Mark Kohler: Stop Surviving Tax Season. Start Scaling From It.

Stop Reacting to Deadlines and Start Harvesting Profits.

Is your firm buried in returns, just waiting for April 15th to finally breathe? Most firm owners view tax season as a period of survival, but CPA and Tax Attorney Mark Kohler joins host Chad Saley to challenge that model. Mark argues that tax season isn’t just about compliance, it’s "Harvest Season."

In this episode of Canopy’s Practice Success podcast, Mark shares the exact roadmap he used to build a multi-million dollar firm by shifting from high-volume tax prep to high-value advisory. If you’ve ever wanted to work with fewer clients, make more money, and actually leave the office at 5:00 PM during tax season, this is a must-listen.

Inside this episode:

• The "Exit Interview" Strategy: Why the best time to sell advisory is the moment you deliver a tax return.
• Separating the Wheat from the Tares: How to identify your "Avatar" and fire the "D" and "F" clients that are burning out your team.
• The $2 Million Math: How 100 advisory clients can out-earn a pool of 2,000 compliance clients.
• Overcoming Firm Friction: How to get partners and associates on board with a new model without losing control of the ship.
• Rapid Fire Strategy: Mark’s take on S-Corp reasonable comp, overused buzzwords, and the biggest pricing mistakes firms make.

Key Takeaways:

• The Paid Consult Hook: Stop giving away your best ideas for free. Learn how to charge for the initial strategy session.
• The Three-Year Transition: Transitioning to advisory doesn't happen overnight—Mark explains how to "chunk" the transition to reach full advisory status in 3-4 years.
• Scale Without Burnout: Build systems that empower your team to implement strategies while you remain the strategic gatekeeper.

About Mark Kohler:

Mark J. Kohler is a CPA, Attorney, and co-founder of KKOS Lawyers and Main Street Tax Pros. He is a national best-selling author and a leading expert on tax planning and wealth-building strategies for small business owners.

Resources Mentioned:

• Main Street Tax Pros: mainstreetprofessionals.com

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Transcript

Chad Saley (00:05)
Hello, welcome to the next episode of Canopy's Practice Success podcast. I'm Chad Salie, your host. And today, our guest is Mark Kohler. He's a CPA, tax attorney, and one of the most recognized tax strategists in the country. Now with tax season right now in full swing, most firms are buried in returns and reacting to deadlines. Mark's here to challenge that model. We're talking about how to turn tax season into a strategic advantage.

how to introduce advisory without overwhelming your team, and how firm owners can build the systems required to scale without burning out every year. Mark, welcome.

Mark Kohler (00:41)
Hey, thanks for having me tax season Wow for anybody listening. We're make this worth your time So thanks for checking us out while you're doing your workout this morning or your your laps, whatever it is

Chad Saley (00:53)
Yeah, I mean, so let's just start there. Obviously, it's tax season right now. We're in the midst of it. Why? And I think this is probably not the time that most firms are thinking, ⁓ we're going to look inwardly. How can we improve? What can we do to change? I think most of them are probably just heads down. They've got deadlines. They're dealing with clients. They're not really thinking about the business. Just maybe to start us off, why would you

Why would you say that tax season is the time to start thinking about these things?

Mark Kohler (01:22)
gosh, this it is I would say it's harvest season. It's not if you're thinking of a farm and metaphor. We're not building fences and planting and this is harvest time and I would say this and staying and I didn't even think of using this metaphor farming but anybody that's read the Bible it's separating the wheat from the tares and when you're in the harvest season

You're trying to get the best fruit, the best product out of the ground, off the trees, out of the wheat field, whatever it is, and get rid of the weeds, the garbage, the fruit that's spoiled, the whatever. I grew up on a farm and recently moved from Idaho where we were on a potato farm. ⁓ I love farming, working with my hands, and after a hard day's work behind a computer screen, I want to go build something or grow something. But I think...

