415 Attracting More Clients Than You Could Possible Serve 😵‍💫

What would you do if you just have more clients than you knew what to do with a lot of folks? If you're in a mature firm, you may already feel like this is the case. And so the notion of going out and quote unquote, marketing or putting in, putting any effort into attracting more folks to what you do may seem completely backwards. Right. I'm at capacity. Why would I do that? So today we're talking about the value of marketing even when you're at capacity. It's part of the three legged stool, little mini series we're doing. One, fulfillment, getting the work done. Second leg, lead volume, having a steady inflow of new folks who are interested in working with you. And then three, lead quality, how to ensure that they are the right folks, specifically folks who will pay you more than the people that you have today. Chronic issue plaguing accounting firms, stagnation in the client base and a general lack of awareness of you and what you do. So today let's dig into lead volume. How to ensure that people know that you even exist in the first place so that you got your, your pick of the proverbial litter. Gay. Come on. All right, here's what Lead volume is. Not some vanity metric of like interest that you get on a web form on your website or hits to your website or something like that. Most often, if you're getting a huge number of, of inquiries, it's because your website hasn't properly filtered what for you is a good lead. We're gonna talk more tomorrow. And it's why simply lead volume at all costs doesn't ultimately make your firm better. Right. I always come back to we don't all need more. Some of us do, but we don't all need more while we all need better. I mix the words up. It's a great expression. You're just going to have to take my word for it. We don't all need more, but we do all need better. And part of finding better is just broadening the awareness of you and what you do. It is like, I mean, it's honestly the greatest hack in all of business right now. The power of social media, specifically the power of LinkedIn right now, not just for what we do, but for a lot of different types of businesses. I mean, you. I am so like fundamentally convinced to my core, if you take two professionals in the exact same position today, if one of them commits to posting to LinkedIn every single day for the next 365 days and then consistently does that throughout their career, those will be two Wildly different career trajectories. I know for myself, my career changed massively as soon as I got outside of the bubble that I was working with in like the group think that existed within my little world, my little firm. And honestly, 95% of professional accountants, they're just, they're in that bubble sweating their butts off to try to win the game that somebody else created for them with no perspective for the outside world and how other firms do it. And is this the best fit for me? And are we making the right decisions on this? And that when it's like gang, like all around you, there are answers like, just plug into the people around you. And like the first step in better optimizing for lead volume, in my opinion, is just leaning into this fact, the reality that virtually nobody today knows that you even exist. But oftentimes we run our business with this mindset that we are entitled to folks coming to us. Like, you know, the notion that when you hang that shingle out, people are just going to come and want you to do that stuff for them. And so we, we kind of sit back and wait. We don't really do marketing. We may hire an agency to do marketing for us and a lot of times that doesn't work. But like, we gotta ask ourselves, where are we showing up? How would anybody ever even discover what you do? And if you truly have something special that is worth shouting from the mountaintops, man, then do it. Like, if you are on this earth running a business that does accounting, that does tax, and you are afraid to talk about what you do, bro, we don't have long. Can I get existential with you for a minute? It is okay to be proud about what you do now. On the flip side of that, I can tell you there were stages in my career where I didn't have something I was particularly proud of. Where I couldn't genuinely say, yeah, we're the best at this, we're really good at this specific thing. I didn't really have anything like that. And you may find yourself there right now. And the best advice that I can give you is with each layer, like with each level deeper you go into specificity. Like at each of those levels of sediment, it gets easier. I can tell you in my personal journey, creating content, When I first started creating content, it was like training content on no code apps for accounting firms. And so it was like within accounting, within no code apps, like even just within small firms. And winning that game was a pretty easy game to win because it was that specific. Since then I'm zoo. I've zoomed out more to like accounting firm running in general, but, but not even like the accounting profession. It's still accounting firm ownership. That's not to say there aren't other people that listen in who are not accounting firm owners. We get a lot of developers, stuff like that. But had I started in a more general place, I probably would have petered out because I wouldn't have found anybody. The bar is so high where most people go in and start showing up, they start putting out how to read a balance sheet. Dude, I, man, I can't tell you how many of those posts go out every single day. And if that's where you're getting started, there is no chance that that is going to be like the secret method to understanding a balance sheet. We all know that a balance sheet for most types of businesses are going to be by and large the same. So make the first post that is how to read a balance sheet for taxidermists. That is the, like the, the path into stuff that is actually worthwhile, that actually finds people. But oftentimes we start down that path, you don't have much success and it peters out because you're like, it's not really doing anything or it's not doing numbers when like vanity metrics shouldn't be the goal. I mean, I think what I do, although I wouldn't even encourage starting as broadly as, as where I am now because obviously I've been doing this for three or four years. Even what I do is so, so specific. Small accounting firm owners, like that is so specific. I've got a YouTube channel with I think not even 25,000 