CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

Why Cost Segregation Isn’t Just for Real Estate Investors — with Sean Graham

• James Donovan • Season 2 • Episode 33

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What if you could cut your tax bill in half—just by owning your building the right way?

In this episode, James sits down with Sean Graham of Maven Cost Segregation to unpack the most overlooked tax strategy business owners, CFOs, and firm leaders aren’t using—but should be.

You’ll learn:

  • How cost segregation turns depreciation into cash flow
  • Why most accountants still don’t bring it up to clients
  • Who qualifies (and how much you can really save)
  • Why Sean focuses on SEO + education instead of ads
  • The mindset shift that helped him scale a niche service business

👉 If your business owns real estate—or your clients do—this episode could be worth five to six figures.

Send us a text

Feeling stuck in your growth? Discover how to elevate your marketing, personal brand, and sales approach to attract clients who value your expertise.

Ready to make a shift?

Book your strategy call today at accountingleadsnow.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success, the go-to podcast for fractional CFOs and accounting firm owners who want to attract more high-paying clients and increase their revenue. Hosted by James Donovan from Nine Two Media, this podcast dives into marketing strategies specifically designed for lead generation and client acquisition. In each episode, you'll hear from industry leaders sharing their success stories, and Today we're joined by Sean Graham from Maven Cost Segregation based out of Detroit.

Speaker 2:

Sean, I believe you have a virtual business, but you're currently based in Detroit right now. Thank you so much for coming on the show, really looking forward to hearing a little bit more about your story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, awesome to meet you, james. Thanks for having me here and yeah, we are virtual, but I am based in Detroit.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Are you a Red Wings fan? Do you follow hockey at all being in Detroit?

Speaker 3:

I am. You know, I kind of came here, though, like when I was, it was right around, it was past, like the, the nineties championships, but I was still there for like the early 2000s championships. So, uh, the, the red wings are the team I root for, but I didn't, I didn't start getting into them until I was like 11 or 12, you know, like around that age. But yeah, they're, they're fun. You know, it's been pretty low key for the past, like I don't know. It seems like almost 15 years now. Uh, maybe that's an exaggeration, but probably not actually now that I think about it.

Speaker 2:

No, they, they've, they're, definitely they've been rebuilding. They were so strong for the longest time with with lindstrom and and eiserman yeah, they're, they're on their way up, they're. We will turn the the tides here in this conversation, so hopefully not everyone's jumping off that it's a hockey conversation out of the gate.

Speaker 3:

But well, we got eiserman back now, right, he's.

Speaker 2:

He's on our side again, so yeah, just not on, not on the ice. But they play in such a tough division. I'm a big sense fan. It's the first year they're making the playoffs now in about eight, seven or eight years, so I'm super excited for that. I think detroit's going to be right there, you know, next year, the year after, but it's just a lot of competition there in that division.

Speaker 3:

They're young, cool yeah.

Speaker 2:

And they got a great team coming up. Tell me a little bit about how you got into this role, sean. It's a question I've been asking some guests as of late. Is it something you knew that from growing up as a kid you're like I want to get into tax segregation, or how did you land here?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, I didn't think it at all. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, like grow my own business, grow my own company. I went down the accounting and finance route, the tax route, because I just wanted the basis, I wanted that foundation, I wanted that to really give me that, to gain that skillset, so that I could have those tools to go do whatever I wanted run my own company. So that's the reason I went down the CPA route, the public accounting route and everything. I actually went into real estate full time and then I realized eventually I could bridge both of those worlds the tax and accounting world, with the real estate world, and that's where I created the cost segregation firm.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. How are you bridging your real estate background into what you're doing right now?

Speaker 3:

your real estate background into what you're doing right now. So for those who don't know, cost segregation is a very niche thing within tax right and that's where the IRS allows you to depreciate your real estate over time usually over 27 and a half years for residential, over 39 years for commercial and cost segregation is it's a niche thing that what you do is you take a building or a property and you do an engineering study on it. You break it down into all of the individual components and tell the IRS like hey, not everything is just on a straight line schedule. They all have different lifespans and our goal is to accelerate as much as possible, put as much as we can into a shorter lifespan so that we can get the benefits upfront.

