In this episode of the CFO project podcast, we answer your questions around how to earn more without working more.

Welcome to the CFO project podcast. Today, we're talking all about how single owner CPAs can earn more without working more. To help me with the discussion, I've invited Geraldine Carter. Geraldine, welcome to the show. Hi, Adam. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, so I'm really excited because this is what you do. You work with CPAs who own their own practice, and you essentially help them earn more without working more.

So. So how did you get into that, by the way? So it's a very long and winding story, but the short version in a sentence or two is that I started a business with a friend because I have an engineering degree, I fell into the managing the money role. We had an accountant who was way too busy. First in, first out.

Getting my financials was like pulling teeth. It was always two months after I needed it, so it cost me a lot of time in our business trying to pin down numbers. And when I exited and I went out on my own being a consultant, working with business owners, I found my way to working. Turns out with accountants, because we love money, numbers and math and spreadsheets and we get each other.

We're both, you know, we're smart, we're hard working, we're willing to put in the effort, and we take our business seriously. And there's a natural there's enough distance between our expertise that what I had to offer, is really useful for them, namely, solving big, nonspecific problems. Yeah, that's that's fascinating that you, as a business owner, were pushing your accountant to get the financials because you wanted to see them.

And you're an engineer, so that's impressive. Well, I just wanted to know what was happening with the money. And I was dark about the money until 90 days after this. Whatever had happened, that's way too late to make decisions. It's way too late. And it was just a product of hourly billing, because really what happens is, you know, her price was her hourly bill was way too low.

So she had way too many clients. And she was first in, first out, and the setup hourly billing just makes a mess of any business. No I agree, I agree. Yeah, totally. Well, welcome to the show. I'm really excited to dive into this. So what's our first question? What strategies do you suggest for those of us running solo CPA practices to help grow our businesses?

Good question. Yeah. So there are there are a lot, but let's keep the important ones front and center. Number one understand value. If you don't understand value, if you don't understand what it is, if it sounds too nebulous, too intangible, and it just seems too squishy, your prices will suffer as a result. We need to understand value because value is what creates revenue for clients.

Clients are paying you for value, not for time, work or deliverables. So what comprises value in the client's eyes? A couple of things. Sure. Services. Deliverables. Experiences. But transformation is ranked highest. What are the transformations that you can provide for clients? Increased clarity around money. Less stress. Less stress about making payroll so you can help them make more money, or certainly keep more in their pocket by improving profitability, reducing expenses, less on taxes, making better business decisions.

So there are lots of ways that you can create transformations for clients. Remember, your clients are somewhere today and they want to be somewhere else tomorrow. And the more that you can facilitate that transformation or make a meaningful contribution to it, the more value you are creating for your client, and then you capture that value created with effective pricing.

So number one value create value for clients. Number two price effectively. Hourly billing is the least effective way to price. It leaves the most money on the table. So we want to understand pricing tools which pricing tools to use in which context. What are you trying to achieve with the pricing tool that you've picked up from the draw of pricing tools?

Because we can use different ones in different scenarios for different effect. So we need to price effectively. And number three, we need to deliver efficiently. You promised your buyer a certain thing at a certain price. Now your job on the inside behind the curtains is to go deliver that as efficiently as possible to get your hours down. So when you do these three things, when you focus on creating value for your clients and you price effectively, your revenue goes up.

And when you focus on delivering efficiently, your hours go down. Super simple. Yeah, I love accountants, engineers. We love things that are complicated, so we tend to overcomplicate things. And I want for your listeners to really get how simple this is at a high level. I'm not saying it's easy to implement, but conceptually, value creation price effectively revenue up deliver efficiently hours down.

Yeah, I love that that and your business will change. I one of the reasons why I like what you're saying is because I'm a firm believer as well that you need to own a machine, not own a job. Yes. And and the idea that you're, you're, you know, the value pricing and delivering efficiently. That's brilliant. And that if you could do that, then you would be owning a machine that does those things, rather than you owning a job that that's not scalable and you can't really work more without, you can't earn more without working more.

And it's, it's you can't really take vacations or meaningful vacations because if you don't work, you don't get paid. Oh, yeah. And then your job owns you. That's right. Exactly. And there's a lot of people in the in this type of world. I mean, they're in many different industries, but specifically accounting in the accounting world. That's a big problem that can be solved.

I mean, if it's if if your profession is like, you know, a hairstyle, you probably can't solve it as well. But you can in this industry. And that's the beauty of this industry is you can solve it. You can value. Talk about value. You can price effectively. You can deliver efficiently. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I mean let's do it.