subscribers. But like it's a cool business which I never would have expected by, by YouTube channel standards. That's microscopic. Micro. They call micro channels between 100,000 and a million. I think that's, that's the range for micro channels. And then Nano is like under a hundred. I'm whatever smaller than Nano is. I am like a channel at like the atomic level. And the good news here is you can like set up shop at the atomic level and be the person in that itty bitty space and make a really cool business out of it and really, really help people. And that's a way easier path to having something where you have the level of confidence to say like, yeah, no, we crush this. Like we're really good at this specific thing. When you have that, that confidence, it makes it a lot easier, a lot easier to go out and talk about what you do feels like a lot less work. Four questions to consider when thinking about optimizing just the volume of leads and the awareness of you and what you do right now. And I'll use myself as an example because it's, it's. I'll be honest, it's all I got right now. If you search accounting firm on YouTube, you can't not know that I exist. If you search how to start an accounting firm, it shows up as one of the top ranking items on Google. None of this, honestly, none of this was planned. I don't do like SEO optimization or anything like that. And it may not be a smart thing, but I obviously what I've probably done over the last couple few years is like volume that just like absolutely. Carpeting every social media platform with hopefully helpful stuff. And it makes me happy when I hear people say, like, how have you not heard of him? Because that's kind of the idea. I'm trying to be unavoidable in a way that's hopefully not too annoying and that, that really ought to be. The goal is within a specific space, you want people to think of you as the default. Like you want to be unavoidable. And being unavoidable doesn't require production value, doesn't honestly even require a ton of time, depending on how specific you get. But for most people, there isn't a single thing like that that they can stick their finger on and say, oh yeah, when people come to this space, they're always going to find us. Like most people don't have that. The closest thing most people have to that is like people are searching for local accounting firms. We have decent Google reviews. And that's a really, really hard way to build a firm because building it just around local clients, you're serving a very, very diverse set of, of people and businesses and all that. And it's subject to like, very limited reach. Like, you don't really have a way to go out and find a really large number of people so that you can serve a very specific type of person. If all you're serving is local clients, don't get me wrong, there are real upsides to that, especially when it comes to doing tax prep in the US but you got to start with that corner of the Internet or corner of something where you are unavoidable, where you know anybody that's going down that path, they're not going to be able to not see you. And it doesn't mean that they're going to come running into your arms necessarily. But like, it's so important to me. Like, if you are on this earth doing something and this is your calling and this is the thing that you are devoting your life to, please, please, please let people know what you do. Whatever, I don't know, virtue signaling, imposter syndrome stuff got baked into you at whatever stage of your life, man, let's get past that because we can actually help people. And maybe, maybe that's a blocker for a lot of folks is like, maybe that confidence thing where you don't have something that maybe you're necessarily super, super proud of yet. And if you don't, I would encourage you to get more, more specific. But think about all the ways that people can know that you exist. So obviously, stuff online. Are you showing up at trade shows? You ever gone to an accounting conference? The, I mean, the people that rock up to accounting conferences all the time know this. You see so many, so, so many of the same people on the circuit, and usually there's a degree of like, oh, I see their back. What are they shilling? Why are they spending so much time getting up on stage in front of folks? As a very negative perspective, A lot of, A lot of speakers have very smart things to, to, to share. But when it comes to industry trade shows, oftentimes, if you show up, you will be the only accounting firm, which is pretty great. Like, that's kind of, that's kind of the, the holy grail is being perceived as one of one. If you're the only one at a trade show and you're hanging out and you're meeting people and, and doing all that stuff and they're introducing you to other people, buddy, that is exactly what you're looking for. The notion that you are one of one, that you are the person serving that very, very specific group. The result is like, I mean, total control over your pricing, at least way more leverage than you would have otherwise. But rather than like, I don't know, there's definitely a. Definitely benefits to making yourself uncomfortable and doing things outside of your comfort zone. But within this whole, like, how do I be as visible. As visible as possible? See if you can find the thing within this that you enjoy. So maybe that's, I don't know, an interview podcast because you enjoy talking with people in the space. Maybe you enjoy going on other people's podcasts. Maybe you enjoy writing. So you could do, so you could do a newsletter. I really enjoy conferences because you meet a whole bunch of cool people and it's just kind of a fun excuse to have a change of scenery and talk shop. But if you can find the version, the version of that that you enjoy and just be visible. So much of it is just about reminding people that you exist and getting in front of a whole bunch of people right now that don't even know that you do this stuff. And it just needs to be part of, like, the routine. This episode is sponsored in part by Cloud accountant staffing. Do you ever wonder why offshore staffing agencies sponsor so much of my content? Because I'll be honest, it's not cheap. Like, let me just do some, like, mental math here for you. Most of the brands, like software companies sponsoring my content these days, like, they're pretty kind of the bigger platforms because, like, it's not the cheapest thing anymore. And so how can these little offshore staffing groups afford to advertise and