Episode 30 – How Josie Built a Boutique Tax Practice with Just 50 Clients and No Team

Jamie Gruol: Welcome back to this week’s episode of Diary of a Tax Practice Owner. I am so excited for today’s guest, not just because she is brilliant at what she does, but because she has lived the shift that so many tax professionals and accountants are working towards. I have with us Josie Parr and she is A-C-P-A-A tax strategist and the founder of Solo Tax Coach. . She started in a top 100 firm advising multimillion dollar businesses and now helps small firm owners build practices that are both profitable and peaceful. We have a lot in common there. She is also a past Workflows for Tax Pros client, and it has been such a joy.

Watching her create a business that she genuinely loves and is sharing with others, one that is hitting big revenue goals in just 20 hours a week. Yes. And we’re gonna talk about how she got there today. So we’re gonna dig into what it really does look like to balance profit and lifestyle as a solo firm owner, because I’m. Spending that it’s not always as simple as it sounds and how Josie has used tools like Tax Dome, smart automations, and niched based work to get there. So let’s get into this. Josie, how are you today?

Josie Parr: I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Jamie.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, I’m so excited. Josie, we in this podcast love to talk about the journey, the journey on how you got to this 20 hours. So can we start by going all the way back to Josie in the the top 100 firm when she made the decision that corporate life was no longer for her. And let’s talk about how you got to where you are today.

Josie Parr: Oh, well, thanks. You know, I get to share this story from time to time in the line of work that I’m in, and I feel like it. I always add in different pieces and parts, but I think the most important part is that none of this was planned, right? We’re planners. I’m a strategist. I tell people that every day I’m gonna do the planning for you, but when it comes to my path and the way my career unfolded it, it didn’t come as it expected.

In fact, I kind of chose accounting as a major haphazardly. Because I was getting matriculated into school from a part-time schedule, and they said, you’ve gotta pick something. And I said, business. And they said Too general. I’m like, oh, I liked my accounting class. And then we, I kind of fell into tax in a similar haphazard way in that I was working mostly in audit and I had a child.

And for you to have a flexible schedule audit didn’t really work well. It was not conducive to needing to pick someone up at a daycare. So I kind of went into tax because it was more flexible. But those were some of the best unplanned things that I’ve done because once I got into the tax world, I really, really started to enjoy my career and what I’ve done.

So I don’t think I would’ve ever said that I would be a tax accountant, but then I understood that. I love that. And that love carried me through. Recognizing that the top 100 firm was great, the experience I got. I love where I came from. Great respectable firm. I love some of the people there. I talked to still, you know, those partners, those mentors, those guides.

However, it took a lot of hours to work there. It was a lot of pressure and.

Jamie Gruol: And you had young kids, right?

Josie Parr: did and, and I tend to thrive under pressure, so I, I liked it for a really long time, but it started to interfere with my life and that’s when I said, Hey, I need to get out of here. But

Jamie Gruol: I, can I get a couple details? So

Josie Parr: sure.

Jamie Gruol: the, the traditional 60, 80 hour weeks with young kids going through tax season and just having those high pressure times? As a, a mom of young ones, I

Josie Parr: So sort of, I, I did start back when my child children were little. I worked a part-time modified schedule.

But in that world, it’s really hard to keep moving forward. Right. Meeting those top goals at that part-time level. We, we tried to make it work, but it didn’t really, so before I knew it, I had upped my hours to full-time and was working those 70, 80 plus hours sometimes weeks to get that work done with small children.

It was very stressful and, I’m a little bit of a workaholic, so it was hard for me not to do it right, to pull back when I needed to. So yes, I did. I, I did that grind. I worked tax seasons. I pretty much would get up and start doing taxes and then go until I fell asleep and get up the next day and do the same thing for those 10, 12 weeks during the year.

Jamie Gruol: Whew, well, something shift somewhere. So where was the shift of you realizing that that life, that corporate structure was no longer a fit for you because you eventually went out on your own? When did that happen?

Josie Parr: Well, so my husband and I decided, that we were going to move to Florida just like a lot of other people did. But we did this pre covid, pre pandemic. We were both really working like that and we recognized that it wasn’t healthy for our marriage and it wasn’t healthy for our kids. So we, we kind of.

