TaxCoach Briefs:    June 11, 2009

Volume 4, Number 26

• Marketing Minute: We're Boring
• New Resource: Problem-Client Termination Letter
• Member Opportunity: TaxCoach MVP

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MARKETING MINUTE (EAL)
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WE'RE BORING

Last week, Keith answered a reader Q & A asking how long the Obama mini-seminar was designed to last. His answer included a brief outline of three goals you can shoot for with any seminar:

1. Educating your audience,
2. Entertaining them, and
3. Motivating them

As part of that discussion, Keith stated: "Audiences don't expect a tax presentation to be entertaining, and with the bar set so low it's easy to exceed expectations."

Well, earlier this week, member Randy van Reken sent us the following comment:

"I have a great story on this from years ago. A group of REALTORS brought me into Portland, Maine from Las Vegas to teach a 4 hour tax class for about 350 agents. I had met exactly one of these people before (the one who brought me in). They were paying a lot in fees, travel, etc. for this.

As is common I wrote my own introduction and had one of the course organizers read it to the group. This was an after lunch session on top of it all. After she stumbled through the introduction (without so much as reading it once to herself in advance) and mispronounced many things including my name, she decided to ad lib a bit.

'And we hear that he's really good with a boring topic. Please welcome Randy van Reken!'

I must have been good enough since they brought me back 2-3 times a year for the next several years."

I'm not sure I'd agree that taxes really are boring. They certainly don't have to be. I just saw a post on Professor Paul Caron's TaxProf blog about tax consequences for a German teenager who auctioned her virginity on Ebay, and I think the comments would have made Randy's course organizer blush. And we've just published weekly emails for our Hall of Fame members' clients, discussing such diverse and memorable topics as tax strategies for Somali pirates and whether Pringles qualify as "potato chips."

But even those of us in the field understand our reputation as boring. Keith and I are in Stratford, CT today, hosting our third Roundtable of the season at the Oronoque Country Club. This morning, participants arrived at the same time a local political group was hosting a large breakfast banquet, and several of them remarked that when they heard the commotion, they wondered how we could be having so much fun so early in the morning!

And our Hall of Fame members? They actually heard from clients in reply to the emails -- clients whom they'd never heard from before outside of tax season. There must be some truth to the rumor.

(At this point, you're probably wondering where's the lesson. Don't worry, it's coming.)

Keith and I spent most of the Roundtable discussing how to set yourself apart from your competition. Doing so lets you charge premium fees, sure, but it also lets you manage client relationships more effectively than if your client perceived you as "just" an accountant.

If clients expect you to be boring, and you're not, that sets you apart from your competition. And if clients expect you to be boring, it's easy to exceed expectations!

So be funny. Go out and find some funny tax jokes and tax quotes. Then send them to us -- Keith and I will be happy to publish them, just like Playboy Party Jokes. (No, we won't send you $50. But we will give you $50 in TaxCoach Bucks for every joke we publish!)

Let's work together to stamp out the old stereotype that accountants are boring. Together, we can craft a new image for our profession, just like "New Coke" crafted a new image for soda!

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NEW RESOURCE (KAV)
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PROBLEM-CLIENT TERMINATION LETTER

At the Chicago Roundtable on May 14-15, one of the topics which came up -- as it inevitably does whenever we talk about building the firm you want to have, generating more revenue from fewer, better clients -- is firing clients. Especially problem clients. As much as we'd like to tell a PITA client what bus to take, we all know it's better business and better karma not to editorialize quite so negatively, especially in print.

All-Star John Shipley of Ft. Thomas, KY volunteered that he'd struggled a great deal with how to get rid of a particularly distracting example of such a client. Being a mild-mannered sort, John composed a termination letter which, after being allowed to mellow over a day's time, comes right to the point and ties down loose ends, but without creating any more badwill to potentially leak out into the community than is strictly necessary.

Thanks go to John for sharing it with us. We've generalized it a scosche and posted it in the Playbook, in the Sample Letters section. The Playbook is on the left (blue) side of the Home Page, once you sign in to TaxCoach.

At first it seems a straightforward thing, but language for delicately but decisively cutting loose those nuisance clients can be hard to craft. Especially when you're pissed! We hope this will be a useful sample for you when you need it.

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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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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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