TaxCoach Briefs:    June 4, 2009

Volume 4, Number 25

• Marketing Minute: Lessons From The Op-Ed Page
• Member Opportunity: TaxCoach "MVP"
• Member Q & A: Seminars for Bank Audiences

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MARKETING MINUTE (EAL)
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LESSONS FROM THE OP-ED PAGE

Conventional wisdom says that newspapers are dead. Even our venerable local fishwrap, the Cincinnati Enquirer, used to show up with a "bang" on the front porch; now it's more like a whimper.

24-hour cable news, the Internet, and Twitter alert us instantly when GM files bankruptcy, Derek Jeter makes an error, and your sister’s friend Jenna gets a date with a hot guy. But there's still a place in the daily paper for opinion and editorial pieces, which drive public discourse in exactly the way the founding fathers intended when they crafted the First Amendment.

Back when I worked on Capitol Hill, I read four papers a day. We used to say that the people who read the New York Times run the country; the people who read the Washington Post think they run the country; the people who read the Wall Street Journal think the people who own the country damn well ought to run it; and the people who read USA Today don’t care who runs the country as long as the weather map is in color.

Now that I’m in the “private sector,” I don’t have time for four papers a day. But I do try to keep up with the papers – especially the Op-Ed pages – and I found a couple of pieces from the Times that offer lessons for us.

We’ll start with Thomas Friedman, who wrote yesterday about “Obama on Obama.”

“During a telephone interview Tuesday with President Obama about his speech to Arabs and Muslims in Cairo on Thursday, I got to tell the president my favorite Middle East joke. It gave him a good laugh. It goes like this:

There is this very pious Jew named Goldberg who always dreamed of winning the lottery. Every Sabbath, he’d go to synagogue and pray: ‘God, I have been such a pious Jew all my life. What would be so bad if I won the lottery?’ But the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Week after week, Goldberg would pray to win the lottery, but the lottery would come and Goldberg wouldn’t win. Finally, one Sabbath, Goldberg wails to the heavens and says: ‘God, I have been so pious for so long, what do I have to do to win the lottery?’

And the heavens parted and the voice of God came down: ‘Goldberg, give me a chance! Buy a ticket!’”

Friedman goes on to make the point that in the Middle East, everyone is telling the President what he needs to do, but nobody is stepping up to say how they will do anything different. “Everyone wants peace, but nobody wants to buy a ticket.”

Keith and I spent two days in Chicago last month with a group of successful, sophisticated tax professionals. Almost all of them earn the bulk of their income from tax preparation. But nearly all of them want to do fewer tax returns.

That’s typical of our TaxCoach members. They build a business – often a successful practice – working with one sort of client or another. Then one day they wake up and decide they want something different. Maybe it’s higher-fee clients. Maybe it’s more year-round work. Maybe it’s new revenue from insurance and investments. Maybe you just want to win the lottery!

Whatever it is you want to do, it presents a choice. You can pray to win. Or you can buy a ticket!

Are you still smarting from a long and painful “season”? What are you doing about it? Praying to win? Or actually going out and buying a ticket?

The second lesson comes from David Brooks, whose Friday column, “The Empathy Issue,” explored the role of emotion in evaluating Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor:

“It is incoherent to say that a judge should base an opinion on reason and not emotion because emotions are an inherent part of decision-making. Emotions are the processes we use to assign value to different possibilities. Emotions move us toward things and ideas that produce pleasure and away from things and ideas that produce pain.

People without emotions cannot make sensible decisions because they don’t know how much anything is worth. People without social emotions like empathy are not objective decision-makers. They are sociopaths who sometimes end up on death row.”

The lesson for us is less obvious, but no less important. The process Brooks describes applies to your clients just as it does with judges. Clients use emotion to assign values to different financial possibilities. Emotions move them toward outcomes that produce pleasure -- like saving money, financing college, or securing a comfortable retirement. Emotions move them away from things that produce pain, like wasting money on unnecessary taxes!

