Business Strategy for CPA's

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe I've been asking myself for a long time: What are the common characteristics among my clients who make the most progress towards their own version of success the most quickly?  What do I see among them? What are the common traits that they have? Or what are they doing? I've looked at all the different possible characteristics of their business to try and see what are the commonalities. But when it comes down to it, the most obvious commonality is that they make decisions. And they move.  It is the ability to make decisions and learn from the decision that enables those ones to make progress toward their goals the most quickly and the most consistently. In this episode, I want to share with you three advanced decisions that you can make in your business that you can start implementing right away so that you start holding onto the steering wheel of your business bus:   making decisions about your pricesmaking decisions about your deadlinesmaking decisions about your capacity   Advance decisions are critical for your business because they help you make progress in your business much more quickly. Making decisions ahead of time is just one piece of the puzzle that helps you work less and make more, and enjoy the business and the life that you want to have.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe How can CPAs grow their accounting practice when they’re over capacity, underutilizing their talents and not providing optimal client support?  Many CPA firms still rely on the hourly billing business model, where the firm has to log more work hours providing services to increase revenue. It focuses on hours and deliverables, not on results and value. A compelling alternative is the subscription business model, where the provider enables serial transformations to the buyer, and continually adds value to the experience. The subscription model creates an opening for predictable, recurring, higher margin revenue.  In this week’s episode, I talk about the subscription model with my guest, Ron Baker.  Ron is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally, and is a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. Ron has authored seven best-selling books, including: The Firm of the Future; Pricing on Purpose; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Implementing Value Pricing. His latest book, co-authored with Paul Dunn, Time’s Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, was published in November 2022.   In this two-part conversation (episodes 233 and 234), we talk about: Sale prices and multiplesHow AI can help scale businessesDisney and other big businesses using the subscription modelWays to “plus” your offerHow CPA firms can shift to subscription model Highlights: — “We need to stop charging for the means and pricing the end.”  — “Strategy is about what you don't do. It's about the customers you don't have, the services you don't provide. It's all about trade offs. You simply can't be all things to all people.”  — “It's very difficult for a business to disrupt itself.”  — “CPAs have the ability to enable transformations. It's a privilege and a duty to help our customers, to make that impact on their life.” Connect with Ron: Website: https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/ Ron’s book: Time's Up: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/timesup Episode mentions: Subscription Business Model: Build Greater Wealth in Your CPA Firm, with Ron Baker https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/147 Time to Rethink Your Pricing Strategy?, with Ron Baker, Founder of VeraSage Institute https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/081 Breaking Away from the Mainstream Medical Model with Dr. Lewis Weiner https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/206 Selling Summit CPA for Multiples, with Jody Grunden https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/225 Hold My Beer and Watch Me Niche, with Josh Lance, CPA https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/212   Book mentions: Uncommon Sense, Common Nonsense by Jules Goddard https://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Sense-Common-Nonsense-Organisations/dp/1846686024 Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow https://www.amazon.com/Built-Sell-Creating-Business-Without-ebook/dp/B004IYISQW

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe How can CPAs grow their accounting practice when they’re over capacity, underutilizing their talents and not providing optimal client support?  Many CPA firms still rely on the hourly billing business model, where the firm has to log more work hours providing services to increase revenue. It focuses on hours and deliverables, not on results and value. A compelling alternative is the subscription business model, where the provider enables serial transformations to the buyer, and continually adds value to the experience. The subscription model creates an opening for predictable, recurring, higher margin revenue.  In this week’s episode, I talk about the subscription model with my guest, Ron Baker.  Ron is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally, and is a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy. Ron has authored seven best-selling books, including: The Firm of the Future; Pricing on Purpose; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Implementing Value Pricing. His latest book, co-authored with Paul Dunn, Time’s Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, was published in November 2022. In this two-part conversation (episodes 233 and 234), we talk about: Why Ron wrote his latest book, Time’s UpPricing strategy and positioning Subscription model and DPC (direct primary care) doctorsHow the subscription business model can help CPAs transform their clients’ life Highlights: — “If you go to the market with a common offering, you're going to command a common price.” — “The true value of accountants lie in guiding transformations. They have the power to advance their customers.” — “To differentiate, CPAs should be able to guide the customer to the desired future state.”

