Vendor Bias & Smart Specialization

Visibility these days is a massive, massive hack. The serendipity of meeting people online and being visible, that is such a powerful thing and goes so beyond anything that you could will into being yourself.

You're listening to the Marketing for Accounting Firms podcast. Each episode we have conversations with firm owners and marketing experts about how to attract your ideal clients, foster trust, and build a marketing engine that works for an accounting firm. I'm your host, Matt Banker. I'm the founder of Benchmark Growth Marketing. You can find more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at marketingforaccountingfirms.com now here's the show. Hey, welcome. Today I have Jason Stats. You probably know him from the Internet if you are an accounting firm owner that's on the Internet. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.

You bet. Thanks for having me.

So I think a lot of people have seen you, you've become this like micro famous. I say micro famous. Like within a very small subset of the universe, there are a lot of people that have seen a ton of your content and, and take that in. What this is marketing for accounting firms. Why, why should people listen to what you have to say about marketing and, or accounting firms in general?

Isn't that the million dollar question? You know, I don't, why should we, why should any of us listen to. I don't know what any other folks have to say online? I now, I think most people would answer that question by saying, well, he has a lot of Internet points and that's why you should listen to him as, oh, the subscribers and all these things. And I don't know, like I, I just, I try to honestly try to not be an expert. I try to share the stuff that I learned. I'm a reflection of the cool stuff that I'm learning from people. So if there's maybe a single reason there, it's that literally my full time job now is to like be in conversation with the smartest small accounting firm owners that I know and reflect that stuff out for people to benefit from. So I don't, I don't want to be the guru. I'm not the guy with the ultimate framework. There is no one solution to doing all this stuff. But I feel really grateful to now be in the position of like, that's my gig now as I talk with smart people and I put that stuff out into the ether.

You're kind of in the curator role in a sense. Like you have the time because you're not running a firm to take in all this information, sort through Find the best stuff, the nuggets, clarify it, put it back out into the world in a way that other people can understand and really take in a little bit more clearly.

Yeah. And like if you think about the software side, people who curate, you know, going through software, all the software companies are trying to get their names out there. But if you think about idea curation and the cool stuff that people are doing running in firms, small accounting firm owners are not going out there and trumpeting what they're doing. So like a benefit of the network that I have now and the exposure and visibility I have as I get to have conversations with a bunch of really cool people who don't have these conversations anywhere else to learn, like, oh, this is how you got all of your tax clients to book their delivery dates over calendly. And like all these wild things that people are doing where it's like, is that a thing for me to do or not? I don't know. But it's pretty darn interesting to like hear and pull some nuggets from. So yes, a curator in some ways, but also like I have access to folks I think in a unique way to where I can, I can surface the things that are happening that maybe folks may not otherwise hear about.

Yeah. Well, you have a unique, unique setup with your community. I've been on your website, I've checked it out. I know you have a really strong like no vendor policy with your community. Unpack that a little bit. You know, obviously I've been at, I've had booths, conferences, you know, I've, I'm a, we sell marketing services and all that. But there really is a power when you just have your peers who aren't, they don't have that alternate like the ulterior motive. How do you see that as being, I don't know, key, impactful to, to what it means to improve your firm over time?

Well, it's, it's important to be mindful of bias. And you can even, I mean even think when is the last time you sat through a webinar, went to a conference, something like that, that was totally of bias. Like most of the webinars in the communities out there are put on by software vendors. They're put on by, I mean you run a marketing agency like the, like you have to be mindful and it's a sliding scale of, of how good a job people do at really keeping this stuff like holistic and well intentioned versus chilling. But conferences like, you go to a few conferences and you're like Wait, I just sat and I watched that person talk because they, they paid to be on stage, not because this is some big meritocracy and they won and that's why they got on stage. So if you look around our space, that's 99% of things. Unfortunately. Even a lot of the folks that we look up to, they have deals with into it. They have deals with, you know, these, these official partnership types where it's like, I love those people and they have great things to say, but where are you going for like the real like unbiased information? So yeah, the community you're referring to, realize it's a private community that I launched a few years ago. That is a community of small firm runners. Yeah. And everybody pays to be there. And so like they're paying to be there. So everybody has stakes in it. So it's not a free community where people will just like pop in and pop out. But because it's paid, we don't need the vendors. I mean, we could, we could do all sorts of paid stuff with vendors in there. But I think as soon as you wait into that, then you, you complicate the independent side of it.

