292 Running A Half-Time Tax Advisory Practice ft. Josie Parr

Josie Parr ran into her at a conference. Super smart lady made running a super profitable halftime firm just sound really easy and trivial to do. So I was like, let's, can we just, can we just talk more? Can we hop on a podcast and just pick your brain a little bit? A lot of things where it's like, this is so incredibly hard for folks. What about this? Just if it seems like it feels easier for you, like there's some frameworks that we can steal, that sort of thing. But then she also got into coaching other firms. And I'm always fascinated about people's evolution from I'm a firm runner, I'm insecure usually and how do I have the audacity to then turn around and act like I know what I'm doing right? So we're going to get into that. We're going to geek out on, on running hyper profitable firms halftime. So without further ado, here's Josie Park. Okay, Josie, thank you so much for being here. For folks that haven't met you or haven't seen you out in the wild, aren't familiar with what you do. What's like the 32nd Josie intro?

Well, I am a, an owner of a solopreneur tax firm. I do have some part time employees that help me out with bookkeeping and some busy work over tax season, but it's pretty much me. And I operate specifically in tax strategy. I'm a CPA and I have a master's in taxation. So those are my credentials. What's really neat, other than those credentials and those official things that people usually look for, is that I love tax. I love doing strategy. And I found a way to make a firm that operates for me so that I can be profitable, make the kind of money that I need to make that makes me happy in life, and also have all of the balance that I need with time and flexibility. So that's, that's really what I do and I love sharing how I do that with others when it's appropriate so that they can hopefully do that too.

So we met in Florida at a PASBA conference and I think the, what I remember most about that conversation is there was just like a sense of like, oh yeah, I do this and it's, it's X, Y and Z and it's this much work and it's a pretty chill gig. And even as we were chatting before we hit record, uh, like you, you make it sound, you take things that are, that are very hard and you make them sound easy or like simple or Maybe you've kind of got it distilled to, I don't know, like an. An easier to follow framework than most people have. But just like the state of things today. Walk me through just your firm running. I know you do some coaching. I know you run an annual event. Just the firm running. Like what goes into the firm? How much work is that for you? What does the lifestyle around that look like?

So I will build upon what you said when you say it's simple. I have a simple approach to everything. That doesn't mean achieving or taking. The actions are simple, but I think it's very common for people to overcomplicate things that can be simple. So the way I run my firm, the way I started my firm, and it took a while, it didn't happen, you know, just from the beginning, but was by focusing on the things that I needed to focus on. They were three simple things. I didn't want to work I hours that I worked when I was in public accounting. I only want to work with people I like and I wanted to make sure I could manage it and I was having a good time while I do it. I love doing tax returns, so that's what I do every day now. So I only work with small business owners that need a tax strategy plan. And my goal is to remain small and focused. So every client that I bring on for a proposal, I let them know that they'll never see me with more than 30 to 50 clients because I want to be able to give them that white glove service. And every client that I work with needs a tax strategy plan. So I typically work all day, every day on a small number of clients, making sure they're getting the best type of service that they can get when it comes to their tax situation. And of course we expand a little bit into bookkeeping and helping them with some other financial needs. That's really what I do. And when I say I spend all day, every day doing that, that's during those working hours I've been able to boil it down to really a part time job with a full time salary.

Okay, so you said you only work with folks who need like proactive kind of tax strategy, not just doing the tax return, but actual script strategy SMBs. This is this probably the biggest opportunity for most tax firms is they're doing either a very basic version of this or even selling a version of where they don't fully understand the value of it yet. And I know a lot of blockers, a lot of times the blocker can be Can I really justify this big expensive engagement for an SMB client? Would you say that this is something that more SMBs need than we realize, or is it the kind of thing where you've found a type of SMB that super benefits from this and those specifically are the ones you're going after?