Speaker 3:

A dollar today is worth more than a dollar in 30 or 40 years, right? So when I was in real estate, I was on the other side. I needed the depreciation. I was utilizing those losses to completely offset my income. So my background is in tax, but I also am a real estate investor myself and I understand what the goals and objectives are. So I think I offer a unique perspective because I bridge those two worlds with the cost segregation firm.

Speaker 2:

That's cool. You're seeing both sides of the coin. So you, I feel like you have a I don't want to say unfair, but you almost do you have a very competitive advantage, seeing both sides of the coin.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's fun. I love real estate, like I love real estate and I love being an entrepreneur and like I like helping people and connecting and stuff, so it works out well. What do you?

Speaker 2:

love most about being an entrepreneur.

Speaker 3:

The autonomy I'd say. You know I like to do, I like being in control of my own destiny. I need to keep climbing, keep growing, keep building things out. I like operating, I like building from the ground up. I like the challenge of it from the ground up. I like the challenge of it, but ultimately, the autonomy over where I'm going and when I'm doing what I'm doing. I have those choices and I think lifestyle is very important to me.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. What's one of the biggest obstacles you feel like you've been able to overcome in your journey of being an entrepreneur that you look back on now and you're like, wow, I can't believe I actually worked past that and I didn't let that stop me.

Speaker 3:

Oh man, I mean I've been fired before. You know, like that sucks getting fired from a job. It sucks. Um, you know, I think there's some things where, even like getting through the CPA license, you know it was very, very things where, even like getting through the CPA license, you know it was very, very difficult to do, it wasn't easy, and it's just takes like a lot of perseverance and and hours and stuff and it's just willing to like sacrifice the other things in your life that aren't you know that they're important, especially in your twenties Right, and like from a social perspective and everything, to put the hours in to go to go past that. Um, or you know, getting losing a job, getting fired and then going, getting back on your feet and figuring out, like what you are meant to do or supposed to do, uh, those are, you know, I think everybody has those type of challenges. Most people lose a job at some point or another in their careers, so we all go through them. But yeah, it can be tough.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. It is the adversity and those setbacks that really shape and define who you are. So I think without them, you're almost better off having those setbacks and adversity every once in a while, just to remind yourself like all right, I am tough, I can get through this, otherwise it when. When those things do show up, because it's inevitable it will I don't think you're as braced for it. So do you welcome those challenges and adversity? Or only, to like a certain degree, like have you? Have you as your, I guess? Is your threshold grown for what? For when adversity is thrown your way?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say I enjoy I'm. I enjoy the risk, I don't. I would say I'm the opposite, more of like risk adverse, and I don't always look at it as like risk. I think it's like calculated decisions, but I enjoy the challenges. I like taking unconventional path.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. That's cool. What's one of the bottlenecks that you're kind of working through or trying to solve for right now in your business?

Speaker 3:

I would say scaling right. Like you know, I think it's like everybody else you want to scale. It's a balance, but I would say scaling into, you know, kind of taking that next step with more established companies and working with more established companies. We work with a lot of real estate investors. We work with a lot of syndicators. We do a lot in the self-storage space and world.

Speaker 3:

But there's a lot of businesses out there, just in general, who own the real estate, own the business, and they need cost segregation work done right, and those could be franchises, they could be a McDonald's location, it could be a manufacturing facility, it could be just McDonald's location, it could be a manufacturing facility, it could be, you know, just doctor's offices, which we do, those dental offices. But there's so many businesses out there and so people associate they associate cost segregation with real estate investors, which is true, but at the same time, cost segregation is a tool to be used by business owners who own real estate. If you're leasing, it doesn't apply to you, right, but if you own a physical location, it can help you a ton. You can use all that to offset your income, really lower your taxes or completely negate your taxes. So I think it's. The challenge is getting breaking into that world more and educating people and connecting with business owners who are probably not utilizing this and don't realize that they could or should be utilizing it and they think it's just a real estate thing.