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Many accountants and CPAs (and business owners!) struggle to manage their time and use it to get done what they want.  When they lose a grip on time, the tendency is to work more hours than they want to.  Here today to talk with me about this is Dawn Goldberg, the author of “The Smarter Accountant.” Dawn shares how accountants and CPAs can get better and more effective with their time.  It includes 5 simple steps: 1. Plan your time.  2. Avoid running off of to-do lists.  3. Manage your mind before, during, and after.  4. Follow through on your plan.  5. Assess so that you can learn from your experiment.    Highlights: — “Working off of a to-do list is the most ineffective way to manage your time because the human brain gets very overwhelmed with a list of things to do, because it cannot put things into context.”  — “Planning saves so much time. When you make decisions ahead of time you reduce decision fatigue throughout the week.”  — “You absolutely have to first learn how to manage your mind before you can manage your time.” — “Our brain thinks everything is urgent and so important. So we have to decide on purpose what is important.”  — “You will be amazed at how much more you can get done if you put a boundary around your time.”   Connect with Dawn: Website: https://thesmarteraccountant.com/ Podcast: https://cpamoms.com/podcasts/   Episode mentions: 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/193 218 Mindset Coaching for More Powerful Results, with Emma Richter https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/218   Dawn’s book: The Smarter Accountant: How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain a Competitive Advantage, and More! https://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Accountant-Eliminate-Overwhelm-Competitive/dp/B0B7QFYW8N

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Lots of people don’t like change. They have enough going on, thank you very much, and one more thing to change is one more thing they have to learn, and remember to do differently.  Change, seems like work.  If we like our currently reality, then there may not be a need to change.  But many people don’t like their current reality. They want things to change, but don’t want to change things.  Because they don’t like change.  I want you to know what change is. I want to unpack it for you, so that it stops being something to avoid or resist or dislike. I want to unpack it for you, so that in seeing what it is, you can make your experience of change easier for you, you can change things more quickly, and better, and eventually, learn to enjoy change.  Change doesn't have to be this mysterious thing – once we unpack it, we can see how it works.  Here is change, unpacked, in seven stages. Learn to observe progress as you move through seven stages.  And once you know the seven stages, it gets way easier to know where you are in the progression, and you know what stage is next.    Here are the seven stages of change: Stage 1: Not aware at all. Stage 2: Aware but believing that you're powerless to change anything. Stage 3: Aware, and believing you can change things, but aware only after the fact.  Stage 4: Aware in the moment, but it happens so fast, that you don't change it in the moment.  Stage 5: Aware that it's happening in the moment and change it while it's happening.  Stage 6: See it coming and prevent it.  Stage 7: Permanent change.   I hope understanding and appreciating the seven stages of change helps you befriend the change.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Not all accountants and CPAs get stressed during tax season. They've got their systems down. Stress isn't their go-to thing.  But for many CPAs and accountants, stress is a common experience. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.  Here to talk with me about how to go from being stressed to not being stressed in tax season is my guest, Dawn Goldberg. Dawn Goldberg has been a CPA in public accounting for over 30 years, as well as a mom for over 27 years. She has worked for large firms like Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young as well as smaller firms. Dawn is also the author of “The Smarter Accountant – How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain A Competitive Advantage, And More!”   Highlights: —  “Tax season is stressful, is actually an optional thought.” —  “Accountants have this badge of honor. If we're not overworking or not stressed, then we must not be very good at what we do.” —  “In coaching jargon, the intentional model is about thinking thoughts on purpose that are going to create the feeling that you want to generate, that will lead to the actions that you want to be taking, that will create eventually the result that you actually want to have.” —  “Ask yourself this: Do you like what that thought will create if you keep it?” —  “Using the fuel of focus gets me much better results than the fuel of stress.” Connect with Dawn: Website: https://thesmarteraccountant.com/ Podcast: https://cpamoms.com/podcasts/   Episode mentions: 193 Create the Exact Business You Want: Introducing The Model https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/193 218 Mindset Coaching for More Powerful Results, with Emma Richter https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/218   Dawn’s book: The Smarter Accountant: How To Eliminate Stress and Overwhelm, Create More Time, Gain a Competitive Advantage, and More! https://www.amazon.com/Smarter-Accountant-Eliminate-Overwhelm-Competitive/dp/B0B7QFYW8N

