What Your CPA Wants You to Know
A podcast for entrepreneurs! We are a husband and wife team running our CPA firm together. We know just how difficult it can be to take your business dream to a reality. Our mission for this podcast is to guide, empower, and educate entrepreneurs in an easy-to-understand way! We want business owners to have the information that they need when they need it, AND without the hefty accounting invoices from a CPA! Follow along for practical advice, tips, and tricks from a CPA who knows what it is like to run a business, and strategies to keep your business thriving from an MBA! We will also show you how to run a business while keeping your family and sanity intact along the way!
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What Your CPA Wants You to Know
108. Think Like a Customer & Take a Profit-Driven Look at Your Business
As two accountants, we are always critiquing businesses and seeing what their books look like. We do this even while on vacation. So, today we bring you our thoughts and how you can apply those to your business to drive PROFIT!
• designing operations from the customer’s point of view
• spotting bottlenecks in off-peak demand
• capturing high-margin moments at the bar
• simplifying menus for speed and throughput
• stocking convenience retail that actually sells
• low-cost experience wins that drive reviews
• hiring, leases and expansion viewed through ROI
• linking joy, simplicity and profit in daily decisions
We created a monthly accounting program where you hop on a one-hour call with us every month to tackle bookkeeping, tax planning, business decisions, basically anything you need. The best part of this is it's at a reduced hourly rate... email us at carson@sandsco.net
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If you're not thinking about your business from the customer's point of view, you need to. You need to start doing that now.
SPEAKER_02:And if you can't, then get somebody that can. Maybe your spouse. For example, I I'm pretty sure in that business the orthodontist is the husband. I imagine that his wife literally went outside and walked in and was like, from the very first step into this office, what is the customer experience like? And that's probably how she thought of that idea. Like, oh, if if they came in and they saw their name, like because it's their first time they're getting braces or Invisalign, then okay, not only will they be really excited, it creates a positive experience, which the parents really love, but now they're gonna want to take a picture. We just got a ton of free advertising. Welcome to What Your CPA Wants You to Know.
SPEAKER_00:Tax and accounting help can be expensive. So we've created this podcast to help guide you through it all and make you feel like you have a CPA in your back pocket.
SPEAKER_02:I'm Carson Sands.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm Karen Sands.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a CPA with over 10 years of experience helping people start and grow their businesses.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm an MBA with a specialization in marketing and entrepreneurship. Taxes suck, and we want to make sure you don't pay more than your fair share.
SPEAKER_02:We're here to share everything your CPA wants you to know.
SPEAKER_00:In a fun and easy to understand way.
SPEAKER_02:Let's get started.
SPEAKER_00:Let's do it. So we went on a little trip to celebrate Carson's birthday. He turned 38.
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't think that's right.
SPEAKER_00:Hey, you're not 40 yet. You're still young. Definitely still young at heart. We went to a camping resort for back of for lack of better terms for it. And they had all kinds of things to do for the kids and outside things. We were outside like the whole time, but we stayed in a cabin. We didn't actually camp. We're not camping people.
SPEAKER_02:No, I don't sleep on the ground.
SPEAKER_00:No, we're too we're too old to sleep on the ground, that's for sure. Because the bed there hurt our backs anyways, and it was fine. We're just used to something different.
SPEAKER_02:So if anyone's wondering, are you too good to sleep on the ground? Nope, just too old. I've done it a lot of times. I slept on the ground a lot when I was in my teens and my twenties, but nope, those days are over. It hurts too bad.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely over. We're not gonna be campers, that's for sure. But we were up well before the kids were. They slipped in. Our kids are finally old enough to sleep in now, which is nice. And we were just sitting on the porch talking about this clamping resort because what happens when two accountants marry each other is that every time we go anywhere, we assess the business. Like, are they making money? What do you think their rent is? Man, this is a lot of overhead. I don't know how many, you know, dollars do they need to sell and how many units do they need to sell per thing to make money? So, yes, very interesting conversations we have when we're on a date because we do that all the time.
SPEAKER_02:I know y'all might be thinking, well, you know, they know a lot about accounting, they know a lot about taxes. What do they know about a glamping business like this? Well, why do they think they know? And to be honest, we don't as far as, you know, what does it take to make a place like that so popular? Because it is a very popular place. They're they stay busy. So we're not gonna pretend like we know what it takes to get someone to that point, but we see things that we think could make them more money or save them expenses, which would also make them more money, that you know, there's no way it could make them less popular. So we do wonder things. We see things we're like, oh, I wonder if they would just do this, maybe it'd be better.