Speaker 2:

That's so cool what I had a question here based off just what you're saying how did you get into the self-storage space? Because that caught my attention as we were getting ready to get this episode, you know, onto the calendar and speak, and you mentioned it again here. Just as you were talking about, like that's such a on doing something that's already so niche, like you're talking about with the cost segregation, the self-storage units that's also super niche. So how did you get into that space?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, self-storage is a fun space. It's a business and it has all the benefits of real estate. It's very similar to real estate in renting. You're renting units, you're renting sheds, right. But essentially it's a business. You're providing a business and somewhat of a service for people to go store their things in, whether they're businesses or whether they're just individual people storing their stuff for the residential properties.

Speaker 3:

Whatever it is, I wanted to get into commercial real estate. I was in residential real estate, I wanted to take the leap and jump into commercial real estate, and you kind of to me. You just have to choose an asset class. So, okay, what are you going to do? You can do large multifamily, you can do self-storage, you can do office. You just have to pick one and then go for it. And so I chose self-storage. Part of it was the simplicity of it. Like it's a very simple business model, right, Like again, you're renting sheds to people, Like it's not rocket science and there's a lot of control over what you're doing. You don't have to wait an entire year to raise rent. Right, Like you have their month-to-month contracts. You can operate them more efficiently. You can work on marketing. You know, answer the phones, like those things are very important and you don't have to deal with people living there. You know plumbing issues or things like that, so the simplicity of it.

Speaker 2:

So that's why I chose self-storage. Yeah Cool. Do you have any wild stories from the business, the self-storage businesses, you're working with? I mean, I'm kind of just my mind's racing to a lot of different spots, like either storage wars or I don't know. Maybe there was like was there forensics in teams?

Speaker 3:

Right laundering money or the drugs in there? Stolen vehicles Do you have any?

Speaker 2:

cool stories you're able to share from being involved with the self-storage space I don't, man.

Speaker 3:

No, I don't. I don't really have anything. I'd love to tell you something. Maybe I should start making something up. You know, it's not the first time I've been asked that, but yeah, that was like a big build-up.

Speaker 2:

I was really hoping there's gonna be you know it was like breaking bad and they pulled up the, the the door.

Speaker 3:

There's like a bed of bills right, right, yeah, or the vehicle's just like in there waiting for them to jump in and you know they can get out and uh, no, haven't had anything like that. You know, I think it's. It's sometimes surprising what people like will leave or abandon or not pay for like having like a vehicle or something stored there. And it's like, what do you do? Like just pay your bill you know it's 100 bucks a month or something like what you doing. Why are you going to lose something that's worth tens of thousands of dollars over? People have all different situations, so you never know. But yeah, nothing too crazy.

Speaker 2:

You have to be on the lookout now. Maybe that would be like a prerequisite to bring on clients is. I need to like a really cool story from something that's happened at your facility before we're going to work together. That's funny, yeah, speaking of you know clients and some of the business owners. How do you find clients yourself for your firm?

Speaker 3:

So I network with a good amount of CPA firms. I work with a lot of CPA firms to help them on the cost segregation space. I don't do tax work right so like I'm not competing with those clients, I just do the service, the cost segregation work for them which they utilize, their CPA utilizes, to help offset their taxes. We do some. You know I'm pretty involved with BiggerPockets. I do a lot of real estate. You know just I've always been involved in real estate. You know we'll go to we go to a big conference this year to sponsor that. We do a lot of podcasts as well.

Speaker 2:

I'm pretty well integrated into the self-storage world and space there. So we'll work with, like, some syndicators and self-storage investors. So it's a little bit of you know, a little bit of everything, awesome, awesome. Have you? Have you guys got into doing anything around paid ads, or is it a lot of what sounds to be like a lot of networking for right now?

Speaker 3:

So a lot of networking, but our online presence has really grown and we put in a lot of work towards that. Now we don't do anything. Paid ads wise, like we've dabbled a little bit, like okay, kind of like let's see how this goes, but 500 bucks a month towards Google ads, but we haven't taken it seriously or like really done anything with ads. And I think there's so much green space outside of ads right now and I'm not saying like ads work. There's people in our competitors that put out, you see, ads all the time. So obviously they're doing it because it works.