Yeah.

And I feel really fortunate that that was ultimately, you know, the first money making thing that I had getting me away from running my firm because I could go then take to YouTube and social media and all that. And it's, and I wasn't making my money selling affiliates or, or anything else. It was because I had that community which was totally independent. Like that's ultimately how we finance the content and everything else. Because I just, I'm really hungry for the real answers. Give me the real story about how using that tool went rather than just consuming things from my, my vendors.

Yeah, you know, it's, I think, bias and like, what is the, what's the real incentive? Understanding that is really important, I think in professional services in general. Right. I think we see it a lot in maybe more of the like wealth management space. Right. You know, is someone pushing something because they, they get a benefit from it or just because, you know, the fiduciary situation? And I think that that mentality is hard. I, I know as an agency owner, I've done some work where I've, I've sat more in the fractional CMO seat and then I've also been in the agency owner seat. And the reality is there's an implicit contradiction between those two things. It's almost impossible for me to ever be a completely unbiased consultant if the way I'M getting paid is by selling services that my team is going to provide. But if I'm getting paid just for advice, advisory, and there's no like, extra, hey, you should also buy local SEO and web design services now you at least can trust a little bit more that now. I mean, I try to be an honest broker in any situation, but there's already, there's that implicit situation where contradiction of incentives. And I think that this is not where I was thinking the conversation would go, but this idea of bias. Whenever you're working with a software vendor, a marketing agency, like, you do want to be aware of, like, what is, like, how do they win? And if you don't understand how they win, it's hard to know if you're really getting the best roi, the best advice, whatever it is, out of that, out of that circumstance. And so I think it's really valuable to have peers that you can trust. You're not just relying on vendors, agency people, you know, people trying to sell you stuff to figure out how to run.

Oh yeah. I mean, the, the biggest, the biggest time this punched me in the face was before I was doing anything online. We moved the entire accounting firm to a new practice management system. So I had a team of about 40 in Oregon and we worked on this for probably 12 months, deciding what platform to get to. The migration was just massive. So much money, so much training. And we got about two months into it and realized this is not the right one. We picked the wrong platform. And you know what, all the inputs for making that decision were like, like who it was that was sending us down that path. It was a bunch of salespeople for the software platform. And the vast majority of accounting firms, especially the ones that aren't online and aren't building networks with other people that run firms, they're making decisions based on what salespeople tell them, which is just idiotic. Like, you want to talk about the most pure example of conflict and not being able to expect like true information. Like, these people are compensated by being able to sell your own software, as opposed to what I encourage people to do and what I'm able to do now I can on my own, you know, get down to the list of maybe the three tools I'm deciding between and hop on calls with people who have actually done it, who've actually gone through that process and be like, what's the good, what's the bad? Because there's going to be good and bad with everything. And these people, they have no skin in the game. Like, they'll give you the honest answers. But yeah, it's just, there's a lot of examples of that, I think in our profession where we're making really big, big decisions based on what somebody's telling you who's incentivized to sell you something or, and oftentimes that's like, that's not their fault. That's literally their job. Like, that's the only way they have to make money. So you can't even necessarily pin it on those people or say that that's wrong or something. You just gotta be aware of it. And so what I got excited about was, is there a way to create a space where we can totally sidestep this and learn from each other and like shave, you know, that, that practice management system, that was probably three to four years of my life and well into the six figures of time and money wasted because I didn't have that network. So like, I genuinely think we're shaving years off people's lives, you know, being able to share this stuff. And I do, I have a private community for this. But it's also like the bigger conversation online. Like, you know, millions of people will see the things that I post every, every single month. I mean, there's thousands of hours of, of my content consumed every single day online right now. And that is the stuff that I'm learning from other people and then putting back out into the world. So how can we, in a way, almost open source the profession and share that stuff more freely is the last thing in the world. We need to be as competitive. Right? I just want higher quality information and, and to, oh my gosh, not make that same mistake again. This week's episode is sponsored by Benchmark Growth Marketing. Helping your accounting firm expand your niche with branding, positioning, websites, SEO and marketing strategy. If you're an accounting firm looking to fix your marketing benchmark is your go to solution. Learn more at marketingforaccountingfirms.com now back to the program.