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Would you love to get paid in full up front for tax returns? There’s a long history of paying for your tax return when you pick it up at your CPAs office, or when they send the invoice, which might be weeks or months after you did the work.  Despite knowing the benefits of getting paid in full up front:  - You can have a clearer sense of how much of your capacity is now paid and on the books, and how much more you need to sell  - You have clients who have agreed to your price, so you don’t have send invoices and duck for cover - You don’t have a pile of A/R, dangling out there in space, that you need to burn time tracking down - You’re no longer held hostage by client you want to fire, but you don’t want to fire them until they pay you, for the last 3 years  - You have access to and use of the cash, and cash is queen You still get hung up on 3 common objections, which are: 1. I haven’t done it this way before, I don’t know how to do it  2. Clients aren’t used to paying this way 3. I'm worried about underpricing, I don’t know how long returns take, I can’t price if I don’t know how long it’s going to take, what if they show up with some surprise, what if I get killed on scope creep.  Each of these objections may have some validity. But each objection can be overcome – and I walk you through how, in this episode.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Can you tell what this is? Sugar, unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), palm oil, cocoa (processed with alkali), high fructose corn syrup, leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate), salt, soy lecithin, chocolate, artificial flavor. . Would you pay $4.25 for two sleeves of them? . If you’ve ever bought Oreos, then yes. :) . Most regular buyers cannot reverse engineer their way from the ingredient list, to the product, to what the product does. . Oreos, satisfy your sweet tooth craving. . Regular buyers also face the following ingredient list: Document review, secure file exchange folder, calls, projections, calculations, planning, strategy, preparation, state return, estimates, portal, filing, emails, correspondence. . Most regular buyers cannot reverse engineer their way from the ingredient list, to the product, to what the product does. . What it is: Gold-level tax prep and filing . What it does: Get taxes off your mind, so you can do something fun with your weekend. . Next time you’re in the cookie aisle, stand before the Oreos and imagine the casing with only the ingredients listed. No Oreo, no glass of milk. No dunk. No quench. Just an ingredient list. In black and white. Flour, sugar, niacin, palm oil, leavening. . Now imagine your client. . Now imagine the list of a la carte ingredients you sell. . Now you can imagine what your client might be experiencing. . For some, a milk-dunked Oreo is a heavenly experience.    For some, painless, seamless tax prep is a heavenly experience.  . Sell, what it does.   Sell, the experience.    Not, the ingredient list.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Your clients buy a solution to a problem they have. And the better you get at understanding the nature of their problem, talking to them about their problem, and explaining to them their problem in ways that show them that you understand their problem more deeply than they do, the easier your business will get to run. Here are 8 questions you can ask to deepen your understanding of your Ideal Buyer’s problem: How would they describe their problem, in their words?What would they Google, to try to solve it?How do they feel now, and how do they want to feel?Are they willing to pay what it’s worth to you, for the solution?How does your package help them solve this problem?Why will your solution work for them, what’s compelling about it?Why are you the best person to help them?Why will they be delighted to discover your solution?   You have space and permission to design something truly amazing for your clients. With their problems in mind. With your solution being the best one out there in the marketplace. Where there’s nothing else like it, that comes even close.  Go design that, and sell it.    Episode mentions: 214 - Problem Solution Process Result https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/214 221 - 12 Reasons to Niche https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/221