SPEAKER_00:So we have all kinds of ideas. Now, mind you, we work with business owners in all kinds of dis different industries. So we see a lot. No, we haven't owned all of those businesses, but we have had quite a few businesses before this one. So now we just really can't help ourselves, but think about a business. And when we were talking about all of this, I was like, this would actually make a really good podcast episode because I don't think people's brains think like this. It's unique probably to us as business owners, but also as accountants. We kind of have like this unique perspective. So we wanted to make a whole episode out of it and just kind of bring you guys into the the way our brains think whenever we are at a new place. So the first thing that we noticed when we went here was that we went during an off time. So there we got like a discount code for the fourth night free, things like that. They were trying to get people to come in because that's the time that they just don't have as many people. Summer is like their really big time. So obviously they were not at max capacity, but when we went to the water park, we could not get food for our family because their kitchen was backed up and they could not keep up with demand. And I was so frustrated because as they advertise, you know, you could get it was like burgers and tacos and nachos and things like that pull side, which is nice because we've already planned to come to this place and we brought like snacks and breakfast things, but we didn't plan the lunch because they had it there. So that's what got our conversation rolling. Was I was like, if you cannot keep up with demand during your slow time, there is a problem. You've either selected food that is too hard to make and takes too long, it's too time consuming, or you've got some sort of staffing issue going on. Something is wrong if when we're here and there's no one staying by us on our blog, you can't keep up with food demand.
SPEAKER_02:And we don't know the whole story. It could be a staffing problem that they're just having trouble getting people. That's likely because I mean it's in the middle of nowhere, it's off season, and I mean it's hard for anyone to get people.
SPEAKER_00:But they should have thought about that. Maybe so. How are you gonna staff this massive resort if you don't have anyone around? So that's something you should you should think about if you're creating something that requires a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02:And that's true. There there was other things that kind of made sense, like there's a part with a bunch of water slides and stuff like that, and they shut that part down Sunday afternoon at like three. That one kind of made sense because everybody was leaving to go home before the end of the weekend and there weren't gonna be that many kids, and so you know they weren't gonna make that much money off that. But there was another pool area where there's a lot of people still hanging out, and so they called last call on the drinks at like two or three. But the crazy part, it was right in the middle of the Dallas Cowboys game, and the bar was full. Every single seat was taken, and everybody was ordering drinks. And as y'all know, a bar it's typically 600% markup on alcohol. It was even higher here because it's like a resort type place. So I'm talking eight, nine hundred percent, maybe even a thousand percent markup on some of that booze, and people are ordering it, you know, right and left, watching the football game, and it's like halftime, and they're like, bars closed. Why? I don't understand.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they closed it when they really just needed one person there that would have made plenty of tips to be worth their while, and they could have easily been just doing beers, like nothing difficult.
SPEAKER_02:But they didn't.
SPEAKER_00:So that happened multiple times we were at the polls because that's why we were there, since it's still so hot in Texas. There was there was no way to get a beer or anything like that. And so our idea was that okay, you need because it's such a large area, they could have had one person working basically like a bar cart, you know, some sort of vehicle that went around and you could change. If you're like, yeah, there's a ton of people up at the top pole, go by every 30 minutes or so and have a very limited number of options cooled down that people are willing to pay for.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I mean, and it's since it's a place that a lot of people go to for the first time, we weren't all prepared. I mean, it was a place where you could bring your own stuff, your food, your alcohol, whatever. And maybe that's why they're not quite as, I don't know, wise about when they should be open. But most people didn't have their own stuff. We didn't. I didn't even know, we weren't sure what we were going to be doing the whole time. And so we just planned to, I mean, some of our meals we would just eat there. And so anyway, yeah, it was just surprising.
SPEAKER_00:It was, yeah, we were not prepared. But if it's your first time going, you wouldn't be prepared. And it is a lot different online than it was actually going. So that's what one of the reasons we weren't prepared. But the other thing was that it was difficult, very difficult to get food. One day we ended up the day that we couldn't get food, we ended up just going back and making whatever we had. But that that that led us to be thinking about okay, what's a good food option that they could easily make for cheap, but they could make it like super fast all the time, you know, whether it was lunchtime or dinner, and it wouldn't take like an entire kitchen to make it. And I'm like, they should have a brick oven pizza out here, and you could either come up and get a slice, you could get it pool side because that's where everything was. So you could walk over, get your pizza, and then walk back to the pool. Or third option that almost every mom would really appreciate would be if we've had a long day, the kids have been swimming all day. I need an easy thing. Go by, grab it. Everyone there had a golf cart, just grab it on your golf cart, take it back with you. You need something like that. And pizza is dirt cheap to make, so cheap, but you need something that's easy. You don't need 15 options on your menu if you can't keep up with it, and people aren't there for your food. People are there to have fun. But nobody likes to be caught in that moment where you have three kids that are starving and you can't get food.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so things like that, things that ways that they could make money and improve the customer experience at the same time. It just seems kind of like a no-brainer. So that brought us to this idea to have a podcast where we share some of our insights about what any business can do, the way that they can think about decisions they make, to make sure that they're making all of their choices with profit as the main goal.
