How to sell payroll outsourcing
How to Start a Bookkeeping, Payroll, Tax and Accounting Company that Makes Big Money
all right so my name is Rob satrom and
I'm the owner and founder of feedback
wrench before I had feedback wrench I
found it and built up nuanced financial
tax in the count and one of the most
successful tax and accounting firms here
in the Twin Cities and we served as an
outsourced accountant rather than being
focused on just tax returns and if you
are trying to get started I've got a
couple of videos out already I'm trying
to make more videos while I'm in the car
if you're an entrepreneur you know that
time in the car can be a very
detrimental thing because you're
basically wasting productive time right
and I do have meetings with great
clients that I want to go to I'm to and
from so I apologize about some of the
look and feel of this these videos we're
gonna try and use After Effects to make
them a little more interesting but I'm
gonna maximize this time if you're an
entrepreneur boy try and convert down
time to productive time and you're gonna
have a better time right but today I
want to talk to you about if you are a
young person that loves accounting right
if you're coming out of school and
you're like hey I think I want to get my
CPA I think I want to go work for a
corporation I want to tell you a little
secret that you might not know about the
tax game the tax accounting and
bookkeeping game so first of all if
you're hardwired to make sure that
systems are right you're a high
detail-oriented person and you love
helping people it like your the
checklist person being in administration
and being in a technical administration
role in the tax world as an accountant
is probably a good idea right so when
you're in school if you go to college
you're gonna want to pay attention and
learn your tea charts and understand
accounting to a tee
but here's what I want you to know you
do not need to spend a ton of time to go
get your CPA sure you can if you want to
you'll be able to use that as a title
but I want to encourage you to start
your own business now there's a guy out
there called Andrew argue and he does
CPA consulting and I intersected with
him and kind of paid attention to his
stuff and basically what he was doing is
charging thousands of dollars which I
know he adds great value who's charging
thousands of dollars to do consulting to
basically tell tax professionals how to
run their business like we were doing in
nuance financial tax in the coning if
you are thinking about starting a firm I
want to tell you right now that there's
a way that you can do this or we're all
you have is about 20 clients 20 clients
that you charge between $500 a month and
$1,000 a month you're gonna be able to
add a ton of value to them you're gonna
have a workflow in your life that's
manageable unlike a traditional firm
that focuses just on tax returns came
and here's the whole concept first off
rather than being a tax return CPA firm
or somebody who's like well they do
taxes on the side what you want to do is
serve as an outsourced accountant and
when you're an outsourced to come
there's three things that you're gonna
want to do first of all you want to help
mitigate taxes second of all you want to
save business owners time and the third
thing is you want to keep them compliant
that's the three things you're gonna
help mitigate taxes because none of them
want to pay more than their fair share
and that that should be kind of your
sentence I'm gonna help you pay your
fair share and not a penny more the
second thing has helped them save time
if you can be the administrator to run
the bookkeeping the payroll and even the
tax planning to just help that go on for
a business now that's the other thing
we're gonna focus on businesses you're
not not your average Joe that walks into
your CPA firm by doing that you're gonna
save them time time is money and it
makes your monthly retainer business
which that's what you need to do is go
after monthly retainer business it's
gonna be worth it for the business owner
because you're basically replacing an
employee you know their alternative to
hiring you at $1,500 a month might be to
take on an employee at $20 an hour and
it's an employee at $20 an hour at forty
hours a week that gets expensive quick
plus you've got unemployment insurance
you've got benefits Lord knows that you
know they get hurt they get crabby they
want more benefits they also add a ton
of value you know who employs are good
they have kids when you have kids and
they call in sick and whatever employees
are great you need great employees that
being said you can be a phenomenal
outsourced accountant for them Kay so
besides that you're gonna help them be
compliance and being compliant just make
sure that you get your taxes done you're
obeying the law and you mitigate that
risk you're basically helping them not
have the giant risk that they're gonna
lose a ton of money well just you know
Minnesota right now we're getting snow
like crazy and it is it's like the
fourth week in a row it was like
negative 50 last week negative forty
degrees with the wind chill negative 20
