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Speaker1: Hello, listeners. Today we're bringing you a special bonus episode focused on scaling accounting firms and achieving transformational growth. This is a rebroadcast of an insightful webinar featuring three firm owners who have grown their practices ten x in revenue. The discussion explores critical growth strategies, including when to hire, how to build systems, and leveraging community support. You'll hear practical advice and real world examples from firm owners who have successfully navigated the challenges of scaling their practices. Enjoy!
Jeff Phillips: Thank you to everyone for logging into our presentation. Today we're so excited to be connecting with you and sharing some of our stories of of of growth inside the accounting market. Um, and, uh, I wanted to extend a warm welcome to our panelists, and we'll, we'll give an introduction to each of you in just a second. But thank you for being here as well. I'm logging in from Pensacola, Florida, my home hometown. Why are we here today? So I have asked some owners of of local and small market accounting firms to who have achieved remarkable growth to think about the lessons that they've learned over the years and what got them to where they are today, so that we could present to you some of the best practices and lessons learned that would help you along your journey. So this is for accounting entrepreneurs, people who are who are running accounting firms right now. But maybe you're stuck and trying to figure out how to grow. So my hope is that our panel will provide you with some actionable insights and real advice on how to achieve growth. It's not easy. It is very doable. And each one of these owners are a part of Paget, uh, which will give a little more introduction to in a second. But we're really excited to be here and there. Um, there will be some polling questions as we go throughout and also some more information about pageant which is sponsoring today's presentation.
Jeff Phillips: A little about me. I'm the CEO of pageant. I've been in the accounting profession for about 15 years. Started a company called Accounting Fly. Prior to joining pageant, which is a staffing firm helping solving the challenges of of accounting firms making hires, which I'm sure you know, is is a deep challenge. But I've been with pageant for over four years now and thrilled to be a part of this company. Um, I'm thrilled to be with these owners that are that are here with us. What do we want to accomplish today? So my hope is by the end of this session, there's a few things that that that will be to do list items for you in the in the coming months and in 2020, 2025 and 2026, in coming years. And they do revolve around hiring the right people and all that comes with that, because that we know that that is a challenge. But I think one of the questions is, what is the connection between hiring and actually growing the firm, and when do I hire? What's the first key hire to make? And I think there's a lot of different nuances, but all these owners have achieved ten times growth since they began their practice or acquired their original practice. And so they have a lot of insights on that. Um, why it's important not to go through this entrepreneurial journey alone and being a part of a community, which I think we all have in common as the pageant team, where can you go to gain knowledge, and how important is that thinking about a marketing plan and what can accountants do from a marketing standpoint? What resources are available to you there? I think building systems is critical, especially at different levels of accounting, firm growth.
Jeff Phillips: And I want to we want to share what systems were critical in the growth of these firms and thinking thinking things through in terms of a one year plan, what what should you be doing? And over the next 12 months, knowing that at some point in time we're going to have a tax season. And that's a that's obviously a busy time of year. But how do you think about growth strategies during and after the busy season? So a lot to cover. Um, shout out to Padgett. Padgett is, uh, the sponsor of today's webinar, and we're all affiliated with Padgett in one way or another. Um, but I'd like to just introduce our company to you and and why we're presenting today. Padgett is a nearly 60 year old accounting and tax firm in North America, with locations all over the United States and Canada, making it one of the largest tax and accounting firms in the US with a very unique business model. Our the way we go to market is through franchising.
Jeff Phillips: And so every owner of a Padgett like the three here are independent business owners, um, that run their company locally. And they're all supported by a central home office that does things like marketing services, um, training, education, giving a sense of community tax support, accounting support, things of that nature. Um, and so it's a unique model and it has worked very well for us in terms of growth, in terms of building a community around owners and troubleshooting the growth. We look at building a firm as pieces of a puzzle, and you can see those pieces here. Oftentimes, owners spend so much time in the technical weeds of running a business that they forget to address the other pieces of the puzzle. So we like to look at this as a puzzle that you must put together to get the growth. Work life balance and profit margin that's so essential. And the reason why we got into business in first place. We offer tax, tax, tax planning for clients, tax preparation, payroll and accounting services. And again, I've been in business for nearly six decades. So thanks to Paget. So let's talk about you. Um, we've we've found when we talk to firm owners, there's really three groups. There's, there's, there's folks who are just starting out and really in the weeds of the startup part of an accounting firm. There are owners who have achieved some growth, built a book of business, but they're stuck and they're asking questions and looking for answers.
Jeff Phillips: Where do I go next to reach $1 million, $2 million, um, $500,000? Wherever, wherever it is that the next level is for you. And the third level is probably I'm thinking about retirement. There's a lot of owners out there who are considering retiring and trying to sort that out as well. So if you're stuck or if you're growing, um, and even if you're looking to retire, I think, you know, what I wanted to ask is like, where are you in your journey and what is holding you back? Or what's your best sense of what's holding you back to running a profitable firm with with more work life balance than you've had in the past and trying to get things like pricing right, trying new things, trying to get things like hiring right and growth. They all work in tandem. So if if you're stuck looking to grow, I think we have answers for you. Um, in this session. So, um, want to want to introduce our speakers and, and as we do, um, folks take, take a second and explain who you are and where you live and your own growth story as, uh, as a business owner and how long you've been in business. And we'll start first with, uh, with Janet Kopp in Gainesville, Georgia. Hey, Janet. Good morning.