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Falling into the trap of working too much is a common place to land. But working too much doesn’t have to be a thing, even though it’s become normal in our society. The good news: working too much is imminently solvable. Get the solution to 15 reasons you might be overworking and what to do about it.  I use the term overworking to simply mean “working more hours than you want.” That might mean working 55 hours when you want to work 40 hours.  That might mean working 35 hours when you only want to work 25 hours.  And it also doesn’t mean that working 50 hours a week is necessarily overworking. If you want to work 50 hours a week, you might not be overworking.    15 reasons you might work more hours than you want to: Too many clientsToo many underpriced clientsToo many types of clientsStuck in hourly pricing in all its formsSystems stuck in your head, nonexistent, incomplete, unreliable, or unfindable.Staff: undertrained, underperforming, or both. Too much on your calendar: Too many meetings, meetings longer than they need to be; too many programs, groups, networks. Overworking begets overworking. Long hours are inefficient and error prone. Doing automatable tasks manually, including digital tasks. Work is who you are; it’s how you define yourselfYou don’t know what you’d do with your free time or yourself if you did have timeIt can be a way to garner sympathy or attentionYou think you can multitaskAvoiding home/personal lifeBecause you allow it by rationalizing it 🙂   It’s good news! Each of these is imminently solvable. You can get on the path to working the hours you want. Start by picking 1 or 2 of the most doable ones to work on, that will have the most impact.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Many CPAs work until they're done. And they either hand their firm down, sell it, or turn off the lights and close the door. Some miss an opportunity to be more strategic about what they choose to build with an eye toward future value creation.  Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, Jody Grunden.  Jody is the co-founder & CEO at Summit CPA Group, A Division of Anders CPAs + Advisors. Summit CPA is the leading provider of Virtual CFO Services in North America.    Highlights: — “High growth and high profit, those are the two big things that companies look for.”  — “Being remote accelerated growth, because now we could go anywhere and hire anywhere.” — “There's a great opportunity to get rid of existing clients that are preventing you from making changes [to improve your firm].” — “Take advantage of the remote atmosphere, whether it's hybrid or fully remote. This is the perfect time.” — “The most important factors: niche, go remote, and take risks.” Connect with JODY: Website: https://www.summitcpa.net/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jodygrunden Twitter: @jgrunden and @SummitCPAGroup Previous episode with Jody: 086 Secrets of Shifting to vCFO Services, with Jody Grunden https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/086 Book mention: Time's Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms, by Ron Baker and Paul Dunn https://www.amazon.com/Times-Up-Subscription-Business-Professional/dp/1119893526 Software mentions: Reach Reporting: ​​https://reachreporting.com/

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe: geraldinecarter.com/subscribe You can create time.  You don’t have to be busy all the time.  The accounting space mostly believes that CPAs work long hours, and that’s just “how it is.” That’s not how it needs to be.  You can create time.  You create time.  You can create time with these seven tactics: Plan to your timeMake decisions - faster, more stronglyStop wondering - start figuring it outConstrain - pick 1 or 3 things to focus onTry things - stop thinking of your attempts as failuresSay no - stop saying you’re a people-pleaserStop thinking busy and stop being busy - start saying you create time and start creating time You CAN create time, and work a 40-hour workweek. Time to put an end to habitual overworking in the accounting industry :)