So okay, so real quick, before we go to the next question, I do have a couple of thoughts or questions for you. I love the value conversation because I'm a big I'm, I'm I'm all about positioning products or services in this case in a way to get people to understand what it is so they can buy and not.

I tell people all the time that we that business owners don't really want an accountant. They want an A what an accountant can do for them with essentially what you're saying. So the value piece. And correct me if I'm wrong. What you're saying is we need to communicate to a prospect why they should hire us, what the value they'll get out of hiring us would be right.

Yes. Yeah. Keep going. Or do you all know that? Was it like. Like it's it. Because I think when people hear value they the, the sort of a, there's sort of a word that can even have many different meanings. But when in this case, it's getting a prospect to understand why they share the value that they'll get from working with you and get them to pay for that value, not pay for the fact that you're an accountant.

Yeah. Okay, so let me unpack this. So okay, let's start with not an accountant. Right. So nobody wants to buy accounting services. Just like they don't want to buy engineering services. Nobody ever asked me for laminar flow and turbulent flow studies by the hour. Right. And cavitation. Right. The farmer just wants his field to be dry and drained so he can plant seed.

Totally. So. And nobody buys fractional airline services. They buy an airplane ticket to Vegas, but they're not even buying that. They're going for game seven of the Stanley Cup and they're going for that back memories of being there. Sadly that's the crowd goes wild. Right. So you're buying the game. You're buying the experience of being there. You're buying the memory, not a fractional portion of airline time and gas in the food cart.

So you really have to understand what your buyer actually wants from the product that they're getting from you. And so then we go over to value, right. So there's the value that you know that you can create for your clients. One of the challenges for accountants is it's hard for them to connect the dots in that example of, you know, the plane ticket all the way to the memory of game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.

So but so we need to so you need do two things. Number one is dig into all the things that you do and use the phrase so that to convert what you do into what that's for and what it does. And oftentimes you have to go so that this, so that, this, so that this and it's like 4 or 5.

So that, so that you get from airplane ticket to Vegas to game seven to experience of crowd going ballistic to memory to photos on the wall with your kid. Right. So you've like it's multiple dots to get there. And we need to do that with tax return. So that, so that so that so that you're not in hot water.

So you can get off your plate so you can be in compliance. You can move so you can move on with your life and get back to other. So you can sleep at night so you can sleep at night. Yeah. So like payroll done correctly so that you can sleep at night so that, you know how much staff so that you know how much you can afford to hire so that you can run your businesses properly so that you can, like, live the life you want so that you can have fun on vacation and not be worried about, you know, not making payroll so that, so that, so that the other thing that accountants need

to do is not be too busy to talk to their clients because it is your clients who will tell you what they value in addition to you knowing the value that you can create. And when you can compile those two things, the value you know you can create with what your client perceives as valuable and they will you have to ask them, and then you have to zip it and listen, and they will tell you what they value in their own words.

And when you know in their words what they value, it makes it so much easier to back into to reverse engineer. Okay, how do I design my service, my product, to deliver what they tell me they value? When you do those things, you put that all together and life and business gets so much easier. Yeah, totally. And I would argue that it is way more fun.

Yeah. Because now you're selling, right? Because your clients are happy. They're not disappointed. That's right. I got a PNL that I don't understand things right? Right. At the end of the day, I mean, half of all businesses fail by their fifth birthday. They all had accountants and bookkeepers. And you asked every single one of those accountants and bookkeepers, did they do their job?

And they all say, yes. Well, what's the point? If the business failed? Yeah. And not to put too much at the accountant's feet, but I but the business owner is looking for guidance on cash. The business fails because it runs out of cash. It's not that. It's the accountants job to prevent the business owner from running out of cash, but I bet that business owner really would have loved a little bit more guidance on what exactly.

It's not the accountants responsibility, but it but it's the opportunity. It's the opportunity to help. Yes. Opportunity missed all. Love that. Everybody listening. If you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email with practical tips for accountants and bookkeepers to escape. The accountants trap, go to the CFO project.com/newsletter. All right, so what's our next question? How can solo CPAs boost profitability without stretching themselves too thin?

Yeah, so profitability and stretched thin are two separate spectrums, right? That's the nature. I reject the premise of the question right.

Right. Because the baked into this question is a flawed understanding that profitability requires me running around doing work. So we need to separate decouple these two chain links and go back to what we were just talking about before. Profitability comes from creating value for clients, pricing effectively, and then delivering very efficiently with your time. And time is one of your more significant costs, especially if you have staff.