Yeah, and I, I think I, I'm a part of a couple of marketing communities as well. And I've found there's no, there's no better way. Let me put it this way. I think there's nothing that's been more impactful to me than meeting with other people who are trying to do the same thing at the moment.

Oh man.

And learning. Even though sometimes we're, we are actually competitors like we find ourselves. I've had a couple situations where we've been bidding on, on the same project, but when you come to it, I think with a perspective of generosity and an abundance mindset, the reality is we all know this, going back to the accounting space, there's so much work to be done in the world. The issue is not, it's not a supply or it's not a demand issue. Right. And so you can learn so much from other firm owners to improve without ever having to feel like you're in that sort of competition with them.

That is the single best thing I ever did, like to make this all more sustainable for me was talk with other people who do this stuff. Like I'm at a conference, I sit through a talk that's from a software vendor and I'm like, yeah, I guess that's helpful. Then I go to lunch and I sit at a table with a whole bunch of people that just have a really deep understanding of the day to day and I'm like, this is what I want. Yeah, but why do I have to go to a conference to get this? Like, it is still great to go to conferences to get that. The in person is really good. But I mean I get home at the end of the day and my wife's like, hey you, you doing great and super supportive and all these things and, and I'm like, I appreciate it, but do you really know if I'm any good at this stuff? Like there's, there's just like, there's a level of support that is only possible from people who, who do that stuff and can share that journey with you. And man, like making a few friends that do this stuff that you can share anything with, like, that's so energizing.

Yeah. Well, let's go back to marketing a little bit. I, I've got a two part question for you. So one, going back to your firm owner days, what did you, what did you learn and who did you learn from when it came to marketing your own firm? So this is in the past. Second part of that question is what kind of advice and what direction are you telling people today? And I'm interested to know, you know, how much of that has changed in your perspective. But let's go backwards a little bit. Like how did you learn to grow your firm? How did you do it? Did you, did you do marketing? Did you do it yourself? Did you work with people? What did that look like?

Oh boy. So for context, I've been, I sold my firm back to my partner about 15 months ago and it was, it's an 80 year legacy firm. So it's, it has all the trappings you would expect of that. And so I probably learned more things to never do than things to then repeat. That's actually the, I'll give you both sides of that equation. The probably the best thing we did was for the first time we really like specialized dental like every other accounting firm and, and learned like, learned for the first time the value of that specificity and kind of getting into the grapevine and them referring their friends and it actually being for the first time the referrals that, that we wanted and like getting, getting more specific with your messaging and how ultimately that specificity leads to solving more painful pains, being able to charge more and all that. The flip side of that 80 year old firm so we, we'd inherited everybody's aunt and uncle and Mima and all, all these things and nobody wanted to be the bad guy to, you know, cut this stuff loose. Well, one of those was ministers. We'd done a ton of work with, with ministers and deeply, deeply discounted work. And as a result they'd send all their buddies there. And so you just keep getting more and more of it. And one of the, one of the old parties I remember early on was like, yeah, no, we got a specialization, we've got a niche niche in ministries. And in hindsight I'm like, man, that's not a niche. That's just like doing an unbelievably good deal for somebody. And so they tell everyone about it and kind of, kind of two sides to that one. If all you rely on is word of mouth, it actually will pull your client base down over time is my opinion. Because unless you're selectively asking for referrals from your A clients, it's probably going to trend downward over time for this reason. The other side of that is I fully believe in like your business doing good for the world and mission based stuff and all of that. But the people who need your help are not the people who can afford to pay $800 but not $1,200 for tax churn that come up in their Lexus and things are tight. Those are not the people that really need our help. The people that really need our help are the ones that do not have any money to pay for this stuff. And the way that you help more of those people is to have clients that actually pay you top dollar what you're worth for your work. So this like this whole low bono like BS thing where we kind of trick ourselves into like oh no, we're, we're, we're helping people like there are people that need help way more than that person who can only afford to pay, like, 20% less than your regular rates. Uh, I think the reality there is we just. We're shying away from the hard conversation of having to let some of those people loose.