So I think there are a lot of ways that you can be successful doing this. You can work with some of the larger clients that can, can really sustain some of these fees without thinking about it. Right. You're just working in strategy. They just want to know the fee and you move on. But when we move it down to that small to medium sized business space, people get worried about value pricing and charging for that. And I believe that it's because the focus is on what the price is or whether or not the SMB will pay that. And rather, I actually think it goes back to the tax professional understanding the value of what they're providing and communicating that to the small to medium sized business client and showing them how it's beneficial. And then they don't mind paying that. Right. You're saving them fees. You're, they're paying you fees, but then you're saving them dollars they would send to the irs. And I always say if, if your tax, if your client pays the irs, short of there being some kind of refund for an overpayment, Right. The IRS is not sending that money back to you. Right. So it's in the best interest of both the tax professional and the client to see what they can do to make those savings. And the tax strategy I offer is not complicated. I am not doing some of the fancier, more advanced strategy for the small clients. For the larger clients, absolutely. But there's a space in the middle that if everybody finds, I think they'll be thrilled with the amount of fee that they can charge. Can you charge a really small client $10,000 a month? Probably not, but you can certainly charge them maybe eight, nine hundred, a thousand dollars per month, get $12,000 a year and spend five or six hundred or five or six hours serving them. And that's that, that's that middle piece where you get that, that benefit from doing the strategies.

Well, how would you define a, when you say a really small client, like what's, how would you define that? Is that a revenue size, headcount size?

Yeah. So a lot of people start with revenue size, but I look more. All of those things combined with tax savings can get them to the spot that they're paying those amounts.

Got to this place where you're at, like, it sounds like a pretty sweet gig, more or less half time making, presumably what more than what you were making before when you were doing this for somebody else was something that you didn't own.

Right.

In fact, you said you left public accounting. Do you not consider what you do now public accounting?

I think when I say I left public accounting, I think I left the traditional public accounting firm structure and I now work on my own in a way where I get to just serve clients and I don't need to worry about the corporate world, the office politics, and all of those things that come along with that environment. But yeah, sure, I still do work in public accounting.

You left the machine, though. And what was the state you found yourself in when you made the jump? Cause that's a scary jump to make. Like, where were you at? And I guess kind of what put you over the top?

Well, and this is where you like to have a really good story about, you know, being motivated and being, you know, brave. But quite frankly, I was just overwhelmed, burnt out and done. And I knew I didn't want to stay where I was at. I had interviewed at multiple firms, I talked to a ton of different people, and I realized that none of the public firms that were in a bigger space were going to work for me. And I also didn't want to go outside of public accounting and do into the corporate world. So I was left with, how do you still do tax when you're not going to work for a firm? And the only option that seemed to work was to work for myself. So while I'd like to say I had this very intentional plan about going out and changing the world and starting this wonderful firm, I really just wanted the pressure that came along with public accounting to, to, to, you know, go away. And I just wanted to keep serving tax clients. It was pretty simple.

So you've got this kind of framework now. You feel like you've, you're on top of it, but it surely didn't start that way. Right? Like, how did you, how did you find your very first clients? Like, what were the things that you bungled in those first few years that most folks, if they're doing the same, are probably gonna. Where they're probably gonna make the same mistake.