Accountants miss the point this tax season right now is the perfect opportunity to get rid of the clients you don't want and to move your special clients to advisory and I know some you're well mark mark I'll contact him this summer after tax season. No, you won't no you won't and by the way I know what I'm talking about. I owned an accounting firm in the trenches for 15 years

I passed out on an April 15th on a couch. I I've literally I'm like secretary was like, you okay? Should I call 9-1-1? I'm like, no, no, all right. I I've been there done that We we had 40 employees. We're umpteen million and gross rev and profit for partners I was a founding partner been there. So if you think I'm just some You know New someone new to the industry trying to sell you something. I'm not I've been there

And advisory is the holy grail you all know it and you may have partners or Above you next to you behind you that are a pain in the butt and don't get it. I've been there as well But if you we're gonna talk about this today if you are committed to advisory During tax season and Chad think I'm sorry. It's a long answer to this just easy point in tax season is when you pitch the client that showed up

Handed off all their crap. Maybe you had a few calls with them. You got their tax return done That's when you pitch them on advisory. You don't wait to do it till later The client wants this over with and want to be out the door or off the phone or off the zoom call And you don't let them off until you tell them how you're operating in the future and either they're on the train or they're off the train and then the clients that are a pain in the ass you say hey, this is last year we're serving you because

You know, we're going to advisory it's gonna cost you a lot more and we know how cheap you are And you're such a pain in the ass. We're gonna let you go somewhere else But thank you very much And this is the time you do it you put together the budgets on how many you want to close What it's gonna look like and you start building a monthly come june 1st Are you you're you're moving into q3 and q4 with monthly revenue during the slow time Serving those advisory clients, but you're selling them now. Sorry chat. I get so

just dramatic about it because I know how powerful it is.

Chad Saley (04:29)
No,

that's great. So what would you say are like the specific signals in a return that tell you like that there's a missed opportunity there, that there's something more. What should people be looking for?

Mark Kohler (04:42)
Okay, that's a great question. In fact, i'm going to add to it and say what are the key indicators that a client is An advisory client that you want to pitch I'm my desk is a whiteboard. And so i'm going to be writing these down. Okay, you put key said key indicators on a tax return We'll come to that

Chad Saley (04:52)
Yeah.

Mark Kohler (05:00)
I want to talk about personality of the client and I want to talk about the avatar as a whole

I'm going to start with avatar first if you want to go into advisory and I You have got to decide now What type of clients you want? Which ones do you enjoy? What is your special is it manufacturing? Is it ag is it? crypto is it real estate is it a certain type of doctor I'm all in on optometrists or I'm all in on Dennis or

i'm all in on engineers civil engineers firms. That's my mo and it does not have to be local The whole country is your backyard nowadays. You can have any client you want in any state It's ⁓ been there done that love it and we have a currently I have a law firm with over 70 employees and 14 lawyers on calls every day Doing advisory consults and marrying them to accountants in our network. So I'm doing this every day So, but if you don't know your avatar

You're gonna be miserable and you're gonna close. You're not gonna close as many sales and Example when I was a brand new accountant I was so excited, you know And we started our accounting firm after the law firm and we have so many clients that were law clients They said I need a good accountant I said all go here go here and I was we're getting referrals from accounts because I'm also a CPA So I was I was feeding other CPAs and they were feeding me law claims well, I found out real quick that that I was the

giving them far more clients than they were giving me and I had a friend that was a CPA that just left Deloitte and Touche and he's like, let's open our own deal. I'm like, right, and so But what I do I took any freaking client with a pulse. you want to pay us and you'll pay. okay We're 1500 bucks a year 1500 for 1120 s 1500 for multi-member LLC 1065 blah blah. We're this for this There's our fees and if you were if they were willing to pay we took them stupid

I did that for years Now now when I train my accountants, we say what's your avatar? I'm gonna take realtors That's what I'm looking for. I know how to speak their language. I love realtors. can help them I can make an impact on their returns. I know how they operate I know how to bill them boom some of you're like the last thing I'm on is realtor. I don't care You choose your avatar So and I'm gonna answer this more quickly We could move to personality clients that want a conversation are willing to pay their bill

Aren't a pain in the ass. That's a factor, but the key indicators on a tax return for me They've got to have a business. They've got to have At least a schedule e with two or three rentals maybe a schedule C So I can be getting them over to an s-corp, but I need business owners If I I say it all the time I've got friends that are corporate executives and fortune 1000s and they got a big-ass w-2 I can't do anything for them