Speaker 3:

But I like the approach of there's a book called they Ask you Answer and I don't know if you've heard of it, but you know it's kind of it's a good book, it's pretty self-explanatory. You're going to look it up they Ask you Answer by Marcus Sheridan and what the premise of the book is answer the questions before they ask the questions. And I take that very, very seriously, right, and I think about it proactively in terms of what is the customer going to ask me? How can I save myself the time of going back and, like you know, going back and forth and email again, or save myself the commerce? Like the conversation, but also like when they're looking for things, we show up because we have the answer to the question already, right?

Speaker 3:

So you know, let's just say like, hey, what's going to happen to bonus depreciation in 2025? You Google that, well, we might show up because we've answered that question. We have a blog on it and we've written about it. So I do that quite a bit in terms of like they ask you answer. Try to answer a lot of questions. That helps and it's really, I would say, overall, like our online presence has grown substantially. We get, you know, a decent amount of organic traffic. Um, then, I think we're just scratching the surface too nice.

Speaker 2:

That's really good. So many people, I think, when it comes to what to write about or what content to put out, they struggle with that, and it sounds like you guys are are spot on. You're already doing it and a lot of it is what sometimes it's after they ask. But what are the questions you're getting on sales calls? What are the questions your clients are asking you? One person's asking, there's 10 others thinking it, and if you're creating content around that, that's why so many people are finding you guys. So that's awesome to hear that you're doing that. You mentioned you're creating blog posts on that. Is that going on your website, or do you guys also publish that on your Google business profile?

Speaker 3:

So we don't publish on the Google business profile, which is an interesting standpoint, like interesting point, something I haven't really thought of. I do believe that, well, to answer your question, I publish the blog on the website, okay, but also send it, like out in a newsletter. Yeah, you have the newsletter going out to clients, former clients, anybody on your list. You have the blog on the website for SEO purposes, and then we do have a strong Google page with the reviews and everything. We're not really updating it so much and maybe we should on.

Speaker 3:

I've thought about that recently. Like maybe we should update, you know, the Google business profile more often. But overall, like it's, you know, I think, an interesting thing that I've. It's a theory, it's not a fact, I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure Google likes they will promote you more if you have a presence on Google Maps, like meaning if you have a physical location, versus just being another virtual company, right, like they know that, they know you're real, they like that, they like you to have an office. So that's a theory that I have. I can't really prove it or disprove it, but that's been an important part for us as well as just, you know, being able to have like an office and stuff and have on Google maps, even though my team is all over.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah Well, google loves consistency on their platform and they're the, if not the largest, search engine. I'm sure you can make the argument. You know there's now YouTube chat, gptbt. Youtube is part of google. But, um, yeah, I mean I would be putting your blog there as well. It's just repurposed. What do you mean? So in google, you can add updates to your business page, which is essentially a blog or an article, but purpose what you're already writing. You put it there. It's also on your website, it's also in your newsletter. That's just all going to tie back to your main source of truth, which is in your Google business profile. So Google is going to trust you more. You're going to get more visibility that way.

Speaker 3:

So I think what I worry about there, though, is duplicative content. Like I don't think Google wants you to have duplicative content where it's like, hey, it's posted over here, it's posted on Google and it's posted on your blog. It kind of lowers the value of what it is, because they scrape it, they see it on multiple sites, and I'm not the marketing expert, but I don't know. Maybe you tell me. Do you have any thoughts on that? You can?

Speaker 2:

repurpose it and if you don't want it to be word for word, cause I'm I'm going to guess your articles probably a little bit longer than I think it's a 1500, maybe character limit. It's either 1500 or 15,000. I can't remember now. But when you go post that on Google, even if you just rinse that through chat, gpt and then you give your manual kind of overview, you change some things around, but it's the same concept. You have the same keywords that are being focused on and it's posted there. The truth is, a lot of people probably aren't even going to read it. On your, your Google page, sure, you have all the keywords. So when people start typing, you know I want to learn more about cost segregation or cost segregation firms near me. Well, all of those keywords are showing up in your article there and it's tying to everywhere else. You have that concept or that idea posted a couple of different times.

