This Accountant Reveals How He Took Home $1M in Profit Last Year | @ryanbakkecpa

What I would recommend to anybody is using other people's brands and podcasts to build your own authority. The easiest way to like get an audience when you're first starting is to just go and provide value to influencer or like affiliate sort of partners. I think the very first year that I did this kind of one foot in my corporate job and one foot out, I want to say I just grossed 100k. I had a passion about real estate. When I learned like real estate investors don't pay any money in taxes, that was actually what gave me the confidence and the courage to actually quit my W2 job. I made 850 and 80 when I did it full time in 2022 and then 2023, we ended up doing close to 1.7 million gross revenue.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the show. Today I'm going to be talking with one of my clients, Ryan from Learn Like a cpa. He's been doing real estate tax planning for the past two years. And as we've worked together over the past couple of years, we've managed to scale his firm from $100,000 a year all, all the way up to $1.7 million last year and looking at a very consistent growth curve for this year as well. So we're going to be talking about how we did it. We're going to be talking about his story of going from $100,000 a year to multiple millions. And we're just going to be sharing some tips and tricks, some strategies we've used along the way. So without further ado, let's get into the episode. All right, well, I'm sitting here with Mr. Ryan Bakey, aka learn like a CPA. Ryan was actually the very first client I ever got in my marketing agen at Social Club Studios. So he and I have been working together for coming up on. Actually, I think we're right at two years now, right?

Yeah, probably two. Two years. Definitely full time. Probably two and a half years. Ish.

Yeah, because we did a couple of projects together. Even when you were still working your corporate job.

Yeah, because I've been two years full time self employed now.

Yeah. So we started working together on like a full time basis basically right after you quit your corporate job. Right. So walk me through. We just want to kind of want to talk about, about like how your business has gone ever since we've been working together. So talk to me first. Can you just kind of describe like what's your primary offer?

Yeah, right now we, we specialize in helping real estate investors save money in tax on taxes. And the way that we kind of do it is I never want to create friction between me and the prospect or me and the client. So I sign people up if they want, if they want the guidance and they want advice and they want consulting throughout the year. They don't have to pay like an hourly rate or anything like that. Or they get billed for every question. I have like an annual retainer for consulting. And then we also price their tax preparation and filing services separately. So we do tax strategy and we do tax filing, but they're, they're normally two separate offers.

And what's your total like, what are you charging for each of those two different services?

Right now we're at about, we're at $5,000 a year for the tax strategy. So that includes the one on one calls, that includes access to me through email, the all the private tools that I have, all my templates. And then I also do weekly off, I do like weekly office hour calls with everybody that's in that program. So they don't have to have all these questions that kind of built up. They're able to ask questions throughout the year.

Now, if I remember right, that wasn't, that wasn't your main offer when we were first starting to work together, right? So talk, talk through, like, how has your offer shifted as we've been working together and like you've gotten more leads, how have you shifted your offer to reflect that and to handle like increased lead volume?

I think, I think with the increased lead volume it gives you an opportunity to swing and miss. You're able to swing and miss as far as, as far as how you price your product, you're able to swing and miss as far as like who you actually pitch your services to. Because when you're first starting out and you don't have a clear picture of like who that ideal target is and especially if you're like solo self employed and if you have all these costs and stuff, you're just scrapping by trying to get any sort of prospect or anybody that will pay you money, there's.

So much pressure on you, right?

There's a ton of pressure. And that's what I, that's, that's a lot of what I felt kind of when I first started off, you know, especially the first couple of months being self employed. But then when you're able to narrow down on a niche and like a specific clientele and you're able to produce content towards them and you're able to build that sort of like subject matter expert in that it allows you to charge more money for what you're doing. But then also you're just going to get way more lead flow. And that's where you're going to have the opportunity, like I mentioned before, just to just swing and miss on pricing. Like, you should always try to be changing your pricing here and there. Like, basically see how much you can charge without your acceptance rate being super low.

Yeah. Just kind of, you know, push it over time and try to find that boundary line. Right.

I mean, even in the traditional CPA firm sense, if I have, you know, 100 people paying me a thousand dollars, like, yeah, I can make 100 grand a year, but like, why not have 80 people pay me 1200 or 1300 if I'm gonna make the same amount of money with less people? Because I think there's two ways to drive like overall happiness and profit out of a firm. It's either to increase the amount of money that people pay you and then just decrease the overall work. So if you're able to increase pricing because you've built a niche and because you have a specific following, you're able to take on less work but make that desired amount of revenue that you want to make.