Buy a rental maybe we could do it. You want to do a short-term rental? You want to do a loophole there? You want to do oil and gas want IDC? What are they they want strategies, but they have no time and they don't have an entrepreneur mindset They are not good clients for me. I turn them away I should give give that client their money back because I can't move the needle for them So a key indicator for me chat on that little tirade is that they have got to have a tax return? That I know I can impact

And I know I have some client accountants in my network. They do stock option work So when they see a big fat w-2 a lot of times their stock options there, that's a target for them That's an avatar for them. Not for me. So Look on the tax return. Can I move the needle with kids on payroll a better s-corp payroll allocation? I want to do a solo 401k. I'm good. They need to be doing their annual board meetings

I want to be writing off their travel their dining their computers electronics. Oh, they got real estate Let's talk bonus depreciation. Do they want a short-term rental a long-term run? Are they doing a self rental? And so you've got to find something on that return where you can wow them and not just one year But year after year these accounts to try to throw down some stupid solar tax credit and I'll go toe-to-toe on anybody on that one I'm to throw down solar equipment leasing bullshit and then wow them one year. Where's that guy? I'm gonna go next year They're gone

Because you they expect you to wow them every year. That's not a personality type. I want Sorry chad big answer there, but long answer

Chad Saley (09:09)
No, that's great. So with changing this mindset, looking for the right client, I think the next big question is how do you find the time in the midst of tax season without slowing down everything else that you're in the middle of?

Mark Kohler (09:22)
Well the what i'd like to do This is a great question Is in the exit interview Call it that The clients you're going to give them their return Whether you're on zoom And if this is a client so you've already identified this is a client I want for advisory And for all of you out there, I mean I'm we pour over our client list every year 3 000 clients 2 000 clients whatever year it was

How many of them were D or F clients that we'd love to get rid of how many were C's B's A's? Whatever you're put them in categories you print your client list out on a Sunday afternoon You can find your top hundred clients. I don't think about this Let's say I take a hundred clients that I know could be advisory in my overall pool The average advisory client brings in 20 grand a year Okay, huh 20 grand a year on a hundred clients

Okay, you guys run into your computer you do some math on that This is a big deal because if I can bring in 100 clients at $20,000 that's a two million dollar gross rev 100 clients How many of you would just like a hundred clients that pay monthly an average of 20 grand a year? It's so dual. We have hundreds of client accountants in our network that do that So if you say that's my target, I want two million of revenue on 100 clients

Billing 20 grand a year monthly You cannot afford not to do this. Okay, so that's your goal. You've got your avatar. You're ready to roll so in tax season when you do your exit interview on those hundred clients and During the taxi and your good clients, they're extending anyway half of them So we're talking this is going to be going down these exits anywhere from March to freaking September You got plenty of time. So you've got maybe 20 10 to 20 exits a month at most

To deal with so you're going to schedule time with them Which you normally wouldn't do but you're going to schedule that exit and when they get on the call, they're going. mark This is great. I'm to talk to you this year. Yeah, man. Let me show you what I did on your tax return freaking man I pulled a rabbit out of my butt. my gosh. It's great. And by the way, tom We know we can do better for you Don't worry about the past but we're moving into advisory. I've gotten some new training that from this mark Kohler guy or whoever

And I we're just ready to rock and roll. I want to wow you We're in the middle of tax season So what I want to schedule right now with you Tom is a comprehensive tax consult where we're go deep and make a plan for the next three years and we're gonna be moving to advisory where we're gonna meet quarterly we're gonna take care of your Bookkeeping your payroll whatever the hell you're providing to them on a monthly basis You're gonna pay a one monthly fee. It includes all your tax returns phone calls with me. You're gonna love it's called advisory You can budget for it

One fee per month done You're gonna tom's like well mark. I've wanted more time with you. This sounds great. Yes So we're do a comprehensive tax consult and I want to book it for a month from now And two months from now, I got to get through tax season tom But I want to book it right now. but we as accountants say bye

See you next year it's just nuts So when they're walking out before they get off the phone to zoom whatever the you're doing you're gonna say Tom we're gonna meet in a month and a half We're gonna meet for two hours. I'm going to do a comprehensive tax consult for you, but it's gonna cost you I don't do this for free time I'm gonna charge you five hundred dollars seven fifty thousand But I'm gonna wow you and tom if I don't save you new money with that plan moving forward

