Welcome to the Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast. It's a podcast to help accountants, CPAs and bookkeepers escape what we call the accountants trap. It's where accountants are not getting paid for their value, and are forced to work long hours with high, demanding clients with little pay. Well, how do you escape the trap? One way is the topic of today's episode, and that's by using content marketing to help you demonstrate your expertise and attract high value clients.

To help me with the discussion, I've invited Liz Farr, the founder of Far Communications. Liz is a copywriter who is also a CPA. She spent 15 years working in tax and accounting and then transitioned to becoming a full time freelance writer in 2015. Since then, she's written website copy, blog posts, newsletters and case studies for accountants and bookkeepers across the world.

Liz, welcome to the show. Thank you. Adam, I'm glad to be here. And, you know, content and writing are kind of scary things for a lot of accountants. But hopefully by the end of our conversation, you'll realize that it's really not that hard and that you can probably do this with what you already have. Okay, well, yeah, I can't wait to dive in.

So I sort of. What? I ask you three questions all at once. Why why does a CPA transition to do content marketing? How does a CPA use content marketing? And is there something what how is is it realistic that accountants can be a content marketer themselves? So let's start with the first question. Why did you transition from being an accountant to a content marketing?

Well, basically, I was dying inside and the firm that I was in, it was a very traditional kind of firm. If I had been aware at that time of some of the more forward thinking firms out there, then I might have changed tracks and gone to work for one of them. But as it was, I just I had to get out of accounting.

I have to it was, it was, you know, I thought, I'm going to I'm going to have to blow my brains out if I do my brother's taxes and, you know, just awful. And you hear that a lot, you know, you know, my experience in in accounting, public accounting was kind of what I call kind of medium horrible.

You know, it wasn't big four level terrible, dreadful, but it was just kind of, you know, no recognition, long hours, crappy clients and managers and, partners who really didn't know how to manage or lead, but they didn't know the technical stuff really well. Interesting. I had I hate to know what high horrible looks like versus low end and low horrible.

It may all sound bad. Yeah, well, you know, basically I had to get out and I'd always been good at writing, you know, I was the one in the firm that they turn to when there was some correspondence that needed to go out to the IRS or report that needed to be written. For about three years, I was also a CPA, a certified valuation analyst.

Okay. So doing that, I wrote these long 100 page reports. You know, some of it was boilerplate, but a lot of it was, you know, really thinking about this particular business and what were the things about it that either made it more valuable or made it less valuable? And what was unique about it? So I really I really enjoyed the writing.

Then a course on copywriting dropped into my lap. I knew I needed to change professions, but I didn't want another degree. I've already got enough of those. Thank you. And so it dropped into my life, and I thought, well, this this kind of meshes with what I do. So, I went through the course and, discovered the discipline behind, business to business marketing writing, which is a lot of blog posts, case studies, white papers and newsletters, the things that a lot of businesses send out to each other that that really resonated with me.

You know, in the beginning, I didn't really have any role models because there are not very many accountants who also write. And my friend, like Oliver says, oh, CPAs who write. Yeah, there's like six of us, right? Which which is, you know, not quite true. And it's really an exaggeration, but, I happened to find somebody who recognized how unique that was to have a CPA, somebody who knew the accounting and who spoke that language, who knew the pain points intimately, who could also write.

So that was kind of how I got my first gig and, started writing for the Journal of Accountancy a little bit after that. And, wrote a bunch for into its firm of the future blog and accounting web when there was a U.S. piece of that. I've also ghostwritten for a lot of different people. And so my words have been in Forbes and cfo.com and accounting today, but not under my name, under other people's names.

So is can you talk a little bit about how this writing, you know, whether you call it copywriting, content marketing, how an accountant or bookkeeper can use it to grow their practice, and then also can they do it themselves? Should they hire somebody like you or what are your thoughts on that? Well, the way that you can use this is by putting things on your website.

You know, Google loves to have fresh content that's unique. Although Google Search may be going out because I've heard that more people have been finding good options using ChatGPT as a search engine, oddly enough. Interesting. But at any rate, when you have lots of things on your website that answer the kinds of questions that you hear from your clients over and over and over, like, how do I pay estimated taxes?

How do I calculate my estimated taxes? What can I deduct for my small business? What documentation do I need to keep and how long do I need to keep? If you write just a little bit about these things at the level that your clients need to hear, you don't need to go into code speak. You don't need to.

The code sections. But you can establish yourself as a voice of reason. Among the flood of misinformation, that's on places like Tik Tok and all over social media, where it's just a lot of nonsense about what you can deduct and what you can't deduct. And as for doing it yourself, you know, I for one, you know, since I'm one of just a few accountants who write, I can't possibly help everybody.

We can't possibly help everybody. And I really think that the most authentic and the most genuine content is something that sounds like you, that really captures the way that you speak. And sure, you can get it. You can get somebody to write you some kind of generic blog post, but they won't sound like you. So I really think that the best way to do this is yourself.

Now, you don't have to start with the blank page. One of my favorite ways to get started on something is to use this app on my phone called Otter. Is this records and transcribes speech in real time? I import you can import recordings of podcast. So. So, you know, Adam, you could take this and drop the recording into Otter and get a transcript out of it.

Interesting. So once you have this transcript that can serve as sort of a starting point. So, you know, you can go out for a walk with your phone and your AirPods and say, okay, you know, Otter, let's talk about how you do estimated taxes and you just talk it out, how you do this, in your own words, in your own cadence, and then you can use that as a starting point for your own copy.