So if we backtrack two years ago, I want to just kind of list off like, okay, where was your business at in, in terms of like, what was your main offer two years ago? What was lead flow looking like? What was, you know, what kind of hours were you working? So let's start with your offer. What was your main offer two years ago? When we first started working together last.

Two years ago, I mean, the main offer really was like a bundled service between tax strategy and tax prep.

You were charging hourly still too, weren't you?

Yeah, a little bit of hourly. So I went, I've made like every single mistake in the book, I think, from a service based provider, because I charged hourly. And I mentioned before, like, the problem with hourly based pricing is it creates this friction between you and the client. So if the client knows that they're gonna get a bill, like every time they ask a question or call you on the phone, like, it's gonna, it's gonna lead to them not calling you as much and you not making as much money. And then what happens is like at towards the end of the year when it comes time to compliance, and it's like we're trying to wrap a bow on everything. They haven't been asking you these questions all year. And so it just creates more headaches down the road. So that's why we, we charge an annual, basically a subscription or a service fee for people that are getting tax advice. And then we charge tax prep, tax preparation, separate. But what I learned from that is I got all the way up to, I started off, I was charging like $80 an hour for my, for an hour of my time. Got up to 152, 5300. Got all the way up to where, you know, I was charging 500. Coming out of tax season 2022, I was charging $500 an hour for my time, which a lot of people think it's like, you know, that's really good. But I realized that it would take me, I would have to have 10 one hour phone calls with 10 different people, go through 10 different people's scenarios, try to sell 10 people into what it is that I had to make five grand versus I sold one of those 10 people into a $5,000 retainer. And so now I'm making five grand, you know, off of one person rather than five grand off of 10 people or five grand total from 10 people. And it just makes that process a little bit easier. So, yeah, we've gone all the way from hourly based consulting all the way up to like these tiered sort of value subscription model now.

Yeah. So talk to me, from a marketing standpoint, what were you doing to get leads to come pay you hourly at that point?

Yeah, a lot of that, A lot of that, which is what I would recommend to anybody is using other people's brands and podcasts to build your own authority. So instead of like creating your own audience, the easiest way to like get an audience when you're first starting is to just go and provide value to influencer or like affiliate sort of partners within your, within your niche. And so whatever it is that you do, like, let's say you do like crypto, you know, you do crypto tax, for example. Right. So you want to go to all the crypto influencers and coaches and investors, get on their podcast, get in front of their brand and network. And that's just the easiest, easiest way to market yourself because you provide value to that person and their audience, you're going to get a lot of business in return. And that's, I think that's where a lot of my business came from early on is I was just jumping, saying yes to Everybody. Webinar or YouTube or podcast or live event. And that's kind of how I build my brand in the beginning.

So if I'm an accountant. I'm not yet making 100k. How would I best get clients?

I would. I would pick a niche that you love. You know, it has to be. Definitely has to be something that you have a passion about. I mean, I had a passion about real estate when I learned, like, real estate investors don't pay any money in taxes. And it pretty much seemed like the most passive way to make money. Like, you just own these buildings and they go up in value every year, and you just sit back and collect checks. So I got really involved in real estate, and then when I combined the tax piece of it, I. I was super excited. So I would say, first, like, pick a niche. What it is that you like to do the most as, as an accountant. And then you just start talking about that. You start going on those podcasts or start listening, trying to learn the lingo of it. And so, because the number one thing I think when you win clients over, as opposed to other service providers, is not only do they want somebody that understands the tax code and the law, which. But they also want somebody that can kind of, like, talk the lingo. And so, because I'm an investor, like, I know what banks are looking for, I know what other potential investors are looking for, and I'm able to have those conversations that a normal CPA that doesn't have real estate investing experience wouldn't be able to have.

So you were selling hourly consulting, kind of starting to transition to packages.

Yeah.

You're getting clients from kind of like borrowing influence from other people, whether that's through their podcast or. I know you use Facebook groups quite a lot to, like, answer questions in there.

Yeah.

What kind of hours were you working and what kind of money were you making overall?