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe In this episode, we're talking about value creation.  In the accounting space, it’s easy for the firm owner to think that revenue comes from clients, work, time, or deliverables. Because your client pays the bill for the work you did, it can appear that that’s where the money comes from. But the money comes from the value you created.  The more you think about your clients and creating value for them, and the better you get at capturing the value you create for your clients with effective pricing, the better you'll get at bringing revenue into your accounting practice without having to put in so many hours and so much effort to create that revenue. When you create more value and capture that value with higher prices, you can meet revenue goals with fewer clients and less work. This is the path to making your accounting practice easier to run. After which, life gets easier.  Remember: all revenue comes from value creation. Not from clients, not from time, not from deliverables, not from work. Episode mention: 220 Effortless Value: Price for Access, not Work https://businessstrategyforcpas.com/220

Happy holidays! Enjoy the annual tradition of accounting humor, hosted by Geraldine’s two kids, Hazel and Remy. This year: Top Ten 10 Signs of a Bad Accountant. Wishing you all the best in 2023!   *Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe In this episode, I want to give you 12 reasons to focus on a niche or an industry, or your ideal buyer or a market segment. Whatever term you like to call it. There are slight differences in the details but what's most important is understanding how valuable it can be to your business to focus on an ideal buyer, to pick a niche and move in that direction.  It simplifies your business.It deepens your expertiseExpertise is more valuable than general knowledge. When you create value, it enables your prices to go up. When your prices go up, your margins also go up when you niche. When your prices go up, you need fewer clients to meet your revenue targets.Your business starts to feel easier, because there's just less to keep track of.When all your clients look like each other, it becomes so much easier to systematize.The more you can get your clients to nest the more space you create in your business and the more mental space you create in your mind. When you niche and you focus on an ideal buyer and you deepen your expertise, you become less duplicatable.You put yourself in a position to sell expertise without having to do any work.Niching and going in the direction of deepening expertise creates options for you in terms of how to create revenue.   And here are some of the objections that I hear about niching:  Letting go of existing revenue.I won't be able to create future revenue.I will be bored.It feels limiting, as in, “I’m eliminating too many potential customers.”   Each of the above objections gets addressed.  Narrowing your industry, your niche, focusing on an ideal buyer opens up more options for you. Episode mentions: 211 Pricing for Improved Profitability 212 Hold My Beer and Watch Me Niche 220 How to Price for Access, not Work 179 Digital Products, Courses, and 90% Margins with The Real Estate CPA   Blake Oliver's Earmark CPE podcast https://earmarkcpe.com/

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Here are some different ways to think about what you price.  Why?  Because what you price informs your revenue. Depending on what you price has a huge impact on how much you work, or don’t work. Depending on what you price will inform your revenue or the revenue that you do not bring in.  If you look at the accounting space right now, the going model is to price work.  But there are at least two problems with this method of pricing work:  When you sell work, you're always on the hook for working.What if you think that clients value work, when in fact, they really value access more?    What would happen if you priced your packages and differentiated your services based solely on access? If work is what you want to be doing less of, what if you consider the option of selling less work? What would happen if you safeguarded your time and you priced and sold access? If your clients value access and access to you is in short supply, consider pricing for access, so you can do less work.

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   Accountants and CPAs have loads of systems running through their tax practice. Perhaps some things must still be done manually. But what if more of your work and your staff's work could be automated?  Here today to talk with me about this is my guest, Jason Staats.  Jason is a CPA turned automation nerd who enjoys sharing new ideas and memes on Twitter, Youtube, and Tiktok. He also built Realize, an online community of accounting firm owners.   Highlights: — “Automation today looks a little more bottom-up. It's automating the very workflow and client-specific problems that we have.” — “If you can surround yourself with people who are at varying levels of the same journey, that's just going to accelerate your learning so much.” — “The best way to think about where to start, especially if you do a lot of accounting is, what could you just automate inside of a single accounting file?” — “Inbox rules are the greatest automation hack there is.”  — “In your decision-making feedback loop, you need to have trusted peers or an external coach who can give you honest feedback that isn't subject to the groupthink that you have within a firm.”  Connect with Jason: Podcast https://www.automationtown.fm/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@jasoncpa Twitter https://twitter.com/JStaatsCPA Community https://rlz.io/ Software mentions: Zapier: https://zapier.com/ Make: https://www.make.com/en/

