Practice Success Podcast

Katie Thomas: From CPA to Marketing Maven

• Canopy • Season 2 • Episode 3

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Katie Thomas discusses the specific challenges accountants face in marketing, such as the importance of trust, differentiation, and targeted branding. She provides practical advice on managing a brand, a solid referral strategy, and how to balance short-term wins with long-term brand building. 

Chad Saley:

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Canopy's Practice Success Podcast. I'm Chad Saley, your host today, and I'm happy to be sitting down with Katie Thomas with Leaders Online, and we're going to be talking about all sorts of things in the world of marketing and marketing accounting firms. Uh, Katie, why don't you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, sure. Thanks Chad for having me. So I'm Katie Thomas. I am a CPA and I run a marketing agency. We work with accounting firms as well as I say B2A, so business to accountant companies increase their impact influence and income through digital marketing. We focus heavily on social media, paid advertising strategies. Um, also we help Firms and companies with their websites and some of their other content creation needs.

Chad Saley:

So the very first thing I want to ask you is you said, you said you are a CPA. So how did you go from CPA to marketing agency? What, what was your kind of, what has been your career path that has gotten you to this point?

Katie Thomas:

So I grew up in a small business. I was building websites and doing SEO as a teenager. My first W2 job was doing cold calls. So I was just thrown into the whole marketing sales realm from a young age. And I loved it when I went to college, I did not really know for sure what I wanted to do, but I heard accounting was the language of business. So I thought, you know what? I'm going to take an accounting class, see what it's like. And I really enjoyed it at the university. I went to, they really encouraged people that had this natural knack for accounting to lean into it. And so I did that. I got my undergrad and then I got my master's in accounting. So I might as well take the CPA. Oh, well, if you take the CPA, well, you need to now work at a firm or get the experience to actually make that license. Uh, valid and you know, I really did like accounting and I think that was a great path for me to go down. However, I really missed marketing too. And while I was working for one of the big four firms, I realized, you know what, the partners, the senior managers, all of them talk, I shouldn't say all, a lot of them talk about their challenges around business development. And so. And so I thought, you know what, if they're having struggles around not wanting to put theirself out there or necessarily do this part of their role that requires them to do marketing, what does that mean? Not just for these big firms, like the one that I was working at, but what about all these other small firms? And so when I left, we, it was initially just me, we worked with small firms, but now over time grown a team and we work still with some firms that are just one, two partners, but we also work with. With a lot of firms that are in the top 100. So it's been a journey and it's been a lot of fun to stay in the CPA accounting world, but also get to lean into my creative marketing interests. So

Chad Saley:

are you still doing your own taxes then?

Katie Thomas:

No, and I have not for seven years, so don't ask me to do a tax return. I know enough to be dangerous, but yeah, enough to be very dangerous.

Chad Saley:

Well, and it's awesome that you've been able to kind of embrace your passions, but still within the realm of accounting. So you have that expertise that you bring to the table, but you're also able to do the stuff that, that you really love and that you enjoy, um, while still in accounting. What do you think, what makes maybe accounting different from any other industry when it comes to like marketing and business development and maybe what areas makes it exactly the same as just any other business?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, so I would say two things that make it really unique are one, assuming you're an accountant serving small business owners or even serving just the 1040 taxpayer, you typically only need one accountant. You aren't going to say, Hey, I'm going to go to this accountant and I'm going to go to that accountant to do my tax return. You just need one. And so as an accountant doing marketing, it's really important to understand that. You, it's not like you're selling shoes where people can continue to buy more. You're really competing for that one person slot. And then two, as someone is choosing to work with you, it's a really personal decision. Uh, you're dealing with finances and that's a sensitive topic as well as the fear around remaining compliant. These are all very big things. Personal topics and require a lot, a lot of trust. So it's not just again, like shoes where it doesn't really matter if you buy a pair of shoes and don't like them, maybe you can return them or maybe you just, you know, keep them or give them to someone. It's a big deal who you pick as your accountant. And I would say accountants, they understand the trust factor and that working with them does require a lot of trust, but they're a lot of times not thinking about how to differentiate themselves in the market. Which that is where a lot of work can be done with marketing.