actual temp it's disgusting and now it
just keeps snowing and it only snows on
weekdays just makes a life hard right so
if you're thinking about getting in this
game if you want to be an accountant I'm
telling you here's what you need to do
focus on being an outsourced accountant
for businesses Kay and what you should
do is think about charging between five
hundred and fifteen hundred dollars a
month and in that here's what I think
you should include I think you should
include doing the personal so you
approach a business owner they're gonna
have their own family tax returns right
they probably got some kids a wife a
husband and offer doing their taxes
their corporate taxes doing tax planning
for them doing the bookkeeping on a
cloud-based system for them that'd be
another tip whatever you do you want to
just force them into your model like
create a system where you can be this
outsourced to come that means you use
QuickBooks Online or zero or some of
these cloud-based accounting programs so
just keep their books up-to-date go in
there every other week or every week and
just make sure things are reconciled
right and by doing that that's going to
inform you about their business you're
gonna be able to send them a quicken you
can automate it reports type of deal but
if you do their tax return the
bookkeeping and then you provide payroll
contact ADP paychecks there's zero I
really like this Zen do as an outsource
accounting program too but the bottom
line is is if you provide payroll you
can get paid on payroll you can get
payroll at cost as as a tax professional
you don't have to be a CPA they'll be
like we work with CPA firms if you talk
to them but I'm gonna go get clients and
that's gonna be the last part here if
you can provide them leads they're gonna
pay you a spife but more importantly you
can include it in this big monthly
retainer rate so tax returns bookkeeping
payroll doing it for them and then do
the tax returns at the end of the year
I'm telling you if you do that do the
math and if you charge $1,000 a month
which I'm telling you $12,000 a year for
a small business owner to have all their
bookkeeping and accounting done for them
that's the equivalent of having a staff
person just do the math on how far 12 K
goes you're gonna help them remember
your three value propositions or
mitigate taxes but you don't want to go
in there you might not be able to save
everybody taxes but that's a value
proposition the second thing is
you're gonna save them time and that
means making sure they don't need an
employee that's doing their bookkeeping
helping them you could even help them
with a R and a P I mean you can you
could really add value there but you
don't wanna gobble up all your time and
then the third thing is you keep them
compliant that's just you knowing all
the rules and all the annoying stuff if
you focus on that and you get a system
like that and you just work throughout
the year and that's the key meet with
your clients at least quarterly call
them on the phone set up conversations
with them and don't let it just keep up
with the bookkeeping if you keep up with
the bookkeeping their life's gonna be
easy and if you just do it once a week
at least that's not so bad you think
about 20 clients if it takes you you can
spend two and a half hours in each
client every other day type a deal and
it's gonna be great I'm telling you we
built this we had cash flows we reached
a million dollars at almost or we
reached a ton of revenue and monthly
recurring revenue so let's back up a
little bit you're gonna use those three
value propositions but here's where I
got to the point where I think this is
the best model for CPAs and accountants
to grow a business because I believe
that the strategies you do in business
should abide by Jim Collins Hedgehog
concept look up Jim Collins he wrote the
book good to great and he talks about
the Hedgehog concept and all he's saying
is you should not be a
jack-of-all-trades like a fox who's not
good at anything but ok at everything
and he's always kind of hungry whereas a
Hedgehog sits fat and happy and safe
because all he does is eat worms roll up
in a ball and keep to himself right you
want to find your simple Hedgehog
concept and the hedgehog concept is
basically saying it's kind of like
what's your 80/20 what's the service you
should provide in the type of business
the strategy the business strategy you
should execute on that's going to do
three things and it should satisfy these
three one it should drive your economic
engine 2 it's something you can be
passionate about and 3 it's something
you can be great at if you can be great
at it that means you're using your skill
set and that could be your experience it
could be your your team if you're good
at managing people and deploying other
people that have the team the skills
that's great I get passionate about
helping business owners pursue the
American dream man our mission here is
to as a feedback courage a marketing
firm
and as a consulting business we want to
help maximize the efforts of
entrepreneurs right that's what it's all