***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe Today we are talking about stress and overwhelm and overworking because it's not just common in the accounting space, but it's almost as if it's expected. It's almost assumed that a firm will have or being a CPA will include long hours, and it will include the stress of meeting client demands and client deadlines. Not only does mental health suffer as a result of setting things up this way. But what we want to dig into today is a conversation about mindset because people talk about it, but it doesn't typically get understood what it actually is.  And in my program, CPA Mastermind, we face it head on and we tackle it. I have a team of coaches who coach mindset one-on-one in private coaching with CPA masterminders.  And today I brought on one of my coaches Emma Richter to talk about what coaching is and isn't, and how it's beneficial inside that program in particular.    Highlights: — “This mindset work is actually very logical, and emotions and the reactions they cause are logical.” — “When you can bring the drama out of your statements about time, you'll be surprised at how much more efficient and effective you are with your time.” — “In reality, your price is up to you. And the market will tell you whether that is a good price or not.” — “There is no failing. There's only learning. And that is especially true in running a business.” — “When you help you, you also become a better CPA, a better business owner. And therefore you can help your clients become better business owners.”

*Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?* Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe In this episode, I share with you how you can get down to a 40-hour workweek, work with great clients you enjoy, all without forsaking revenue.  It's what we do in Down to 40 Hours with CPA Mastermind, my four-month program designed to help CPAs like you build simpler, more profitable, easier to run businesses.  It is the best program out there for the CPA who wants to get down to a 40-hour workweek, and now is the best time to give it to yourself. So an episode today in five parts:  What you wantWhat you have instead and how you got here What the solution is The process for getting out What you'll have when you travel the length of the process   If you're a CPA who is ready to have a practice you love making solid money, working with clients you enjoy and doing rewarding work without the insane hours, check out CPA Mastermind and get on the waitlist: https://geraldinecarter.com/waitlist If want more details, and have questions, check out https://geraldinecarter.com/cpa-mastermind. And if you still have questions, email me at gc@geraldinecarter.com.   Highlights: — “When you sell work, what that means is that you're going to do work all the time because that's what you're selling.” — “Focus on the value that you can create for your clients.”  — “We help you get better at communicating value so that you don't have to feel like you have to justify your prices or your bill to your client after the fact.”  — “When we focus on exactly your ideal buyer who you want to work with, and you begin to work with only those kinds of clients, you generate efficiencies as you see ways to improve systems and stop doing all kinds of stuff to please all kinds of people.” — “Knowing what to do is only half the battle. The other half of the battle is having your head in the right space and having a mindset that works in your favor.”

***Want one piece of business strategy delivered daily to your inbox?*** Subscribe here: https://www.geraldinecarter.com/subscribe   We're talking with Sheila Hansen, who is a participant, a masterminder in my program, Down to 40 Hours CPA Mastermind, to get her perspective on the experience of what it's like, and the value of being in this program. Sheila helps female-owned creative businesses understand their numbers while increasing profit and scaling to $500K-$2M in revenue.   Highlights: — “One value of this program is really digging into niching. In some ways it was giving myself permission to go the route that I wanted to go.” — “We don't have to have it all figured out exactly today.” — “Clients care about if we can provide a solution that helps them see where their cash is going, and how to keep more of it and spend (or not spend) in a way that aligns with their goals.” — “In the 10 weeks since we started, I have grown my monthly recurring contracts by 65% in revenue dollars. And in doing so, I only grew my client roster about 25%.”  — “The mindset coaching sessions help me go from being paralyzed and not taking any action or avoiding it all together, to actually moving forward and getting something accomplished.”  Connect with SHEILA: Website: https://www.hansenllc.net/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheila.hansen.cpa/ Get first access when CPA Mastermind enrollment opens: https://geraldinecarter.com/waitlist