SPEAKER_00:We do see this a lot. And I think that I I obviously can't speak to everyone, but I think what happens, and we do see this a lot, because I know in the past few years we've met with people starting new businesses, and then afterwards we're kind of like, that's not gonna work. Like they're very jazzed about it, but what they're focusing on is things that don't drive profit, whether they want it to be fancier or they want to offer this really cool thing that doesn't drive profit. That happens so often, and that's where you really need to pull back and be like, okay, what is the whole point of opening a business, right? Profit. So if you're not focused on profit with all of these decisions, then you're gonna be, you're gonna get yourself into a problem. And we see that all the time.
SPEAKER_02:Right. I mean, and there's so many levels. There's, you know, the lowest level is I like donuts. I'm gonna sell donuts. That's my favorite food, right? Okay, that's a really bad way to look at it. That's a bad way to make a decision. Okay, number two, other people like donuts. Okay, you're heading in the right direction. That's that's still helpful. But do you like cooking donuts? Even though you like the donuts and other people like donuts. Okay, I do like cooking donuts and a lot of people like donuts and I like donuts. Great. Okay, still, are you gonna make any money doing that? The the next decision is you know, will I be able to sell a lot of donuts? Okay, now we're almost there. It's still not quite there, but will I actually be able to make a profit? Because even if you sell a million dollars worth of donuts, if it costs you a million dollars and one dollar to make them, you lost money. And some s so many people don't follow the train of thought all the way to the end of that line.
SPEAKER_00:So many people.
SPEAKER_02:Where I mean, yeah, you could I mean, I could think of so many businesses where it would be so easy to make three million dollars, but it would cost four million dollars to do it. So um you need to begin with the end in mind.
SPEAKER_00:This doesn't apply to all businesses, but it's very common, like Carson was saying about donuts. Another big factor is okay, the location that you're gonna be offering whatever you're offering. Well, people usually get into these really expensive leases on something that they didn't really think through, and then it doesn't justify what they're selling. So if they're selling donuts or coffee or a service like doing hair or nails, it doesn't justify you spending four or five grand a month to have that location. And that is very, very common.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you have to think about that you know, donuts cost less than a dollar usually. So I have to sell over 5,000 donuts just to pay the rent. And that doesn't cover utilities and all the many, many other expenses payroll. And that's gonna be a huge one. I mean, how many donuts do you have to sell before you actually make a profit? But we do see people with successful donut places all the time, but it's usually people that they run their own place. The the husband and wife typically both are in there working, and sometimes they have a third person that they hire to help at a pretty low wage. That's how they're making it work. Any other option is gonna be pretty fringe. There's exceptions. I mean, there's voodoo donuts, that place is famous, and you know, they have a different thing. You're paying more for your donuts for one thing, and it's kind of a draw for tourists, they're always in touristy areas. But in general, you know, a donut shop it needs to be run a very specific way. Everything's cheap, everything's very fast, there's a lot of customers, and the owners are running it mostly because that's how they make sure that they have people there at 5 a.m. to sell donuts.
SPEAKER_00:And if you're going to spend extra money on something, making it fancier, making something better, providing another service, one, is it going to make you more profit? And two, is it going to help the customer experience? So that's something that we also talk about, though that in my head actually does lead to more profit because the better your customer experiences, the more word of mouth you're going to get, the more times people are going to come back. All of that, it's not direct on paper profit, but it does lead to profit. And going back to our example from this weekend, there was a store there, they advertised this general store. And so there were a few things that we forgot because we were camping. Now we brought like eggs and toast and things like that, but we forgot like salt and pepper and like a spray for the pan, things like that.
SPEAKER_02:The kind of things that if you're in a Airbnb, they're always gonna have that on hand for you. But since this is like a camping kind of situation, they don't have anything.