Didn’t know how to disconnect. So we disconnected by basically moving ourselves, you know, to Florida. And it was always our dream to be snowbird. So we thought, let’s just do it now, let’s get there now. And I started down, in Florida at a couple firms and it was really very similar, right? And one thing that I learned from that experience that I’d love to share with anyone that feels like, gosh, I didn’t work at her firm, but it feels the same.

The same issues existed. One firm was about the same size, one was smaller, but staffing was a problem. Ours were a problem. Making sure your budgets were met, your time goals, like all of those things that existed, existed in each firm. And I even looked and looked for when I realized it wasn’t working. I looked and looked for a place to land, and it was just gonna be more and more of the same.

I felt defeated and exhausted, not invigorated and motivated to start my own practice, but it was a recognition that if I really wanted things to work in a way that was more conducive to the lifestyle I wanted, I had to create it myself, and that is what led me to start my own practice.

Jamie Gruol: So what was the lifestyle you were trying to create and , what was it that recognized internally that you were like,, this, ’cause there is always a calling, right? Like for a lot of people it is. Health issues, relationship issues, it can be a blow up of like the business itself. Like they get pushed out by a partner or whatever it can look like, but there’s often a trigger.

So you and your husband had to, you made the big move, which was a part of that. But was there a, an internal strife that pushed you into being like, no, I’m going back into creating again, the same position, the same experience that I, we were running from. Are you like, was there a moment?

Josie Parr: I think there was, there’s always one defining moment where I knew I was finally ready to start my own practice, but what led me to the moment where I was ready to do that, right? There were, there’s a certain confidence level you need to have to start your own practice. You’re basically saying, I’m going to take all the risk on my own shoulders.

I’m gonna do that. Am I capable? Am I ready? What’s that gonna be like? And there’s fear, right? But anyone that’s an entrepreneur who I’ve served for years, right? I watched them take risk. It was really hard to take the risk myself. So that moment, the place where I was, was recognizing that I had moved and taken away some of that, um, environment that wasn’t working well and kind of just fell right back in, looked left, looked right.

That’s all that existed, you know? So I knew that. I was just gonna get more of the same, those hours, and it was, I, I can pinpoint the moment that I said that’s it. Two, working a Saturday over busy season. I. On something,, that was, uh, anyone that’s done this before knows it, it was, it was, it was given to me.

The person who prepared it was not qualified. That was not their fault. They just didn’t have the skills and knowledge, the experience to do it. And I’m, I’m cleaning up the mess and I go to the office on Monday and I basically carried the whole thing myself and I made sure I billed well. I gave them that money and they wrote a check and I looked at it and it was, it was not my name.

I did all the work and it was somebody else’s name. Co coordinating this. At the same time, the partner that I was working for, I found out was car shopping over the weekend. So I’m over here missing time with my family and they’re out buying a new car and then I am handing this money over. And it was just that realization.

I’m like, you did all the work.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Josie Parr: you basically from start to scratch with this client, and here you are giving this check. What’s stopping you from doing it? And it was just that little nudge and that, that moment, the defining moment where I’m like, I have the skills and knowledge. I, I’ve carried the weight myself, and the only way I’m gonna make.

And it was a really hard client to serve. Jamie, the client was a very difficult client and I couldn’t say no to serving the client, right? The firm brought the client in, right? A very difficult client, and I thought the only way I’m gonna be able to fix this is if I kind of figure this out on my own, using my own set of boundaries in my own roles in my new firm.

That client wasn’t gonna exist, and I kept to that. They don’t exist anymore.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. so Josie, I don’t think that there are many people that don’t recognize that exact same moment that they’ve e even if they haven’t taken action after it, they have experienced that if they have worked in a firm of any size and or for anyone else as a tax professional or accountant. I, I wanna acknowledge you on that because one of the things that I always remind myself as a small business owner is, is that I get to choose my hard. hard to be a small business owner. It’s hard to figure it out. It’s hard to learn how to operate a business, but it’s also hard to work for somebody else and be put into like pigeonholed in those moments, to be held back, to not be acknowledged, to feel like you’re the one carrying the bulk of the weight and their partner is just experiencing the benefits of that. And so. You get to choose your heart in life, and you chose your heart in that moment and you said, I’m going to create for me. So you knew what kind of clients you didn’t wanna work with. You knew what kind of work you were capable of doing, and you knew that you had the tenacity and the skill to make it happen.