about that's why I'm making this video
I'm not trying to shake you down for
money I want to help you actually pursue
the American Dream golden add value in
the economy because I think free market
enterprise and freedom and maximizing
the tools that I think God has given
each person it can be really seen in
entrepreneurship also it's hard there's
some risks but I tell you what there's
value in having the flexibility it was
snowing today you know what I was my own
boss I decided I'm not gonna drive into
our st. Paul office I'm gonna work out
of my home right I didn't have to call
anybody I know I need to maximize my
time right and I know exactly what I
need to do so I'm telling you why are
those three strategies how does my
outsourced accountant
system go into that well first of all
your economic engines should be monthly
retainer income just do monthly charging
tell them we're gonna get your credit
card or your checking comp check and go
it's better because credit cards go they
expire and you got to update them get
their checking account and just use a
payment merchant like QuickBooks there's
quite a few of a month I use a payment
merchant system to automatically build
monthly and just out of sight out of my
don't invoice and make the client click
on it and pay every month don't do that
set the expectation we just do this
monthly I'm gonna be your outsource
accountant I'm gonna handle this we're
gonna keep you compliant save money and
save you time so monthly billing
fulfills the will drives your economic
engine what can you be passionate about
I think helping small business owners
and entrepreneurs is super exciting if
you can impact their business you can
impact their families you can help them
have more peace about their day you save
them time they're not sweating and
making mistakes you can make them be
better fathers and mothers you can make
them better husbands and wives I'm
telling you you impact their life I'm
kind of Jesus boy and I think that
there's a mission field to help people
see that there's hope out there and I'm
telling you there's it's something I can
get passionate about and then if you
think about can you be best in it well
part of why I got out of the actual tax
and accounting game is because I hate
process I hate processes I hate sitting
down and doing it I like working with
people who are anal retentive process
people I surround myself with those
people but that's not my thing
I bet it's your thing if you're
listening to this and you
of doing a CPA or tax and accounting a
bookkeeping firm you're probably a
process person just known that in all
things and I'm gonna transition here a
little bit
your process-driven side is X your
execution side of Ming sure the process
is executed perfectly is a strength but
it is it is it requires you to yin and
the yang over to someone who is a
connector and more of a vision casting
connecting sales and when you think
sales sales is not what you think it is
sales is all about consulting finding
problems showing what you do as a
problem solver and finding out if you're
a good match and then providing them the
opportunity to say yes that's what sales
the sales is not pushing something sure
you advance an agenda well your agenda
is to solve the problem that you're in
the business of solving and finding
people to need that problem done so so
don't think that sales is bad but here's
what I'm getting it you are probably
driven my process and all the things I
just said right now about you being an
outsourced to come you can go do it I
know you can but here's your challenge
you cannot do that unless you have
clients right the great conundrum of
every small businesses how do you get
your first initial clients
I'm telling you here's the secret first
of all just start find the honey hole
that you want to work when they approach
small business owners but find an office
ok I'm not saying you have to go get a
monthly a monthly lease on an office
space but get an office right in the
center of where you think would be the
best honey hole and I'm telling you find
somebody that you could pay 50 bucks a
month to $100 a month if you could find
cheap rent just find an address with a
mailbox
that's your first thing your second
thing is create your business name think
through your business name now we were
nuanced financial tax in the county I
named it nuanced financial tax in the
cutting you put those two words in there
so they're very clearly denoted to
Google and Bing on the search engines
what it was we did right you got to be
careful with that a little bit but watch
my videos about naming your business
right have it be unique have it not be
too clever but a little clever but you
need to establish the name that you're
going to put on your Facebook page your
Instagram page your Google my business
page your Twitter account your website
all of the different listings that
you're going to have because we're going
to
the digital footprint case so the first
thing is get you your office set up a
business name just get a basic logo if
you need help with this we can help you
go to 99designs i've got a link in the
description for 99designs we make a