Janet Kaup: Hey, there. How are you? I am happy to be here today and share a little bit about this pageant journey. Um, I was quite young when I began working with pageant. Actually. I was still pursuing my accounting degree and began to work as an associate accountant. Um, and had the opportunity to buy the firm when I was 25 years old. Um, I've been a firm owner since 2002, and I am in northeast Georgia, in Gainesville and, um, have have had a great, great journey so far, successful journey so far. And I look forward to, uh, to what is to come. Growth has definitely been important to me from the beginning. Um, the book of business that I bought was about $130,000 at the time, and we are in excess of 1.3 million at this point and still, um, continuing to grow.
Jeff Phillips: Thank you. Janet. I want to bring in Jeff Darley, uh, in the Denver area, Littleton, Colorado. Hey, Jeff. Hey.
Jeff Darley: I appreciate being here. Thank you very much. Um, my father actually bought a Padgitt franchise when he was on the very end of his career in 1998, and about two years into it, he just kind of said, you know, I don't want to do much with this, but you should look at it. This is a great deal and you'd be perfect for it. So I joined when I was 27 years old in 2000. And, um, absolutely loved it. And I, I took growth very seriously from the get go. My father was not interested in having employees or doing any of that, but but I was. And so we we grew it together. And about seven years later he retired and and I've had it since then. We started at about 140,000 when I joined him, and this year I'll do just under 2 million. So it's been a lot of growth.
Jeff Phillips: That's incredible. Jeff, thank you for being here and for sharing your story. All right. Tom Friedel is in Maumee, Ohio, which is in the Toledo area. Welcome, Tom, and thanks for being here.
Tom Friedel: Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me. Um, it's great to meet everybody. Um, I started the pageant business in 2008. I spent a couple of years in public accounting with KPMG, then went into corporate America for a while, and then, um, decided to to become an entrepreneur and own my own company. And I acquired an existing pageant franchise that had been in business for 17 years back in when I when I bought it in 2008. So very similar size. We were um, about a couple hundred thousand, uh, in revenue back then, just a little under 200,000. And, um, in the past 17 years, we've done a couple of small acquisitions along the way. Uh, just some, maybe some tax firms here. But the majority of our growth has come through the development of relationships with some strategic referral partners that we've been able and blessed to build with some local CPA firms in town. And, um, also, you know, we got some coaching because one of the the main things that I learned is, um, you know, obviously I'm a CPA and I knew how to do taxes and I knew how to how to do accounting and kind of run a business, but I didn't know how to sell. Um, and, and through some coaching that came as part of the franchise, actually, um, I was able to Overcome my obstacles with selling and really unleash the growth. And, um, last year we were just a little shy of of 2 million in total revenue. So, you know, we've had great, great success in growing the business for those 17 years.
Jeff Phillips: That's that's incredible. And Tom, before I move on, I wanted to double click on one thing you said is is the importance of referral partners. And I just wanted to ask you off the bat, um, what could you tell us the story behind referral partners and, and why that was a useful vehicle for you?
Tom Friedel: Yeah, sure. Um, the the first referral partner relationship actually was through a joint, um, financial planner. And we've developed really good relationships with financial planners, so they're good apple trees for our business. But through a financial planner, he introduced me to a managing partner of another local regional firm. And we just kind of developed a bond. And we're actually now operating our business inside their building, and they're our landlord. And I remember when we first looked at the property, their their realtor was like, I'm not so sure this is going to work. And the response was, no, no, they're a friend of the firm. We welcome them in and we just have this great symbiotic referral relationship where clients that have a lot of international challenges, I refer to them or major complex businesses and then smaller businesses. They refer to us. Um, so that's one of the key ones for us. And then, oddly enough, one of the college kids that we had working for us went to work for another CPA firm. And when she graduated and they were like, wow, you're well trained. Where did you learn that? And then she says, well, I work for Paget and kind of built that relationship. And and they started referring, you know, referring business to us. And those two relationships have really been key for us to get our growth going. And, you know, it's I talk to a lot of people about doing something similar because we can all do it. We all have mutual relationships that we, you know, there's enough business for everybody. And and just we're not a fit for everybody.
Jeff Phillips: That's fantastic. So I want to dig into what, uh, what are the stories behind this, these ten x growth stories that you've all had? And I think we're all humble enough to say at the front that it's not easy. And probably there were some trial and error and some setbacks and, and and probably some tough days in between there. No one, no one wants to come to this and say, this is, uh, the magic formula. That's why we wanted to have multiple folks. And if you're in the audience, please ask questions. We will allocate time at the end for the panelists to answer questions and make sure you get value out of this. Um, but I think whether it's, you know, all of you, the thing you all have in common, I think, is, is that you got into a small firm and there was a little book of business and you found ways, you know, whether it was referrals and marketing and things we're going to talk about. But but accomplishing a really big growth number that I think is, is rare in our profession. And so I want to dig in on any stories you have that are useful to the audience that, um, and also connect them to the pieces of that puzzle that we talked about a second ago.