So what happened next?

Josie Parr: Well, I, I just did it. I started and lo and behold, COVID hit and I was instantly panicked, right? So I’m like, all right, I’m gonna do this. And then like three months into it, I started in December of 2019, in March of 2020. But I had laid some groundwork, uh, networking with shared with everybody. Right. I told people.

So anybody that’s thinking of support a firm or hasn’t done it yet, like you have to tell people. You have to go out and say, I have my own firm now and I am looking for clients. Right. You have to be direct about that. There are the, there are, there are professional ways, there are soft ways to say it. Uh, nothing, nothing turns me off more than meeting someone and them throwing their business card in my face, you know?

Changed some of that information. Right. But, um, but I, I did that, I told people that I had a firm and I started to get clients. And because of the situation that was going on, um, I, I had a, a, a fear that I was not gonna get clients. So I started to do it. Um, I did have boundaries in place and I did say no to some work, but I started to get a little worried and started to take on just about any type of work that came in that I knew that I could handle.

But before, before I knew it, it was, it was out of control. Right? I was doing a little bit of bookkeeping, a little bit of international tax, personal tax, business tax. Oh, a little bit of CFO work, and it was really hard to manage as a solar practitioner. And my choice at that point, if I was gonna continue that way, would be to burn myself out again.

Right. Go right back where I was. Hire people and manage people, which I wasn’t quite ready to do just then. Right? That was not the point I was at, or to figure out something else, and that’s what I did. I figured something else out and I was listening to a training or a podcast, and I heard the words from the person on the podcast that said, you don’t have to do everything.

If you like tax, just do tax. If you like bookkeeping, just do bookkeeping. Very simple, very basic, but sometimes hearing someone else say, it is just what you need. And that’s what I needed. I needed to hear that you don’t have to do it all, you do tax. So that’s what I did, right? I, I went out, I had that, that epiphany moment.

I started my on my own it quickly. And this was, this what the. Was within months, Jamie, I didn’t do it for two years or three years. And I know there are people out there that have, that’s not wrong. It doesn’t mean you can’t make a change, but I was kind of at a point through my journey that I was, alright, you, you made this big change.

Don’t don’t let it go. Don’t blow it, right?

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Josie Parr: get back your life how you want to have this. So I then started to put all my effort and energy in figuring out how I was gonna build a tax only practice as a solo practitioner.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. And so where did you start? Did you let go of all of those other clients or, and like just disengage with them? Or did you do kind of like a, a transition period with them and just kind of close out your, your engagements with those

Josie Parr: Mm-hmm. So some of them were, uh, transactional, so it was easy to just wrap up the transactions. And then while I had work and I was, uh, profitable, uh, many of them still were tax-based, so it wasn’t a a, a very large. Amount of my business that was in the wrong place. I had just started. I had a clean slate.

This is different than a lot of other people, right? I had this clean slate, so I recognized it early enough that I just stopped taking that work on or transition some of that work I.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Josie Parr: from my practice to someone else. And I did that, over time, uh, I, I was so worried. You, you get this scarcity mindset when you go out on your own, right?

When you are now relying on the income coming in, you now are also recognizing that, , that there’s no one there to catch you if you fall, so to speak. And that doesn’t, that, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna say that in a way that makes it scary, but, but there is no. Paycheck coming if you do not have clients, right.

If you are at a big firm, they’re, they’re still gonna give you your paycheck. Whether you worked on high, high revenue clients that week or ones that weren’t profitable, right? Your, your pay still comes. So, so there was a lot of fear in that.

Jamie Gruol: Well, and I wanna actually shift ’cause I went through that same, same thought process as I was leaving corporate six figure position going out on my own, like how scary that is. But one thing I always reminded myself is that even though I was employed, that position could go away tomorrow and that paycheck could stop and then you have to go and find another position.