little commission off of that but for
1500 bucks you can have a team of people
build you out almost everything you need
in terms of brand or work with a brand
strategist like ourselves at forward Co
which is my sister company that we work
with for better designs and I'm telling
you just get your design get your colors
get the the the fonts that you need and
then open a Google my business account
okay go verify that Google my business
account my business can be open at
google.com for slash business you get
that started and here's your goal you
are going to do what I call it it's just
the exponential growth program but it
starts with you just finding people that
you can add value to and then getting a
review for them once you've added value
okay so when you first start out in
business you're probably gonna have to
give it away for cheap or free right so
just know the the process that you need
to do is you go out and you execute you
got to find some people to add value to
and execute you're gonna find people and
execute sales and execution that's
entrepreneurship what like that's the
most basic thing that there is sales and
execution right well if you're not
confident in your sales in you don't
have your sales for the stick to 500 to
1500 bucks a month and just roll it all
into one don't get super complicated
with it and you're gonna have success
but go find some people and I'll get
into how you do that and as you find
them and as you execute follow up with
them and get Google reviews encourage
them to give you Google reviews if you
get Google reviews over time you do that
for three years and you have more
reviews than everybody else in your area
you can then do some Google Ads that
will use that and you will dominate your
local sector you start to have a ton of
success okay now I want to move on to
how to find clients here's how you find
clients you want to find people that do
not have or that have 1099 income that's
the key 1099 income so anybody that's in
a brokerage relationship so that's
insurance agents real estate agents
salespeople right if you have any of
that internet sales people people that
have affiliated income people that have
you
tube stars for crying out loud anybody
who earns 1099 income they have it
tonight a tax conundrum if you're gonna
do three things keep them compliant save
them time and then also help them
mitigate taxes people a 1099 income or
business income have all the cool right
off scale and here's what you want to
propose this sexy way that you're going
to do that first thing is you're going
to help them mitigate taxes how do you
help mitigate taxes you get in front of
these people
by getting a meeting okay if you get a
meeting for one hour you can share this
with them here's some interesting stuff
entrepreneurs get really excited about
should they be an S corp or a sole
proprietorship when it comes to taxes I
just call it LLC versus S corp right
that's why how this channel got started
they need help implementing that if they
implement an S corp which basically I
would say anybody who makes thirty to
fifty thousand dollars in net profit or
higher ought to look at an escort
because an S corp is gonna allow you to
split up your salary and your payroll
and I'm telling you watch mark Kohler
Koh L er take his advice he's got people
quite frankly taking about no less than
a third of their net profit as a salary
okay and now there's all sorts arguments
I'm sure I just made some of you your
brains pop but I'm telling you if you
can help your business owners mitigate
the taxes by using a reasonable salary
and then using a payroll system to pay
that so that they have this distribution
side and they go from paying a hundred
percent of their net profit paying
Social Security taxes on it to paying a
very small portion that's gonna be
helpful so now you think about that
that's very useful for people that are
making net profits you know two hundred
thousand and under really at that two
hundred thousand down to you know maybe
fifty thousand there's a spot there that
you can help the second place that
people can mitigate their taxes that's
really interesting is using SEP IRAs and
401 K so this can be for small business
owners this could be for single owner s
corpse your real estate agent that
doesn't have any employees or it could
be people with four or five people but
using an employer contribution through a
SEP IRA which is like a profit share
contribution or a 401k where you do
matches or you can do a profit share
contribution or in a solo 401k which
allows you to do up to twenty-five
percent of your net profits up to a
certain amount over into an employer
contribution or profit share
contribution to yourself and you have
the employee country
there's just lots of decision-making to
mitigate taxes case that's the second
thing you got bns carp manage the
tension between the payroll in the
salary you can add value there and then
you got to do the payroll you got that
taken care of you got to do the
accounting you got that taken care of
you got in 1129 you got that taken care
if that's your primary thing find out if