So we need to boost profitability by understanding value. Understand it. I mean, if you if you really understand what your clients value, you can set your prices so far ahead of the cost that it takes to deliver them, that profitability should be straightforward, right? For my clients, for example, once we make these changes that we're talking about, they say things to me like in a year I have $100,000, a new take home pay, net income, right on a $400,000 firm.

Right. That's 25% increase to the bottom line. It's so I don't want to say that it's easy, but it's very simple. And then without stretching themselves too thin, is like, listen, don't stretch yourself too thin. That's the riskiest thing you could do in your business. Because when you're stretched, you then you can't think clearly. When you can't think clearly, you're not thinking about how to create value for your clients.

When you can't think clearly, you're not thinking about ways to price effectively, to be more creative with your pricing. And by creative, I don't mean the like, the dangerous creative accounting creative, I mean the like let's be more let's think outside the box creative about how to capture your price, how to capture the value more effectively with your pricing.

When you're too busy and you're stretch too thin, you're not thinking about, okay, what's the next system or SOP that I'm going to optimize either for me or for my staff and continue to get more efficient. So this whole business of getting stretched too thin, that is a trail you do not want to go down. You want to be going in the other direction of freeing yourself up totally, and you won't have time to actually talk to the clients, which is really what allows you to figure out what they value exactly.

Yeah, exactly. It is like the Trail of Doom. That's right. Do you stretch yourself too thin? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's it makes sense what you're saying and that the decoupling, the idea that profitability increases profitability has a direct correlation with an increase in work. And it if you implement the value, the pricing efficiently and, the pricing effectively, delivering efficiently, it it says that you can increase revenue and hence profit because we have high margin.

This is a high margin industry, which is fantastic. Let's leverage that high margin industry with a, but if you are able to do those things, the value, the pricing, delivering efficiently, you won't be stretched too thin because you'll be delivering efficiently. So let's do a sample just to make it really just concrete for a minute. So I'm thinking of a client who came in, stretched way too thin, right way to thin, about to snap, and in less than a year.

So typical for, you know, a thousand 1200 returns kind of thing only to people who prep and file, 60, 80 hours a week. Classic situation. Yeah. You know, not uncommon situation. And prices way too low for way too long. Legacy old school thinking all the stuff. And within a year she is now the dog that caught the car, meaning that she comes in and she works five hours a week, checks in with her staff, make sure everything is rolling and she's good and she can coast from here to retirement, which is like a solid 20 years away.

Right? So when we talk about with these ideas, I can hear people going like, oh, that's nice for other people, but that's not for me, right? Like it can't happen. I've got to make it happen. That's not possible. And. Right. Just yeah, I've got too much to do. I'm way too busy and I want listeners to know that it's imminently possible that it doesn't take that long in air quotes.

That's subjective. So more specific is 12 to 18 months. We can reshape your business so that you are out of the madness and the chaos, and your business is running smoothly, and it's kicking off profitability that you're psyched about. Hey there Adeline with the CFO project podcast. Are you an employed accountant or bookkeeper that would like to start an advisory service on the side?

Well, we have a free training for you called side Hustle CFO, where we'll show you how to start a business on the side, offering CFO and advisory services to small business owners. We conduct this training every Friday at 3:00 pm eastern and 12:00 pm Pacific. Go to the CFO project. Com and click on Free trainings to register. All right.

So what's our next question? Balancing a solo practice can be tough. Do you have any tips for maintaining a good work life balance. So well we talked about three big tips. Yeah absolutely. And this is the first part of this is mindset right. Balancing a solo practice can be tough. And we say these kinds of things to ourself.

And then and we don't fact check them. We take them to be true. We believe them. And then we go and create that very reality. So a lot of the work that I do with appointments, especially once we get out of the chaos of 60 hours a week and once we get below 40 hours a week, is mindset work.

And yeah, becoming aware, bringing into consciousness the things that we say to ourselves like balancing a solo practice, can be tough. I'm struggling to price because this is hard, because I can't do it because and and uncovering those things that we say to ourselves because we will create the very reality that we repeat to ourselves. So I don't ever say and don't believe balancing a solo practice can be tough.

Instead, I would convert this to a question and say, okay, what do I need for my solo practice to be easy for me? What would it look like if it were easy? How can I make this simple? What would make this lighter? What would make this less of a load for me? Rather than affirm that it's hard and I can't do it.