All of those things. And yes, this industry, like people of technical skill are in high demand, but I want anyone that’s like, oh, but that’s why I’m so scared to leave, is that security of that paycheck. Just remember the best bet you can ever make is on yourself. Right. I, you now Josie, know that you could go out tomorrow and you could go to a networking event.

You could say, Hey, I’m Josie, I do taxes. I’d like to meet you and find clients. Right? Like, you now have the skills to do that, and you have the skills to back it up to do the work, right? So, but I’m with you like that scarcity mindset in those early years, it’s so easy to just be like, I’ll take you and you and you and you, and then all of a sudden you’re like, oh my God, I’m working with people I cannot stand. But just know that you can pivot. So anyone that’s listening. So Josie, I know you work with a lot of solo practitioners and people that have maybe been doing this for years. What would be like a couple of tips that you would give them about, one, making the decision to make the shift and then how to make the

Josie Parr: Okay, so if you’re working for someone else right now and you’re looking to make that shift, I think. Recognizing that, uh, the path to do doing that doesn’t have to be the path that I took. It can be the path that works for you, right? So maybe you don’t want to do tax, like this is, this is tax practice owners, right?

And you wanna do CFO work or maybe you want to do CFO and tax work, right? Understanding what you wanna do. Um. Or if you have a different vision isn’t wrong. However, I do think that, um, starting to recognize or understand what your goal, what your goal for this is. Will really help you as you build your practice.

If you just start like I did, I, I caught it pretty quickly. I had that clean slate. But if you just start like I did and take every business on or every client and don’t know what that looks like, um, so because you want revenue, you’re gonna have a hard time managing it. On the flip side, if you have this very narrow image of what your ideal client’s gonna look like, you’re, you’re gonna, it’s gonna be hard to find them.

Marketing and finding clients is hard, right? That’s, that’s a skill. That’s a actic, right? So, so there’s that. So allow yourself, if you’re starting this on your own, allow yourself a little bit of room. Give yourself some grace. I don’t know that you have to be very narrow and focused like I am now. But I do think you have to have some type of high level plan.

I am going to offer these three services, right? Or I’m gonna offer this service, or I wanna start in a couple industries. And I didn’t know what industry I wanted to focus on. I work mostly with co coaches and consultants now, but that wasn’t clear to me when I started. So I had some other clients.

Doesn’t mean you can’t take those clients, but, but having that framework that, that framework that narrows it from just. I’m Josie, and I do taxes too.

Jamie Gruol: Right.

Josie Parr: I do taxes for small business owners and I do tax strategy plans, or I want to work with businesses that have a certain revenue level or I want to work with all people in the construction industry can really help you, um, when you are starting to market or you’re not finding clients because then you are directing those right clients to you.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. I love that. I think it is so critical when you do start, because I know Jessica did this kind of the same thing, right? Like she came from a, a, an industry where she knew she didn’t wanna work with this type of person, but she started very broad in the beginning and she has also narrowed down to her ideal client now and, and has developed her niche, if you will, and becoming the.

The go-to in that space that she’s fallen into. , one thing that I wanna just throw out too is, is for people around the mindset is giving yourself permission to experiment as well, especially when you’re starting. I think if you want to take on somebody and they say, Hey, can you do my books? And you’re like, I don’t know what it would be like to do books.

1. Maybe take them on in a trial or an experiment and tell them I’m gonna do a bookkeeping cleanup for you and we’re gonna get your books tidied up over the next three months. And then we’ll talk about what it would look like to work long-term together, right? Like don’t go in to a multi-year contract with somebody as an experiment, but give them a short run where you can test and see if, one, do you like doing this service? And two. Is this something that you can see yourself doing for more people beyond this one client? And that can help you kind of, kind of suss out exactly where you want to land in your, your ideal business as well. So, um, that served me really well and gave me the permission to try new things without feeling like. I have to, you know, sign a client and, and serve them for the next 18 months because that’s what is expected of me, right? I can instead do something a little bit smaller scale and just try it out and then be okay with ending it if it doesn’t feel right.