Chad Saley:

Yeah. And I think that's something that's unique about accounting and you can tell me if this is still the case or not. And it, it feels like depending on, even depending, depending on the state in which your business resides, there's even like rules about naming. I know some rules where your actual, your name had to be in the name of your company as compared to being able to brand as something else. Um, it's, it's obviously a little bit more regulated, and there's a lot more on the line with accounting than there is in other areas.

Katie Thomas:

Right, right. Yeah. There's naming requirements, uh, that vary by state. For example, uh, some states you not only have to like have your name, but some states you aren't allowed to call yourself an accountant unless you are a CPA. Whereas other states, anyone can call themselves an accountant. It doesn't even matter if they have a degree or have ever even looked at QuickBooks or a tax return. You can just say, I'm an accountant. That's it. So there's a lot of implications that go into play based upon where you reside and what you can and can't do. Um, so it's important that you, you know, as an accountant, check and make sure that you're compliant. And I'll say even for me, I reside in Kansas and something I didn't realize is that technically since I am a CPA, I was told. That since I'm a CPA, I own my business and I consult accounting firms, technically the state had me register as a CPA firm, even though I don't do any accounting work, any tax work, and none of the people working for me do either, which I thought was really interesting and not something that I expected.

Chad Saley:

So when it comes to like, I mean, so you have these stipulations kind of on top. Of accounting firms when it comes to kind of branding or trying to differentiate Uh themselves what like what recommendations do you give accounting firms? like when you sit down and meet with somebody how do you talk about like How we're going to brand you and like what you want to be known for Do you have a process that you go through or is it more just one on one with the individual?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, so we do have a process to take them through and that looks a little bit different for every firm That's going to be based upon Like who they really want to represent, uh, who they want to reach and what their long term goals are, because some firms, they really want to grow into this big national company, or maybe they already are one that branding is going to look a lot different and that messaging than someone who is a solopreneur, and that's really their goal is to simply stay a solopreneur. However, I think it's important that accountants realize that even if they aren't like working on their brand actively, they still have a brand. It's just, they're not controlling the narrative of how they're being perceived. And. If you're an accountant and you're listening to this, just say that that you you're looking for an accountant and you get two recommendations. And the first one is from a friend and you go and you Google them and maybe they have a website, but it doesn't talk about their process. There's no testimonials. You can't find them on social. And then from another friend, You, they say, Hey, you know what? I, I also have a recommendation for you. You Google them, they're on social media, you go to their website. You can see testimonials from happy clients. Their process is really clear. You can make an appointment right online. It's clear that they're up running established and people love working with them. It's obvious who you're going to be pulled to work with, accountant too. So yes, you have a brand no matter what, but are you controlling that perception to the public in the way that you want?

Chad Saley:

Absolutely. I think that that's something that a lot of, and maybe not just accountants, but a lot of businesses. And a lot of, I think when you get into your smaller and your single entrepreneurs, they forget that they have a brand and they forget that even if they do nothing, that still is creating a brand. And, uh, it's just so important to remember that, like, with just a little bit of foresight and kind of thinking ahead, you can actually guide your brand where you want it to go, compared to just letting the, you know, the market take it anywhere you will. Just like your examples. I mean, great examples. There's, there's small things that you can do that at least set you up to have a better brand image.

Katie Thomas:

Right. And I think it's also really important to say that it's not just to attract new clients, but it's your current clients that brand matters to potential and existing employees that brand matters to your referral partners, who most firms are saying those are our biggest salespeople, your brand matters to them. So take some time and Just put in even just a little bit of effort and that can have a huge return

Chad Saley:

Yeah, and I think a lot of the firms that i've talked to like they get the majority of their business is coming from word of mouth And they're getting referrals and so even coming that way and I think a lot of times it's easy to think Oh, well, i'm all word of mouth. I'm all referrals. So I don't need to worry About marketing or I don't need to worry about my brand What are your kind of thoughts on that? As far as if you're like, no, I'm getting all the, everybody's just calling me. I don't need to market. What, what would you recommend in those situations?