Yeah, yeah, it's like full. Full price for free, but nothing in between. Like, that's. That's kind of the goal, right?

Yeah.

And not too much free, I guess, is like, making sure that. That, that's sustainable. But I know I've been in that situation too, where you end up actually being kind of bitter towards those clients who are paying the lower fee. They tend to be the neediest clients as well. And so that just contributes to that cycle of dissatisfaction, I think, on both sides of that relationship.

Yeah. And to be fair, like, the firm running Journey is like a hundred percent cyber. Do you put out video for this?

I do, yeah. I'm seeing your little bubbles here.

Let me. I'm on a new Mac and every freaking video app will default to have reactions on, and it's so annoying. Standby here.

Yep, that's. That's the feature nobody was asking for.

And like, to be fair here, that is. The journey of running an accounting firm is getting more and more specific over time and finding a more specific version of what you're doing now where people will pay you more to do the same work. And with each evolution of your firm, that. That previous version is now something that isn't as good as the new version. And so, like, that's a completely healthy aspect of running an accounting firm. But a lot of folks, they don't want to lose, you know, lose track of their roots. You know, they're like, they don't want to stop being that, you know, deliver the financials on the tailgate of the truck, you know, whatever you were doing in the very beginning sort of person, when by clinging to those people, what they're actually doing is keeping those clients from being great first clients for somebody else who's starting out. So I think that's usually a network problem. Like, find other folks for whom those clients that are no longer great for you are phenomenal. Because the big old ecosystem out there, like, we are all in the same food chain. Like, we've all seen the big old firms who do really bad work and charge an astronomical amount for it. Like, where we just cannot fathom how a firm is charging this much money. We are all on the same food chain pretending to, like, always need to support the bottom of the market. That's just holding you back and actually keeping other people from being able to get into it.

Yeah, let me, let me dig in. I asked you about marketing and the first thing you said in both cases was about niches. Right. And I, I'm, I actually a hundred percent agree. More and more of our work we find goes further and further back to the beginning, which is who are you, who do you serve? What is your messaging? Most firms come to us thinking like, hey, how can we get more leads? Because that's what they think they need. But that's rarely actually the best use of their time and money is getting leads if they don't really know this. But connect those things like why do you, when you think of having a clear industry, niche, specialty, whatever that is, why do you connect that with marketing? How does it connect in your mind?

Marketing is, is ultimately how I attract people who have a very specific pain that I have a great solution for. So you've got clients on your client list who pay you next to nothing and complain every time you send them a bill and it's already marked down. You have people at the other end of the spectrum, your A clients who you charge top dollar to and they adore you. And it's because not everybody feels pains the same way. So I need to find the most compelling pains we can solve for. And marketing is how I'm going to attract people who feel those pains so that my client list is a curated list of the A clients, the folks who super acutely feel those pains rather than being this jumbled mess of a whole bunch of legacy stuff and then some new stuff. So like marketing to me is like that lighthouse of how I attract folks who feel that pain. And these days like in my opinion, social media, like that's just where that stuff's happening.

