks for joining us on Diary of a Tax Practice Owner.