advertise on my platforms for years? I'll tell you how. Because it's working. Not like the ads converting. I mean, the ads are converting, but firms are going to these groups and they're having fantastic luck and they're going back again and again and again. Cloud account staffing story. They're an accounting firm that started hiring accountants in the Philippines, had fantastic luck with it, and then like, just started doing it for some other firms. And it is one of the fastest growing trends in running small accounting firms right now is the world's just getting smaller. You know how hard it is to find, like, really talented onshore accountants. For me, the last four hires that I made in my firm were all in the Philippines. If you want to work with a group that feels like an accounting firm, that's going to help you find people. Because that was truly cloud accountant staffing's origin story. It's worth checking them out. Linked Cas down in the show Notes. This episode is sponsored in part by Ignition. Come, come, come, come, come. Here's the thing. Here's the thing about client billing. You can't bill for the time you spend billing. You can't. You can't. It is pure waste. And we're bad at billing because it's, it's icky. You let things slide. You don't get paid. You waste time. Waste time chasing people for money. That's not what I did. I would just, I didn't want to waste time chasing them and so I would just, I just eat it. Don't do that. This is where Ignition comes in. The leading revenue generation platform for accounts and professional services. When I was running my firm, Ignition wiped out our Air. It's true. And significantly reduced the time spent billing clients, saving our partners over a thousand hours in the first year because they didn't have to build all that stuff manually. Man with the Ignition, we want more business with impressive online proposals. No more hustle and hustle and PDFs and Word docs. We automatically pull payment upfront or at the end of a job when it was done. No more dialing for dollars. We transitioned our firm to more recurring revenue and better managed scope creep. No more leaving money on the table. Ignition is making thousands of firms more money and genuinely made us more profitable. Check out why over 7,000 of the smartest businesses run on ignition@ignitionapp.com I'll put a link in the show notes. I think especially in tax firm running, we can get sucked into the trap of things being too cyclical and everything getting put on the back shelf. And you're like, oh, we'll get to this after the deadline. And then you get to the summer and the summer is really busy and you're like, oh, we'll get to it in the summer. If you think just, just bigger picture, like take, take the accounting firm hat off and just think of it as a business. If you have the capacity of serving 100 clients or you serve 100 clients today, it's really, really obvious that your business is only as good as though those hundred clients are right. If I'm running, in fact, let's call it a different type of business because that's a little less personal. If I'm running a landscaping business and I can service 100 clients and I can go to a different neighborhood where those people are going to pay me, you know, 50% more to buy and large do the same work, or if I can get into like a, I don't know, some sort of gated community or senior living sort of something like that, where I can get, you know, effectively a better rate for like doing the whole group or something like that, then, then it's very obvious your business is only ever going to be as good as the clients that you're serving. Right. And so is there any point in the year where your job as the biggest boss should not be investing a lot of time in finding a better person, a better client, that one, that one client that can, can replace the one that's on the bottom of the list? That should always be happening. Arguably, that's your most important job, being the curator of that client list. Because if you're running that firm at a 50% margin and then you can take the new client that will pay 150%. What your current clients pay is twice as profitable. You drop two legacy projects and you bring that new client in. That's, that's the North Star of running an accounting firm. When we start running accounting firms, the North Star is can I get the work done and out the door and it'd be correct. And like that's, that's like squeaky bum time, early days, just trying to fill the client list. Can I get all that stuff done? But most people like you're, you're past that, but it's really hard to untrain that out of you. You know, like that's what you did for somebody else when you were at their firm before. That's the thing that comes naturally when you go to work for your firm. And then you're like, I'm too bus, I got to hire people. And you're like, well crap, I got to manage these people. That takes time too. And oftentimes because these people, the folks that you employ, like, they're just right there all the time and they're always needing things from you along with your clients. They are the squeakiest wheels and they get service first rather than these bigger, like more ambiguous investments where it's like, yeah, what's really going to be the ROI though if I, if I just don't post on LinkedIn today? And like I always try to think about my sort of 24 months down the road self, like if I look at all the things that I could do today, what is the thing that future me is going to be most proud of me for doing? And there's times where you're just over capacity and you spread yourself too thin and you got to dig yourself out and that's what it is. But oftentimes you can get stuck into that for years too. So like something has to break that cycle. And these more kind of marketing legs of the stool, that's kind of what they are. They're a bigger investment in the business that are a little more abstract to make but are going to drive long term profitability. As much as I honestly hate to say it, more than focusing on fulfillment will, we can't workflow our way out of bad clients. We just can't. Few things to consider. Are we reminding them that we're here during the buying seasons as much as we don't like it if you're, if you're a tax firm, the buying season is busy season. Doesn't mean that you have to service them, but you can at least create that point of contact. Are you embedding familiarity in the non buying seasons? Even when people aren't actively shopping for something when they are, their