Yeah, I mean, back then it was. I mean, everything was just a grind. And that's why. That's what I was saying earlier. It's like if you don't have your ideal client mapped out, you're just going to be taking on any sort of work that you can get to make the amount of money. So, I mean, hours back then any, you know, anywhere, normally from like 60 to maybe 80 hours a week. I mean, when I was working W2 and doing this on the side, easily working 80 hours a week. I think the very first year that I did this, kind of one foot in my corporate job and one foot out, I want to say I just grossed 100k on the side doing this. And that was actually what gave me the confidence and the courage to actually quit my W2 job and do this full time. Because I was working my W2 job and I was working on the side business, maybe 15 to 25 hours a week. And I said, well, if I can make more money on the side and only 15 or 20 hours a week, imagine if I did full time like all my attention and effort into this. And so that's when. When I quit like early January 2022, right? Yeah, yeah, January 2022 to do this full time. First year. First year full time. January 2022. I think we did about 8, 80, 880,000 in gross revenue. So I went from about 100k gross revenue in 2021 part time to eight hundred and eighty. When I did it full time in 2022 and then 2023, we ended up doing close to 1.7 million gross revenue. So double that. Basically double, you know, 8x the 1 8x from 2021 to 2022 and then 2x the 2x the 8x.

Yeah, yeah. It's incredible. So today you just finished up a $1.7 million year. What kind of profit margins are you running on that? You're pretty lean, right?

Yeah, I would say full transparency. I probably took home a million dollars, if not a little bit more.

And what's your team look like to make 1.7 and take home 1 million?

So the team kind of fluctuated. I started the year with, and this was a mistake that I made, but I started, I started the year with pretty much like three. Three, three or two CPAs. One person that wasn't a CPA, no salespeople because I was the one doing all the sales. So back when I first started, I pretty much had a team of like, I would say including. Well, I had a team of three. Three people. And then of course, like, you know, I don't count you as an employee, but you're part of the team. So I would say three people then. And then I learned to hire like there is some tasks that I was having those higher value people do that were getting paid salaries that they shouldn't have done. And so that's when I started implementing and like using virtual like outsourced accounting services like VAS and stuff that can do that.

Really simple stuff.

10 bucks an hour you can get a qualified person that has the equivalent to like a CPA designation in the Philippines. And so and then I would say, and the problem was is I also had some of those CPAs taking sales calls, which was like a huge mistake of mine because when you go to school for Accounting, like, you learn the technical expertise, but you don't learn how to sell. And I didn't even know how to sell either until I had like, I paid for coaching, mentorship, sales coaching. I probably paid 15 to 20k and like just learning how to sell to people.

Well, and not to mention the money you invested into getting the leads that ended up becoming practice on sales calls, right?

Yeah.

I mean, if, you know, you, you've spent multiple six figures at this point with us in like trying to get these leads, so you could almost count that as an investment into your sales skills as well.

Yeah.

Just getting the reps in. Right.

And just striking out. Right. So, you know, I don't think I truly learn and I probably still don't even really know how to learn like sell like the elite people do. But, you know, in 2022, I think we got on sales calls with close to 250 people that didn't buy anything from us. Last year, you know, 2023, I probably got on sales calls with 350 people that didn't buy anything from me. And it's like if I could just convert 10% of those people into offers, you know, that's like hundreds of thousands of dollars that I left on the table by not knowing how to sell to people. And I would say that's my biggest. That was probably my biggest. It's almost like you have a problem, then there's a solution, and then it creates another problem. Right. Because you have this first problem is you don't have enough leads and then you solve the problem by using content and influence and social media to create a bunch of leads. And then you, you don't truly know how to sell to all these people. You don't know how to. Objection. Handle. You don't know how to do all these things. So then it creates another problem where it's like you need to hire qualified salespeople or your messaging and your brand needs to be so good that there really doesn't need to be a sale. Right. The conversation before the conversation. And so it's just like every single problem, you know, solution, boom. But then there's another problem that I just like open myself into. But as far as the team goes, like now I have, Now I have two VAs, one full time CPA, two like outsourced CPAs that are 1099 contractors. And then I have two salespeople. So a total of like seven. Total.

Yeah, seven.

Seven. Seven person team, including, let's see, two VA's, one CPA, two contracts to sales. Seven people on the team to do 1.7 million.