Yeah. And you've done it right. So I, I know one of the big I, I. It seems like the bigger the firm, the older the firm, longer it's been along around, the harder it is for that firm to choose a narrow and, and commit to like this is who we work with, this is how we work. What, why do you think that is and how. I mean, it sounds like there was some pain in that process for you, but what, what is your advice to I guess bigger, more established firms who have this incredible fear of choosing one particular niche. Like do they need to do it? Is it okay to be a generalist or do you think everybody should, should go down that route?

I think nothing makes people more entitled than, than having success. That's why I see people be wildly successful in one thing, and then they think they're an expert in everything. And honestly, you can run a killer firm that's very general. Like, you can make good money doing it. And if that's all everybody's, that's all those people have ever seen or known, then it's hard for them to take a flyer on this concept or this idea that somebody has. It feels very abstract to them. But to bring it back to what we very first talked about, like, the reason I'm so bullish on this is the number of people I've talked to who have built wildly profitable firms around this specificity. And that's my human experience. And I'm convinced because I've had a bunch of those conversations. But if I then go and talk with somebody that I work with who has not had any of those conversations, it's unreasonable to think that they're just going to fully come around and be like, oh, yeah, no, I get it. Without having processed that in the same way that I have. So, so much of this, like, somebody can build a compelling case and you're like, yeah, that makes sense. But so much of like changing and conditioning our behavior actually comes back to, are there people around us in our community who we respect, who have done this and who are like data points to signal that no, this actually is a good idea.

Yeah.

Because accountants, like, we're not gonna, generally not gonna be the first one to try some, some wild idea. Right. So that's one thing that's. And honestly, that's how my videos get used oftentimes is convincing people around them, oh, look at this. Like, this is a kind of a signal affirming what I'm thinking, what I'm saying. So I think the reason is probably for the folks that they know. And most accounting firm owners networks are very small. They don't know very many people who do what they do. They probably just haven't seen a good model of it yet. And until they do, it's going to be hard to get them to truly believe that that's the better path.

Yeah, you gotta have. You have to have vision for what it could be before you can set out in that direction. One of the phrases we use a lot is people don't like to move forward into ambiguity. And I think that's a hundred percent true for the clients of accounting firms and a lot of times people. A lot of our work is around bringing clarity to messaging and copy and things on the websites because their prospects don't really know what they offer or why it's gonna benefit them. And so whenever they're faced with that ambiguity, they don't move forward. But it's true for firm owners as well. They don't like to change because if what they see in their, their peers is these vague, you know, kind of feature focused websites, that's all they know as well. They don't see as much of that specialization or that real kind of clarity around what they offer. So you gotta, you gotta see it before you can do it, I suppose.

Yeah, for sure.

Okay, that second half of the question. What, what are you seeing in firms today? You're talking to a lot of firms. You, you, you're interacting with them online through videos, through your community. What kind of, what kind of advice are you giving? Or like what, what do you recommend today for let's say, the small firm?