hey are you an S corp it second thing
are you doing tax planning when it comes
to your your retirement plans use
Vanguard comm I'm telling you that's the
cat's meow or you could find somebody
who does cheep index funds and provides
this that's great there's a bunch of
paperwork I know you can't be an advisor
you got to draw a line there and then
the third thing is is people with real
estate or property I'm telling you a
real estate or property is super
important now I've got an affiliate link
in the bottom for CSS I and they are
democratizing cost segregations right
but when people aren't in real estate
yet they probably ought to be if they
own a business and they're going to be
building wealth but if they have real
estate you have depreciation schedules
you've got you've just got more
complicated stuff you have multiple tax
returns probably because they probably
have an LLC that owns it so you have
different things going on you can add a
ton of value so what you're going to do
is you're gonna get meetings with people
you're gonna find out where they're at
how much income do they make you're
gonna find out if they've done any of
these things because now you have a game
plan and a strategy coach people to use
the S corp coach people to use the the
retirement plans coach people to use
real estate if they're not in real
estate perhaps they should get into it
because there's just tons of tax
planning opportunity maybe they have a
spouse that's not working and maybe
instead of taking a wage inside of the
business maybe they should just go and
be a real estate agent and now they can
carry over losses if they have losses in
an investment property right or maybe
they should start buying duplexes and
triplexes and renting them up maybe they
should buy apartment buildings with the
capital to building up who knows that's
how you can add value right meanwhile
you've got a wholesale so here's how you
can really sweeten the sweeten the
conversation once you get a meeting with
them you say I can help you save taxes
in those way those are my three ways
that I do my first value proposition
this and I do that by proactive planning
and by doing your bookkeeping I get to
know about this stuff and I can actually
be informed I'm not doing everything at
the end of it at the end of the year and
use this your traditional CPA during tax
season
can't breathe he doesn't know what's
going on in his clients books no no no
no no what he's doing is just trying to
cramp through as many tax returns as he
can his wife or her husband it's just
like where are you his kids are like do
you just live at the office where are
you mom or dad I don't know what's going
on they don't have time to do any real
analysis they're just going through
drake or or Thompson writers and fill it
out and making sure that it goes through
and then setting appointments dude you
just do the math if you do 500 tax
returns at 500 bucks a piece you're not
making any money you have to set two or
three appointments with each client or
one two three depending on what it is
just the administration to set
appointments with your clients it just
eats you up don't go that way get 20
clients that you do this outsource
accounting for but what you can provide
them is you can say I'm going to be able
to actually give you analysis because
I'm not doing a million different tax
returns not only that when it comes to
that I'm gonna save you time I'm gonna
serve as your outsource accountant
they're me like well that's good but I'm
not thinking of buying an accountant
here's where you can really say here's
why I'm worth 500 to 1500 bucks a month
I'm gonna reduce what's called your
coordination fatigue okay coordination
fatigue a business owner has to
coordinate their tax person with their
payroll system with their employees with
their bookkeeping and their taxes and
their payroll and their bookkeeping in
their taxes and their payroll in their
bookkeeping just meeting with their CPA
requires four emails back and forth
right if they're doing manual book books
where they have like QuickBooks desktop
you know you should look for people that
aren't that's s corpse yet people that
own property and haven't done a cost
segregation yet people who have and then
people who have standalone solutions or
well I pay 80 PE 300 bucks a month and
paychecks or whatever it is then you go
to tax guy and he's good and then we do
the bookkeeping right there you can be
like how would you like to never have to
order to organize those three together
I'll just we just do it all in one spot
so by doing it all on one spot you have
no messing around and we become fully
informed because we have the bookkeeping
I can do the tax planning I can do the
tax return better I can do the payroll
better because I have the payroll
reports there's no Lutz get the payroll
reports from ATP you
have them all right and because you're
doing payroll you're an integral part of
their business you can just make them
smile and be happy as long as you pick
up your phone guys okay so you
understand your three value propositions
I just gave you some nuggets of why you
can be spicy and exciting to a business