Yeah. So my mistakes are probably similar mistakes to what anyone when they started out are doing or if they're starting out now, might be thinking that they're making or realizing. But I did the same things as other people. Right. I was a little bit worried. I Did leave my job, I left my salary and I didn't have a lot of clients, so I was worried that I wouldn't have revenue. So I took on work that even though I knew I wanted to do tax and I was very specific about that, I started to take on too many other things. Right. So. And I tell this story a lot, so if you've heard me before, you heard it before. But you know, before I knew it, I was, I was pretty much answering yes to everything. Hey, do you do bookkeeping? Yeah, I can do bookkeeping. Hey, what about this? Can you do a little bit of CFO work? Absolutely. I'm an accountant. I know how to do that. Okay, what about this? Can you. You know, I did a lot of international tax when I was at the larger firm, I was at a large regional firm. I, I did a lot of manufacturing, construction. Yep, I'll do those. Okay, excellent. How about some trust? Do you want to do some, you know, estate planning and trust work? Fine. That's great. Well, I didn't have a team anymore. It was just me. So I quickly realized that even though I was pricing well because I didn't have the support in the team or it was work that I wasn't doing regularly, I was spending a lot more hours and time. So my, my, you know, my fee really wasn't. Even though it would be a good fee if I could just, you know, do the work, I was really not making a lot. So that was really the biggest mistake that I made was taking anything that came through the door. It wasn't blind though. I did have, I set some boundaries for myself and I would encourage anyone who is starting a firm or who's in a firm now that is feeling overwhelmed to set a boundary. And one of those boundaries I did, it was, it's silly, it's not going to sound like a lot. And we, you know, I, I kind of laugh at my own self now, but I'm like, I'm not taking any job that's not a thousand dollars. Right. So if I can't, if I can't earn at least a thousand dollars on a tax return, you know, then I don't want to do it. So I did set boundaries. That was the right thing. I did the wrong thing was a thousand dollar bookkeeping engagement was the same to me as a thousand dollar CFO engagement as, as was a tax return. And that was too much to keep up with.

So would you agree that a lot of this kind of success and freedom, a lot of folks are running Their solo practice, they've got all the clients they can handle. Maybe they're at capacity and working 40 hours, but not making what they need to make or not making as much as they could. Is it simply a pricing thing? And obviously there's a lot of things that go into pricing, but is that the most common issue for firms or is it being specific about client profiles or what are the, maybe the best things people need to focus on to get to that next step?

I think pricing is probably the most common thing, but that may not even matter. I do some coaching. I think we'll talk about that a little bit. I, I have students in my program that are very successful and they're, they're doing smaller compliance oriented jobs, but they have a system in place that allows them to still make a profit and not work like crazy doing that. So price is price. Price matters, but it doesn't have to matter. You can set yourself up, up to still be successful with price. Repeat a little bit more of the question. Sorry I got so involved in the pricing there.

Yeah, for the price is one thing, but like client profile, like are there other things that folks out of cherry pick beyond pricing or maybe in addition to pricing that are kind of the things to prioritize? Because we get told to do a million things and it's sometimes hard to know just where to start.

Honestly, the biggest thing for me is working with clients that I like in an area that I want to work in. So that doesn't have to. For me, it's tax strategy. And at the beginning, and I repeat this over and over, I work with small business owners who need tax strategy services. I even go further than that. I have a niche within that. I work with coaches and consultants, mainly the same type of people. Right. So when I bring new business into my firm, I focus on that and I only work with those clients. When you do that, everyone with a scarcity mindset, someone that's afraid of not having revenue like I was at the beginning, they feel like they're giving up revenue. They. But what it does is it allows you to then create processes and procedures that you can do over and over easily. Remember what I said? I, I was, you know, losing time by researching and trying to do everything. Instead, I'm doing the same things. Obviously there's nuances and differences. You're serving that client individually, but I do those same things over and over again. So really figuring out who you want to serve and then focusing on that particular client can really help you with your hours and your Efficiency. Absolutely. Going back to pricing, make sure you're pricing that right. If the price for that service is $300 and you can make, you know, $300 per hour, that's not a bad thing. You just need to make sure that the process that you're using is to make $300 per hour on that engagement.

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What else?

Maybe you got consolidations, you do, maybe a bit of benchmarking. Oh, whatever those workflows are, Live Flow lets you automatically build those reports or pull a whole bunch of those things, like instantly in a templated way. In fact, I just shot an ad for a YouTube video which I think is a super cool use case where I built out like this whole month end package of all these reports that I need to close the books for the company. This big workbook with a bunch of tabs. But then to run it for the next company, all I have to do is literally just run a dropdown, select a different company and I can run the exact same workbook template but with the other company's data. Super cool link down in the show notes. If you want to give those spreadsheets superpowers, check out Live Flow. This episode is sponsored in part by Team Up. What if you went out and you hired an offshore person and they took some sensitive information, they did something bad with it, they stole. Oh, worst case scenario, right? How do you manage that? So to start some advice from Team up here. According to Team up, the number one and number two mistakes accountants make. Number one, thinking of your overseas teammates as, quote, offshore staff, thinking of them as something else, rather than just an extension of our team that is subject to the same rules and restrictions and controls as anybody else that I hire, whether they're onshore or offshore. Mistake number two, making global teams more complicated than they really are. The three things Team up always says, one, it's just people. Two, build relationships of trust over time. And three, what would you do if you hired an Arizona?