Josie Parr: That’s excellent advice, Jamie, and I’ll build on what you said from. When we use the word experiment, you know that, that way experimenting with clients, we don’t, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna have never done a tax return and then, and then say you are a tax expert right there.

There’s a lot of space, there’s a lot of ways you need to go along that path. Right? But, but you are allowed to. , I’ll say, in a space where you have enough comfort to test the waters, right, you’re testing the waters. Do I wanna offer bookkeeping services? You’re testing the waters. Do I want to separate out, , some work from compliance and start offering an advisory package?

Testing is the best way to see that. I remember. Many, many years ago, um, being upset over a mistake, and they’re like, oh, that’s how you learn the, the most, right? Making a mistake on a tax return and having someone review it and tell you what that mistake is, or goodness sake forbid, God forbid, that they, it goes out the door with that mistake, which many have happened in my experience, right.

I’ll never remember. I’ll never remember. And he’ll, he’ll know it if he listens to this. Um, I was very distraught of something. He goes, he goes, you know how you don’t forget to enter estimated taxes? I said, no. He goes, you leave off a half a million dollar payment and then, then you’ll know because the client will tell you.

Right? He said, he said, I

Jamie Gruol: I’ll.

Josie Parr: misestimate now whether it’s a dollar or $500,000. Right? So, so sometimes the way that we learn, we almost have to do it. Not quite right in order to get to the right spot. Bringing on a few bookkeeping clients and realizing you don’t wanna be do bookkeeping is not necessarily wasted time or wasted energy.

It’s, it’s recognizing that that’s not what you wanna do,

Jamie Gruol: Mm-hmm.

Josie Parr: I routinely reinvent whatever’s not working in my practice.

Jamie Gruol: I love that.

Josie Parr: So I don’t have it here altogether. And if I would tell you, if you would come sit with me for a week and I would show you exactly what I did, and you said, I’m gonna model that, you would be very disappointed in two months when you come back, because I’ll be doing different things.

And you’d be like, you didn’t tell me that because I wasn’t doing it then. Right? So.

Jamie Gruol: You are experimenting right?

Josie Parr: Well, and, and, and they’re smaller iterations Now. I, I will say that having done this now for five years, um, on my own, you know, and having the other couple decades behind me with the other experience, it’s much easier to figure out what is working and what’s not and kind of pull in that direction.

But there’s still things that just don’t. Just don’t work or a software changes, or there’s a new tax law and then you adapt and change for that. I don’t, I don’t know that you can expect from anything, um, from, from adding, you know, what you do with automations or from, you know, narrowing down or finding a niche that you might not have to make iterations to.

That, that’s a, a pretty, um. Um, naive approach. If you’re gonna be an entrepreneur, you have to expect that there, the risks are gonna change, the industries are gonna change. Uh, you, you’ve gotta be aware of that, but being prepared for it or being willing to recognize that is what’s going to sustain you and keep you through.

Jamie Gruol: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Without innovating, without optimizing, you will. You will grow stagnant and you will stop growing. Right? That that is a given, and I think that’s one of the things that what we see with the people that we work with, the, you know, a thousand practices now. The ones that are thriving and the ones that are like, I’m living my best life.

My practice is finally good. I feel peaceful. I feel organized. They’re the ones that are open to change. They’re the ones that are constantly innovating. They’re the ones that are constantly looking at how can I serve my clients better? How can I work smarter? is where it happens. And I think for you, the result has been, you’ve seen very healthy profit in your business with just yourself.

Right. And, and I would love to kind of shift our conversation in the next couple minutes to how have done that and how systems have helped you in maintaining that profitability and the ability to keep it at 20 hours a week.

Josie Parr: No, that that’s excellent. Uh, an excellent point with how, how do you do this by yourself? Right. And number one, for me, recognizing that I wanted to have a smaller, niche based practice was really helpful and also kept me. In line, right? I have to keep myself in line to follow those boundaries, right? If I don’t wanna hire 50 people, right?

I, I can’t, I can’t do a thousand returns. Or if I was trying to do a thousand tax returns, it would exhaust me that, that level of burnout. I, I don’t know how you would manage that, or at least me. There are probably some other people that might be able to do it, but the type of client I wanna serve, the way I wanna do that, and I always said, I don’t wanna have to track.

