Go-To-Market Essentials: Building and Expanding Your Accounting Practice

Welcome to the Accounting for Innovation podcast where we explore cutting edge strategies and insights into the world of accounting and finance. Presented by Decimal and the Radical cba, each episode dives deep into industry trends. Whether you're a seasoned professional or a budding entrepreneur, join us as we unpack key concepts and share practical tips to drive success. Welcome to the Accounting for Innovation podcast. I'm Jody Padar, the Radical cpa, and I've been at the forefront of innovation in the accounting industry for over 15 years. My co host, Matt Tate, is the CEO of Decimal, one of the fastest growing accounting companies in the country and is an accounting innovator.

Thanks, Jody. It's been a fun season as we're talking about a lot of things hitting the accounting industry. But today is right in my sweet spot and I really am excited to talk about growth. How as a firm owner or as an accountant, do you grow your firm? Do you get into sales and do you really learn about how can I do this in the most cost effective and effective way? And Jodi, as somebody that has built and run her own firm and I would say multiple businesses, including a very well selling book. What are some of the places, where are some of the places that you start in thinking about growth and selling?

If I were to go back to my former self, I would sell to everyone, everything, right? Like I was hungry and I needed to pay bills. I would talk to someone and if I could sell them, whatever, I could sell them, I would sell it. And I think that's how many new firm owners think, right? Like, I gotta get something so that I can do the work, so I can feed my family, whatever. But now thinking more strategically, I think it really makes a lot of sense now to think about who you want to serve and how you're going to serve them first before you even get to the sales conversation. So figure out your icp. So that's essentially who's the most important customer to you. And once you figure out who that Persona is, then you can kind of figure out what package offering you're going to create and then you can go to market. And that's what they call it on the tech side is go to market. So it used to be rainmaking in the accounting firm, right? Like you would make it rain with customers. You are a rainmaker, if you're a rainmaker partner. But actually when you think about in terms of technology and I would say the new firm model, you're thinking in terms of go to market and truly a sales process. And so before you even Go to sell something, you need to know what it is you're selling. And so that's where I would step back and say, okay, what am I going to sell? And then say, okay, now how am I going to go to market and how am I going to sell it and who am I going to sell it to and where am I going to sell it? Am I going to go online and is it going to be like a digital storefront and people are going to sign up for something and then a salesperson is going to call them back. That salesperson may be you because you're the only employee, but still, are you going to call them back? Are they coming in your front door of your website? Are they, are you at an office? Are they knocking on your door? Or maybe you're on social and you're just starting to talk about you're doing more content marketing and you're talking about things and having leads come in that way. So I think the way rainmakers used to work in the old days is very different than the way you make it rain today for an accounting firm. Would you agree with that?

I would agree with that. I think there are a couple additions that I would make. And let me say, as decimal being part of this new wave of accounting companies, we've grown our business from zero to 650 clients in four and a half years. And so we've gone through a lot of iterations of this. We acquired about 250 clients, so 400. One of the things that I think is really important is that you kind of tap danced around. But I want to hit on very specifically. You should not only figure out what you want to sell, but also figure out the price and what is your price. And each price, you may give a fixed price, but the reality is you have a range. And that range is, man, on my best day, I sold that 50 deal for a hundred bucks. And that's extra margin. I'm pumped. On your worst day, can you sell it for $30 and still be profitable? Because you have to understand the difference between good revenue and bad revenue. And every single one of us will sell bad revenue deals in the first year of business. That's okay. Just make sure you really start to understand as you're selling what is the good revenue and what is the bad revenue. Because as you grow, you don't want bad revenue to take up too much time when it can be replaced with good revenue. And so that's another thing that I put in there is as you decide what you want to Sell, Decide how you want to price it in a way that helps you grow to what you want to be. Not everybody wants to do 650 growth over four years. That's totally understandable. You can build an amazing practice with 30 clients, but really think through what you want to do. And the second thing is, and you mentioned this, when you are building a firm, when you're building a business, you as the owner should do the sales period. Until you at least get to about a million dollars in business, you should be the one selling because nobody's going to understand better than you what to learn, how quickly to change. You're going to adapt your pitch. You know, Jody is, as you've seen in building, you talk to people that aren't great, but then you know, okay, I'm not going to talk to that single person consultant. Like, they're just not going to buy what I have. They don't have the price point. So anytime somebody comes in that's a single person, consult them and say, hey, can't help you. Would love to, but here's my minimum price. It helps move things along. And you're the only one that can learn that. You're also the only one that can adaptably price. And so many people just don't want to do sales and they hire for it way too quickly. And then I guarantee you build bad revenue and that's a big problem.