I'll give you the thousand back You will. Yep. I'm that confident So I want to I don't want you to pay for advisory now. I've told you a little bit about it I mean, this is literally the call. This is the script you're gonna say we're gonna meet in six weeks We're gonna do this comprehensive call I'm charge you five hundred dollars seven fifty If I don't save you that in tax times two three Whatever the hell you want to promise because you already seen the return, know You can move the needle with them. You were doing their tax return in the rearview mirror

Just think if you have Tom at your desk six weeks from now and you were doing proactive planning You know you can save more and it's okay if Tom's like well Why don't you bring this up before because Tom you weren't paying me for it before but I'm here now You want me or not? And then you go, okay. Okay seven fifty I'll give your money back, but you're gonna pay for it in advance We're gonna meet and we're gonna do it on whatever day three o'clock zoom in person, whatever the hell. Okay, let's do it He's committed

He's paid in advance. You do not bill him You do not send him an invoice. You don't bill him after your pay. He's paying right now if he goes Well, don't want to pay for it right now. Okay, tom, by the way, i'm going this direction of my practice I don't know if we'll be able to serve you next year What what what yeah? Yeah, sorry tom I want to do a better job for you And I know I can save you 10 times what you're paying in tax now, but you've got to meet me halfway I don't give you your money back if I don't wow you enough. I'll give it back

Okay mark i'm in i'll see you in six weeks. Okay then chat six weeks come And you're ready to go you build them a trifecta Those who don't do my trifecta you go watch them on youtube you build them a trifecta You got a plan you show up you tell them how to put their kids on payroll and they're gonna have a board meeting They're gonna write up more travel. They're gonna write this off You're gonna get them in roth ira's backdoor roth ira's blah blah blah. You save them freaking seven grams

In the first 10 minutes and tom's like, my gosh mark. Yeah now we're gonna move forward with the advisory service It's gonna cost you 1500 a month But everything's taken care of from now on and we're gonna meet every three months and we're gonna implement this We're gonna review your estate plan. We're gonna look at your asset protection. Well, you're not an attorney That's all right, but I got an attorney network and we're gonna be your quarterback I'm gonna help coordinate everything tom. I'm gonna be your new best friend Like you've always wanted with an accountant people are starving for this people

Do I need to say that you already know it and you're gonna say Tom's gonna and you're gonna say and it's 1500 a month I'll get that regular a chit in your account and we're gonna meet in three weeks. We're gonna do this We're gonna get going. So I'll see you then Tom. It's not do you want to do it Tom? You're gonna learn how to sell people you're gonna go Tom. gonna bill you 1500 a month and it's gonna rock your world What date works for you? You guys ever go buy a car. You got to figure this out. You're now an accountant with true value

They need you and you want a hundred toms. You just got one. He's gonna pay you 1,500 a month done that my friends is how you do this in tax season and by August September October You've already got 60 people in the pipe done paying you $1,500 a month Now we go into the fall tax season You're gonna add another 50 to your table at two grand a month and then you fire all those bozos You've been doing this year during tax season Guys, I've done it

I do it over I've seen it over and over again with our network of accountants. You can do it,

Chad Saley (15:52)
No, that's

What are the, what would you say are the entity mistakes that you're seeing repeatedly right now?

Mark Kohler (15:57)
that.

You we don't do it We get scared we get in a rut We just keep our heads down right? You've been there chat. I mean right i've been there Every october we say we're going to do this But we don't I think imposter syndrome not having a support community not knowing how to what does the engagement letter look like What's my script look like and you don't know where to turn?

We've been growing like wildfire in our tax pro network helping people through this. We do a weekly training call But I think that's it just Procrastination

Chad Saley (16:27)
So what would you say like, so the firm owner is like, I'm on board. I want to do this. I'm up to speed. How do they get the rest of the team on board and how do they get the rest of the team so that they're also recognizing that ideal client?