SPEAKER_00:So we there was a few things. I was like, no problem. They have this general store. I'm sure it's gonna be marked up, but we can go grab that and get the things we need. And next time we come back, we'll know what we need. So we went, they didn't have what we needed, so they didn't have salt and pepper. There was one can of Pam, which I don't like Pam, so but we got that. And then we were looking at all of these things. We were like, okay, let's see what they offer here. You know, this has to be some way that they make a lot of money because people forget things. Maybe you need to get some Tylenol or things. They I don't know who picked those products in that store, but it was horrible.
SPEAKER_02:I I really don't know how they decided what products to carry and not carry.
SPEAKER_00:And the worst part was they didn't price anything, so there were no prices on anything, and then there was multiple people. There were multiple people that came in to purchase things like we did, and they ended up checking out, and they were confused by the total. And it turned out some guy bought a chocolate bar, you know, at the very front, and it was$30. And we all just laughed. Like, okay, obviously, no one camping with their children. He's he was like, I don't want it that bad. I don't like chocolate,$30 worth for like a little chocolate bar, like a Hirto's bar. So it that that just like blew my mind that that is where you could make a lot of money. Like, get get the snacks that people want by the pole. They had very few of that. Get all of the things that people forget when they're camping. Get some food that's easy. If you can't keep up with demand of food, get some food in case people get out here and are unprepared so that you can get their money instead of them driving into town and then spending money elsewhere. Or it's just crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Even with your chocolate, why not Hershey's with graham crackers and marshmallows and charge double what they charge at the grocery store for it? I get it. I mean, it's a convenience, or even triple. But a$30 chocolate bar, that's the kind of thing that with some fancy chocolate, but we're at a camping site. I mean, we have people in tents and RVs, and then we're staying in a pretty stripped-down cabin. So this isn't the kind of place where people are buying$30 chocolate bars. That's like for a five-star hotel in New York. That's a great place. You know, put it in their lobby, put it in their their convenience store there. That might be where people would buy something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't know what was going on there. I was so confused. They had a lot of super high-end items, and that is just not their clientele.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, be honest. How's your bookkeeping going?
SPEAKER_00:If you just cringed a little, this is for you.
SPEAKER_02:We created a monthly accounting program where you hop on a one-hour call with us every month to tackle bookkeeping, tax planning, business decisions, basically anything you need.
SPEAKER_00:The best part of this is it's at a reduced hourly rate so you can easily budget for your accounting help. And because we love our clients, we throw in a free annual tax projection so you're prepared every April 15th.
SPEAKER_02:Our clients love this plan. It's perfect if you're doing your own books, but want an expert watching over your shoulder and training you on everything you need to do.
SPEAKER_00:We have all the fine details in episodes 101 and 102 of this podcast if you want to check it out, or just email us at Carson at Sansco.net.
SPEAKER_02:Now, back to the show.
SPEAKER_00:So, all that to say, put your money where it's gonna matter. Like think about if you're the customer, what you want, what would enhance your experience. And if you start thinking this way, nine times out of ten, you're gonna go to a business and you're gonna think of ten different ways that they could have improved your experience without spending a dollar. And I think that people just really underestimate that. I there was like one episode here we talked to a marketing lady and she was talking about how they get people to share their social media, and it's a dentist practice, and when you lay down, they put some marketing up in the ceiling, and it's like, hey, you don't have anything else to do. Can you leave us a Google review? Or can you like us on Instagram? And it had like the little thing, and it worked amazingly. So that's just an example that probably costs them$20,$30 in materials to put up there and change everything. The kids orthodontist also has their name when you walk in, and every single time our kids are smiling ear to ear when they see their name, and not to mention, parents are taking pictures with their kids' names and it says like Meeson Orthodontics, like it's free advertising. And so, two things they got free advertising, but also the customer experience. The kids are excited to go in there. So if you're not thinking about your business from the customer's point of view, you need to. You need to start doing that now.