mind goes to all the stuff that they saw where they're like oh, I should think about that later when I got to go actually do that thing. It's the reason why I tell software companies you can't just hit pause on marketing in busy season. You do a different type of marketing you don't like. Do not annoy accountants. But they still need to see you. They still need to be aware of you. Because most accounting firms by the time they get to the end of like a tax deadline or getting over the year end Humphrey most of the time they've already made their decision. Many accountants and it's based on what they saw along the way. Potential clients are the same way. Like they are always looking. It doesn't mean that they're always buying. So being out there and being visible consistently, it's important. Also making things that work while you sleep is important. Shooting a video that folks can watch anytime and they will watch for years like that is such a hack. That's something that fundamentally changed how I run businesses. Now virtually all of my time goes into those things that work while I sleep because they compound. And last, are you educating them on what they need that they might not be aware of? And this is actually a fantastic side door into higher quality clients. We've talked about this before and I first started thinking about this from the book the four conversations from Blair ends. There's a trap of trying to do anything and everything for that type of client and winning business that way that we'll do, we'll do more than anybody else. When the good clients attracting the clients you probably actually want like they are already working with another professional. The best clients are not calling numbers on Google and reading Google reviews. They just aren't. And so what's the side door into that client that already has a professional that they just may not be that stoked about it's doing something different. It's doing something that they can't do or that their current provider doesn't do so that that potential client can come and do a standalone engagement with you just for that part and then have a really good experience and see your depth of expertise and see how how great you are for serving people just like them. And at that point they bring the rest of the work over. But unless you have that project that can be kind of the side door in it's way Too risky for that client to just pull the plug on who they got and switch clients will do that. But you also don't want the clients that are constantly like hopping around between firms. Right. So what do you have that's attractive to someone who is. Loyal is probably the wrong word, but someone who like, isn't super excited to jump ship but could be dazzled by what you do? That, like, that's a really solid client, that's a really premium client that you wouldn't otherwise get unless you gave them that sort of alternate way in. So think about, like, what can you do that other firms don't do that that type of client really needs. And rather than the anchor of your. What you talk about being your bookkeeping or your tax or anything like that, your anchor ought to be the door in. You can still do all that other stuff, but think about what the doorway is into your firm and having conversations around that rather than being one more person talking about bookkeeping or one more person talking about tax right now. Why is this one so uncomfortable for us? I like, I think it just comes back to we're probably bad at self promotion. It feels yucky, but I would say if it feels yucky, you're doing it wrong. Like, what we're looking for here is being helpful at scale. There's a lot of things that I don't do in my content that I'm just not willing to touch, not willing to wait into because it's just, it just feels weird to me. And so I will oftentimes do unoptimized, helpful things in the spirit of like just supporting the folks that are already following me, even if it means I don't, I don't know, don't go viral and find new folks or something like that. Like, I'm more interested in staying true to being helpful than necessarily always chasing the algorithm and the best practice and the more kind of salesy stuff. There's a way to do marketing that way that people will absolutely reward and when, you know, most accounting firm owners say their favorite part of doing this work is advising clients and building relationships with them and solving their problems and unblocking them. This is just that that's what marketing is. But doing it at scale. In 2025, information is free. Anybody can find information, but as you know, not all information is going to apply to that client. So information is free. It's the application that's paid. So don't worry about giving away the kitchen sink. That's exactly how you attract people these days, is Putting your thought leadership out there to benefit people. And if they get a whole bunch of upside from it, never pay you a dollar. That's totally fine because it means there were probably 100 other people that did as well. And you're bound to pick up something from that. It's also like a bigger picture conversation there of like, what value are, are we putting out into the world? You have a mouthpiece that millions of people can potentially see as opposed to taking one more one hour call from that annoying client. Right. Like, which of those is more optimized? Probably not. The phone call is an uncomfortable one. It's not a fun one necessarily. But I encourage you to do some experimentation to find your fun version of this, because this was me five years ago. I'd never made a video, started playing around video, and I learned that I loved that. I had no idea. I wasn't a theater nerd, a film nerd, any of that. I didn't do any of that stuff in school. I discovered at I don't like 32 years of age that I super enjoyed making silly stuff on video. And that kind of became my doorway into something where I felt like I had an advantage and people would know that I existed by the videos that I put out. And it may not be video for you, but there's so many different things out there that if you haven't found that thing that that makes you visible, go out there and experiment. See what you enjoy. Because you owe it to yourself to let the world know that you do what you do. Okay, gang, thanks for being here. We're gonna wrap this little miniseries up tomorrow with lead quality, finding the right type of client, getting specific so we're not just attracting a bunch of fluff. I'll see you.