A really helpful exercises to start with, what we touched on just a bit ago is if you think about your entire client list, the folks who are at the top, who just adore you and send you the gift baskets and all that, why do they love you? And for the folks at the other end of the spectrum, why do they not like, why aren't their pains painful enough? How can we like rally around these very specific pains that you kind of stumble into along the way, Keep building clients around that pain and keep looking for more specific pains. So like, you know, the example I always give is it could be tax returns, could be financial statements, could be whatever. You know, if, if tax prep for a small business is 600 bucks, then tax prep for a creative agency is, you know, 800 bucks. And creative agency over a million dollars is a thousand bucks. And creative agencies for busy age or tax returns for busy agency owners, over a million bucks is like, you know, 1200 bucks for tax return. Like, how do I keep going down that path of greater specificity? Because the perceived value there is more, the more specific that it gets. And this kind of grinds accountants gears. Cause it's like, well, I'm doing the same work usually. And it's like, well, when people don't understand what you do, perception is reality. So if you think about your client list right now, the people who are at the top, they love you because you're solving a very painful pain for them. And that's a great signal of where there could be more people. Because right now, if all you had were eight clients, your life would be immeasurably, immeasurably better. But the journey of running a firm is Is to me it's two things. It's one, pursuing those pains and always looking for more specific pains that people will pay top dollar for. Because at the end of the day, all of the problems of accounting firm running and well being and hiring and staffing capacity, all these things, they're money things, they're if somebody will pay you twice as much to do the same work and you can cut three legacy projects, all those problems go away. So the journey of firm running is doing that over and over again. On the one hand it's looking for more specific pains. On the other hand, it's aligning that journey with a journey that you'll actually enjoy. So I think we've for generations been told, because we have a more traditional like employee employer sort of suppression relationship where the employer wants the employee to just keep working for them. I think we've been told that, that for whatever reason, like work ought to be suffering. Like the whole notion that don't make your hobby your job like that expression. Just think about accounting and tax. Let's say I love golf caddying or beekeeping or video games or whatever it is, somebody's doing the accounting and tax for all those people. Like, why would I not pursue this stuff that I'm passionate about? I'm pretty sure along the way I'll probably find even more stuff that I love. And even if I'm sick of that thing in five years, like can I not trust the fact that those five years would have been well spent and I'll probably find more things to love along the way rather than literally shying away from the things I'm passionate about, the things that don't feel like work, things I'm energized to do. I mean, imagine just talking with those clients all day long, the people who are super into the stuff that you're into, like, why would you not do that? So I try to push people like keep finding more specific pains. That's how you build a more profitable firm. But if you can align it with something that you're passionate about and it's not going to feel like work, like you're going to enjoy it and be excited to get out of bed every day.

Well, and I think even, I think most of the accountants I know are problem solvers. Like deep down they actually, they enjoy figuring out these, these problems. And there's a guy in my space, David C. Baker, who he says most marketing firms are afraid of niching down because they're worried they're going to get bored, right Creative people are going to get bored because it's the same thing. But most of them don't have never experienced the true joy of deep expertise in one area. And I think this is the same for accounting firm owners. When you develop that expertise, you're actually solving more interesting problems when you specialize in one area. Whereas when you're a generalist, I think often you're doing the same type of work across different industries. But the only way to make that scalable is by doing kind of surface level Y type things. You can't go very deep in your expertise. You can't train your team to be an expert in seven different industries. And so instead they just are an expert in bookkeeping in, you know, in a, in a general sense, right?

Yeah. So like one of my favorite quotes from one of his books, when without pitching Manifesto is the kind of the concept that you are standing in a room full of doors and you think by walking through a door you are closing off yourself to all the other doors and what all the opportunities that could have been through all those doors. Right. What you don't realize yet is when you go through that door into the next room, it's another room full of doors and opportunities that you couldn't even see yet. And so if we go back to my firm example of going into dental, dental really isn't that specialized. But when you start working with dentists, you realize, well, there's an entire ecosystem here. There is obviously different types of specialists, but there's also the software ecosystem that supports these people. Dental labs, like the equipment folks, like there's all sorts of different, even more specialized things within this space. And every step that you go, it's becomes easier to attract people because your messaging is very specific. You're, you know, if I'm talking general business advice, I'm up against every other person online. If I'm the only one talking about tax advice for beekeepers, that's a much lower bar. Like, I can win that game. Like, that's much more, that's much. Even though it's way smaller, it's much easier to attract people. But like, each step of specificity, further you go into there, the more they're like, well, you're the only one doing this for dental lab companies, so I'm going to pay you, you know, probably top dollar to do this work. And like you said, you're actually a way better advisor because you're not trying to pontificate on what it looks like to simultaneously run an E comm business and you know, a funeral home and like all these different random things, like, you're probably not going to be a very good advisor in that regard. So, like that, that specificity, that's the thing that probably most firms are missing right now. That is the path to just calm and running a more profitable firm.

Yeah, well, I, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you a little bit about social media, video content and things like that. Do you think, do you think firm owners should be creating their own content? Should they be getting into video? If so, where do they start? What's your advice?

