Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome back to Accounts 2.0. I'm Steve Purbisch and with me is, as always, is Ted Williamson. Today, step six provide value-added services as bolt-ons to proposals. Ted, this is right in line with Accounts 2.0, a strategy for new age accountants, and I know that one of the things that attracted me to even working with Accounts 2.0 is our strategies for creative use of bolt-on services. Can you elaborate a little more, Ted?

Speaker 2: 0:43

Yeah, so the idea is that you can do more for your clients and offer more for your clients without doing more for your clients, right.

Speaker 2: 0:53

So you can be the go-to, for you know a lot of things that they're looking for.

Speaker 2: 1:02

We have talked about niching. That's important, and so building not just your tech stack around that or the specific services that you provide, but what services are they offering is also important, because if you're not going to offer it, they're going to find somebody who does offer it and who's to say that they end up moving over to them, right. So? So we want to make sure that we're only we're not only protecting our the clients that we do have, but we want to actually offer value to them, and by offering and but not hurting ourselves in the process right, so not creating a situation where we have to service all these different product lines and all these different services where we don't maybe fully understand them. We're a big proponent of being a specialist, not a generalist, but to still be able to offer generalist services, so it doesn't mean that you have to be doing them, but the client knows that they go to you to get them. So that is kind of what we're talking about here.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Okay, so for value-added services, what kind of advisory services would you suggest to provide? If I was a new age account or bookkeeper and obviously that might be slightly different what kind of advisory service would be, I guess, appropriate? So?

Speaker 2: 2:33

I mean bookkeepers and accountants, a lot of them, you know, the big thing are, you know, the biggest, I think, growing area in the accounting industry right now is advisory CFO services. Because of the automation of accounting, the AIs you know eventually going to take over the world, especially the accounting world and legal and everything else Right, which I don't think. That's actually true. There's always opportunities, but part of that is that every that a lot of people are moving into advisory, also because there's a lot more money in advisory right.

Speaker 2: 3:05

So there's a lot you can get more of what you're, what you're, what you're worth in a way, um, because you have all this expertise and all this knowledge that that that people want or you know people who have all this expertise and knowledge uh again offering bolt-on services, um, and so you're able to offer a better solution to to your clients and able to walk them through actually growing and solving their problems. Now you don't have to do this yourself, because not everybody is an advisor, not everybody has all the expertise to do that. A lot of so some. So advisory is big in both worlds the bookkeeping and the accounting um, but I I would kind of argue that accountants actually see a lot of the higher level type stuff that bookkeepers don't usually see. The bookkeepers see a lot of the ground on the ground, uh, numbers right like like day in, day out what's happening, so they can see trends really really well of what's happening on a daily basis, and so that's really good. So, depending on the type of client depends on who should be servicing them. So you might be a bookkeeper servicing landscapers or maybe a specialty type of landscaper, and you are good to advise those people.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So now this accountant is also servicing landscapers, but but they uh they don't have that that level of knowledge that the bookkeeper has on that that daily, the daily transactions and uh, really into the minutiae of it all. They understand the fight. You know how they're going to make their financial decisions, things like that, like more of that cfo stuff or less strategic stuff, um, and so they they are going to. You can you can form a partnership advisory package where the accountant can deal with the cfo level type of stuff and the the bookkeeper can deal with the strategic type stuff and uh, and then you can kind of work together. You're able to offer a complete advisory service, complete bookkeeping and accounting service for this landscaper, regardless of who's the one selling the job, you work together in order for them to get it.

Speaker 2: 5:15

They benefit either way, right. So that's one example of advisory. There's multiple types of different advisory like the financial advisor, strategic advisory, like I was just talking about, and I'm not saying that one bookkeeper and accountant is better to do it either way. I'm just using it as an example.

Speaker 1: 5:35

You mentioned the virtual CFO. What does a virtual CFO do? A lot of people I do see it lot online, um, and people will have the questions that come up uh, this being promoted is something that's great, but what now? Obviously for a bookkeeper cash flow reports and forecasting and planning reports and some analysis and interpretation that are fine, that's easy to understand. What does a cfo do? That sounds like something that would only be useful to a large corporation well, it is useful.

Speaker 2: 6:05

so I find I mean it doesn't have to be a large corporation If you're over $250,000 revenue. I mean it depends on your profitability as a business, like not you but your client's profitability as whether or not it makes sense, how much are you going to be able to move the needle for them, because obviously you don't want to provide CFO services for somebody and you're going to charge them $30,000 a year and you're not going to impact them $30,000. It makes no sense. So really you can be a smaller company as long as your impact is going to be there for them.

Speaker 1: 6:41

So if I'm spending $30,000 a year on a virtual cfo, what services do they provide that will get me more than thirty thousand in return?

