How to Grow an Accounting Firm from Zero to 7 Figures in Under 4 Years

Charles Hopkins is the owner of Hopkins Tax and Consulting, a firm based out of Austin, Texas that specializes in handling complex tax matters, tax preparation, tax planning, resolution of taxes and small business consulting. Mr. Hopkins started the business relatively recently, in January of 2016. It’s already a 7-figure firm in revenue just three and a half years later. If you want to grow an accounting firm, his story should be of interest to you.

From Apple Employee to Small Business Tax Firm Owner

Charles Hopkins was working for one of the largest, most profitable companies in the world in 2015: Apple. While making decent money, he wasn’t satisfied at his job.  Mr. Hopkins is a people person, and he was behind a desk all day with minimal interaction. Having done accounting and tax work in college as a volunteer, he decided to make the move from corporate America to run his own startup tax service. 

“I enjoy helping people, so I was doing taxes for some friends and family, but it got to be too much, so I started charging $50 for a tax return. Finally, I decided it would be best to just create my own tax firm because I enjoyed the work and I needed to do something different than what I was doing at Apple,” Hopkins explained. 

After the first tax season ended, business slowed down. Mr. Hopkins decided he might need to go back to corporate America, so he applied for an accounting position with the state of Texas. As events turned out, he didn’t get the job, and that night he found Andrew Argue [CEO of Corvee] on Facebook talking about how to grow a profitable accounting and tax business. He took that as a sign that he should continue trying to build his own firm and invest in the 7 Figure Firms program. 

Tax Firm Growth with 7 Figure Firms Program

“When I first got into the program, I had been debating about whether or not to go back to corporate America. Within 2 weeks of joining 7 Figure Firms, I got a client that was worth $5,000 a month. That same week, I landed another client for $1,500 a month. So instantly, I had $6,500 in monthly recurring revenue coming in that more than paid for the program.”

With $78,000 of annual revenue from just two clients, Mr. Hopkins felt ready to fully pursue his new tax firm endeavor without looking back to corporate America—but soon problems arose. He let those two clients basically turn him into an employee. They would call his cell phone at any time, day or night and were very demanding. He was consumed by them and unable to grow further. 

“What I immediately got in the 7 Figure Firms program was pricing strategies and how to charge more, which I implemented when I got my first clients,” Mr. Hopkins explained. “What I failed to do was take in all the training that was available in the program. If I had, I would have set the scope correctly with those early clients, set boundaries and not have done ad hoc work without charging additional hourly fees.”

Not knowing yet how to properly delegate work, Mr. Hopkins didn’t take advantage of all the resources in the program for a short period of time because he became so busy. Finally, he recommitted to it by coming to an event. At the event, he began to continue to implement the material and resources available to him to improve his firm’s services and processes.

Grow an Accounting Firm to 7 Figure Revenue

Today, Mr. Hopkins runs a multi-service firm with great SEO traffic to his website, many word-of-mouth referrals and steady growth in both clients and revenue. In 2020, his tax firm is on pace to nearly double revenue year over year and surpass 7-figures for the first time. What have been some of his biggest challenges of growing an accounting firm over the past few years?

“We had challenges with internal staff, so we’ve had to stop onboarding new clients at times because I didn’t want to add more work before having confidence in the service delivery. I used to hire based on price, asking myself who I could afford, but 7 Figure Firms has helped me realize team members are an investment and don’t cost anything. In addition, the program has helped me figure out what roles to fill and when to fill them with proper organizational charts for each revenue stage as my firm grows.” 

Being able to close a client based on value as opposed to price is one big learning lesson in the 7 Figure Firms program, because as Mr. Hopkins explained, “Why should someone pay me $2,500 to do taxes when they can go elsewhere and get it done for $500? With the slide decks I use now and the advice I’ve gotten from the program, I’m able to show prospects how much they’re saving and what I bring to the table much better than I ever did when I first started.”

He continued, “Oftentimes, it’s just one thing that more than pays for the program for the entire year. For example, learning how to do tax planning properly, or the COVID consulting that came out almost immediately when the pandemic hit the U.S. Sometimes for me, it’s been meeting one person at an event and getting one piece of advice to implement. Another great lesson I’ve learned is how to position my value proposition. 7 Figure Firms is literally like a sales boot camp for accountants who don’t feel comfortable in sales.”  

Mr. Hopkins did have a word of warning to those who are considering joining the 7 Figure Firms program: “Don’t join if you think you can do it better than the processes they give you. You have to set your ego aside and follow the program they give you. I knew firm owners from three years ago in the program who thought they could change some things their own way or they just didn’t listen because they thought it would be too salesy for their clients—but those firm owners are still at the same revenue today that they had three years ago. So you have to listen and be open to trying something new.” 

Having now achieved far more in under 4 years than he ever expected to, Mr. Hopkins now has new goals to grow the business further and help even more clients. “I want to help as many people as I can, and this program has made that dream possible.” 

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