Wow.

Why the heat For Arizona, not, you know, Florida or something like that. You hire somebody in Arizona, you probably don't stay up all night worrying about them. Right? And the same should be true with your team in the Philippines. Hire the right people, get to know them personally and give access to non sensitive info first. Feel like there's more a question of internal control. Like we are accountants so we don't really rely on trust so much. Right. We don't just fling open the keys of the castle for anybody to come get it. That's not an ad copy. That's my take. If somebody in the Philippines is gonna steal from me, it's because I put them in that position. Just like if I hired anybody across the country. Instead, focus on the positive. Don't get too wrapped up in fear and scarcity. Be logical about thinking through those problems and coming up with solutions for them. To protect yourself not only from offshore hires, but the rest of your team as well. Learn more about team Up. Check out the link in the show notes. Thank you to team up for sponsoring this episode. Yeah, I think one of the big blockers for folks as they're thinking through value pricing is everyone can get their head around like sure that the client will cut me a check for that if it is worth it to them. But the act, and you talked about this earlier, the act of educating on them on why this is valuable if they may not be there yet and they don't understand the value of it is a a job that I think a lot of people just either don't feel willing to do right now or don't know how to do. So how do I take a client where maybe they're just a once a year tax client right now? How do I get them from where they are, where they've probably never paid that much for tax planning and this to to move them to this engagement may 3 to 5x their annual fees which if I just one day proposed to a client they're going to be like are you kidding me? This is nuts. Like how do I educate that person on the value of this added work that we can be doing for them if they don't perceive that value yet?

That can be particularly tough. I think that value pricing is not raising your fees because everybody else in the industry is doing it and we all had low fees and we're now going to get the right fee. There's a certain piece of that that exists for value pricing. Right. But I think that when you, if you truly want to offer a value pricing model then you have to give value. And our clients do not see the value in a tax return. They do not understand what goes into putting a tax return together. It's a piece of paper where they, they may have the impression that you're just putting numbers on there. So you have to do something more if you're going to value price, and that is communicate what else you're doing. If you're doing strictly compliance work, I think it's pretty hard to communicate that value past, you know, the, the tax return itself. When you offer something more like tax advisory services. And that sounds like a big, that sounds like it's a big separate division. Tax advisory services can be as simple as doing some additional analysis for your tax return. And so it's doing those services and parsing them out and identifying them for your client. So rather than have a client come in, prepare the return, you're going to do a, you know, you're going to check to see what kind of retirement plans might work for them, make sure they get all of their deductions, and then hand them that tax return. You pull them in the front and that's where the planning and advisory comes in. And you talk to them about what they're looking for, what their goals are, what they need, and then you show them the pieces that will get them there. And then you tie that to how the tax services that you're giving to them, the tax savings that you're giving, and all of the other things that you need, you have to be able to communicate to, that, that to your client in a way that they hear it. And that's really, really challenging. What we do is we don't give tax advice. We start to give them a mini lesson on the technical side of what needs to be done to prepare a tax return. So instead of telling someone, you need to fill out form X, you start with, hey, what we need to do is, is take a look at the way this is being done in your business and look for additional deductions that we can find. Then we can utilize the tax code to make a few elections. We'll get you some tax savings, estimating maybe 5 to $10,000. If we do this well, with what you have going on right now, they'll hear five to $10,000. I don't have to tell them the name of the election, the code section that goes with the election, but instead of communicating that I'm going to put extra deductions on your return and you're going to save tax, I'm going to tell them in a way that they understand that we're actually doing something proactively to manage it.