Speaker 2: 6:49

so well, there's a lot of different things. So tax planning is one thing. I mean, tax planning is a normal thing, but you can, you know, uh, create strategy on tax planning or on taxes, um, there's all kinds of different things. So what is what's um your, your service choices? So they might sit, they might be able to do an analysis as to what products and services are actually doing well and and figure out which ones to eliminate. There's a whole bunch of stuff, and I really don't want to get it too, too deep into the CFO services specifically because, because we can, there's I can actually be a whole, a whole subject.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Well, actually I just kind of want to get into value added it's a good segue, ted, because we do um interact with uh several virtual cfos and we would love to have a one or two as a guest over the coming uh podcast and they can get right into specifics and scenarios and cases uh that they could. That would impart upon us for that. But, uh, thank you. That gives our listeners and viewers just an idea of there is significant gains begotten by retaining the expertise of a virtual CFO, of course.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Well, a lot of it's like putting where do you put your money, what do you spend your money on? All that kind of stuff, right?

Speaker 1: 8:00

So there's a million things and it's a big subject Right, it's a big subject Right, and getting back to just at the bookkeeping level or any type of reporting service as an added reporting service, just saying we'll make reports or some kind of custom report and just do it for you. One thing that is a value is the analysis of the report. So if there's going to be, say, you're in light manufacturing or the trades, a cash flow report on a weekly or biweekly basis is very useful, assuming that the transactions are being captured properly during that time.

Speaker 2: 8:43

And assuming the client actually knows what they're looking at too, well then, that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 8:47

The interpretation or the breakdown in that report should be added with it. In other words, saying you know what you're spending on this, or this is going past the threshold, or we're noticing a pattern of your fuel consumption is up, that kind of stuff. It might not just be a price change in fuel. It could be that one of the employees is working on a side job.

Speaker 2: 9:12

That happens.

Speaker 1: 9:14

It does happen, especially in the trade. So then, these are the types of things that are the real value added of a Voltan service saying hey, we'll have a custom cash flow report that's specifically watching certain stuff and we can give you feedback. As a matter of of fact, you could tie it into notifications so that you know, with our platforms, it's not out of out of um, out of line to say as soon as fuel consumption goes over a certain point you get a text or an email.

Speaker 1: 9:41

You know it's possible and uh, and those things can be configured. So so tell me about white label services. When you're partnering with niche experts or in terms of bolt-on services, what does white label services mean?

Speaker 2: 10:00

So white label service is where you are actually selling a service under your brand but somebody else is performing the work or doing it. So. So the example I was giving about, like the bookkeeper, accountant, that can be two different things. You can have the bookkeeper and the accountant work together and the clients so you're just saying, hey, I'm going to bring in this bookkeeper to do this work for you, we're going to work together and we'll get this done. Or, as you could say, as an accountant, I'm this bookkeeping work is going to get done, it's going to be part of your proposal, we're going to get it, we're going to and it's going to be part of the project. You know, on top of all your tax planning and on top of your your filings and and then analysis, so, but you actually still hire that bookkeeper, but you're the one that interacts with that client, you're the one who is selling that as your own service and then giving that to them.

Speaker 2: 10:59

So another example is you know what's pretty big is business valuation? So a lot. You know, when you're getting into larger companies as well, more common than not, you have to actually have a business valuation every so often, whether they're, you know, doing a large asset sale or whatever it might be. There's all kinds of, there are all kinds of reasons, and so that's another specialty that that not everybody has. But you might still want to give that higher level of service to those so that you can attract those larger clients. So you would work with a business valuation or business valuator and then they would help you with the business valuation, help you with the business valuation right. In the end they're more likely, or that business valuator is the one who's going to be signing the contract with them, but doesn't mean that you can't be the one who works with that client on an ongoing basis as well and still actually do the sale itself Other ones I want to look at.

Speaker 2: 12:05

So if you think of there's a lot of stuff out there for grants, like tax credits, grants, things like that, and you oftentimes see emails coming all the time about all of these. So you can actually white label that. So just include that into your own services and just say you know grant applications and all of that can be done within your own company. So that's another example of that and again, most of the time you just hand them off. Eventually, at some point you hand them off, but it's sold as a white label. You are still in charge of the client relationship, you're just not in charge of the work, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 12:44

And that brings up the question about ease of integration and that handoff and also implementation. So say that white label service does involve some type of onboarding or a handoff and feedback. Yeah, that is something that you know should be considered. What's your thoughts on that? Or you can't just white label anybody and just say okay we're doing this business with this person and we'll just hand over the client. It's a partnership. Yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:20

Instead of going to school to learn a whole new trade, what you do is you. You spend some time investing in building partnerships with people to make sure that you're in sync together, that you're going to be working for the same goals, you have the same expectations or at least not the same expectations but you are understanding of each other's expectations and you're also understanding of the client's expectations and needs. So obviously you don't want to just throw together a bunch of stuff and then just hope that it works out, not considering what the client needs and not considering the other party or your own needs. So it's definitely a partnership you have to figure out, you have to trust each other. You have to definitely have an agreement in place, so some sort of white label agreement or any kind of agreement.