500 engagement letters, right? I don’t wanna have to track 500 invoices. I want this to be something that I can manage. In addition to that, I also wanted to be able to offer white glove service to my clients. I wanted to be more than just the tax return, prepare. I wanted to be their advisor, and so I needed to structure that in a way.

That would allow for me to be the one that could do that. I do have help part-time, and I can share more about that if you wanna talk about that. So it’s not just me doing every single piece of it. You can bring people in and leverage it, but really when we think about who’s the strategist, I’m the strategist for my clients.

That’s who they talk to. I’m the one that does the strategy. How can I still be profitable and be the one doing that without burning and crashing? Absolutely with using systems, processes, and automations. I was fortunate to grow up, I say grow up right, a tax accountant. I grew up in a firm that was large enough that it was imperative to have systems and processes in place because who?

Everybody, a different person could be touching it from a different office. Different levels you prepare on one return, the next 10 returns could be a different preparer, right? So if we didn’t have the same rules, you couldn’t get it through the process, right? We need, they needed to know what their role was to get to the next step.

And then once it was at that next step, they needed to know what their role was to get it over right. Every step was very important.

Jamie Gruol: I am willing to bet they weren’t using spreadsheets and paper documents floating around the office either.

Josie Parr: No, at the beginning, right? Even then, even back then, before all of this digitization there, the paper there were co, the papers were color coded, and then there were boxes that you checked it. It was the, basically those workflows didn’t change. They just put them in through the systems that they were using, right?

Everybody has a system, so growing up with those systems, learning. The field by utilizing those systems. I started with systems. I, I didn’t just start now. I couldn’t afford the fancy systems. I couldn’t afford the fancy systems when I first came out on my own right. I was worried about getting revenue, let alone, you know, taking in, using all that revenue to support the business with expenses and costs.

So I had to be a little bit scrappy and figure that out. But I still had systems in place. I, I still kept that same. Is, am I in a review stage, am I in a delivery stage? And, then expanded that and adapted it to work for a solo practice.

Jamie Gruol: Yeah. , before we go any further, how many clients are you serving now?

Josie Parr: , I, I don’t know the actual count. Um, uh, I, I, I do them in client groups, but I always know how many returns I prepare. So I repaired

Jamie Gruol: Yeah.

Josie Parr: less than 50 returns this tax season. So that’ll help. Yes.

Jamie Gruol: very lean, very, very white glove. I love it. Very boutiquey working 20 hours a week, but you have, like, you’re making enough to support yourself in a full-time salary or take home is, is sufficient for you to to live on, which is amazing.

Josie Parr: Mm-hmm. No, it it my practice. Um, and, and once you start going, like, your practice can be a lever, like that’s what works for me right now. You know, I, I still have there, there. Technically adults. I call them kids ’cause they’re my babies or, but I still have children that I’m, you know, getting through college and getting them started out in life.

I wanna have time to do that, but, but it can be a lever, you know? Um, you can, you can, you can have a practice at the size that you want. Maybe I’ll grow it more in the future. Probably. My daughter’s going to school to be a CPA, right? So, so we’ll need to bring her in and she’ll want her set of clients, right.

But, but you can use that as a lever and you can keep that where you want. So the very best thing about modeling a small practice and being successful at 20 hours allows you then to build the life that you want. For me, I’ve shared this separately. I don’t know if I said it in the podcast yet, but I can be a little bit of a workaholic, so I’ve just turned that into a separate business, right?

So my firm truly works at 20 hours, but now I’m doing my coaching business on the side. But if I didn’t have my firm set up. With those specific procedures, all of the things that I can manage, I would never be able to integrate something else in like I do now.

Jamie Gruol: A hundred percent. And I think that is the one theme that I, we’ve had from a lot of people who have built these businesses that become very streamlined, very efficient, using S And as I mentioned, Josie powers hers with tax Do, which I love for you. , and that allows you to keep your part-time admin, you know, the person that comes in and just helps keep kind of things buzzing on the back end for you while you’re the front facing. , but let’s talk a little bit about the coaching because you’ve taken all that you have learned over the last couple years and you have created a program of your own. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re doing with your, your program and what it’s called?