Yeah. And I think the folks that haven't touched that before that are just doing tax prep. One of the react. The common reactions is what if I'm already doing all that? And in many cases they are. They're like, they're doing that added work. And maybe some of the struggle is well, I'm kind of already doing that for, for these people and so I don't know how to charge them the value for it now that I've sort of set the rate at a place that isn't going to be good for me going forward. But also like what is the, the tidiest way to draw a line between what is just what's required to get the tax return done versus what is this added advisory? Is it like a, I guess an added depth of conversation? Like do you schedule a standalone meeting just to discuss those advisory topics? Or how do you delineate between just getting the work done versus like okay, the scope of this now is advisory.

So the biggest mistake clients make is doing the work without having any conversation with their client. Right. We're already doing it and they don't even know that the work is done. So you have to identify the work that you are doing. It is going to be ten times harder to take a current book of business and move them over to value pricing without some pain than it will be to bring new clients in. So one way to approach this, if you are just can't even begin to imagine how you would transform your clients to an advisory service or to get them to pay more for the return. And I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm saying the easiest way would be to make sure every new client that comes in that you identify that and set that up up front. I do. All of my clients are on a subscription model plan. If they don't want to be on a subscription model tax plan, then I don't bring them on. I take, I say no to a lot of leads that I get because they're not interested in that type of work. That's okay. It's it. It's all worked out for me. There's always another client that wants to do that. But. But I have intentionally decided not to bring anyone on that doesn't want to work in that subscription model with that tax plan. Back to your original question a little bit. What if I'm already doing it? I don't have new clients coming in Or I'm just not at the place where I can say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start doing this and, and start a brand new model. You'll have to start somewhere. That. That's where, that's where it can be painful. I always say, start now. The next time your client calls and ask you to do a projection, right? And you've already done a projection for them, and maybe you do one every year and they want another one, is to say, hey, you know, that's great. I can do another projection for you. We, we do include one with your tax return, but any additional projections outside of this time is X fee. Don't just do the projection. I don't know why we're afraid to send a bill. My doctor has never not sent me a bill. Like, think about the industry that we're in. Like, where have you gone? That they don't send the bill for the service and accountants sometimes feel like we're not supposed to do it. Right. But you know, you know, stop. When you get there, don't prepare the accounting method change that they need and then tell them afterwards and you send them a bill and they complain. You stop and say, hey, you need this accounting method change. And you don't even use the words accounting method change. I usually let them know that, hey, we're not following the IRS rules and if we don't do something to fix it, you know, you're at risk with your tax return and, and I, and I will tell people, and I'm not signing your tax return unless we fix it too. Right? This isn't, this isn't options like, hey, pay me for the service, or we'll just shove it under the rug. You still have to be compliant, but it's stopping right then and there and telling them about the service and letting them know what the fee is upfront. They can always say no. They might say no. And then you have to make a decision as a practitioner whether or not you want to continue with that engagement. But, but really just stop doing it all for free. It sounds silly and I know it's really hard, but just stop. Pick a point and stop subscription.

Billing for tax can be a little bit tricky because all the different timelines going on. Do you do it by the calendar year and then you're filing a tax return after those fees have been done collecting? Do you like, straddle it mid year? Like, how do the, how do the fees associate with the tax filings? If that makes sense.