Jeff Phillips: Um, and because each one of those pieces is so important, we're actually going to kind of organize our questions around those puzzle pieces, and I'll kind of drive that. But the first one is, is people and I, and I think this is something that's overwhelming for owners. You get out into business and you're good at at doing tax and accounting work and you get paid to do it. Then all of a sudden you've got to build a team. And we were in a world where it's hard to hire and there's turnover and there's issues. And when do you hire and how do you have a philosophy about putting people in the team? Because none of you would have gotten to your growth that you're at alone? I think you could probably all agree with that. So, Jeff, let me let me start with you. And can you talk about your story of what your view is on hiring and what the connection is to growth? And then Janet and Tom just jump in and we can have a discussion about it. But Jeff, we'll start with you.
Jeff Darley: Yeah. When I talk to firms that are struggling with growth, this is the first thing I say to them. Don't be afraid to hire hire before you need the employee. I think that that's probably the most important thing is one, if you have a one person staff or a two person staff, once everybody's full, including the owner, and you just are like, boy, it just would be stressful if I took on one more client right now. That's a terrible position to be in because you don't have the growth mindset, and your clients are going to feel that when they're sitting across the table from you and you don't want to actually bring them on board because you're afraid you won't be able to get the work done. So what I've always done is the second everyone is full, whether that's when I had one employee or now I just say, okay, so we can't take on any more work, then I hire somebody right then and there? I know for a fact I'm going to take a loss for 6 to 8 months, maybe a year on that staff member while they get trained up. And while I continue the growth and fill up their bucket of work right until they're fully at capacity. They don't have to be at full capacity for me to make money, but it takes some time.
Jeff Darley: You know, you're going to lose money, and I think you have to accept that. And before you need anybody, you have to hire someone before they're necessary because it changes your mindset on growth. And then when you're talking to the next client, you're excited about bringing them on because it's another step to filling that new employees bucket. So I just think that you, you, you just have to do it. And it's the thing that people are most afraid of because they say, well, wait, if I hire somebody for whatever 50, $60,000 a year, that's $60,000 a year I'm not making and I'm only making 200,000 or 250,000. How can I afford that? And you just have to figure out a way to do it, because there isn't another way to grow. Other than to have the bandwidth to do it. And that's just my opinion on it. And I've done that since the beginning, and I continue to do it. I'm I'm looking at hiring a new person right now, because I think that my dad was starting to be overwhelmed. And I know that growth is around the corner, so I need to be prepared for it. And if I'm not prepared for it, I won't grow. So that's my my main opinion.
Tom Friedel: And I agree completely, Jeff. I mean, that's that's really the truth is, is we have to hire the capacity. And you know, you talked about making the investment and a lot of people are afraid to make the investment. But if you think about it, our investment in capacity is significantly lower than a manufacturer's investment in capacity. Right. They're putting they're putting hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions of dollars on the ground to get capacity where, you know, we may be putting 60,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 on the ground to get that capacity, and you're not even fronting it like to build a building. You're just paying it in wages over time while the while the person comes up. So realistically, our cost of capacity is relatively low, even though it cuts into the profitability for a short period of time. So I agree with you.
Janet Kaup: And my philosophy came probably out of that position of being fearful at such a young business owner in the beginning. And one of the greatest benefits of the pageant system has been the mentorship over the years. You certainly couldn't ask for better teachers and community, and one of my mentors early on encouraged me to get over that fear and to hire only what I needed at the time. When you start off as a one man shop, it is scary to bring that first person in. And so I had a philosophy of hiring, um, basically entry level positions and then training them on the way. I wanted the system to be managed. And that has worked well for me over the years. I have certainly gone through some difficulties, just like everybody that's probably viewing this right now. And, you know, if you lose a key person having to find and replace them, if you lose somebody unexpectedly or or something like that, and, you know, we experienced that in 2021. Um, and it was difficult. And it's not a problem that you can solve instantly. Um, but the the surest solution is to focus on recruitment and make sure that you're communicating with potential new hires. Um, and make sure that you don't reach that capacity point and sit idle. Um, Jeff's not lying. When he said, you know, that he he believes this mantra, and he's actually had to tell me a time or two. You need to hire someone. Um, when when we talk in community and share our struggles are, um, he's he's been quick to point that out as the best solution. And he's been right in those cases.
Jeff Phillips: So, Janet, do you remember when you were starting out and what or who the first hire you made was. And what was that like for you?
Janet Kaup: Um, yes, it was a it was a breath of fresh air at the time because, um, I bought a practice that was existing and it was larger and we split apart, and I was by myself in the office that had previously been full of people. And it was really lonely in those first few months. Um, so my, my first hire was one out of necessity because it was just too quiet. Um, and I needed somebody to be there with me. Um, and it was a breath of fresh air just to have a person to talk to. But that was that was quite a long time ago.