It's a good question. There's a, it's funny. Accounting firms are largely unchanged pre and post Internet. And if you think about what the Internet enables now, the notion that you could post something and millions of people can see it, or a hundred very specific people can see it. If we're getting back to the, you know, example of specific folks like that fundamentally ought to rewire how we attract people to our accounting firm because we're no longer limited to going out to chamber meetings and like just that local network. Right. It's so much, so much more possibility, but most people aren't leaning into it. There's also this trend of people just become fans of stuff and they build relationships asymmetrically now. They listen to podcasts, they watch people on video, they consume that content and they build a relationship with them. And the first time you bring in a client who has read your stuff, who's heard you on a podcast, who's done this or that, and they come in already trusting your expertise, it is a total red pill moment where you're like, wow, like these people are coming in. They already totally trust what I do. They're willing to pay more for what I do because I've proven my expertise. It completely changes that client relationship from day one. So there's this trend of, you know, everybody being an influencer, of all these micro influencers and, and, and being this itty bitty influencer to a very specific little space where once you do that, you have people while you sleep building relationship with you so that ultimately if they come to buy you buy something from you, it totally changes that relationship. A lot of people are spooked off by that though, right? Like, that's scary. Like, I'm an accountant. I don't identify as that. There's, there's various different ways I think that you could approach this. And maybe some are more visible than others, but I encourage people to find a version of, of Producing for new media, that is social media, podcasts, newsletters, online communities. Find a version of engaging with new media that's fun for you. And so if you enjoy talking with people in that space, that's just a weekly podcast where you're talking with an influential person in the beekeeping space. Like, yeah, find the version of that that's fun for you. Because visibility these days is a massive, massive hack. Like if when we were building our firms through like local business partnerships and all that, that's us going out and seeking people out now. Like, the power of, like the serendipity of meeting people online and being visible and how they can enable connections for you. Like, that is such a powerful thing and goes so beyond anything that you could will into being yourself. Like, that is the power of all the people out there and the nuance and the pains and all the stuff you couldn't possibly understand. But because we're, we're accountants, we're super ROI focused. So it's like, I'm going to do this thing. What I, what am I going to get back from it? I encourage people to lean into just the bigness of the world now and how many people there are out there. Find a way to make it a habit. And so like that comes back to, what do you enjoy? I found that I enjoyed making silly videos and so that, that was my unfair advantage, was I could do that stuff and it didn't feel like work because I, because I loved it. Maybe for some people that's writing, maybe for some people that's just having a conversation or building tools or making software or something like that.

Yeah.

Find the version of that that you love and use it to enable your visibility and you'll be shocked, like how quickly it will take you to really cool places when you're doing that online.

When connecting it back, I think to what, where you started and I think where a lot of your focus is, your focus isn't really on the marketing side. But every time I see you talk, you're talking about this specificity, understanding who you are choosing a niche. You do these, you do your, what is it, weekly possible niches. Yeah, I, I don't think this is my, I don't know if this is controversial. I think it's, I, I see so many firms waste a ton of money on marketing because they lack specificity. There are only so many. I mean, I'll, I'll say it, I don't think social media works for a generalist firm.

Not at all.

You're just adding to the noise. And so you can invest time, money, energy into this new media, but if you don't have specificity behind it, you should just be local. You should be focused on local SEO and chamber of Commerce events still, to be honest.

Yep. Yeah. And I. And you know, there's people like to talk about industries, and that's one form of niching. There's, like, so many different dimensions to it. Like, if there's a. If there's a good reason to run a rad local business, like, that's also a really cool version of specificity, just not one that's going to be optimized for the Internet. But, yeah, like, everybody, when they start thinking about this, the first blocker they run into is comparison. They're like, I'm not gonna do videos. Jason's videos are way better than, I'm not gonna do podcasts. Tim Ferriss podcast way. But I'm not gonna write, like, Brene Brown. And so, like, that's what blocks us. But if you think about the specificity of what you're putting out there, that bar is going to be as high as you set that specificity. So, like, if it's general advice, you're literally up against everybody else.