You know, and and you don't even it doesn't need to be written content either. You know, today's generation, today's young business owners love video. You know me. I'm I've got enough gray hairs that you can see. You know, I'd really rather read and then listen to somebody for a long time talking. Except when I listen to podcasts, of course.

Like this one. Of course. But video is another thing. Now, of course, know with both written content and video content or whatever you produce, the first one will suck. It just will. And that's okay. The point is just to get out there and do this by repetition. You know, and the another trick to writing great content is to understand that the first draft you put out there is going to be terrible.

I'm going to use you know, I don't know if I can use four letter words on this podcast or not, but it's the technical writing term for this is your shitty first draft, okay? And you just get the ideas out and know that you're going to revise it and revise it and revise it, and eventually you'll get something better.

And of course, when you do video, the revisions kind of mean rerecording. But that's also okay, because the more times you do things, the more comfortable it gets. Yeah. And I have noticed that when doing content marketing myself for the CFO project, it doesn't have to be polished because you're not producing a textbook. You're trying to communicate to people and, and, and just like in everyday communication, you're not going to be polished and perfect.

You're not talking to a robot. You want to talk to a human. And the more human you sound, the more they're probably going to to want to listen to what you have to say. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the the point of content marketing, the objective of it is to get prospects enough information and comfortable enough with you so that they are willing to do business with you.

You know, you're not going to sell with the first blog post. You're not going to sell that $10,000 tax planning package or that $5,000 monthly bookkeeping package with the first blog post that talks about the the value of having clean books. But, you know, if you put enough things out there about why it's important to hire a good bookkeeper, a good CFO, rather than just somebody who does the debits and credits, but somebody who can can look at your business and the numbers in your business from a holistic point of view, who can bring all their experiences working with accountants, with small businesses to to see, you know, this is something that I saw

somebody else do. You might consider trying it to, So, you know, it's just getting people to trust you. Yeah, absolutely. And so I'm glad you brought that up to help me connect the dots between the content that you produce and how that's going to attract clients, like what happens with the content in order to attract clients? Well, you can't just write it and then have it sit on your computer.

Right. That doesn't that doesn't work too well. Because, you know, unfortunately, the laying on of hands method of marketing doesn't work too well. So you've got to get it out there. Besides putting it on your website, then you've also got to promote it. Now, what you need to do a little research on is figure out where your ideal clients hang out in social media.

Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on Twitter? Are they on Instagram? Are they on Facebook? Where are they? And then start putting yourself out there. Are they do they watch a lot of YouTube videos? I know YouTube is also a great place for gathering information. Find out where they hang out. You know, and sometimes that can be as simple as, asking one of your current clients, who is one of your ideal clients?

Hey, you know what social media channels do you like to? Do you pay attention to where do you go? Yeah. And put it out there. You know, if you're if your ideal clients are on Twitter, don't don't spend all your time on LinkedIn. But, you know, if they're on LinkedIn, then don't spend all your time on Twitter. But find out where they are.

Put it out there. Yeah. And also and just try to be yourself, you know, be that trusted person that they can feel comfortable doing business wise. Yeah, I think that's the key is you've got to be somebody that somebody that that your potential client can trust to guide them. Especially if you want to become a business advisor or CFO or even just their tax accountant, a bookkeeper, you've got to be somebody they can trust, which means you have to speak to them in a way that they they understand.

But to your point that you've got to reach them in the first place. So where do they hang out? I would also suggest to figure out an addition to where you should ask who. Who is your ideal client? Yeah. If you just want to target, you know, roofers in Florida, then you know, that would give you a lot of, a lot of insight into where they hang out.

Maybe go try to write for the roofing association. From an accounting standpoint. Right, right. And, you know, content isn't just things that you find online. You can also speak, you know, if you want to work with local business owners, go to the Chamber of Commerce, go to the rotary Club, the local business organizations, and offer to give a talk on whatever your specialty is.

You know, they they will probably be grateful to have an actual accountant giving business advice rather than, you know, some amateur business coach who had a 20 minute lesson on reading financial statements. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. And and I would also suggest that when you do that, to try to make numbers seem clear and easy because, like, the, the story brand guy, Donna miller says if you confuse, you lose.

And so they clear the clear that you can make accounting and financial and bookkeeping subjects that the easier it is for for your audience to digest, which means that they will resonate. You'll resonate with them more. Yes. Yes. In some of the the copywriting courses that I took, they have a test called the Bar Stool Test. And that is you.

You imagine you're sitting at a bar and you turn to the person next to you and you, you read your blog post or talk out your video or whatever it is you want to talk to them about. And you, you try and imagine, would this come across as something natural or forced? Would they be able to understand this?

So I really like the bar stool test. Yeah. Yeah, I've got to remember that. Well, Liz, we're almost out of time. This has been a fantastic discussion. If somebody wants to reach out and just learn more about what you have to say, where can they find you?

They can find me on LinkedIn. I'm trying to get a little more active there these days. I used to also be quite active on Twitter, though, since Mr. Musk took over the platform. It's not quite as much fun as it used to be. Okay, you can also go to my website for communications and you can find out what I do and our communications.com.

Okay. And find out a little bit more about what I do and who I am. Excellent. Well, Liz, thank you so much for being here today. Oh. You're welcome. It was great. And to everyone listening or watching. Thank you so much for spending the last few minutes with us as we discussed how to escape the accounts trap.

Bye for now.