And how many hours were you working personally?

I mean, this year, this year's been, or, you know, these last couple of months have been a grind just because of it. It's being tax planning season, but easily working half as much as I did like in the start. Yeah, yeah. So I'm probably, I mean, on a normal week, I would say I probably work, you know, 30, 35 hours a week. I think the thing, the whole thing there is the warm versus cold. I mean, it's seven times harder to sell something to somebody that's already bought from you than it is to acquire a new customer.

Sometimes easier.

Yeah, sometimes easier. So it's like the transition from going warm to cold. And I even saw this too. I mean, and this is something that all small business owners should be tracking is like your lead flow and where they're coming from. Because I knew when I had a lead that came in and the first question I asked is like, what's their name? The second question I would always ask is, how did you hear about us? And I knew right away if they responded in a certain way, like, oh, I saw you on this person's podcast or I saw you, I saw you on this Facebook group. I knew right away like the odds of us closing that person were a lot higher because we already have that trust and authority from that, that lead source versus if somebody marks on that form like, oh, I heard about you from like my brother in law or heard about you from so and so and I don't know who that is, the odds of closing that person were like three times less. It was almost to the point where it's like you didn't want to get on the phone with that person because you knew your odds of closing them because they were so cold was really low. Now just because you don't sell to somebody upfront doesn't mean you won't ever sell to them. Because once they fill out that form and you have their information, you know, it might just require a couple of months of like nurturing and sequencing to, to sell to that person. So if you do get Joe Schmo, like brother in law, that fills out the application, you know, maybe you think about like, yeah, you know, have the sales call with them, get another rep in, but then you're, then you're going to have their email, you're going to start marketing to them. You know, whether it's through email sequencing or they're going to get cookied, they're going to get marketed too. And then maybe they close like later on down the road. So it might be a good idea to like, if they're super cold, just try to get them on a nurturing sequence or like some sort of way to, to warm them up. I mean, whenever I think about marketing, I always think about this analogy. I just call it like the Cadillac analogy, where you see a TV commercial for Cadillac, you see the paper newspaper for Cadillac, you see a billboard for Cadillac, and then you see somebody drive Cadillac and you're like, oh, I want to buy it. It's the same thing that anytime you're selling high ticket offers, they need to see you at multiple touch points. So they need to see you like showing up in Facebook groups. They need to see you showing up on podcasts of like other influencers in that industry. They need to see your ads and your reels and stuff. They need to see that four to five different touch points before they're willing to spend money with you.

Yeah, well, it's kind of proof you exist outside of just whatever bubble they initially found you in, right?

Yeah.

So talk to me. If I'm putting myself in a business owner's shoes, I'm listening to this podcast here. I'm thinking, okay, everything that you've just talked about is like, it's only unlocked by having the right lead flow and having consistent high quality leads coming in. Right. So talk to me. As far as the stuff we've done between content and the podcast and running ads, what's been like, super effective in getting the highest quality leads?

So when we first started off, I remember, I mean, I always remember, like, because Calendly does a really good job of this. You just kind of like press a button and it'll show you all your leads for that month or all the people that book calls. And I remember like, I want to say early, early days, like we were Getting anywhere from 20 to 30 leads a month and then it was like, wow, we got 50 or 60 leads a couple months. If I, if I went on like a pretty big podcast, I'd get a bunch of leads that month because they would all come from that podcast and there'd be typical, like pretty big conversions. I mean, my first like ever six figure month was December of 22 when I came off Avery Carl's podcast. Like, that was my first really big month because I had just that really super warm, you know, not even really a warm audience to me, but warm audience through her authority on her podcast. And then fast forward a year later like, we're creating. I want to say we get anywhere now, nowadays, we're getting about 100 leads a month. Anywhere from 100 to 120 people to actually fill survey. And so that's the difference between, like, you know, a lead versus, like, somebody that just enters your funnel. Right, Because.

Right.

I think somebody that enters your funnel isn't necessarily a lead, but, you know, we have. We'll probably get 350 to 400 people that enter our email list per month, and then we'll probably get about 100 people. And it could be those 350 or 400 that enter, but it also could just be people that are organically on there. So we'll add about 350 to 400 emails a month to our, like, funnel that we're marketing to, and we'll get about 100 people a month. Fill out an application form to book a call.