Katie Thomas:

So, referrals are a part of a marketing strategy. I will say for most accountants, they aren't implementing a great referral strategy. They're just passively sitting back and waiting for the phone to ring. But, sure, referrals are a part of a marketing strategy. However, the problem with relying just on referrals is, One, you don't have control over how many people are calling you. Maybe today you have a pipeline full of people calling you, but if that's your only way to generate new business. You're not in control. You don't have a system where you can reliably get so much new business per year or quarter, however you're measuring it. And two, for most accountants, they don't just want more clients. They want the right clients. And unless you are being really, really clear with your referral sources of here's exactly who we are looking to take on, then you aren't going to be A lot of times getting referrals from who you want. I was just talking to a firm owner this morning and she was like, yeah, we get a lot of referrals, but it's, we're trying to move into advisory services, really serve the business owners that are a million and up. And a lot of times it's frustrating because they're getting referrals like, Hey, my mom's. Um, daughter needs someone to do 1040 taxes and that's, that's fine, but that's not who they're wanting to attract. And so that can be a big disconnect whenever you are just relying on referrals as you, they're not the right referrals that you're looking to build your firm around, but that's the only new business that you're, you're getting. So you're like, okay, sure. We'll take it on because we need it.

Chad Saley:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we talk a lot about like, uh, your ideal client profile. So like ICP and. Who is it that you're wanting to go after? And who, who do you really, um, who are you going to do the best work for as well? And maybe talk a little bit about that connection between knowing who you want your clients to be, whether that's a particular industry or a particular task, and how that ties back into the marketing side of things so that you can go and actually make sure that you're marketing to the right people.

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, well, that's really the gist of it is that if you don't have your ICP, if you don't know who you want to attract, then. You're essentially just trying to attract everyone, which is impossible. It's a lot easier to boil a pot of water than it is a lake. And so even if you're a firm that says, Hey, we can work with all small business owners, you should still pick a marketing niche or a specific persona so that if you want to run meta ads, if you want to get on LinkedIn or get on Tik TOK, you know where to find these people, what language to use. And what offered to present to them so that they can raise their hand and say, yes, this is for me. I mean, let's say you were, you were targeting hotels. If you start talking about vacancy rate, that really makes sense to them. But if I'm targeting a marketing agency, they're going to be like vacancy, right? That doesn't make sense to me. The whole thing is to just be able to put yourself out there, get in front of the right people with the right message and the right offer, which if you don't know who that person is, That's impossible to do.

Chad Saley:

So one thing I think that maybe marketing can feel very overwhelming, especially to those that aren't, that aren't marketers, um, is because there's so many things you can do. It's like, should I, should I be sending, you know, like mass emails? Should, you know, is it email marketing? Should I be on social? Should I be on Tik TOK? Should I not be on Tik TOK? Should I, you know, people that depending if you're local, And you are looking for local customer base. You have all of kind of your traditional outdoor advertising mediums or bet bus benches. I mean, like, and then you get into social ads, you get it. I mean, there's hundreds of different things that somebody could potentially do with their marketing budget. What is kind of the process that you'll go through with a firm? And like, what do you recommend? If somebody sitting down it, obviously it starts with identifying their clients, like that ICP, but then like for the next step of like, okay, well, what marketing Tools should I actually be using? What do you recommend?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah. So. The worst answer, of course, it depends, uh, on the client and their goals and their budget, but ideally we take a more of a longterm and a short term approach combined. So when I say short term, that's going to be like, okay, let's get some quick wins, but that might not necessarily be building our brand longterm. For example, meta ads are performing flawlessly for our clients. That are willing to have a niche, good offer, be on video, a few other criteria. But the thing is, so we can get you some great leads coming in through Meta. If we turn those off, you're not going to have a brand that withstands without them because it's just, it's paid advertising. Now we could turn those ads on and then we can also really create a long term strategy where maybe it's building you organically on social media as a thought leader in the space, sharing content, and that also starts bringing clients, but it's not going to be as fast as we just flipped on the meta ads. Um, we also might like for local clients. SEO can be a great play, but again, that's not something where, Hey, we optimized your site today. You're going to see clients tomorrow. And so when we can do both of those approaches so that eventually the client isn't reliant on paid ads, or they can turn them on and off as they want to have their funnel fill, but we can have that long term strategy, bringing them consistently. where they know, okay, from our website, we're going to get about this many people inquiring this many people booking, um, whether or not we have ads on or do anything else, that's a great place to be. But for most firms, they don't necessarily want to be patient for six months while that say SEO or that more organic strategy really starts to take hold. So that's why having that kind of short and longterm approach is great.