So. So are you saying something like, if somebody says, if somebody defines work life balance by having being able to get off work at 3 p.m., for example, to pick up their kids from school. That's that exactly what you're saying versus somebody else may define work life balance is never having to work a Saturday or Sunday kind of thing.

Is that what you're saying. And I would just say that okay. If that's what I want, I'm going to believe I can do that rather than tell myself it's tough. Got it. So then to the piece about do you have any tips for maintaining a good work life balance beyond the, create value for clients price effectively, deliver efficiently?

What? We haven't talked about is niche. So very briefly, I know that niching for people is terrifying. And I've been through it because you can see how specific my niche is, right? I work with six figure CPAs who are single owners, and I get that niching is scary. And yet Niching is amazing for your business because it increases focus.

Focus increases expertise, expertise increases value. Value allows your prices to go up. So Niching makes revenue go up when you niche, you become more focused. You become more standardized, easier systematized, easier to train your staff. Time goes down when you niche. So when you niche, revenue goes up, time goes down. It's part of the whole system. So that would be my other tip at the business level.

And then from a work life balance standpoint, getting crystal clear about what the nature of your work is and defining it, planning it, allocating it daily, weekly, whatever cadence works for you so that you know, on any given day or week what's required of you, that it fits inside the hours that you are willing to work, happy to work.

And when you check everything off for the day you are done and that will allow you to leave the office going up. I only worked four hours, I got it's cool. I got my work done. The business is running without defining what's required, knowing how long it takes, getting it scheduled, getting it allocated you. The brain will always be asking you, as the business owner, is there something I'm not thinking about?

What else should I be doing? What else can I do to grow? And you'll never get free of that until you define what it is and you check it off, and then your brain can be quiet when you're not in your office, at your desk. And that is the freedom. That's part of the freedom that a lot of business owners are looking for, is to just be able to put it down, step away from their desk, do it only the hours that they want at their own time, at their own discretion, while bringing in the revenue they want.

How how do you respond to somebody who says, okay, I've optimized, I've created the value of the pricing efficiently and are effectively in delivering efficiently. And I've opened up three hours during my workday. Where have I don't have much to do, but I'm scared because I never had that much time. So I'm either missing something or I could use that time to grow it even further.

What would you say to somebody like that? So I would deal with those two things separately, one at a time. I'm scared because I might be missing something. Okay. What might you be missing? And go ask your brain to go looking for the things it is worried it might be missing, right? Catalog those, figure out what they are working in, and then once you think you've mostly covered it, you.

If you don't want to work those three hours, those three extra hours to grow your business, then step away from your desk for the three hours and wait for the thing that you are fearing might be missing to show up and sort of prove yourself and prove it to yourself. I did this in my own business. I went from 25 hours down to ten and I was I had the same thing.

What am I missing? What am I forgetting? And I force myself. I live in a ski town to go sit on the chairlift for eight minutes. You can't take your cell phone out because that freezes to sit in the discomfort of I might be missing something. Go for two hours, come home, prove to myself that I wasn't missing anything, and it took three weeks for me to sort of work that fear out of my system, because I had collected enough data to show that I wasn't missing anything that couldn't be dealt with.

Two hours later. Yeah, but most business owners can't handle the fear, so they sit at their desk. And that's not what you want to do? I don't think so. You've got to go. Just go make yourself sit through the discomfort and surface whatever you might have been missing, and then solve it. For the other situation of I have these three extra hours.

I want to grow my business. Well, have at it. If you want to grow your business, there's nothing wrong with that. You get it's your business. You get to decide what you want to do with your hours and how much revenue you want to make. There's no right or wrong. Despite what the interwebs tell you about how much you need to grow.

Yeah, that's true. Well, Geraldine, this has been a fantastic discussion. Before we leave, where can somebody find you? If they're like, if they're thinking, all right, I need those three things in my business, the value, the pricing, the delivering a effectively, efficiently. Where can somebody find me? Yeah. So I do have a podcast. It's the Business Strategy for CPAs podcast.

You can find it anywhere. You have a podcast player. And my website is Geraldine carter.com. And you can find me lurking on LinkedIn as well. Perfect. Great LDN and e r.com. Perfect. We'll put that and your podcast which I've had the pleasure of being a guest on in the show notes X. So I'll definitely plug that. Geraldine, thank you so much for being here today.

Thanks, Adam. It's always great to talk to you. Yeah. And to everyone listening or watching. Thank you so much for spending the last few minutes with us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our weekly newsletter where we give tips and strategies on how to escape the accountant trap. Go to the CFO project.com/newsletter. See you next time on the CFO project podcast.