So our accountant minds cannot get away from the math and the numbers. Right. Like, the first thing you want to do is reconcile. Well, what if they start in the middle of the year? Then I don't get the whole return. Like, how do I make them pay that? Right. I worry a lot less about that than I used to when I first started. But remember, I'm very comfortable with this. I am fortunate. I've had success with it. So I'm okay with perhaps maybe starting an engagement. And then, you know, if. If they don't want to stay on, then maybe I don't get my fees, but it hasn't happened yet. So what I focus more on is starting this engagement. And if you're doing a true subscription model, which I kind of model it off of, and he would probably tell me, no, you're wrong. You're not doing what I say at all. But the guide that I'm using and trying to reach, like, I like what Ron Baker teaches about subscription pricing and that transformation. So that is my goal. Whether I'm following all the nuances he has, I know that I don't. So anybody that listens to this, and like, Nat, you're not doing it like you're. You're probably right. But that is what I'm using as a general guideline, and my goal is to have that transformation. So I bring them on and I charge them that monthly fee, and then I offer the services, and when they stop, then the services stop. So I actually had a newer client that started a business, and the business was. Business wasn't working out well, and he wanted to. He wanted me to lower the fee. And I said, unfortunately, I can't lower the fee. I still have to do the same amount of work. Even though you are not profitable, you know, we still have to do the work. And. And he wanted to let me go in February. I said, if I don't. I said, you've been paying me, you know, for six months now. And I did have an upfront fee. I'll fill that in. But he. He wanted to stop services, and I stopped services, and he didn't get a tax return. So. So that's part of the reconciliation. If. If they stop you don't. You just stop then. Right? So if they. Only if they hire you from April through December, then there's no tax return to do. Right. If it's a subscription model, then your service is done. They're paying for active service services while you're serving them. The other piece. Is that up front? Well, okay, you brought them on in April. There's no way you're going to get a year's worth of fees. Right. By the time you roll around. And that's where I worry about it less. And I know you'll have some of these people that are really revenue focused. They're probably just screaming as they're listening. But I don't worry about that. I'm like, if I bring someone on in April and they're going to stick with me all the way through the next April and I'm going to do their tax return and I didn't get January through March is February fee. I still feel like I'm whole in that. Right. Is there technically a piece of the fee that I'm not getting? I think so. But I set my fees in a way that I know that I'm going to offer value and get the right fee for that return. And then that story I told you, that's a rare story. Most of them just stay with me. It just starts to blend together. Two months out here. Do you know the average client stays with us for over eight years? 34% of our clients will stay with us for eight years. Am I really super concerned about six or eight hundred dollars on the front end? You know when I'm going to get $80,000 from these people over the next eight years? Right. If they're paying me $10,000 a year. So it's a mindset thing there.

That's kind of the beauty of recurring revenue too. Like from the more the aggregate business level is like building that up so that you look at the entire business or a portfolio of clients, you always have cash coming in the door. And it's funny, like the whole accountant mindset of like, oh, it's gotta be, you know, super tied down and explicit. It's funny too how we even anchor to like the annual cycle or quarter ends where it's like we can't change. Well, let's wait until January to change this. It's like, well, what's like the right business decision? But yeah, there's. I think there's a lot of accountantisms.

Coming through that we have comfort in those things. Right. It makes sense to us. Who does not like a balanced tax return or a fancy spreadsheet that calculates everything? Right. We really do. It's what we do all day. So we try to do it with everything else. And that can be, you know, detrimental to us.

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Now.

Admittedly, big problem with a lot of PMs. They started in a basic, humble place. A lot of them have gotten pretty sweaty where it takes like a, like a PhD and computer changing stuff to get your firm onto this thing. Like it's Hard. It requires an implementation specialist and, and like a whole team of people to get your team to the next thing. But Financial Sense, man, you can pop out of their website right now, just spin up a free trial. You don't need onboarding packages, all that stuff. It is easy enough where you can go out, take a first spin, see if you like it. If you don't, forget about them. Okay, but would they stand up a free trial if they didn't think it would work? Right. If you've had concerns or maybe analysis, put paralysis on what PM do I do? Honestly, the quickest way to get information, go out, spin up a trial, use it for a week, see what you think. There are not very many PMs that will actually let you do that right now. Financial Sense is one of them. Check out the link in the show notes to learn more. Okay, so you run in a halftime firm right now instead of just. Instead of just chilling out and that being an awesome gig. Now you're doing other stuff. You're doing coaching. You're. You're putting on an event right now, which I know has to be a lot of work. I'm interested, though. When you were just running a firm, like, who do you think you are to. To become a coach? Like, like, what was that sort of transition? Because I think most people, they get stuck on. Well, I can see how all of them can do it, and I can see how Josie can do it, but that's not me. Like, I just, I have, I have failings and I have my own issues. And I don't know, how was, how was that evolution for you to go from someone who's just doing their own thing to actually starting to help other people do the same?