owner you can be very valuable if you
just frame it up that way guys now how
do you actually get meetings here's the
easiest thing you can do the first thing
you do is hit up your BNI groups Kate
you don't have to join Abby and I BNI is
good only if they have like a digital
mindset and that in that digital mindset
they're giving backlinks I'm gonna have
a whole other video on this if they're
helping each other on each other's blogs
and your back linking to each other you
can help each other
rank an SEO that's beautiful but
otherwise whatever there's value to it
I've been in it I don't like meaning
every week but go to Abby and I you can
go twice for free they're gonna try
really hard to get you to join but all
you're trying to do there is make a
connection with each person and get a
one-on-one meeting with everybody that
you possibly can Kate so go to every B
and I check out every BNI in your area
go to them they're established they're
there get the business cards of the
people make connections find you know
make a personal connection with each one
of them and then don't be scared of like
go on building something hey we're a new
outsourced accounting firm we go through
this coaching system with feedback
wrench we know what's going on and we
know how to do this I'm telling you we
add a ton of value guys sit down and
just show you what we do absolutely then
you should work meetings where you have
a connection meeting and all you're
doing there is trying to get to know
them find out do they make money find
out do they have problems portray that
you help them say conveyor your a little
bit of what you do and then out of that
first initial one hour Connect meeting
which could be at their office it could
be a coffee out of that you wanna land
an analysis k and the analysis is really
training you're gonna do two things in
this analysis get their own tax returns
hey just give me your tax returns I'm
gonna look over them and see if I if
there's any low-hanging fruit for tax
planning okay let me see your tax
returns see if there's any low-hanging
fruit for tax planning if there is boy
we might be able to save you a ton of
taxes then the other thing maybe get
your current bookkeeping let me take a
look at that because you want to find
out two things one is there opportunity
for you help them save money and two you
want to find out do they
have a mess that you can solve right is
there bookkeeping messy sloppy and not
done right and it's just like if they
get audited boy they're gonna be in
trouble or are they wasting a ton of
time and you just look at any like oh
man I can do this I'm good at
bookkeeping I'm gonna be able to do this
really easy for you so you're trying to
find out the other thing is you need to
figure out the scope there's a size of
business I think that you should focus
on on all business I always frame up a
chart right and it's kind of a t-chart
but four quadrants and I'm on the X and
y axis you've got profitable and non
profitable complex and simple here's the
bottom line I believe that the the best
money can be made in my opinion for
small businesses in the simple types of
businesses if you want to be a full CPA
firm and go get CPA odd you know have
the the CPA Association whatever the
heck they're called I don't even deal
with them we didn't we never even tried
to mess with them because it there's no
reason I want to we wanted to be doing
the big audits and stuff why would you
want to do that that's complex work
there's money in it if you're charged in
big companies a hundred thousand dollars
to do it but then you have so much
insurance and staff and it's just brutal
stay simple and so if you move on
simplicity and you up by executing on
your economic what drives you economic
engine you're gonna have success okay so
if you're thinking about starting to
firm that's my recommendation don't be a
CPA from being outsourced accounting
firm go out prospect go to the BNI
meetings go to the Chamber events and
then if that doesn't work just start
calling a sector pick construction guys
okay construction guys hate screwing
around with this stuff pic real estate
agents they can be really easy to find
the successful real estate agents find
out if they have an S corp see if
they've been doing a solo 401k you could
probably go in there you find a real
estate agent making 150 K and he hasn't
been an S corp you're gonna save them 10
grand right that's a good deal you think
how would you like to save a bunch in
taxes right or they they don't know that
and then they they're not doing their
bookkeeping and stuff they're
notoriously they need an admin like you
write or find businesses that just have
opportunity like that and just call them
hey can I introduce myself guy buy you a
coffee I'm an outsource accountants out
here with new taxes bookkeeping payroll
and accounting
to just learn about your business and
introduce stuff you need to ask for
appointments ten times a day okay you
want to get a goal of having one two
three appointments every single day when
you're starting up and go play offense
it's all about sales for the first year