And that's literally, like, fill out this form if you want to work with us. That's not like. Because a lot of people, you're right, a lot of people will, like, they'll have a free offer or something, and anybody who downloads that is now a lead. Right, but that's what, like, Alex Hormozy talks about, like, leads versus engaged leads. Right, Those might be leads, but like, these people filling out your app form, like, that's a very highly engaged lead. So you're saying you're getting around 100, 100 plus of those every month.

Yeah.

And where are they coming from?

So that's another thing that we. That I would encourage you to, like, set up early, because if you don't have this information, then it's like you can't make decisions about it. But now we have it set up to where instead of it just being like, an application form. Because if you. If you, for example, if, like, if you're using calendly routing forms and you just send that link to people, there's no way to tell where they actually got the link originally from. And so when you use something like a LeadPages.com or Kajabi or any other CRM, you should be able to duplicate your link. And so that way, you know, whether they're coming from a referral, whether they're coming from your Facebook group, whether they're coming from Instagram. And so now we have it tracked to where, like, if somebody, let's say, watches one of my loom videos and clicks on the application form, I know that if they are in my Facebook group, they click on something in my Facebook group. I know that because I have it all mapped out to know where am I getting the, the most convert or the most traffic. And it's. No, it's like, it's not rocket science that like the, when you, when you ask, like, where are the most warm people? It's always been people who have watched the pod, like my podcast, you, you have short form and social media, I think that exists to like grab people's attention and get their, them in your network. But it's really that long form like podcast that builds that trust with people because if they're, if they're going to spend an hour listening to my podcast, they're, they're way more likely to buy something from me than if they, if they didn't. So I think all short form just exists to get people like nurtured into a longer form sequence, whether that's through emails or, or long form podcasts.

Well, that's always been our philosophy. Right. We've never really done like a real right hook on Instagram or on Facebook. Like, it's always like, you know, if you enjoy the Instagram content, like go check out the podcast or join my Facebook group or you know, download this free template and now you're going to get emailed a bunch. But we're always using those longer form outlets as filters. Right. And I think that's why like the lead quality is so high. Like if we were trying to do a right hook right on Instagram, we might get 400 application form filled, forms filled out. But then, you know, that's, there's so much fluff in there and there's so many people who aren't actually that engaged.

Right.

It's like, I think we've really, you know, one thing we've really done a good job of, like you and I both together, is just like keeping the quality of your leads very, very high.

Yeah, I mean that's, that's everything too. Like, because if you fill your, if you fill your pipeline with low quality leads and you're pitching your core service, you're gonna think that there's something wrong with the server. They're gonna think there's, maybe there's something wrong with the pricing. Now I need to lower my price so more people say yes, which creates a problem when, when in reality, if you use the wrong bait, you'll catch the wrong fish. And so you always want to prioritize like the quality of leads over anything else. Like, there's a lot of people that are like marketing about, oh, I can get you a hundred book calls a month, or I can do this. But if those. If those leads are not quality leads, like, you're just gonna be banging your head because you're going to fill your calendar, they're going to take up all your time, and then they're not going to buy from you. Basically, if they don't buy into you more so than your service, then you never get the chance to create a lifelong customer, and then the value, the enterprise value of your business tanks. But the whole purpose of this marketing is to prove to somebody that you can solve their problem and that they want to invest money with you, and then you actually go out and do it, and then that creates, like, referral business to you. But it all starts with that quality lead.

100%. So let's go over some stats. So we kind of already talked about this, but how many leads do you have coming in every single month?

100. We'll say 100.

100 application forms. And how many of those end up booking calls with your team?

We would say that out of 100 people, that book will typically about 80. 80 to 85% that book a call.

Okay, so 85%. So 85 calls booked. And then what's your sales team's close rate?

Well, normally close about 27% of book calls and do a 5k 7k offer.

So you're closing about 20 to 25 deals a month.

Yeah.

At 5k.

Right.

Awesome. And, you know, like, we've kind of talked about, like, the main strategy here is just like, use short form and use paid ads to drive attention. Drive that all to something longer form. In your case, it's your podcast. Right. Maybe your Facebook group could be considered that same idea, but drive them to the longer form where they, like, really get. Okay, I like Ryan. It's very clear. He knows his stuff. And then that's where we throw the right hook and we ask them to actually buy from you. Right?