Josie Parr: Sure, sure. I, I didn’t, , start out with the intention of building a coaching practice, but I would share with other owners, people out in the community, you know, you start to join a face. Facebook group here and, meet some local CPAs. You’ve got contacts who also have, um, decided that, you know, those big large public accounting firms weren’t for them and gone out and started their own practice, would just share what I did and they’d ask if I would share and help them too.

And I started to do one-off coaching in my firm and realized that there was a need for it. So I started to a separate company. It’s called Solo Tax Coach, and I train and teach other solo practitioners. How to build a firm that matches the profit level and the lifestyle that they want. And they don’t have to be exactly like my, um, makeup, right?

But most people are looking to work less hours and make more money, right? That’s who, who doesn’t want more of that? , but that’s, that’s what I focus on. And I do that with two things. I have a community. For firm owners, uh, that we meet and we leverage and grow. And that’s meant to be more. It’s not a, it’s not a course or a program.

You go through. You basically go in there. We, we have educational materials, we have q and a sessions, we have networking, co-working, um, and then I spend a lot more time in the tax strategy space where I, I teach the model that I have. I teach that model where I bring in just tax strategy clients that are small business owners.

I vet them. I walk through how to, uh, utilize, uh, tax returns to find strategies, build out strategies using a five step workflow that we use, and then we teach some essential strategies to get you started, walk through a pricing method, a method to propose and sell it, and the actual documents to then implement that tax strategy for those clients.

Jamie Gruol: I love that. I think there are so many people that are providing. The compliance side that have over the years developed the skills where they can step in to that advisory side so easily. They just need that framework. So if you are somebody that is feeling that, I think that you should definitely check out Josie’s, what Josie offers.

I know you have a group coming up at the end of May, um, which is great, but you also offer another round in the fall, is that correct?

Josie Parr: So that program’s offered two times per year. It’s called the SMB. Tax strategy solution, uh, that’s the name I went with. It’s a little bit of a mouthful there, but don’t worry. Just it’s tax strategy and it is geared for you to serve your small to medium sized business clients, right? This, this is not the program that says you have to save your client a hundred thousand dollars.

Well, if your client’s not paying a hundred thousand dollars in tax, that makes it hard. I always say this is, this is the real way for us to serve our small to medium sized businesses, the people that are actually stepping in the door in our practice, the people that are using Tax do on the other end, right?

My clients are using tax Do, they’re all small business clients, most of them, you know, some have notable revenues, but there are many that might only be half a million dollars in revenue, maybe bottom line, a few hundred thousand dollars, and I’m still able to serve them, offer them strategy, offer them advisory services.

Jamie Gruol: Absolutely. And that, that’s so helpful. There’s a lot of people out there in that category that are paying a lot more than they need to be paying and you can help ’em. So I love that you’re offering that. Now you have coming up in August, a summit that is third year, fourth year. I can’t remember.

Josie Parr: This will be the third time we’re hosting the summit, and Jamie has been a part of it each year, and I’m happy to say I have, , asked her, invited her, and she’s agreed to come back, but. It’s called the Profitable Lifestyle Firm Summit, and really those words, profitable lifestyle firm. That’s what I do in my coaching.

That’s what the goal is. It’s to get as many people as possible whether you are focusing only in tax, whether you’re doing bookkeeping or some other type of accounting. The summit is meant for accounting and tax professionals, and it’s a free event that we hold over a a three day period. And we have some workshops, we have speakers, and they really focus on anything that solo and small practitioners might find helpful ways for you to discover, , services, get some tips, and there’s, there’s lots of free resources.

There’s some resources you can, you know, there’s opportunities to get some additional resources. Uh, and it’s worked out really well. We’ve had over a thousand, um, attendees each year. Maybe we’ll have more. Um, but, uh, it, it’s, uh, it’s been a, a blessing to be a part of. Uh, to, to watch other tax professionals specifically find that balance, that profitable lifestyle firm.