Mark Kohler (16:43)
Well, everybody has a different experience, of course, but I think there's two or three general Situations when you want to implement this in the challenges you can face first if you're a practice owner Solo and you got a couple staff members Easy-shmeasy you want to do this? No one's in your way

You don't have a partner or associates. You got to drag with you easy schmeezy So I'd like that lane is the easiest some of you listening that could be your situation So now it's just aligning with the community and the training and the people that are going to help you get there So you have the support with the strategy the mindset the you know process procedure and You're off to the races The second option is when it's a small firm you might have a partner

but you've got a couple of associates and

It's questionable, you know, is your partner believe in all this advisory stuff the way you do are they with you? Are you know hand in hand on this? That's going to be your first challenge and I have had many a conversation with the partners Making sure I answer all their quite like a partner will bring me to a table. I went it was there was a accounting firm out in Phoenix, Arizona, they had me Come to their office actually

Because they had like seven associates. They wanted to get trained and dialed in And I said our first meeting is partners only And it was just the partners. I'm like guys where you at? Because if you guys aren't all unified on this It's not gonna happen All these associates need is one excuse and you think of teenagers with mom and dad if mom and dad are not on the same page That teenagers run a while. It's just the way it's gonna be so

You want to get your partner on board? Then when it comes to associates whether you have In this third option, it could be a lot of associates. It can be even option two where you just have a couple of associates

I've done this enough You're gonna have a little attrition and you got to be okay with it. You're gonna have and it's interesting you you let's say you have four associates and when I say associates they could be CPAs enrolled agents Lifelong tax preparers, whatever sometimes that lifelong tax preparer is better than your CPAs or EA's right? They just know it they're awesome They're also stuck in their ways and they're gonna do it their way

It's the highway right? It's just that's it and so If you can find alignment with your partner and say hey, we're gonna do this. This is our goal Here's how we're do it and the more then you turn to the associates and say here's how we're gonna do this Here's our avatar. Here's what and the more education you can do on that and the reasons why and really get them excited You got to do that go for it. I'm just telling you

One out of four They won't And you've got to decide now What are the teeth in this? because this was one of the main reasons my partnership with my guys started to I needed to part ways is because They didn't want to do it. And if they're not going to do it, the associates aren't And then if this associate didn't want to do it the way we said and hold the right calls Implement the right strategies

We can't fire them. Do know what it would do to our You know, we've got so many clients to take care of they handle 200 clients themselves. Yeah, but they're handling 200 clients that we don't

Mark Kohler (19:44)
But like a captain on a ship if you if your crew knows that they control your decision making and you're afraid of them and you won't throw anyone overboard you just lost control of the ship, so

we were trying to lay down the law on a variety of issues and wasn't landing with certain attorneys and they never thought we'd fire them. Ding, gone. I'll tell you those other attorneys, they got right in line and we have great attorneys. And it's not a dictatorship per se, but when you've got policies and you've got procedures,

And you got a way that to save the whole ship If you're not going to get on board with the process, you're going to rock the game plane. It's the way it is. So Be ready for that and you got to be okay with that. And if you do, my gosh, you'll have the firm of your dreams

Chad Saley (20:30)
So what's the next natural step? If you've got the right team in place, how do you train, like for example, your tax preparers to spot things that would be a good lead into advisory? You know they're the right person, but what do you do? What kind of training do you do behind the scenes so that they're ready, so they know what to look for? And again, it's not just people randomly kind of guessing one way or another, or always coming back to you saying, here's this client's situation, should we be asking them?

Mark Kohler (20:57)
Well, first of all, I I'm going to take a little different approach chat. I would say If these are tax preparers, you're signing the return, you know who all your clients are Or the partners are because as partners you're going to have a couple of preparers under you a couple of associates under you Whatever you're seeing everything. So the partners are the ones identifying Who do we want as advisory or not? And the partner is the one pitching them the partner is the one doing the comprehensive consult and strategy session and the partner is the one pitching advisory

the advisors their role is to carry out your orders and Implement the tax strategies that you're going to talk about and have ongoing conversations with your clients because once you say here's what we're gonna do and here's the plan you're gonna give it to your tax advisor to implement With regular calls and meetings and blah blah blah They're not at the high level making the call on who what where when they're just gonna carry out the how you're gonna tell them how to do

What they're doing now in our Main Street tax pro certification. We have a practice owner group and we have an enterprise group in the enterprise group we train the employees the rank-and-file advisors The partners go to the practice owner group because I talked to practice owners very different than I talked to advisors See, I understand if I talk to your advisors like an owner What's gonna happen? They're gonna go start their own firm

I do not want to empower them nor do you To feel entrepreneurial to feel like hey, I could do this. I'm gonna go pitch You don't want them pitching clients or they're gonna pitch their freaking own, you know, so you want to be the gatekeeper and You so we train rank-and-file advisors differently than we talk to our practice owners and we have two products for that or two communities two training classes every week that are

very different that way. So that's how we do it. Just got to keep it kind of keep them separated. Got to keep the cows away from the donkeys, know, or the horses away from the llamas, whatever. They're two different animals, you know, so keep them separate.