Speaker 3:

So when you say that, do you literally mean like like I'm just looking right now right at my Google profile? Are you saying like where it says add an update? Or like where would you post some sort of blog? Like that doesn't? I've never seen anybody do that before. Is that a thing Like maybe I'm?

Speaker 2:

just not paying attention. Yeah, it's there. We post every week for our clients about, you know, said topic for them to help out with organic SEO, and we put it in that update section. It's a spot that a lot of firms miss, but it does. It does make a big impact. So if you're already in the content, just repurpose it, put it right there. It's just one extra spot to add it into.

Speaker 3:

The post updates to your Google, to your customers on Google Interesting. Can you add backlinks to that where it's like hey look, I wrote this blog, here's the link to it.

Speaker 2:

There is a call to action at the end of your update. So you want to push people to a certain landing page, you want to send them somewhere else. You want them to call in schedule a call directly. You can have your call to action.

Speaker 3:

That's awesome, I didn't know that. There you go, I love it. I learned. What else can you teach me, james?

Speaker 2:

I like this Depends, Depends. What you're interested in Could teach. You know could teach a couple of things, but this has been really helpful, you know, just learning a little bit more about cost segregation and what your firm's doing, how you help. I would love to hear, like, of a recent win that you're super proud of for that your firm was able to achieve whether you know you had your hands directly involved in it, if it was members of your team. But like what from Maven are you guys super proud of as of late for a win within the company?

Speaker 3:

Oh man, you know we haven't been on google like that long, honestly, but just kind of thinking about that, we have, I think, 21 five star reviews, you know, and no like four reviews, and you'll probably tell me, right, it's like maybe you want a poor review in there. Just so google, like you know, they kind of like that a little bit of mix of everything. But right now we've got, you know, I'll let that happen organically, I'm not going to force a mix of everything, but right now we've got you know, I'll let that happen organically, I'm not going to force a, you know yeah, right, right now in in ruffles and feathers, just to get a negative review yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

no, we have five, all five star reviews, um, something that I'm proud of. We're building that up quickly. Uh, we got through busy season. Like you know well, it's not done yet Sorry, april 15th is really the end of busy season, but I'm really proud of the team and the way they've stepped up and they're doing some great things. We do everything internally, so the customer communication has people on an individual basis have improved quite a bit. You know, our project management's on track, our engineers are learning, getting better. We're becoming even more efficient. So I mean there's some like really cool things.

Speaker 3:

I think, like, if you want to pinpoint something specifically, an example would be had a customer who inherited money, he's like, okay, what am I going to do with this money? And he works full time. You know W-2. He makes, you know, maybe I think his wife and he make, probably his wife and he make around you know, a quarter million dollars a year or so. And so they decided to go buy Airbnbs, short-term rentals, and we help them utilize the depreciation on those short-term rentals and we help them utilize the depreciation on those short-term rentals to offset the taxable income. So, okay, you're a quarter million dollars married, filing jointly.

Speaker 3:

I don't know what the tax rate is, let's just say 24% or so. Right, I'm just estimating. Right now I don't have the brackets in front of me, but there's something called the short-term rental loophole which allows you to use short-term rentals and the IRS says okay, like because you average seven days or less, you're actively participating, materially participating, you're managing it. This is an active business. It's not like a passive activity that only offsets passive income. It's now an active thing. It's active business for you and then you can use the depreciation losses to offset other active income, like W-2 income and stuff. So I mean to help somebody like that to completely wipe out their tax bill. Right, like that can be like potentially a life-changing thing like just in a year if you're able to save, you know whatever.

Speaker 3:

That is 20, 24% of you know a quarter million dollars, so you're saving over $50,000 or something that's like really big. So it's something that I'm proud of. We help people like that quite often and we offer a service that you know I think it kind of gets glanced over and people don't understand it and they skip it. Then we offer a really high quality product at an affordable price.

Speaker 2:

That's so good. It's yeah, I mean any. Anywhere you can get a tax break, and if you can do it illegally, but finding professionals like you know what they're doing, how to utilize, how to play the game in order to do that, I think it's some of the wisest money you can invest in yourself and in your business.