How can we put those lessons together in a way that you can use them clients? I suggest you resolve to “buy a ticket” and make emotion a part of your client conversations. Specifically, ask the next three (or five, or ten) clients you talk with what they would do if you saved them $3,000 (or $5,000 or $10,000) on their tax bill. Then sit back and listen. Would they reinvest it in their business? Put it in a retirement fund? Blow it on a vacation?

Don’t just smile and nod at their answer. Follow up so that the client really feels the value of the possibility. You might be surprised just how much life your client breathes into their answer. Would they blow the savings on a trip to South Beach? Then you want them to hear the sound of seagulls, smell the suntan lotion, taste the Margarita, and feel the sand between their toes!

Building emotional connections turns customers into clients. Building emotional connections cements client relationships and stimulates the referrals that are crucial to building your business, especially in this economy.

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MEMBER OPPORTUNITY (EAL)
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TAXCOACH "MVP"

Last year, right around this time, we announced that we would be raising membership fees by $10 per month. At the same time, we gave you an opportunity to beat that price increase by joining our "MVP" program. Specifically, we offered annual subscriptions at a special, bargain rate: 12 months for the price of 10. Even better, we priced those 10 months at last year's rate!

You'll be pleased to learn that we're not raising fees this year. However, we know the economy is tough, and many of you are looking for savings wherever you can find them. So we're still offering the special "MVP" rates to all members.

Here's the deal. Take care of your next 12 months of TaxCoach now and get two months free. That includes unlimited use of the planning system, full use of all the marketing tools and resources, and everything we add to the system over the next 12 months. We'll even add a free "annual review" consultation with me personally!

If you're interested, call Catherine at 513-321-2820 and she'll set you up. It takes just one new client to pay for the entire year and more. But you'll still get the two months free!

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MEMBER Q & A (KAV)
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Q: I just joined TaxCoach. I have a client, a loan officer with a bank, who is willing to do seminars with me for my clients. Do you have any seminar material for such a seminar?

A: Welcome aboard! There are a number of Seminar Kits in the Playbook within TaxCoach. Each is aimed at a different specialty audience, and boils down TaxCoach strategies into the "Ten Biggest Tax Mistakes...." most appropriate for that audience. Standard kits include business owners, retirees, real estate investors, and portfolio investors. You'll also find a Seminar Success Guide with Ed's accumulated wisdom on putting on the sessions, and other tools. The Playbook is on the left (blue) side of the Home Page, once you sign into TaxCoach.

Seminars are a great way to build your business, especially if you speak as an "invited expert" with the bank's implied credibility behind you. If your client sells commercial loans, he'll probably want to put you in front of business owners. If he sells mortgages, he'll put you in front of homeowners.

Just remember, there are three things you can do with an audience:

1. You can educate them. Of course that's the superficial goal. But beware trying to overload too much information. If your audience is like most, they'll forget half of what you say by the end of the day and the rest by the end of the week.

2. You can entertain them. This is actually easier to do than you think, even if you're not a natural wit. Audiences don't expect a tax presentation to be entertaining, and with the bar set so low it's easy to exceed expectations.

3. Finally, you can motivate them. What use is your education or entertainment if you don't motivate them to "buy a ticket" and do something to improve their financial condition? In most cases, your goal should be to schedule appointments with as many attendees as possible. In fact, you should bring your calendar with you to schedule appointments right on the spot!

Let us know how it goes!

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Q: How long is the "Obama Tax Update" seminar intended to last? I'm guessing about half an hour.

A: I think you’ve pegged it accurately; we designed the presentation to last 20-40 minutes, depending on how many questions you get, and how much additional detail you want to inject on topics like capital gains and section 179 expensing.

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We're happy to answer your questions on TaxCoach content, features, or marketing. While we give first priority to our All-Star and Hall of Fame members, we work to answer all questions. For best response, email support@taxcoachsoftware.com. If we think the answer will be useful to all of our members, we'll publish it (anonymously) here in the 'Member Q & A' section of TaxCoach Briefs.

Regards,

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