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10/22/2016

How do You Eat an Elephant?

You’ve heard this before right? You eat an elephant one bite at a time. Lame, but it does illustrate something I’ve noticed while speaking on the Intuit Roadshow recently (register for free here in a city near you). Here is what I’ve noticed: traditional firms attending this event seem overwhelmed at making the significant changes being required of them. They’ve noticed that technology has changed around them and they are feeling the pressure to change quickly.

Topics like the cloud, value pricing, and practice efficiency seems to make them nervous when they are just struggling to find new clients and lead their employees. They have “boots on the ground” problems, and they find it hard to act strategically to change their firms. Some feel the urgency to do it quickly, while others just write it off as something they can’t focus on right now.

Category:: CPA firm, Personal Growth, Strategy
Comments:: 0

10/10/2016

Negotiation & Pricing Lessons from when I Bought my 1973 Bronco

I have no good reason for living in Utah. I’m not Mormon and I don’t ski. By state law I could be deported.

I grew up in Seattle where it maybe snows twice a year, and when it does snow, the snow only stays on the ground for like a day, so I’m well aware that I’m a big wuss when it comes to winter. And Utah winters suck. And, yeah. I get it. Winters in the midwest suck so much harder than mine, that it’s embarrassing to say my winters suck at all. But we’re all a long way from South Carolina where winter just means you have to wear a shirt under your overalls. Read more

Category:: Pricing
Comments:: 6

09/27/2016

The Inevitable – Book Review

We are all seeing the influence of technology on our lives. It is rewiring our minds; it is accelerating the pace of innovation, and it is causing dramatic changes in how we live our day to day lives. Some people embrace this and say, ‘bring it on’; others are a little more resonant about it; and a few others still reject and deny the impact of technology. Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired is one of those prophets of technology and when he speaks to what is going on, people take note. Kelly gave a talk in 2007 (after what many consider the first 5,000 days of the internet) about the next 5,000 days of the internet. In that talk, he shared the following highlights: Read more

Category:: Book Review, Innovation
Comments:: 0

09/19/2016

One Relationship Leads To Another Relationship

I’m learning the exponential power of relationship building. And I’m excited as to how fast it can grow your company. We do a good bit of content marketing in our firm, but faster growth is coming from one on one relationships with real people. Relationship building, or Networking as it is often known, and Content Marketing are two important balances in any firm. Most firm leaders are imbalanced on one side or the other. As people, we are drawn to the activity where we feel most comfortable. Surprisingly, I’ve felt most comfortable on the content development side. But relationship building is so important, and I’m unlocking it’s power (and I’m pretty good at that too)!

Category:: Business, Community, Networking
Comments:: 0

09/12/2016

H&R Block: The H Stands for “Inaccurate” (Deep Undercover Part 3)

H&R Block is not cheap, their customer experience isn’t great, and their ackquoorisee is as good as my spelling. But be honest. Is your firm better? How do you know? More importantly, do your clients know?

Price is easy. After writing my post on their pricing, I talked to one CPA who said he’s charging half of what H&R Block does. Half! He’s a CPA! Fortunately he can solve his pricing problem by taking his clients’ documents to H&R Block, have them prepare the return (he’s under no obligation to file with H&R Block), get their pricing, fix the return, charge $50 more than H&R Block, and tell his clients exactly how H&R Block was going to screw them. Brilliant! And it only breaks one confidentiality rule!¹

Category:: Taxes
Comments:: 1

09/11/2016

Deep Undercover at H&R Block Part 2 – Customer Experience

Two years ago, I let Liberty Tax eff up my taxes. This year I allowed H&R Block to do it. In last month’s post, I wrote about H&R Block’s weird-ass pricing. Next month, I’ll tell you all about how hard their accuracy sucked. This post, however, is my story about the H&R Block customer experience.

But this is only my experience. H&R Block files millions of returns every year. So you can’t generalize based solely on one experience. But I will anyways because it’s fun to generalize based solely on one experience.

Category:: Customer Experience, Taxes
Comments:: 2

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