Jeff Phillips: Well, you clearly got over the fear. And that fear is real and and but but you only have so many hours in the week that you can give to your business, right?
Janet Kaup: Yes, absolutely. I think it's important to, when we talk about people to really consider being as flexible as you can be. We've had great success working with local universities. We attend their career fair and we promote a culture of no overtime. Um, so our, our philosophy has been if we get to a point where we're at capacity with people working 40 hour weeks, that's when we need to to bring more people in. Um, even during tax season, we don't want people working overtime. And I can tell you that the students who have come to our career fair, we advertise this pretty boldly during those career fairs, and it resonates with people. Um, so we really do try to build a culture that appeals to people who are in the market today. And I think one of the things that's been helpful for us is focusing on getting the right people on the bus, and not necessarily making them fit into our traditional definition of what a great hire would be. For example, a majority of my staff, um, are part time. I have moms who need to come to the office when the school bus has picked up their children, and they need to be home before the school bus drops them off. And I have people who have taken time out of the workplace and have returned. And if I were only hiring full time team members, I would have missed the opportunity to work with some really brilliant people.
Jeff Phillips: That's incredible.
Jeff Darley: I agree with Janet, and I think when you're hiring, you also want to consider the culture you're trying to build. If I've spent a lot of time in my office building a culture with people that fit with that culture, so I sometimes have passed on accountants. That probably would be quality accountants, but I passed on them because I didn't feel they'd be a good fit for what I'm trying to build here, which is a community like we have. We have a potluck once a month where everybody brings different foods in, and we have a 4th of July barbecue, and I try to encourage my staff members to spend time with one another, because I want this to be a good place to work for them. You know, they're my number one client. If I can keep my employees happy, they're going to keep my clients happy. And I think that it goes a long way to hiring good people up front. I hire professionals to do professional work. I don't want to follow them around and find out if they work 40 hours that week. I just I don't want to be involved in a situation like that. I want to hire good people, trust them to do the work that I've given them, and then also have fun and build a culture around what we're all doing here. And they're my family, and if they have problems, then they're my problems too. And if I can keep them happy, they're going to keep my clients happy. And and it's working phenomenally. And I have many of my employees that have said this is the best place they've ever worked. And then that saves me money because I don't have the turnover problems. I don't have to deal with retraining someone from scratch, because somebody left for an extra $5,000 to go across the street. They want to stay here and they want to be here long term. And I still have the very first employee that I got 21 years ago, and he's going to be retiring pretty soon. I'm going to throw him a retirement party and it's going to be fun.
Jeff Phillips: That is incredible. And and I think my my biggest takeaway of that story is, is to anticipate growth and to hire before you need to, not after you need to, and invest in having a great place to work. You know, hiring is a system, and I want to talk about systems and ask you a question about how has systems enabled your growth. And I think I think systems and thinking about it is one of those things that we read a book and we get really excited about building systems, and we have a dopamine hit and then we never build systems. I remember reading the E-myth, if any of you read that, and I was really struggling in the entrepreneurial journey that I was on, um, a decade ago and reading this book and just the simplicity of having checklists and repeatable processes for what I do and how impactful it was for me to build systems that that generated repeatable outcomes inside my business. And, and I imagine the same is true for you all. And there's lots of different ways to look at systems. We've listed some there. But Tom, my question first question is for you is just how have thinking about systems enabled you to grow?
Tom Friedel: Yeah. No I think that's a great question Jeff. And and I think, you know, I referenced manufacturing when we talked about capacity and my background before this industry and this business was manufacturing. And it's all about systems. And I'm not Six Sigma certified or I'm not a Six Sigma black belt or anything. But I learned a lot about the principles of systems in manufacturing and financing. And we brought that to to Paget and to this accounting firm. And whether that's a system in terms of how do we document our work papers and how do we do our tick marks, and how do we enter data? How do we assemble tax returns? How do we reconcile bank accounts? How do we process a payroll? All of those things are important in terms of having the systems in place so that the next employee can walk right in and begin to hit the ground running as fast as possible. By having something that is, you know, duplicated, duplicated. Um, I can't think of the word. Um, but but even even even things like naming conventions for files. Right. So that they sort in a particular order. And it all of it sounds very detail oriented, but there's really kind of a system and a logic behind it so that when you want to go get something, you're not looking all over the place to try to figure out, well, where did somebody put that notice? And it came in in 24, but it's related to 21 and it should be in the 21 folder, not the 24 folder. And just having all of those systems as you want to grow from a sole proprietor business to a one employee to a ten employee or 12 employee business, you have to have those systems. And, um, and I think that that's been a big part of why we've been able to grow is, is having the systems in place, which, you know, we designed a lot of them and we got some help with our community to create them. And, and just kind of really getting to that, that repeatable, um, solution over and over and over.