Chad Saley:

That was going to be my, my next question is like, how do you, how do you go about setting those expectations on marketing as well? Because I think a lot of times it's like, well, I'm spending this money, where's my immediate return? And obviously there's a lot of things that are a much longer, uh, play SEO especially is not something that's going to happen overnight. But really any sort of ongoing, you know, for me, marketing always comes back to campaigns. Like you can do, like you said, you can do these, these short little one offs and you can get a little bump, but if you're really wanting to see long term organic growth, you've got to build a campaign and a campaign takes time. So whether that's months or six months or a year, how do you set expectations with the, the firms that you meet with and how do you, I mean, I think you had a great suggestion about you, you'd go for some of those short things. Well, building the long term, but how do you, how do you convince them that patience? Really is their best friend when it comes to marketing.

Katie Thomas:

I think as accountants, we're naturally risk adverse. And so whenever you can show them the data around say, like, I'm just going to go back to meta ads. Like, Hey, for an appointment on average, like with your niche and kind of like the client you're targeting, it's going to cost you about. money. Um, but the thing is, if we build your whole strategy around this and you know, meta changes their algorithm tomorrow and suddenly Facebook ads or Instagram ads don't work. Like you really want to build a brand long term so that People know about you and they're, they're sharing your articles. They're viewing you as the thought leader. Like that's really important. Long term for you, your legacy, your firm's legacy, uh, for attracting staff. It goes beyond just. client tomorrow. And so this idea of being risk adverse is to not put all your eggs in one basket where those say like those quick wins, those might not be there tomorrow. Um, you know, cold emails used to work so well. Do they still work? Sure. But they don't work as well. And so taking a more diversified approach to your, we'll call it your marketing portfolio. That's the way to diversify risk. And as accountants. That's what we want to do. And then I think too, like with marketing, there's always going to be an intangible piece. So for example, on social media, a lot of times the people who end up booking calls, they never said anything. They never commented on a post. They never sent you a message. Um, or you don't know who's seeing them. So yesterday, uh, one of our clients forwarded me an email and it was somebody he knew. 10 years ago, they never were a client, but they knew each other through, um, just being small business owners in their city. And he was like, Hey, I saw your post on selling businesses. I'm now, you know, we haven't talked for 10 years, but I'm now in the position that I want to sell my business. Is this something that you could help me with? But again, he never commented. He never sent a message. So you don't know Who's seeing the content that you're putting out or the marketing activities or the campaigns. And then if you just look at the data in Google, they would never say that person who sent the email. They would never attribute that lead to that social post when. In reality, it came from that social post. So you have to diversify, you have to be willing to, um, try different things, but also be willing to not just like go into Google analytics and be like, this is the data because a lot of things happening on, we call it dark social. And so unless you're saying, Hey, how did you hear about us? Then a lot of data can go missing.

Chad Saley:

Yeah, absolutely. Talk a little bit more about, um, how on social. Well, actually, let me back up. There's, there's different ways that a firm can approach the way that they market. Obviously, uh, the simplest thing would be they, they hire you, right? And you can come in and you can, you can, you can handle a lot of that work and a lot of the things that they're doing. I'm sure there's a lot of firms that are probably trying to handle marketing, like in house, whether that, They're bringing somebody in, um, as we often hear in the marketing side of things, there's unfortunately this idea that, well, anybody can do social media, and they just assign somebody in the office, hey, you're in charge of social now, and it's never that easy, um, what recommendations, I guess, would you give for a small firm that's, what are some things that they could try and do in house versus When is it time to take that step and either, either outsource to a third party that can come in and really help them or even move on to the point where a lot of firms, once they get big enough, will have internal marketing teams and will actually have staff that are, you know, doing full time marketing. What are kind of your tips in that, in that range from somebody who's really small trying to just start with some small things in house versus what you would recommend to those bigger firms or those looking for third parties?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, I think that if you're going to do it yourself, then social media, a lot of times is something that, again, I'm saying yourself, like you, the accountant are creating the content, just outsourcing that to somebody like your admin. Not a good idea. They aren't an expert in accounting. The content is going to be very generic, fall flat. You, you can probably handle social media yourself if you are willing and wanting to, one, put in time not just to create the content but to actually go out, build a community every single day, Monday through Friday, engage with some people, start conversations, comment on their stuff. It's not hard to do, but it's time consuming. And, um, The content piece is not something that you should outsource to anyone who isn't either an agency that specializes in accounting firms, um, or just keep it yourself. So totally possible to do yourself and do a good job, uh, but is time consuming. Things I would not try to learn unless you just have an interest in these things are going to be like, ads. I mean, if you mess that up, if you're spending even just a couple thousand dollars on meta or on Google, and let's say that that's not set up right, then you're just lighting money on fire. Uh, your website, I don't think that's usually a good investment of people's time to learn how to, uh, design on WordPress. Maybe you're going to go out and just use like Squarespace do drag and drop builder to have something up. But even with that, it's It's often very time consuming and you're better off hiring pretty quickly for that. So when it comes to marketing, I think that unless you enjoy it and you know that you can be consistent and it's something that you want to put time into, it's often something that you should outsource. And I say that with being an agency owner, knowing that I'm probably biased. However, I don't even do my own tax return because. It's not a good use of my time if I'm just going to be doing it one time or, you know, it's not what I want to focus on. So I understand firms and their, their budgets change. Um, but I would say bottom line, if you're trying to do it yourself, social media is probably the best spot for you to spend your time.

Chad Saley:

Um, okay. So my last question for you, ROI, I mean, everybody's looking for that, you know, your return on investment. Like if I'm putting money into marketing, what am I getting back for that? How does that work? What do you, um, maybe what expectations do you give, or maybe do you have some good examples where, um, of how good marketing can turn into good leads, good new business?

Katie Thomas:

Yeah, I love this question because it, it, there can be a Big range, depending on like what the firm is selling. And so that's why we really like to help people who are looking to attract those advisory clients that are going to pay a couple thousand dollars a month recurring. And so if you're paying an agency. You know, a couple thousand dollars a month, and then they're landing you even just one, two, or three clients that are paying you recurring for those services. A couple of thousand dollars a month. I mean, that RRI is huge. Another thing that's, um, really cool is for example, we help firms also. We aren't a recruiter. We're not going out and. Finding talent through like being a headhunter, but like using social media, we will help you manage your profile and go out and find talent. And we're landing people that you're paying a recruiter 30, 40, even 50, 000. We're landing them month over month. So again, you pay someone a couple thousand dollars to manage that process for you. And just that ROI that you would pay the recruiter. That's Giant, whenever you look at that difference. Um, but managing those expectations is important up front, especially if someone say comes in and says, we're going to do SEO for you. You're not going to see an ROI on that. Likely for a couple months, assuming that they're doing a really good job. And, um, you know, there's, you know, There's effort on both of your sides, not just the agency, but also you as the firm and communicating like who your client is and what you offer and what your value is. So it takes two to have a great relationship and make sure that you get the ROI that, that you deserve.

Chad Saley:

Well, Katie, this has been great. I appreciate your, your thought and your insights. If people are interested in finding you. Maybe tell us where we can find you online.

Katie Thomas:

So I'm Katie Thomas, CPA on all social media platforms, most active on LinkedIn. And you're welcome to message me on any of them or just go to leaders online. com. If you want to schedule a time to chat further.

Chad Saley:

Well, thank you, Katie. Again, we appreciate your time and thanks everyone for listening.

Katie Thomas:

Thanks, Chad, for having me on again.