Well, I, I think it depends on the person. You know, it's not for everyone to do. Right. I. There are days where, you know, I'm building coaching out. I've only been doing it for about three years formally. I've been doing it a little bit longer than that. I've educated people for, you know, as long as I can remember. It's just something that I'd really like to do. But I just told my story and people would ask questions or they said, will you help me? And I started helping them under my firm, under the umbrella of my firm. Like, sure, let's build tech strategy together. Let's. Let's do this, let's do that. Yeah, I'll help you consult other colleagues that were friends, right? Yeah, let's work on this. I had one friend who Used to call me every time she did a proposal. She's like, all right, what's my price? Like, I was. She said, you're my pricing coach. Right? So I just did it without charging it first. Right. And then told my story and had more people interested and then just felt like it was something that I would. Wanted other people to do. If I could tell you how ecstatic I am to be able to sit here and say that I can work 20 hours a week, make over double what I made when I used to work in public accounting and work only with clients that I like, have the control to let go of loans clients when I want to. I get to control the price. I get to control all of those things and do it all in tax strategy, which I love. Like, if people say, what would you want? That's what I want. Like, it's really, really fun. It wasn't easy, but it's really, really fun. If I can take and share that with other people who, who want to do tax or. And you don't have to be just a tax strategist. You can have other services. That's what works for me. Right. That's what I want to do. But it made me excited to share it, and I started to share it. And then just like anything, I realized there's value to it. I'm telling you right now, sitting here, charge for the value of the services that you are completing when you are filing tax returns for people. Well, then rightly so, if I'm going to coach people, there's there. It's okay for me to do that and charge for those services. Did I do. I think, you know, confidence wise, you know, what's it like to start that out? I wasn't sure if people wanted to come to me as a coach, but people keep showing up, so I take that as a good sign. You know, people keep showing up, people keep asking me questions, and we keep having success stories. So I think it's good you have.

Like, this level of, like, confidence like, you do. You really do make it sound easy. Like the, you're, you're saying, you know, this and that, and it's like, yeah, but what about that means firing this client and saying no to that client and disappointing this person and that person. Like, what are the. I don't know, what are the things that you, you still struggle with? Or like you've got people who will, you know, sit there and stare at the phone for 20 minutes and be like, boy, I don't want to make this phone call. Like, what is, what is your version of that where it's. It's really hard to stick to your rules or your boundaries around that thing.

So I think I have all of those things all the time, right? We're sitting on a podcast. I brushed my hair, I put on a nice shirt, right? People are looking and watching. So I'm going to be able to say all of those good things. The way that I am, the way my fur runs. It doesn't mean that things don't exist. I do have clients that I have to pester for information, even though I have deadlines that I set right? There are some clients that don't follow the rules. Sometimes a notice comes through that we weren't expecting, right? My firm operates like all of the other firms with those things. There's only so much you can do. I think the reason I'm confident and happy is because I've learned how to manage some of those things. The second thing I'll tell you is that I still sit on and do the Hit send. Just hit send. Read it one more time. Read it one more time, like. But I do it a lot less. Does that make sense? Right? Like, I'm. I train myself to follow my boundaries, right? So it's, It's. It's funny, but it's just a matter of saying yes more than you say no. It's not being perfect with, with the concepts, right? I've set boundaries. I break my own boundaries all the time. But every time I do, I feel pain. I'm like, you know why you're feeling this pain? Because you set your boundary, right? You. You. You didn't follow your boundary. I'll just. I'll allow that, right? I'll. I'll go outside of the norm where I said it has to be into the firm by X amount, and then it's not, right? So I do break my own boundaries, but I worry about the pricing being right. I worry about clients firing me. If a client, you know, is unhappy with something, sometimes it causes me stress at night, but I stop it, right? I have children, and I have to use the same thing I tell to my children. It's really easy with your children to be the authority, and they look up to you, right? So sometimes you have to do the same things you tell them. And one of the things I always say is give it the right level of time to ponder, the right level of time to be upset, right? If you lose a client, it is okay to be upset over that. You don't have to pretend it's okay. Everything is not fine in my world. I wasn't particularly happy about the client in February. I knew we weren't going to be a fit and I knew based on my experience and boundaries that we had to end that relationship. But I didn't stop my firm because of it. I didn't say, well, you're no longer qualified to be a firm owner, no longer qualified to be a coach and tell people about how you can get clients when you have one that doesn't want to stay with you. I, I'm still, I'm still a firm owner. I'm still a tech strategist and I can still coach and help people.