Janet Kaup: I think it can be overwhelming for a person who is already tapped out. They're already working as much as they can work and managing their firm, and they want to create systems, but they don't have any extra time, so to speak. Um, I think technology's brought us a long way. And somebody who might be asking, well, how do we how do we create these systems from scratch to pass down to the next hire? Um, there's some great tools out there. Paget makes a lot available to us as far as training. And one of the most recent, um, speakers that we saw over the summer talked about the camcorder method of training, and it's, um, it's so easy now to just record a screenshot of what you're doing, every task that's done in your office from receiving client payments, making deposits, reconciling bank statements for clients, reviewing financials to talk through and teach and actually capture that on a recording and then make a bank of all of these recordings. So, um, for for those of us accountants who typically like to have everything just so, so, you know, an outline first and then a rough draft and then this final product, um, I think the world is so much more forgiving and technology is so much easier to use in creating these written systems.
Janet Kaup: I think we've been become very fortunate over the last few years in being able to actually accomplish building out standard operating procedures, um, using technology. And we've had a lot of success building systems around pricing. That's always been a challenging, um, a challenging thing to do in, um, meeting a prospect and determining exactly how much, uh, that person's engagement with you should be. And we have been striving to price everything up front. No hourly billing. Um, and we want to be able to place a value on the things that we typically would have given away for free. Because as accountants, we're generally nice people who like to help others. Um, and we found over the years in that regard, we had to build a system for pricing because the market had changed. You couldn't simply ask a prospect, how many checks are you writing and how many bank accounts do you have? That information is not really relevant anymore. Um, so we've we've had some great success working with Paget to build, um, pricing systems to be able to streamline that, um, that process from meeting a prospect to presenting a proposal to getting paid up front and getting paid for work we'd previously given away.
Jeff Darley: Um, I agree Paget helped me a great deal with the pricing systems. Um, and taxes are about half of my revenue, and we do about 80% of that work during tax season. And so we're a fairly heavy tax compared to a lot of other pageants. And we had to develop systems early on to be able to to process that kind of volume through the system and still give everybody, you know, the feeling that their only and most important client, which is something that you have to do. And without those systems in place, I don't think I'd be able to do the volume of tax work that we do in such a short period of time, obviously. So systems are invaluable and pageant really has helped with the pricing system. I was underpriced for a very, very long time. Probably still in frankly, I don't think I'm ever going to be like, oh, I hit the nail right on the head. You constantly have to be updating your systems and updating your pricing and learning new things with technology. You know, for example, we run on Tax Dome that's put different systems in place that we weren't using before that I think is upfront, costly and also time consuming. But it's putting different systems into our firm. We're using it not just for taxes. We're using it. The accounting department and the payroll department all now are using tax domes because it develops pipelines where you can see where the work is at. I'm doing more and more accounting work where we're sharing it, where I have high level accountants and then people below them doing a lot of the work, and then the higher accountant basically doing the the client interaction because they're really good at it. And Tax Dome has helped with that too. It's just the technology is great to help you build systems that you need to have to be better and more efficient. And if you if you can't do that, then you can't remain profitable as you grow, which I did struggle with years ago.
Tom Friedel: And and to that point, I think the, um, the, you know, the last bullet here talks about firm growth systems and and you're right, we need to have processes and we need to have systems in place to be able to manage our work and manage our client relationships. But we can't we can't we can't forget to think about ourselves and have a process for our own firm growth. And several years ago, we had an internal competition inside the pageant system that was focused on growth. And we built some systems back then to help us track our growth. And, you know, that was probably 10 or 12 years ago, and we still maintain those same systems. And I think that in large part, that has been a big contributor to our growth, is having that focus on, hey, this is what we did last year, this month. We need to try to beat that this year and really just kind of having that internal challenge. And, you know, I think we all will tell our clients that a, a goal without a plan is a dream, right? And having a system in place that helps you monitor and track your own performance as a, as a business, then that can lead to growth. And I think that's a big part of really what helped us get there is that system on on focusing on our own firm as well.
Jeff Phillips: Yeah, I see. I'm so glad you brought that up, because I was going to ask that question. Like, what are the key systems around growth and growing a firm? And I think Janet's example of treating pricing as a system and delivering price as a system and raising prices as a system is critical. And things like, you know, setting up systems to encourage employee or candidate referrals, referrals from your clients. I mean, like through, you know, going going to your Google business profile because that that drives up web traffic. Tom, I imagine for you just treating your networking groups, there was a time where where it was a checklist of your weekly practice to make sure you were going and visiting those wealth advisors or those bankers or your BNI group to make sure you're bringing leads to them. To me, that's a that's a growth system.
Tom Friedel: Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Jeff Darley: And I agree with Tom that that contest really put a different frame of mind for me to every single month. I look at my numbers last year compared to this year. What did I do wrong? What did I do right If they start to slip, I have to make instant corrections. If you're not paying attention to your growth, then who is? Who's going to pay attention to it?
Jeff Phillips: That's awesome. What I want to talk about the value of not going through this alone and a community. I know that's a big deal at Padgett, but for people who are looking to grow, you need you need to be running a race next to other racers. Yes. Right. And, Janet, tell me about how being in a community has been beneficial to your growth.