Yeah. And I think part of that, too, in there is also the ability to say no. Like, the ability to turn down work, but then also like the ability to play the long game. Because one of the. I think the thing that I see in sales a lot, like a mistake that some people make, and there's a right time and right place for this. But you see a lot of salespeople where it's like, hey, if you don't sign up with me in the next 20 days, like, the price goes up, or if you don't sign up with me and whatever, now don't get me wrong again, if you believe in the value of your service and what you offer, then it shouldn't matter what sort of gimmick you use to get them to buy. But I think one of the things that I've done a really good job of is like, say no to them up front. It's fine if they balk at the price or if they don't, you know, if they don't really understand it right away, like say no because they're always coming back. Like the amount of people that we'll talk to a couple months ago that reject the pricing or they kind of get scared. It's just so crazy. It's like, yep, here they are back and we know that they're ready to buy now. And so I think it's like being, being able to play a long term game in a finite space where a lot of people are just like, okay, lead comes in. If I don't sell them, kick them to the corner, like, don't reach out to them. Lead comes into me if I don't sell them. I'm continuously marketing to them.

You still have their email. They probably follow you on social somewhere. They're continuing to get warmed up and you know, retargeted and nurtured like into infinity. Right?

Yeah. Because just because somebody does that buy from you now doesn't mean they won't be a customer in the future. And so I see ton. And even within that it's like if you, if I'm taking, If we're taking 80 sales calls and only 25 people buy from us, well, guess what's happening to the other 50 people? Like they're getting to get marketed to on the back end either through email sequences or like we might just call them again in a couple of months. Like, hey John, did you, did you find like a CPA or did you find somebody that you needed help with? And you know, if not just like re continue that conversation. But not in a way where it's like a sleaze ball or like a harassment sort of tactic. Like play the long game when everybody else wants to play a very short game and then that that person that didn't sign up will sign up again in the next month or two. The good things that I've gotten feedback from from current customers is when, when somebody's ready or interested to work with us, we're the first to reach out. So like all the CPA firms, as far as like when you fill out an application form to, when you get on somebody's calendar. We're the quickest, right? So a lot of times what happens is ding, ding, ding, like taxes become somebody's front and center of their mind. And so then they like, you know, they apply to us, they apply to other firms and we're the first one to get to them. And so then they see the price.

Right.

And maybe it is a high price, but they're like, I need to go, I need to go talk to other people to see about this. And then when those, when they find out that like everybody else's price is right around the same, if not similar, or maybe their price is half low, but they're not getting as much value there, they always end up coming back.

Like there's almost an, it's like there's an advantage and a disadvantage there, right? Yeah, because the advantage is you reach out to them first so you're like top in their head, right?

Yeah.

But then the disadvantage is like they haven't even talked to all the other people they've also applied with. And so like, they're like, yeah, I need to like, you know, get on my sales call with like Brandon hall and Amanda Hahn and Matt Bontrager and like, you know, learn all their stuff. And so then you have to like, you either have to be okay with a two call sales cycle or you have to like, I know we've talked about this before, but having like the spreadsheet comparing all your offers and like, you have to be able to like pitch that in a compelling way in a way that they like trust you. And it doesn't sound like you're like bashing the other companies.

Yeah. And then like I even had somebody that told me last week because I'll do that too. If, when I, when I talk to like new clients, I'm like, hey, you know what, what kind of made you sign up with us? And, and one of the guys, he told me, he was like, well, it seemed like your systems were the best. It's like, you know, some of these other people, there's like broken links or like they, it would say that they were going to send me an email. They never sent me an email. I was like, it's like your system. He was like, it was really easy. It's like I filled out an application form, then I got directed to place to book a call. And then once I booked the call, I got an email. And then next thing you know, like I'm on the sales call the next day and then boom, like now I am here a week later. It's like, very, very efficient system. So it's like, I know if that's really good on the front end, that you're probably also pretty good on the back end.

Too easy to work with you.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, I mean, those first impressions are huge, right? Because, I mean, making a good first impression is an amazing thing for your sales. But also, like, if you make a bad first impression, that's, like, really, really hard to overcome once you actually get into the sales cycle. Yeah, dude. Appreciate it.

Yeah.