It is possible. It is not the easiest. It’s possible. I tell people I resign. I resign three times a week. Right. You know, and then I just get back up the next day and keep going. But you can find balance. Um, so if you are interested, check that out. I think you’ll probably have.

Jamie Gruol: drop it below, uh, in the show notes. So do it, get on the wait list if it’s not close to August, uh, and then join us there. It’s gonna be great. We, we have people that sign up for that every year. They love it. They love coming because you pull together a lot of the industry experts that are talking, talking about different. of what it means to build that lifestyle firm, whether it’s security automations, that what we talk about, sales, there’s so many different categories that you bring in together, and I think it’s really powerful for people to be exposed to that. So if you’re a solo practitioner or somebody who’s thinking about going out on their own, it’s a great way to. Just open up your horizon to what’s possible and what others are doing that is working for them, or expertise that they can like, just share nuggets with you so that you can start planting those seeds. So when you are ready to make pivots ready to go for more profit, ready to build that lifestyle business. Uh, you have the resources and some ideas about what you can do to get there, and I love that you bring that together every year. So thank you for doing

Josie Parr: That’s a great thing to say and I, I would just like to add in, uh. I have leveraged, uh, not just the peers that I have, the colleagues, I have my own knowledge, you know, my own intuition, but other programs, right? I didn’t just create this magically or it wasn’t planted, A seed wasn’t planted that would only, you know, uh, could only be nurtured by my own thoughts or the, the ideas that I have.

Absolutely. I take and tweak them. But look around in the industry. I was a, I am a proud alumni of Jamie and Jessica’s workflows for Tax Pros. Um, uh, that I, I started that at a time where I, I needed a little support myself. I was just starting to build out some of these things and it was great to be in a room full of other people who were trying to automate their firms and understanding where that leverage came from.

I actually do a presentation in my group where I show my workflows and I go through and I name the people in my workflow and I have one and I don’t remember what I named, um, this person. And we walk through and I have my part-time person. And then when we’re done, I let them know that the person I. I can’t remember what my, uh, my pseudo name is.

Right. But that’s actually ome. It’s not a person. But I, I literally, from using Jamie and, and Jessica’s program, from leaning in, being aware and understanding those automations have what other people consider to be a person. And if I wouldn’t tell them that they, they think there’s a third person working for me in my firm when it’s really just the two that are doing it over time.

So.

Jamie Gruol: love that. I love that. And it, you know, having those automation bots on your side, they really are another hire into your team and it can make. the hire that never stops working. It’s the 24 7 employee that we all wish we could afford

Josie Parr: Yeah, so.

Jamie Gruol: that never let you down.

Josie Parr: Yeah, so, so don’t, don’t shy away from looking for other help. You don’t have to, even though solo sometimes feel like you’re the only one there, like you, you’ve got to like find other resources. I’m going to a conference next week with other firm owners, right? I don’t just sit here and, and, you know, do things one way or my way.

I look for other people that are leading other models that might have synergy with mine, and I, and I focus on that as well.

Jamie Gruol: Oh, I love that, Josie. I love that. Well, let’s wrap it up there. This has been such a wonderful talk. Thank you so much for your vulnerable shares, sharing about your recovery from workaholism and how you gave yourself the boundaries to be able to build that lifestyle. First business. We are huge champions of that here, and freedom is our.

Northern Star, so just keep doing what you’re doing, Josie. Keep sharing the word. We’re so excited to continue to support you and all the great work you’re bringing to this industry. So thanks for being a guest today. Really appreciate it.

Josie Parr: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a pleasure. I love working with you and Jessica Love workflows for Tax Pros and, and truly love being a firm owner. So I hope that there’s a nugget or something for anyone there. Anyone wants to reach out to me. I always say if you send me an email, I’ll answer it.

So go ahead and, and

Jamie Gruol: it. Love

Josie Parr: reach out.

Jamie Gruol: Google, Josie Par. You will find her and we appreciate it. And thank you for joining us for this episode of Diary Your Tax Practice Owner. We will return again next time with another story and the journey to their success. Hope you have a great day, and thanks again Josie. See

Josie Parr: Bye.