Janet Kaup: I mean, it's it's unbelievable. I don't think I could have accomplished near the growth that we've accomplished without the community. I mean, I shared earlier, I was 25 years old when I purchased my book of business the first time around. The first book of business. We did another acquisition later and immediately plugged into the community. That was that was the allure. That was the the benefit of rubbing elbows with other people who were doing the exact same thing that we are doing. Um, going through the same struggles that we're going through and finding out what kinds of solutions are working for them and what we might be able to implement. And this is not something that you get a benefit from when you're 25 years old, and then never again. The community, the community is like an extension of your your tribe. I mean, the people that are right here on this panel, you know, I could text either one of them any time of day or night and ask a question and receive a response immediately. It's an extension of of my tribe, for sure, and one that I rely on very heavily. Um, because we're learning and as business owners, we are learning every single day. Um, pageant has provided outlets over the years for, uh, for a lot of interaction. Um, I've been a member of several mastermind groups over the years and have learned tremendous amounts about practice management, about technology.
Janet Kaup: Um, I've had the opportunity to take a peek at what other people are doing in the area of Sourcing, how they're recruiting, how they're managing remote work. Um, you know, work teams, uh, even before, uh, have had to adopt some of these things for myself. So I've, I think the community has helped prevent some things from going wrong because I've been able to learn from what other people have steered me away from, but it's also helped pull me along in other areas where I may not have, um, I may not have participated otherwise, but, um, the community in some of these growth competitions, though, you know, typical accountants aren't really known for being, um, super extroverted, outgoing salespeople, typical accountants who are the ones who own accounting firms, uh, typically like to to be the pilot of their desk and, and fly it regularly. Um, so early on, I was taught, you know, sales training classes. And Paget's always brought in guest speakers and offered one on one training if needed and training to teach us, um, you know, the philosophy that we are accountants, but we are we are salespeople selling accounting services, essentially. And so we were we were taught early on how to make that work. And the relationships that come from this community are really, um, they're like no other. So I couldn't be where I am at all without them.
Tom Friedel: I think, I think one of the roadblocks for me for a little while to my growth was, was between my two ears. Right. And, and, you know, I came from a successful career in corporate America. And here I am, I'm running a $200,000 business, and I'm surrounded by some peers who are running the same $200,000 business. And you start all of a sudden thinking that that's what you can do. And then there's a few people in your community who all of a sudden break out and you have, you know, maybe you've accomplished some growth, maybe you went from 200 to 300 or 350, and then all of a sudden there's somebody out there who went from 350 to 600 or from 600 to 900, and then all of a sudden they're crossing that million dollar mark and you're like, wait, what? And this aspirational firm, I guess, would be the concept of what I'm talking about, where you, you all of a sudden realize, hey, it is totally possible to run this business in a way that can achieve substantial growth. And, you know, that was kind of my launching point in getting that roadblock of my own mindset about what we could accomplish, getting that cleared, and then working with the community and saying, hey, how did you get to $1 million? What did you do? What were some of the things? And that's hard to do with the competitor down the street, right? Because they don't really have that motivation to share with you. But, you know, a mastermind group, whether that's an internal group like we have or even a national group like that community helps people get their own, their own mindset straight. And once you realize that, then it was like, okay, the sky's the limit here. And you know, we've we've we're now way past those thresholds. Um, and it started with being in a community and, and seeing somebody do it and just like, whoa, okay, let's go do it.
Jeff Phillips: Hard to go it alone.
Jeff Darley: In the pageant community is great because you get all these individual business owners that all do it differently, right. So you can see Janet may do it a little different than me than me. And you know, the gentleman in that picture, Dave Gribbon, did for sure does it different than most of them do. And he's wildly successful too. So you talk to these different pageant owners and you go, oh, wow, you're doing it that way. You may not move your whole company to that strategy, but it's going to give you some different things to think about, different ways to, to grow. And and mentorship was really important to me too. I had my father for a short period of time when he was here and and he taught me how to talk to people, how to deal with people. And also there was, um, a gentleman, Dan, that used to own who's passed, who used to own part of Paget, and he was a wonderful mentor to me. He would just he saw I was young and frightened and didn't really know what I was doing, and he just took it upon himself to really encourage me every day and tell me things I needed to hear. And it wasn't always, you can do it, you know. It was more like, no, you're doing that wrong. Do it this way and just go do it. Go raise your prices right now. You know, raise your prices by 20% across the board. And if you lose 10% of your clients, that's your biggest fear. Well, you're doing you're making 10% more doing less work. So just go do it. That's what he used to say. And so the Paget community has been really important to me as well, for all the reasons that Tom and Janet mentioned. And so I just think that I don't think I would be where I am today without the group and without the backing and the contests and the the fun competition and all of it. I can't say I'm in competition with Tom, but who's going to hit 2,000,001st? But I'm aware of how much he's doing.
