Want to Close a Deal? Set a Deadline

hourglass on money background

Five ways to make it work.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

In the accounting profession, there are a ton of deadlines. Month-end, quarter-end and year-end. Payroll taxes, sales taxes and corporate taxes. And extension deadlines, filing deadlines and payment deadlines, to name just a few.

MORE: How Mindset Affects Your Marketing | Three Steps to Becoming a Millionaire | How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images | Create a Bad Website in Ten Easy Steps | Leverage Your Strengths to Beat Stress | Are You Crossing Off Your Business Bucket List? | Ten Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible | Five Ways to Target the Low-Hanging Fruit | Are Your Revenue Projections Realistic? | Six Strategies to Make More without Working More | The Art of Prompt Engineering for Accountants | Calculate Your Business Relationship Ratios
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All of these deadlines may be a headache to business owners and accountants alike, but they are a marketer’s dream come true. How can you use deadlines to your advantage in marketing your services? And what if you are selling a service that is not in the accounting profession? Keep reading and we’ll answer these questions and provide you with five ways to woo your prospect with deadlines.
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How Mindset Affects Your Marketing

Smiling businesswoman

Even after years of experience, confidence may not come easy.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

In school, during both my undergraduate courses and my MBA classes, I took Marketing 101, or something close to that. I learned the four P’s: product, price, place and promotion. I aced the class.

MORE: Three Steps to Becoming a Millionaire | Five Business Development Mistakes to Avoid | How to Leverage ChatGPT During This Crazy Tax Season | Eight Steps to Getting Started with AI: A Guide for Tax Professionals | You Don’t Have a Time Problem | Three Money Leaks and How to Plug Them | Eleven Ways to Serve Clients Even Better | Eight Ways to Build Busy-Season Stamina | Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out | Six Ways to Beat the Competition | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies | What Can ChatGPT Do for Accounting Professionals?
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When I started my first business at age 13, I ran an ad and was able to get clients. It was no big deal. When I wanted to earn some part-time money during college doing bookkeeping (before I passed my CPA exam), I answered an ad and found clients. It was no big deal. When I started a part-time photography studio in the 1980s, I sent out press releases and direct mail and got clients. It was no big deal. I was doing all of this on the side while I had full-time jobs paying the rent and everything else.

But when I got laid off in the 1990s and needed clients in order to go out on my own and pay my own rent, something in me snapped. I was scared to death. I suddenly had no idea how to get started getting clients. I could have run an ad, but I didn’t. I could have sent out direct mail, but I didn’t.
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Three Steps to Becoming a Millionaire

Dump “nonprofit” tasks and focus on the high-value ones.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

Let’s do the math. To earn a million dollars in a year, you have to bring in $83,333 per month. Assuming you bill hourly and work for the standard 1,000 billable hours per year, you need to charge $1,000 per hour. If you want to make $5 million in one year, you will need to charge $5,000 per hour.

MORE: Five Business Development Mistakes to Avoid | Twelve Ways Your Business Card Can Hurt You | Got FOMO When It Comes to AI and ChatGPT? You Should: Here’s What You’re Missing | How to Weather Any Economic Storm | Ten Ways to Have More Energy This Tax Season | Seven Steps to Keeping Your Clients Forever | Give to Receive, and Eight More Ways to Boost Sales | Five Things That Clients Don’t Know about Accountants | Five Ways to Wow Your Clients | How to Fight Feeling Overwhelmed | You’re Missing 60% of Your Revenue | Make the Most of CPE Conferences
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Here’s some breaking news: You won’t get there doing tasks that are worth $10 per hour. Even if we drop a zero and aim for six figures in a year, you won’t get there doing $10-per-hour tasks either. At six figures, you’re worth $100 per hour.

The difference between poor people and rich people is simple: One values the scarcity of their time and uses every minute wisely, and the other doesn’t.
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Five Business Development Mistakes to Avoid

Businessman working on laptop with wall of symbols scribbled behind him

Don’t have a skill? Hire someone who does.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

If you’re a sole practitioner or small-firm operator, you’re probably very good at what you do – or you wouldn’t be in business today. But when it comes to marketing and selling yourself, well, many of us didn’t voluntarily sign up for that part.

MORE: Twelve Ways Your Business Card Can Hurt You | How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images | How to Leverage ChatGPT During This Crazy Tax Season | Got FOMO When It Comes to AI and ChatGPT? You Should: Here’s What You’re Missing | Create a Bad Website in Ten Easy Steps | Eight Steps to Getting Started with AI: A Guide for Tax Professionals | How to Weather Any Economic Storm | Leverage Your Strengths to Beat Stress
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As a matter of fact, some of us are resisting – kicking and screaming – marketing ourselves. So no wonder, for some of us, business is slow or not growing at the rate we’d like.
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Twelve Ways Your Business Card Can Hurt You

Confident businesswoman handing man a business card in networking session

Does your card tell your prospect what to do next?

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firms

The lowly business card: We don’t give it a second thought before we get the thing printed up, and we just do what everyone else does.

MORE: How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images | How to Leverage ChatGPT During This Crazy Tax Season | Eight Steps to Getting Started with AI: A Guide for Tax Professionals | You Don’t Have a Time Problem | Three Money Leaks and How to Plug Them | Eleven Ways to Serve Clients Even Better | Make Your Prospect Kit Stand Out | Six Ways to Beat the Competition | Grow Your Revenue with Three Marketing Strategies
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Many people, new in business, get the business cards printed before they’re really ready to, which causes many of the mistakes I list below. Experienced or new, you’re missing huge opportunities to let your business card take some of the work off your shoulders. We may take it for granted, but I feel that your business card is one of your most important pieces of marketing collateral – and the most underutilized.
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How to Use ChatGPT to Create Images

If you can dream it, ChatGPT can build it.

By Sandi Leyva

ChatGPT 4.0 is enabled with computer vision, which means it can derive information from images that you input. It can also create images that you can use in your business.

Check out our courses on ChatGPT,
offered as a deep discount bundle or separately.
Webinar Schedule:
MORE ChaptGPT here

Here are just a few things I have found when using ChatGPT 4.0 for image creation:

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How to Leverage ChatGPT During This Crazy Tax Season

Make tax season less taxing and more productive.

By Sandi Leyva and ChatGPT

In the fast-paced world of tax preparation and accounting, time is of the essence. Embracing ChatGPT can dramatically transform your workflow, offering practical and actionable solutions to common challenges.

Check out our courses on ChatGPT,
offered as a deep discount bundle or separately.
Webinar Schedule:
MORE ChaptGPT here

Here’s how you can put ChatGPT to work, making this tax season less taxing and more productive, even if Congress decides to pass a retroactive tax bill right in the middle of busy season.

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Got FOMO When It Comes to AI and ChatGPT? You Should: Here’s What You’re Missing

… not to mention $856 per week per employee in savings.

By Sandi Leyva

In the 10 months that I have been teaching ChatGPT, I’ve noticed about a third of my webinar participants have set up a free account with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, where they have access to ChatGPT version 3.5. Another third have invested a whopping $20 per month for the paid version, and the remaining third don’t have an account at all. A tiny number of participants are lucky enough to have companies that have invested in the Enterprise version of the software.

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And these are accounting and tax professionals who are eager to learn ChatGPT. If you haven’t embraced the paid version of ChatGPT (individual, Teams or Enterprise), it’s time to learn what you’re missing.

 

 

Check out our courses on ChatGPT,
offered as a deep discount bundle or separately.
Webinar Schedule:
MORE ChaptGPT here

While the free version of ChatGPT can generate answers to thousands of questions, it can’t:

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