Yeah. And I think the other thing about sales is when you're the owner and you're doing the first initial sale, people are really forgiving of you. If you know what you're talking about. You don't have to be the perfect closer with like some sort of, like, I don't know, snazzy, snazzy sales line or some sort of like hair Gordon Gecko style. Like, I think accountants think that, oh, like I don't have to like or like, I, I don't know sales because like, I don't know the hooks and I don't know like how to close and I don't like. You know what, at the end of the day, if you're honest and genuine about helping your client see something special within their books or within their tax return or whatever, and you show that knowledge, then that client is going to respond to that as you being like a person who can solve their problem and they will pay for it. And you don't have to have some fancy PowerPoint or something like that because I think too many people get caught in the, the, the, oh my God, I didn't go to sales training school and you can go to sales training school online, which, I don't know, I would argue about. Like, I think there's things to be taken, but you can learn a lot of sales just by being honest and genuine and knowing your product, knowing what it is you sell, and knowing how to do it. So that confidence with that will take you a long way. And guess what? You don't always price everything, right? Like, you're going to make mistakes along the way, that's okay. But it's a muscle. And as soon as you do it, you just learn it and you keep increasing it. And then you're going to be able to tell whoever it is you hire longer term how to sell it or what to sell. And the other thing is, is if people are around when, and I say around because it's harder now without intentionally getting them to be around. But if some of your team members, let's say, are around and they hear how you sell, they'll start picking up on the keywords that you say and they'll start repeating them even when they're already in client work and they're seeing an opportunity to sell something out. Because I think that's the other piece that gets so overlooked in firms because people just do work and then sometimes it gets billed, sometimes it doesn't because of the billable hour mentality. But if you can teach your accountants, like, what to look for, that's outside of scope, and then they can have that conversation with a client about, like, additional services that they can help on and put a price on, you teach them how to sell and they learn it or organically by again, helping their client, which is, it's a very different mentality than you're solving the problem instead of selling their. Selling them a solution to the problem. And I think that makes a big difference.

Well, and I think you've hit on something that is really powerful. One of the reasons I absolutely love this industry is because you are selling something they have to do, right? Period. And that is, I can't tell you, I've been in a bunch of different industries. That's amazing. And it's an awesome place to be in. And so any, anybody that's in accounting that's selling, like, stop and think, all right? They have to do this. How do I show them I'm the right person and then how do I give them the right price? And if you can internalize those three things, guess what? There's your free sales training and don't go pay for the class. But I do think, too tactically, I think we are at a very big change point in sales tactics. And I want to make sure we spend a little bit of time on the tactics of it. Because even in the four and a half years that decimal has been around, there's been an astronomical change in what I would recommend in how to do things. And it's really a boomerang, which is fascinating. It used to be like, Jody, when you started so much of your client base, so much of your growth, or even your dad's growth, was local people that knew people that knew people that knew people. It was that network hopping and. And then all of a sudden you had outbound, you had LinkedIn messaging, you have emails, you have all of this, like, great stuff that you can do to talk to business owners from your desk, which, by the way, it's still somewhat effective. But the efficacy of those tactics, I see a lot of people saying, like, hey, build an outbound email channel. Start LinkedIn messaging people. Like, that's how you build your book of business. Well, the reality is on all of that is the advent of AI and the improvement of these tools has made it so that those are way less effective than they ever have been. And I think that's really important to internalize for people is thinking about how they do it is really important. And I wanted to say, like, what we've seen to be effective and what I've seen for smaller firms is big change. It's going back to the way things used to be and doing things more industry specific, more in person, more network hopping. And I think that's something as you build your business, to really think about is, is that an effective way to continue to build trust? So.

So the interesting thing about that, Matt, is, and I, I think we've talked about it in the past, if not on the podcast, is initially like, the early adopters of the cloud were online and they kind of figured out, like, how to get all the people who were already online. Right? Like the, the people who hang out online, they. They captured all those customers already, right? Or they're. They're capturing them. But there are so many. And I live in an area of the country that is usually 10 years behind. It's very. I mean, I'm in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin, and beautiful country.

Go Packers.

Yeah, but. But it's a little bit behind. But now those small businesses in my town, Sturgeon bay, which is 25 minutes from me, so just mind you, I have to drive 25 minutes to get that town of 8 of 8,000 people. So you can imagine where I live in the farms, right? And those business owners are now ready for the Internet. And it's funny because you say, oh, they're, they're ready for the Internet now. The accountant in town is old school, doesn't even direct deposit their paycheck. And I'm talking at the people, I'm talking to the woman who owns the beauty shop. She owns a few different Airbnbs. She's like truly an entrepreneur and does a lot in the town. And the accountant who is in that town is old school and on the cloud. And so when she talks to me, it's like a breath of fresh air. And she's like, oh, like I would love this. So it's kind of now, it's like if you go back to that local and you're able to sell them services that they haven't been introduced by these old school accountants and maybe they wouldn't go to look online for them, but they want the new, then I'll call it new age. It's not new age, but still they want, they want real time accounting is what they want. And they want real time access to the information in their business. There's a whole market full of these businesses that are ready for it. And to me that was like a real eye opener. And I was like, yeah, because I was like that early adopter and I, I take, I like chase the digital natives. But these now are like regular businesses who are saying, yeah, I want to be in the cloud, I want to run my business better. Nobody ever offered me that choice because I go to an old school firm and, and that old school firm is a big old school firm because it's been through multiple AC originally was a smaller firm but now it's pretty big because it, you know, it's been eaten up. So it, it's quite interesting when you see like how it's kind of going the other way.