Yeah.

And the reality is, especially when you're starting out, you're gonna suck at this stuff. Like, you're just not gonna be any good at it. And that's just, like, the reality. So is it realistic to think that I can start tweeting every day about small business tax advice and I'm gonna build a big following? No. That's why, like, the further into specificity you get, the lower the bar is. And that stuff can suck, but those people will be jacked because they're like, oh, this guy's giving tax advice for Beekee Keepers. When, you know, it's like, this is the same tax advice I would give to a personal trainer or this or that. And I'm really just framing it through their vernacular. Right. But, like, the more specific you get, the lower that bar is. But people usually start at the opposite end of the spectrum. They way overthink trying to overproduce something, and it's for everybody, and then nobody watches it.

I heard someone use. Use the example of Lin Manuel Miranda at one point and said, he. He's not. He's not the best. He's not the best theater, you know, musical theater person. He's not the best historian, and he's not the best rapper, but he's the best, you know, historical, you know, musical theater rapper there is in the world. And, and so, yes, he gets opportunities in a very specific space where those things align. And he, he's doing very well. And so the key is not one of our mantras. We have it on our wall back there is difference is better than better. It's very difficult to be the best in a general sense at anything. Right. And that's kind of what you're saying with this comparison. You're never going to be the best podcaster or the best writer or the best funny video guy, but you can very well be the best funny video beekeeping accountant. Right. That's a very available space for somebody.

And a lot of this may be just the homogenized corporate work culture we were raised in, just the pleated pants, put your personality, leave your personality at the door sort of thing. When it's like, no, like, everybody's weird. Like, everybody's got their own interests. And the best version of this is when that weirdness is your specificity. Like the fact that you can geek on beekeeping and if you weren't working, you'd be doing that anyways. Like, and that's the whole. Why the whole don't make your hobby your job thing, I think, is. Is just really bad advice. But yeah, at the end of the day, like, we are all very unique, but we try to mask that when we go to work and then find some other version of unique. Like, that's the way some people hear this is like, okay, now I got. Now I gotta find. I gotta pretend to be interested in dental labs now. And that's. That's my work Persona. It's like, no, like, the best version of that is actually just being the weirdo that you are at work following the stuff that you're interested in. But, but get really specific about it. Not every interest is going to have, you know, a booming ecosystem of folks that have money to pay you to do what you do. But most of us have enough interests where, like, there's a version of that that you can go out and do that's going to be fun.

Yeah, well, didn't even get to all of the. The topics that we thought maybe we would chat about. I know you have, you have some stuff about Claude 3 and using that to develop personality voices, but I think we're gonna have to leave that for another. Another time. Jason, thanks for, for being on the show. This is a lot of fun. Where, where can people. Where do you want people to find you today?

I'm. Wherever you hang out. I'm probably there all the social media platforms. I've got a daily podcast, Jason Daly, where we just talk, talk shop about running small firms each day. It's all the stuff that I needed to hear when I was running a firm and I didn't have the friend to process that stuff with me. So that's probably the place where there's around 1500 people tuning into that each day and there's, you know, people meeting in the comments and making friends and that's, that's probably my main thing now.

Yeah. Check out the podcast, find the videos, Twitter, LinkedIn, all those YouTube, all of those places. And yeah, if you're not following, Jason, I don't know where you, if you're an accountant and you're online, if you're listening to my podcast, honestly, you're probably listening to Jason. So it's good to hear, Good to see all of you here. Of me at Marketing for Accounting Firm show. Yeah, thanks, Jason, for coming on.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Marketing for Accounting Firms podcast. If you liked this conversation and found it valuable, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's really good for the algorithm and it helps other firm owners find this show. You can subscribe to our weekly Marketing for Accounting firms newsletter@marketingforaccountingfirms.com and you can connect with me, Matt Banker, on LinkedIn or Twitter. We hope you tune in next time for another episode of Marketing for Accounting Firms.