I love that. I love the storytelling. We touched on this before we started recording, but there is definitely an abundance of like glossy content out there around here's how to be perfect and all that. And the reality is I think people are just hungry to hear from other people who are ahead of them on the journey to say like, hey, can you teach me X, Y and Z and like shave a couple years off of, off of that journey for me so I can, I can get just a step closer to where you are. And maybe it's webinar culture and so much of our learning content coming from software providers and all that that they're just. Sometimes it feels like there isn't enough storytelling from people actually doing this stuff. Which is probably a good segue to tell us about the event that you got cooking. What does that look like?

So I have a summit coming up. It's called the Profitable Lifestyle Firm Summit. It's purposely named. Right. It's for small tax and accounting firm owners. And our goal is to bring together experts in the industry that are doing some of the things similar to what I'm doing so that we can focus on making our firms profitable while also making sure we keep the lifestyle in line that we want so that you end up with a profitable lifestyle firm. It's a three day virtual event. It will be free. It is at the end of August. It starts on August 27th. And we've got about 16 to 18 speakers. Were expecting to come and just share information that's particular to small tax and accounting firm owners.

Awesome, Josie, thank you for doing this. So we'll put a link to that down in the show notes. Where can people find you online? Do you do much in the way of content or is there anywhere else people can find you out there?

So you wanted to talk about real. I'm a terrible marketer so you can Find me in common places. But you will not see me posting every day like Jason Daly. But you can find me a website. My firm website is jparcpa.com and my coaching site is solotax coach.com I have a Facebook page. I have Instagram. I don't post a lot on those. I'm hoping to start to improve that as well. Just like I've improved my firm, I'm trying to improve my marketing skills as well. So. But yeah, you can find me out there. Anybody that wants to reach out with a question, I love to help people, you know, you know, a quick chat or send an email. I'm on LinkedIn as well. You know, look up Josie Parr. There's not a lot of Josie Pars out there. So if you watch this podcast, you know, you can see me. You should be able to find me. You can email directly@josielotaxcoach.com I will respond to any. Anybody that sends an email.

Awesome. Love it. I know there's a bunch of solo tax people that listen to this, and it doesn't seem like there's an abundance of, I don't know, most of the firm consulting are for, like, firms with, like, larger teams and all that, but it doesn't seem like there's a. An abundance of people like you are talking about solo tax.

Yeah, I have people that are not just solo, but most of the people that work with me that are in my membership group that do my tax strategy program, they're. They're solopreneurs. They may have one or two professionals that work with them, but they're the one running the show. They're the one making all of the decisions. They're the, they're the ones that have the burden of all that decision. So. And we just work together in our community to where we like being solo. Not everybody wants that, but we like being solo. We like what that affords us, that freedom and flexibility that goes along with it. So. So yeah, that's. That's really who I help. And if that's you, you know, feel free to reach out.

Awesome. I love that. Josie, thank you very much. Thanks for doing this.

Yeah, thanks for inviting me. I loved it.

Take, Man. Super good stuff. See what I mean about Josie making it seem easy, but in like a transparent way at the same time. Like, we're not perfect. Whole bunch of links down in the show. Notes to check out Josie's event, the coaching that she does, maybe even steal some ideas from her website. Love picking the brand of just smart practitioners that are out there doing their thing. So thanks for Josie, for coming and chatting. Thanks to you for coming and hanging. I'll see you in the next one.