Tax Firm Increases Revenue by Marketing Tax Services

Erik Woodbury’s tax firm is located in Utah. He has one full-time tax manager, one full-time sales rep and two part-time assistants. His firm solely focuses on tax planning and tax preparation. Here is his story of quitting his job to grow this tax firm from scratch to seven figures.

Tax Trauma Leads to Career in Finance

“My parents were millionaires when I was a kid, they were doing really well,” Mr. Woodbury told us. “Then their business went under. They had major tax issues that surfaced, owed lots of money to the IRS and had other debts, so I became interested in finance, budgeting and accounting from a young age.” He then told of how one night, he was awoken as there was noise outside his bedroom window. “In the middle of the night my parents’ cars were being repossessed. My memory of it was seeing the backdoor of the RV open, flapping in the wind as they drove away.”

Mr. Woodbury looked back at such a dramatic economic beginning as the seeds planted for his future profession—he’d be someone who would save businesses like his parents’ business from ever having to shut down. The 7 Figure Firms coaching program would help him realize this ultimate goal.

Moving from Tax Employee to Tax Firm Owner

By age 27, Mr. Woodbury started his side gig preparing tax returns for individuals and businesses. He was too afraid to leave his corporate accounting job because he didn’t know how to grow his side gig tax firm on his own, so he stayed a full-time employee for another five years at the corporate job. Meanwhile, his side hustle tax business stayed small. By age 32, he had enough. He invested with 7 Figure Firms in December of 2018. By March of 2019, he quit his job and managed to do $30,000 of tax returns to jumpstart his new full-time endeavor.

“I was just hungry to learn. I was critical of myself because I knew I needed to get better at sales. I knew if I didn’t figure out marketing tax services, my business would never take off,” he explained. Once tax season died down, Mr. Woodbury again was able to concentrate more time into the 7 Figure Firms coaching and the resources available inside it. He was able to methodically create a tax firm marketing machine over the coming months.

“I never EVER would have figured out all the techie stuff that goes with online funnels, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn messaging, and connecting it all to my calendar to produce leads on auto-pilot if it weren’t for 7 Figure Firms. It took a complex lead generation for accountants process and they have simplified it step-by-step so that even someone like me could implement it.”

With leads coming in, sales began to increase. He cracked $20,000 in a month for the first time during July of 2019. From there, he continues to increase the tax firm marketing efforts which is resulting in more sales. Today, he is a seven-figure firm owner.

Introducing a Software for Accountants to Improve Processes

Mr. Woodbury has been using the accounting firm software from Corvee to improve his accounting client onboarding process and make life easier for both his clients and his employees. In fact, Mr. Woodbury’s firm no longer accepts paper records from clients because Corvee Tax Planning is so much more secure and convenient.

“I’ve built processes around the Corvee Tax Planning software that make things simpler than they used to be,” he explained. “It used to be very painful, I had to manually compose each engagement letter in Microsoft Word and print to PDF, upload to Docusign, send through Docusign just to get an engagement letter. Now it’s really a one-click solution and it is much easier.”

“My request list had a process, but the documents were all separate, meaning my questionnaire and engagement letter were all sent through email and tracked separately. I tried using other providers but it didn’t work as well. The alternatives weren’t as customizable and required sending new requests each time. Nothing could track everything in one place until I found Corvee Tax Planning.”

Besides accounting client onboarding improvements, there have been changes from tax season 2019 to 2020. His employees dread working with clients who were onboarded before Corvee because their files are all over the place, spread out over different emails. “Collecting documents used to be a hunt, but now all the files are in one place.”

Mr. Woodbury also enjoys the chat feature inside Corvee which has replaced a lot of email back and forth. “Sometimes a client will send in something that isn’t right or we need more context, and this requires feedback. We removed the need for email because they can see our chat history inside the client portal.”

His firm is now in the process of moving completely cloud-based because of Corvee.

A Million Dollar Tax Firm Takes a Change in Mental State

In addition to the software benefits of Corvee software, Mr. Woodbury explained to us that one of the biggest benefits of the 7 Figure Firms program has been the change in mental state he’s experienced. “I’ve learned my attitude attracts either good or bad into my life and business. If I think I’m worth it, clients will pay. Having an abundance mentality goes a long way to growing a business.” 

He went on to say, “The growth has been incredible, in the last three days, 600 contacts have gone into my tax firm marketing funnel. I used to charge $150 for a tax return and now I charge thousands for tax planning. It’s just night and day when comparing what it was to what it is now.”

Mr. Woodbury further explained: “My mindset used to be that hiring was an expense. Now I see hiring as the key to growth thanks to the coaching I’ve received. But the biggest wins have been wins for my clients. For example, I helped a dentist recently take cash that would have been paid to the IRS and was able to pay off his debts. Things like that are so rewarding.”

All in all, Mr. Woodbury now feels well-positioned for future growth. It’s no longer just about trying to make ends meet, nor is it about exceeding $1M. He understands with successfully marketing tax services, he can hire team members and grow the business as big as he wants, so long as he keeps selling tax plans. “The thing is, anyone can sell tax plans. I’m not special, I just invested in myself with this program because I knew I had to get better at marketing tax services.”