Speaker 2: 14:15

So, like Accountants 2.0, our actual company, we actually do marketing and sales. What we do is we white label you as bookkeepers and accountants, as bookkeepers and accountants, so we help you sell for on your own brand. But we also white label you under accounts 2.0 and and bring you more sales that you don't have to work for. And that's essentially kind of what we do and that's what you could be doing. If you're selling anyway, you, what you could be doing is bringing in somebody else another type of service so that that, while you're in front of that client anyway, you can add value to that client with a good partner that you've vetted and that you are all working towards calming.

Speaker 1: 14:54

Well, that sounds great when it works.

Speaker 2: 14:58

When it works. It doesn't always work.

Speaker 1: 15:02

But again agreements in place, understanding what needs to be handed over and what's coming back, and then everyone's on the same page. That way it really is an extension of your service offering and not, oh, an afterthought, or hey, this is great, and then never pushing it forward. I noticed there's a lot in my past I've seen these arrangements come up, but then if it's not part of the plan, it really just becomes a footnote on a website and nothing really ever comes of it. So when you're selecting these services, make sure it's part of your business plan and part of your marketing plan as well.

Speaker 2: 15:42

Absolutely. It doesn't just happen. You don't just say I'm going to start selling this and then there we go. So you, you get the benefit of not having to build out all these processes, um, and and working, or and, uh and training people, and you know all these new other softwares and other expenses and time commitments. You get benefit, but you still have to spend time creating like the processes in order to implement them. So how do you onboard that? But that partner, how do you onboard that type of service that they're doing? You have to understand that service still, so you should have a general understanding of what that service is so you can, you can speak to it, you know what to look for to make sure that there's quality in what your partner is doing and, basically, you need to have a good handover or handoff to them to make sure that everything's running smoothly for the client.

Speaker 1: 16:37

Well, that brings up the question too. It's like you say you get the attention of a service provider, say you want to white label a virtual CFO service and have it as one of your bolt-ons. Say it's a consultancy or an individual who does that. So the work goes two ways, correct, like all right. So the person has to be confident that you're going to be an effective representative of of them and also that you're actually going to bring stuff to the table like a nice meeting and everyone's talking how great this is. The person doing the white label service or the service is confident that there's going to be sales being made. And also for the new age accountant doing the selling of that service, there has to be some marketing material or some precise stuff to promote. They can't just say, hey, we're going to promote you, oh, that's great. But they have to know how that works. It makes it look seamless, it makes it look credible and it's not just like, oh, you should use this service too.

Speaker 2: 17:56

You have to make it look like it is part of your service offering, plan your relationship and plan how you offer, how you work together, how you work with your client. You have to plan it. You can't just say I'm going to start selling your stuff and I say awesome, let's do that then. And then now, all of a sudden, nothing gets sold, or everything gets sold and everything gets broken, right. So? So there's two different things. Either they're like yes, they say they're going to do it and they just don't do it because there's no expectation, there's no plan going forward as how they're going to sell your stuff, or they can't handle the capacity you oversell it.

Speaker 2: 18:33

Yeah, exactly. The other thing is that they say, yes, I'm going to offer this right away, and then they're good at marketing that kind of thing, but then the process is broken and then they bring you, let's say, you're the out the person, who's who's who's doing the work, you're overrun with all this work and you can't keep up or you're getting the wrong clients. You have to have an expectation as to what clients are we working with, right? So we yes, we're going to partner together, but I only want to work with marijuana manufacturers or something, or you know, or you know, or restaurants or something like that. And then they start bringing you landscapers. I always bring up landscapers because that was my first business, so you're going to see that's pretty common.

Speaker 1: 19:17

And they usually need a lot of tax help.

Speaker 2: 19:19

They do. They need a lot of help. It's all those expenses, and so many of them are usually not as knowledgeable in tax, tax, bookkeeping, accounting, things like that, right.

Speaker 1: 19:29

So so I still do the shoe box.

Speaker 2: 19:33

Shoe boxes and and again it's. We've been there, so that that's. That's kind of kind of what that? Because it was my first one, it's my, it's my, why I always talk about it.