Jeff Phillips: I think no matter where where you're at running a firm, be a part of a group. It just it just helps it. You can't be you can't go through this alone. Um. Another puzzle, another puzzle piece that that I have, uh, is marketing. And I want to talk about the value of, of marketing in terms of the growth that, that you have had. And what is the story behind why? What what what can you tell our audience about why marketing is, is critical in terms of growing your firm? And, Tom, I'd like to start with you.
Tom Friedel: Yeah, yeah. And I think I mentioned earlier that it was hard for me to sell in the beginning. So I got some coaching, um, that helped me find my way. And you know what? What it came down to, it is my way is just having a conversation. I just I don't have a book. I don't have fliers. I don't have anything. It's just. What is it you're looking for? And how can we help? Um. And once I got that, that system down and understood how to do it and kind of get over or overcome that sales fear and just have a relaxed, conversational approach to selling. And, you know, one of the things I've said for years is the number one product we sell is peace of mind, because people are coming to us and all of us, right. And everyone on this call, because they have they have a concern about something they don't know. They know how to turn a wrench or they know how to swing a hammer, but they don't know how to do their books, and they don't know how to do their payroll and they don't want to.
Tom Friedel: And just like, I mean, I don't want to I don't want to change my oil anymore. Um, you know, so, so, um, getting getting that marketing mindset and getting that sales mindset and growing is, is a key part of it for me. And then, um, the last bullet I love, because that's the God's honest truth is, is when you're $100,000 of revenue, you have the number of clients that help you refer refer people. When you're $1 million business, you have maybe ten times the number of clients, maybe, maybe seven times the number of clients. And there's that many more people that are helping you grow because they're sending you referrals and you're a $2 million business, you know, again, it just keeps going and there's this huge snowball effect. So, you know, you kind of have to spend the time on marketing in the beginning to get it going. But then as you build your apple trees and you have your referral relationships and your clients just really help you grow your business when you do a good job. Mhm.
Janet Kaup: And sometimes you can grow faster than you need to, or you can grow in a direction that you don't expect. And you, you get to a point and you look back and have to focus more on what, what you want to actually do for the future. We um, we've been trained to market and we, we've learned to love the sales process. I mean, as accountants, we really do love helping people. And so there's nothing better than having that prospect pick up the phone and call your office as a result of some marketing effort that you've put out there, and you have a solution to a problem that they have, and they're going to give you money for that. That's it. It's very, um, rewarding to be able to experience growth because you are helping people take care of something that's otherwise scary for them. Um, and over the years, we we picked up referrals and we picked up clients from all kinds of different marketing efforts, um, and the way we marketed, of course, um, as long as we've been doing this has changed over the years. Um, and now we do a lot we rely a lot more on those referrals. That's, that's really the the primary source of our, um, of our growth now comes from the reviews that we have on Google and the, um, you know, other people telling telling people about us.
Janet Kaup: But we we found after a period of time when we were looking at our, at our marketing, that it was working a little bit too well and we were picking up, um, individual tax work that was really bogging our system down. It was really bogging our people down and causing a little bit of overwhelm. And so one of the things that we've changed in our marketing efforts as a result of some consulting that Paget has introduced us to, is to really focus on what we want and when we want a no overtime culture. So our particular office is really focused on limiting the number of ten, 40 clients that come into the firm. And we're really focused on on business clients. And I know that's that's different for Jeff. We have different philosophies. But I think again, that's a great, um, a great testament to the fact that within the Paget community, you can find so many different philosophies of people who are are marketing in different ways to accomplish, um, very different goals. And we can all learn so much from each other.
Jeff Darley: Yeah. And Janet's way of cutting back on the temporary work I think is totally valid and makes complete sense, but I have just gone a different way with that because I want to build a system in place where it's not me. So much dealing with those $600 individual returns, but I still want to be able to do that. I want to be able to do them for the clientele that's been with me for a really long time, and I just think that it actually can make a lot of money doing it, even though it does bog down with letters and it's more people to contact it and it makes it. So. I've just tried to put systems in place that where I can handle that more without me being so involved in the day to day with each of those little 1040 clients. And I think that the key to marketing for me, in the beginning, when I was younger and I needed to go market, I was 27 years old, had no clients because the clients we did have, my father was dealing with. So I had to go out with my little town. And I did have a little book at the time where I could show them what a financial statement looked like.
Jeff Darley: And I did this nine week marketing program that Paget taught me, and they just said, do this and you'll be successful. So I did it. I did exactly what they told me to. Again, at the time that was Pre-technology. So we wouldn't do a nine week program today. But overall what it was was just going out and and humbling myself. Frankly, I was I had to go to small businesses and strip malls and, you know, getting told by the local auto body shop to get the hell out of my office is not wonderful. After I'd been in the corporate world out of college as well, but I stuck with it. Um, the first time I got yelled at and told to leave somebody's office, the very next play turned into. They hired me on the spot. I just shook it off. They hired me on the spot. And I still have that client to this day. The very first client that I ever received. And it worked. I put on 50 new monthly clients in the first year of doing that, and just through consistency and doing exactly what they told me to do, this will work if you just stick with it and do it over and over and over and over again.