Well, and I think, I think one thing there, that, that is key to that story because I've heard that a million times as well, is you have this newer generation of entrepreneur of business owner and even people that are taking over their parents businesses that you sell them more based on the output or the end result of what you're selling, they care less about how you do it. A business owner doesn't care about Gap accounting. What they care about is real time information, real time and, or they don't care about, hey, give me bill.com. what they care about is, hey, I don't have to print something off, I don't have to deal with this paper. It's a lot faster. Also, who the heck still writes paper checks? Like they, they're doing all of these things and, and if you're selling them on the output and the end result, when I say output, I mean the end result of these tasks. Then all of a sudden you've changed from that old school accounting firm in the small town, which is saying, hey, I'm going to do your books, we're going to get your taxes done, you're going to be great. And they're like, okay, I kind of need more than that. But it's the only person I'm talking to. Versus like, hey, I can make sure that your bills are paid on time. It takes you no time at all. You can look at your books any minute of every day, see that they're done, see how your business is doing. We can put some reporting together to see the levers of the business. Maybe you're over or under inventory or you don't have enough upcoming appointments or whatever you need to do to financially make sure that you're okay as a business owner. Then all of a sudden they're like, wow, they're actually going to help me sleep better at night and they're going to take time away from me and all of a sudden I can work less and do more. This is great. Those are the types of things that I think you're really selling in the outcome. Output results.

Absolutely. And I think it, it's funny because when I had that conversation, she said, well, how come nobody's ever told me about this? And I would like, I don't know, right. And you think, okay, here is a client of this firm and they would have had the opportunity to transition to cloud and to real time information and it would have made everybody's life easier. But the old school partners never ever broach the subject. And now she will go somewhere else and she will go online or do, oh yeah, because now she knows there's, there's another option, right? Like before, she didn't realize there was anything different, but now she knows there's another option.

You should be able to run the finance function of your business with a phone and no printer. If somebody's selling you a printer in a desktop machine with a, a bunch of hardware, they're selling it wrong. You may have other things in your business that you need, the old school stuff, but the finance function doesn't need anything more than that.

So, so that's been interesting to me about, you know, kind of like we're going back. Uh, but the other thing is, and I would say this is where social media comes in and I, I'm definitely a social media person is about building that brand online as to who you are and what you do because things will organically come to you if as you build that brand. So and this is long term play, this is not. It doesn't happen overnight. Being active on social to me has always been the same as you know, showing up at my kids baseball game in on Facebook. Right. So like to me I would be like if I'm on Facebook it was the same as going to the park during the baseball game. Right. Because it was my local area of people who were like seeing what I did. And to this day, even though I haven't owned a firm in five years, I still get inbound coming to me saying hey Jody, you know, know can I, can you help me? Right. And then I do referrals, et cetera. So I think having a social presence is still critical and you just have to realize it's a long term play. It, it's not overnight, it's building a reputation and that reputation just takes time to build.

Well and I think, look, there are two things. If, if I were start, if I were a single accountant starting my own firm, I would do two things and one is a should do and one is a be careful of should do. Pick an industry or two or three and be an expert in those. I would go industry specific all day long, find a niche and go straight for it. And maybe that niche isn't an industry, but it is small town Wisconsin. Travel to the small towns, be that person for small town Wisconsin. I'd argue there are states that have small towns that are closer together but you can pick Wisconsin. But I would pick that niche and industry specific is one way to do a niche location is another one. The other thing that I would be careful of. I 100% agree with you, Jodi. Doing content, building your personal brand, the brand of your firm online is a great idea, but that's work that you should do. I see too many firms and business owners paying marketing companies 10,000, 15,000, $8,000 a month to do paid advertising or search engine optimization. Things that have no roi. But you think you should pay for marketing and you think you should pay for it and you don't get the results. I'm not saying you shouldn't do those things, but you can do them in a way that starts to test their efficacy and builds your trust in them and shows you a true ROI without the I'm going to waste a bunch of money because somebody said I need.

To do marketing, right? And I think that's just going after marketing tactics without thinking about your bigger, broader marketing and brand strategy. Right? So that, that's what happens is people say, oh, I need to do marketing. So they like throw things, right? So I, I think it's, it's interesting. I think there's so much opportunity for growth. I think there's so many new business owners. I think that if you have the right attitude, like you can grow a firm exponentially today much easier than you could in because the world is your oyster. I mean your world is huge. You don't have to, they don't have to be. You're not limited to the 1100 people that are in my town.

It's way easier. There are so many more opportunities. I talked to an amazing firm owner the other day whose entire business is expats doing consulting work in the US who would ever thought like it was amazing. There are tons of opportunities like that and it's only going to get easier. So Jody, with that awesome conversation today, thank you so much for tuning in to the Accounting for Innovation podcast brought to you by Decimal and the Radical cpa. You can find more great episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts. And please don't forget to pick up Jody's new book, Radical Pricing how to Optimize Profits, Delight Clients and Build a Top Value Firm. And as always, Jody and I would love to connect on LinkedIn. Thanks everyone.