SPEAKER_02:And if you can't, then get somebody that can, maybe your spouse. For example, I'm pretty sure in that business the orthodontist is the husband, and the wife, I'm guessing, I have no idea. Maybe he's also real creative. I don't know. As an accountant, I'm not that creative a lot of times. Taryn's very creative. She's an accountant too, but you know, she just is creative in that way. But anyway, I I imagine that his wife literally went outside and walked in and was like, from the very first step into this office, what is the customer experience like? And that's probably how she thought of that idea. Like, oh, if if they came in and they saw their name, like because it's their first time they're getting braces or Invisalign, then okay, not only will they be really excited, it creates a positive experience, which the parents really love, but now they're gonna want to take a picture. We just got a ton of free advertising.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And yes, to answer your question, it is it is his wife, and she's the one out there doing the signs, and it's a husband and wife business. But thinking about it like that, I'll give you another example in our business. I'm thinking if I have a CPA and I'm a very busy business owner, I have a lot of things going on. Do I always want to stop and like think of a time that I can take two to three hours out of my day to go to their office and do all this? No. People want phone call meetings, people want to do things electronically, which we've done. But another thing that I would want as a business owner is to have reminders, make sure that I don't miss a due date, make sure that if there's something that comes up, I'm reminded about it. So that's why we send out emails like friendly reminder, this due date's coming up, friendly reminder, this estimated tax payment is coming up. So, just an example to maybe get your brain jogging on what you could do in your business, thinking about how would you want to be treated as a customer or client in your business if you were the customer?
SPEAKER_02:So those kind of decisions, it works both ways, though, because enhancing the customer experience, that's always a great idea. But remember, it's not just enhancing the customer experience, it's how can you do it in a way that is either cheap or free, or if it is gonna cost you a lot of money, will it bring in a comparable amount of revenue so that your profits actually go up? Because again, you could spend$20,000 in advertising and increase revenue by$10,000. That's that's a losing situation, right? So you need to think about that with everything. But it's not just advertising or marketing, it's also when it's time to hire somebody. I mean, really, okay, you're gonna have to pay somebody sixty thousand dollars a year. Are you gonna make at least seventy thousand dollars a year more? I hope so. Or else what are you doing? You know, because it costs at least that much to have a sixty thousand dollar a year employee. And that depends on the state you're in. Sometimes you have a whole lot of additional requirements with that employee as far as health insurance and other benefits go. That I mean, it might be even more than that. So, you know, you have to really consider how much I will be able to increase revenue. So, on top of that, there's other things like expanding your business. I mean, we're always full. We're a restaurant, we're always full. Should we expand? I don't know. Are you gonna always be full in the new restaurant as well? Because anytime you have empty tables, you're losing money. So you need to think about everything through that lens. Don't just think about will the customers like this. Don't think about will they like it and spend more money, but think about will this net me more profit? That's the most important thing for every business.
SPEAKER_00:And not will it look prettier on pictures or on my Instagram post or I don't know, make you happy. Well, it doesn't make sense on paper. Will it drive profit? And is it part of the customer experience? That's actually worth it. Because I felt like the place that we went to didn't think very much about the customer experience. So this is just our episode to urge you to think about that and the importance of bringing profit together with customer experience to create a sustainable business. That's the whole point, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, always.
SPEAKER_00:So hopefully you guys like this episode. This is a little bit of a different one than we normally do, but I thought it was just an interesting look into the brains of accountants. So maybe now that you've heard this, when you go to any business like we do, you will start thinking about like, look at their overhead. Do you look at the number of people in there? Think about how many people or purchases or cups of coffee or whatever it may be will have to, they'll have to sell to sustain that.
SPEAKER_02:And if you are really missing all of our talks about taxes and everything, you could always re-listen to one of those episodes or just stand by because I promise we'll be getting back to tax episodes really soon.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. More taxes to come. I actually had a brilliant idea. Well, some some of my ideas aren't that brilliant, but this one seems like it would be a good one. We could have people send us a type of business or even a common one, and we could give us our thoughts on what we think that they could do differently.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. And it might not be even for that specific business, it might just be in general. We see this when we go to all of these types of businesses. And yeah, I mean, we've we mentioned several things, but yeah, for so many is in okay, look at Chick-fil-A.
SPEAKER_00:They do little tiny things different, right? And it's magical.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So thinking about these things and thinking outside the box is so, so important. And we just work with businesses every day, and we see that so many people don't do this. So I thought this would be an interesting one. Maybe we're not giving you direct tax advice, but this is solid business advice coming from business owners who get to look at business finances every day.
SPEAKER_02:Hundreds and hundreds of businesses that we see on an annual basis. So it it really does. I mean, we see what works and what doesn't.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So if there is a business you want us to do in a few episodes from now, send us an email and maybe we'll work that episode into our pipeline. And so just please let us know what you like and what you don't like because it's the only way we know how to uh talk about what's next.
SPEAKER_02:So until next time, thank you for listening to What Your CPA Wants You to Know podcast.
SPEAKER_01:This podcast is intended to provide accounting and tax information for educational purposes only. All tax situations are unique and can be handled with the assistance of a tax professional.