Jeff Darley: And it did work. And Tom's absolutely right that once you get to a certain point, it just snowballs. And it's just at this point, I don't do a ton of marketing. I get more referrals than I can probably handle. I had to turn a lot of tax returns last away last year just because I was a little too busy, which was the first time in 25 years I've done that. But, um, it you have to get to that point to where that 10% that will refer you business is large enough to actually sustain growth. And if you are increasing your prices every year and you're dealing with your clients in a good way, you're going to get those referrals because like minded people hang out together. So if you're dealing with a business owner, you probably knows five business owners that need your help, too, because they tend to hang out with one another. So it's it's um, if you're young and small, you need to stick with consistency. Whatever that marketing plan is that you find the one that's working for you. Don't do it for a month and go, oh, I got a new client. Great. And then take it off three months. It's a consistency factor, I think, with marketing.
Jeff Phillips: I wanted to to wrap this up and then give a plug to Paget. And but before we do that, you know, for Janet and Tom and Jeff, I wanted to ask you to think of one piece of advice for someone who is stuck and looking to grow. What would that be? You know what? What's what's the next thing that they should be considering doing? Um, as they as they leave this webinar, you know, think about where you were and how you got to where you're at and what do you see as the biggest piece of that? And, Janet, you can start in autumn. Feel free to interrupt and give us the poll results. But I'd love for Janet to to give us her thoughts on that.
Janet Kaup: For me, it always begin. It's best for me to begin thinking about what I want the end to look like and actually write that down. And that becomes kind of my vision for for where I want to go. And then I try to start building strategies for how that's going to happen, and really put tactical steps in for each one of those strategies and not make it so long that it's overwhelming. But to, to really, um, to really think about where you want your practice to be from every every aspect people, culture, finances, whatever, whatever that vision is for you. Get it down on paper and then begin to to work to work on that.
Tom Friedel: And I would just say, um, having a partner. Right. And I know that sounds very loaded, but I give a presentation to, to realtors and it's, it's about how to minimize your taxes for realtors. And I tell them to have a partner, and it doesn't have to be me. It doesn't have to be my firm that does their accounting and payroll and taxes. But to have a partner and I use their vernacular, right. And because you can you can sell a house by owner for sale by owner. Fsbo. Right. And I'll use their language and say, hey, you don't want is a homeowner. You're telling me not to fsbo my house. And I would say as a, as a, as an accounting practice or tax practice owner, don't fsbo your business. Don't don't do it on your own. Find a partner somewhere. Um, and that was that's really been a big thing. We talked a lot about community, but that's been a big part for me is having a partner on my side.
Jeff Phillips: Jeff, how about you?
Jeff Darley: Well, I think any anybody with a smaller firm that wants to grow needs to look at two things is, again, your things we've mentioned already, what is your bandwidth. And if it's full, then fix that and make sure you have bandwidth to take on the growth. And what is your marketing strategy and plan? Um, and again, I agree, partnerships are wonderful because they keep you on track and they keep you thinking about these things long term. But I think that the most important thing is, is hire before you need the person and be consistent with your market. And if you do those two things, you probably will grow.
Jeff Phillips: That's awesome. I want to begin to wrap up and give a plug for Paget, um, and explain, uh, what, what people can do if they want to learn more. But first, Janet, thank you Tom. Thank you Jeff. Thank you. I have learned so much and I know you all. So, um, I know that that those listening have learned a great deal as well. And and I appreciate your counsel and advice. Tom mentioned, um, having a partner and one of one option that's available to you if you own a firm is Paget. I mentioned earlier, Paget is a franchise model. I think you've heard a lot about how these owners have benefited from it. So I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here. But I will say that for those who own a firm, you can affiliate with Paget at a very attractive rate that that if you've investigated other franchises, you'd probably be surprised at how low the fees are to you. And when you add in the fact that there are software discounts and training and education and marketing services, things you must be doing to run a successful firm, that a lot of those things Paget does for you, or that they shorten the learning curve for you. It's a it's practice management in a box to free you to run and grow your firm.
Jeff Phillips: And so if you own a firm and are stuck, I can promise you doing the same thing over and over again will get you the same result. So why not investigate this? And if you want to investigate this. Our fourth polling question will ask you if you'd like to learn more. Um, we are looking for good fit, not necessarily to sell anyone on something they don't want to do. So be grateful for the opportunity to to share with with that and to share more about Padgett as well. Um, we've developed a blueprint for for staff, for accounting firm technology, for how to price, how to select a client mix, how to offer services. We have marketing services. There's so much that Padgett does for you. And and not to mention the fact that software through software, software to run your accounting firm is at a steep discount because of our buying power. One of the benefits of being a part of a franchise. I hope this was useful to you. Um, incredibly grateful to Jeff and Tom and Janet for sharing your wisdom. And and it's always good to be with you all. Thank you.
Jeff Darley: Thank you.
Speaker6: Thanks.
Tom Friedel: Happy to do it.