Speaker 3:

You stole my words how to play the game. That's what it all is. It's all a game. It's a tax game, it's a real estate game and I mean, if you love the game, then you're going to have a lot of fun no-transcript um, you know, I don't look.

Speaker 3:

I think maybe you hear this, but, like I don't, I think I can share my experiences, right, like, rather than so much give advice. Everybody has a different journey and a different path and I'm not walking in your shoes, so to say, but I think for me, as an entrepreneur, what, what I realized is that you can do, you can have the foundation set up correctly and you can take all of the same tools and pieces, things that you've learned from accounting and sales and marketing and networking, project management, and it can work in one business and not work in another, and it could completely fail in one side, and then you go basically move this shift, the same model over into something else and it works. And for me, I've realized that, and the reason is because what you are selling is super important, obviously, but I think it comes down to is this a need or is this a want? Wants are a lot harder to sell than needs, like, okay, you know, I have a.

Speaker 3:

I had a head hunting company. I mean, I still do, but it's basically kind of, you know, shut it down because my full focus is the cost segregation firm, but it's like well, I want to hire, like it wasn't always a need, it was a lot of like it's an emotional thing Should I, should I not? Will the benefits be there? There's not a black and white and tangible thing like, hey, here is my clear return on investment. Cost segregation is like here's your estimate, here's how much depreciation you'll get, here's what the tax savings will be. Here's the cost of the report. Here is the return on the investment, clear as day. Right, and that's so much easier to sell because people need it, they want it, they're looking for it and they understand it. So that's been my experience and something that I think I'll always carry into any type of business that I do.

Speaker 2:

Good. How can people get in touch with you, sean, if they want to continue this conversation? Maybe other CPAs want to get in touch where it's like hey, can you help? Can you help out our clients with this? Where can they go to find?

Speaker 3:

you, yeah, so I created a discount link for your listeners if they want to go to it's. Mavencostsegcom forward slash chronicles is in your, your website, your your podcast here, um. And so then I know they came from the, the podcast, and they were listening. But yeah, uh, mavencostsegcom forward slash chronicles, I don't know, maybe, if you're allowed to, you can put that in the show notes for them and you can email me.

Speaker 3:

Sean s-e-a-n at maven cost segcom, and maven is spelled m as in mary, a-v-e-n as in nancy. So, um, yeah, I'm happy to talk to you. If you want to chat, I'll give you my calendar link, uh, but if you are a business owner who owns real estate or you're a real estate investor, we're just going to collect some property information from you, some basic information, and then we're going to put together an estimate or have my engineers in house do the estimate for you to see hey, this is what you're going to use, this is how much depreciation you're going to get, and we'll make it very clear. And then we can have a follow-up call if you want to say, if you have any questions, and, yeah, go from there.

Speaker 2:

So good. We'll get all of that in the show notes so people can get in touch with you, Sean. I encourage everyone to reach out. I think you'll get a ton of value. Sean, thank you so much for coming on. This is an awesome conversation. Great hearing a little bit more about what you do and your story. Really appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

Thanks, james, thanks for having me Appreciate it Appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for tuning into this episode of CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. I hope you found value in today's conversation. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, make sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please rate and review the show. It helps others discover the insights we share here. Second, if you're ready to take your business to the next level and attract the high-end clients you deserve, head over to accountingleadsnowcom or click the link in the show notes to book your strategy. Call. It's time to position yourself as the advisor your clients need. And don't forget you can connect with me on LinkedIn to stay up to date on what's happening in the world of accounting and financial growth. We've got exciting topics coming up, so stay tuned for the next episode of CFO Chronicles. Until then, keep pushing forward. Your growth is just one strategic move away.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to CFO Chronicles the secrets behind success. We hope today's episode provided valuable strategies to help you attract more high-paying clients. Be sure to subscribe, follow and share with fellow professionals. Connect with us on LinkedIn and leave a review or comment to join the conversation. Your feedback helps us bring you the best insights in finance and marketing. Until next time, keep striving for success and unlocking your business's potential.