Speaker 2: 19:42

It's got a special place in my heart, I guess. But, like I said, if you're doing restaurants or you're, you know if that's what you want, to who you want to be a CFO a virtual CFO for and they bring you landscapers. You don't understand their books as much or the level of complexity that they don't understand, like so as a landscaper. They want to get the work done. They want to put things in the ground, make things beautiful. They don't want to do all the other stuff. They don't understand it. They didn't want to deal with all that stuff at all. As we all know, I'm preaching to the choir at this point. But their level of understanding and comprehension is different than a restaurant in a lot of cases. Depending on the restaurant owner, it can be the same thing, or a marijuana manufacturer or a grower right, because they definitely understand numbers, because they're forced to by government mandates and stuff like that, depending on the state, but so yeah.

Speaker 1: 20:43

What you're saying is, we have a lot of great professionals out there that are tired at the end of the day and the last thing they want to worry about is all this compliance, forecasting work and everything, and that's why the full time services that a new age accountant can offer will definitely help.

Speaker 2: 21:00

Absolutely Well, there's the. So there's all kinds of different services. There's the grants, the virtual CFOs. There's all kinds of different services. There's the grants, the virtual CFOs. You can offer a lot of stuff and you don't want, or you have a specialty service that you can offer other people. So what we want to happen in the community is for people to connect together to help each other.

Speaker 2: 21:22

So not just solving problems like hey, what's going on with this tax regulation?

Speaker 2: 21:29

What's going on with QuickBooks Online? What's going on? You know all these different things, not just staying ahead, but also working together. So by working together, you are staying ahead because you're staying ahead of somebody else taking your clients, because you can offer those bolt-on services. So so some other things that you also want to look at is affiliating. So not just out like offering white label or something like that. So you can.

Speaker 2: 21:58

You can affiliate with software companies, with legal, and so just get like referral fees or an ongoing fee for, for example, are if you affiliate with accounts 2.0, we have an affiliate fee that we give people with our, with our software A20 Connect, to do all your all in one marketing. If you were to sell it to your clients, we actually give you 20% for the rest of your life, as long as you continuously, you know, promote us. You, that's, that's a bonus. Some people only do affiliates and they make a ton of money. Uh, you, that's, that's a bonus. Some people only do affiliates and they make a ton of money. So that's another thing. Not I'm not just saying for us, but like, like you know how we just talked about one password and guess what, if you buy one password and you use our link, we make a little bit of money and thank you, uh, and thank you one password, so that, and and there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a beautiful thing because it gets the word out about great products and services.

Speaker 2: 22:51

So, all these little bolt-ons, you could either offer a bolt-on within your service, so you could even say, hey, we're going to offer A20 Connect as part of your thing and we're going to bill it, and then we're going to pay for it and everything else, which I don't, I don't, I don't recommend necessarily doing that with like that kind of a software, because people make it change stuff up. It's just an example. But or you can just say here is, here are, is all of our stuff, and they. They know that they can come to you and say I know that you understand my industry and so I'm going to come to you because you've been able to solve all these problems and I need a marketing platform because I need to start growing. And then you're going to say guess what? Here's this company, a20 Connect. They can do that. You make an affiliate fee, you've helped the client and that's it. So I think that's another wonderful way of bolting on or creating more value for clients.

Speaker 1: 23:52

So, to summarize, understand your niche, know your core service and then picture a perfect world of all these other services you can provide, not worrying about the machinery of that, just finding the right purveyor to form a partnership with, to form that perfect package or assortment of package that you can offer your client niche, and that's all possible without having to go back to school to learn something specific. There's professionals out there that would affiliate through affiliate relationships, through a contractual arrangements and various other ways it's possible.

Speaker 2: 24:23

It depends on your level of comfort, right? So not everybody wants to do this, and that's fine, because you don't want to worry about, you know, building relationships. In the accounting industry, as we all know, there's a very introverted or not everybody, but there's a lot of people are very introverted. They want to, you know, get the work done. They don't necessarily want to do the marketing, the sales or building relationships, and so it might not be for you, but for those that it is.

Speaker 1: 24:51

It is for us and we can help people that want to take advantage of it. We don't have to do it all, so if we've been there, we can do it for you, so excellent. Well, ted, I think we've covered this topic Great. Thank you very much for enlightening us on what these services are and what they entail, and some of the things that you have to do. So, everyone, until next time. This is Accountants 2.0. Join our community either on LinkedIn or Facebook, comment and give us feedback on those channels, as well as our YouTube channel. Everyone, have a great day and see you next time.

Speaker 2: 25:31

And like and subscribe.

Speaker 1: 25:33

Always like and subscribe.

Speaker 2: 25:35

Awesome, thank you.