Chad Saley (22:54)
Thank

No, that's great. Okay, for this final segment, I'm just gonna give you ⁓ some rapid fire questions and ⁓ we'll just hit them. Let's just hit them as fast and hard as we can. ⁓ What would you say is the most overused tax strategy buzzword right now?

Mark Kohler (23:01)
Okay, short answer.

Okay.

⁓

I was thinking there's got to be a new one But it's the same crap you see in the Forbes magazine every tax season. Make sure you harvest all your tax losses in your portfolio and Way overused worthless doesn't move the needle a real advisor. That's like number 22 in your arsenal

Chad Saley (23:27)
No, that's great. What would you say is one entity structure most accountants misunderstand?

Mark Kohler (23:32)
The power of the s corporation they overthink reasonable comp to the point They're scared of their own shadow 25 years i've never had a client audited for too low of reasonable comp get over it people You can be far more aggressive there and what's the worst case scenario your client pays a little more fika They're willing to roll the dice. Trust me. So get over it. You're not the irs police Learn your s corp and be aggressive with reasonable comp

Chad Saley (23:54)
What is the biggest advisory pricing mistake? Like what's the biggest mistake a firm makes when they start an advisory program? Something they don't, they're not thinking through, something along those lines.

Mark Kohler (24:04)
biggest pricing mistake they're making in advisory and I'm just gonna assume they're doing advisory. That's the first mistake is not going there But if they're gonna go advisory, they're not charging enough They're afraid they think they're gonna scare off their client And they don't think they're gonna be able to provide as much value as they really can because they don't have the training of how to do advisory with strategies because what I want to do is give my clients my advisors so many strategies They run out of time

Talking to the client and the client is starving for more time with you because you have so many strategies and I got them and so Advisors are not charging enough. They have got to be at least 1500 a month for a good small business owner advisory client And if you say well my small business owners can't afford that then you got the wrong avatar people

Chad Saley (24:50)
No, that's great. OK, my last one. So you make a firm takes this step. They add advisory. They're finding success. What does that advisory led firm look like in three years and five years?

Mark Kohler (25:03)
My gosh They're there their their accountants are looking out the window smiling. They're With their family more they're golfing more. They're making more money. They literally and I've seen it over and over again. They have doubled their bottom line take home They're leaving at five during tax season people. I'm not kidding their 2,000 clients are now

200 to 300 clients and they're making more money with less staff. I know that sounds crazy But when you guys have seen it, you know, it's there and you just don't know how to get there So I say it doesn't happen overnight. It's a transition and I like the way you phrase that in three years You don't switch to advisory and all sudden your advisory next year You start and I have a whole training on this where you you're you're you're chunking at it

You're moving 10 of your clients this year 20 of them next year 30 percent by four years You're all advisory and if yes You're gonna have some tax prep for your mom and your aunt and you're the client you love that You've got that box over in the side But the far far majority of clients are advisory and you love it and you're happy and you make more money Dreamy, isn't it? Doesn't sound dreamy

Chad Saley (26:16)
sounds wonderful. It sounds great. Mark, thank you so much. This has been super informative. We appreciate you taking the time with us. yeah, hopefully you can get out there and get some more firms on the advisory train.

Mark Kohler (26:29)
Yeah, yeah for sure if anybody wants to learn more about what we're doing go to mainstreet professionals.com Mainstreet professionals.com and you can do a discovery call for free just kind of see what we're about I've got a very young energetic sales team that'll talk walk you through a demo and you can see what it's about do it get it for a Money back on window for to just test it out. I think you'd love it and chad Thanks so much for having me so excited to be here

Chad Saley (26:55)
Absolutely.