CFO Chronicles: The Secrets Behind Success

Most Accountants Are Giving Away Their Most Valuable Work - With Jackie Meyer

• James Donovan • Season 3 • Episode 55

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She sold her firm for 7 figures with just 56 clients. Here's how she did it.

Jackie Meyer, CPA, founder of TaxPlanIQ and leader of the proactive accounting movement, is done watching firms burn out and undercharge.

In this episode, she breaks down:

• The ROI method that turns tax advice into a 5-figure service
 • How to quote tax planning with confidence (even if you hate sales)
 • What’s killing firms from the inside and how she rebuilt hers
 • Why advisory isn’t just a service, it’s your survival strategy

📚 First sneak peek at her new book The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition
📍 Connect with Jackie at jackiecpa.com
🔗 Free workbook: TaxPlanIQ.com

⏳ If you’re still stuck in compliance mode, this episode is your wake-up call.

Send us a text

This episode is brought to you by Bill.com

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Speaker 1:

Most accountants are trained to stay in their lane, do all the work, keep clients happy, survive tax season and hope it all pays off in the long run. But what if you could flip the script and turn your firm into a strategic growth engine instead of a compliance treadmill? Today's guest, dr Jackie Meyer, did exactly that. She's a CPA, a coach and the founder of taxplaniqcom, a tax planning platform and framework that helps accountants scale with higher fees, deeper client impacts and less burnout. In this episode, she shares the core shifts that separate proactive firms from reactive ones, how to reposition yourself as a true advisor, and why the future of accounting has nothing to do with working more hours. If you're ready to stop undercharging, stop over delivering and finally step into a model that respects your time and expertise, this conversation is for you, jackie. Thank you so much for joining the show. I'm so excited to have you on today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm really excited as well. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Let's dive right into it. What led you to move beyond traditional tax work and build something like tax plan IQ? Was there a moment that pushed you to think differently about accounting?

Speaker 2:

Well, the logical accountant in me was like wait a minute. Saas companies get valued eight times ARR versus CPA firms get like one times ARR. No, but from like the philosophical shift. I had my own CPA firm for 12 years. I transitioned and was very successful into doing tax advisory services and I started talking, coaching other accountants about it, and I fell in love with helping other accountants get better what they're doing instead of working directly with taxpayers, and so that's what TaxPlan IQ was all about. It's a culmination of everything that we've learned to help other accountants and financial advisors sell tax plans, get proposals out, implement. We've got tons of tax strategies. We're really just like an all-in-one resource for people.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing what's broken in how most accountants offer tax planning today and why is it that hurting? You know, why is it hurting both them and their clients.

Speaker 2:

Well, most of the time they're giving it away for free or significantly discounted, so at like an hourly rate, and honestly, that is the worst idea ever. I'd almost rather say don't do it at all than just let me be straight with y'all. Don't you know? Vomit advice on your client after you hand them their tax return, tell them all these cool ideas you have, charge them 300 bucks or something or nothing, and then nothing gets done. And so that doesn't help you, that doesn't help the client. You have to value price upfront and the return on investment you can show in tax savings alone is tremendous and by making that one shift it transforms your client's life. With the tax savings it transforms the firm's life, your staff, yourself as the owner. It just is so win, win, win. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Would you argue that selling tax plans may be one of the easier things out there to sell and I'm asking this as someone who's not a CPA but working in the industry like the thought of selling saved money.

Speaker 2:

Oh for sure, yeah. So I mean I would love to hear your perspectives because you do sales for firms, but to me it's the easiest thing to sell because it sells itself. I invented what's called the ROI method of value pricing, and it literally just visualizes out for the client your estimate of savings for them, what your cost is or their investment in you, and then what the immediate ROI and then long term ROI is in that and it people are like why wouldn't I do this? You know, but you're still pricing three, five, sometimes 20 times more than what you would have charged before. But the client's happy because they get results and they get that trusted advisor they really want.

Speaker 1:

And it's an amazing foot in the door opportunity as well. Let me come in and save you a pile of money. And then, now that I'm in there, now if you're offering you know fractional CFO work, you're offering more advisory services. You've already got a massive win, which they could also use all that savings to just reinvest back into you. When I see other firms go straight for the CFO advisor, I'm like you're skipping over a much easier like entry.

Speaker 2:

And I just hanging fruit.

Speaker 1:

I just want to like shake their head, but you know, naturally humans make things more difficult than needs to be. So what can you do? We've got people like you who jump on stage and tell everyone this is how it's supposed to be done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but it still isn't moving as quickly as I want it to. It's not transforming as quickly. It's like I'm a CPA just like y'all and this stuff works Like it's no BS. The AICPA is actually mass-releasing that methodology, so there's really no excuse as to why people can say, oh, I can't do that. I give out a free workbook on my website, happy to give you the link to that for people to try out the method themselves. You know we're we really. My mission is just to impact as many people through entrepreneurs and advisors as possible through strategic planning.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. Yeah, we'll definitely take you up on the link. Put that in the show notes. Everyone can take advantage of that. Jackie, you've helped countless firms raise prices, niche down, reposition themselves. What mindset shift usually needs to happen first, with those students that you've coached, those clients that you've coached.

Speaker 2:

So I wish it was as easy as like oh, I show them what they can do, and they're like, oh, I got this. But, honestly, like there's an entire belief system that has to change within someone as to whether they're worth that value or not, and so that goes so much deeper than running a business or doing a sales call or whatever. And so, you know, the first mindset shift is this is extremely valuable work, you are extremely valuable, and underpricing is not going to help anybody. This is the highest demand service out there, the highest net profit margin out there, and so you know, as much as I like to be logical and be like here's the results, let's move to it, you do have to go a little deeper with their belief systems as well.

Speaker 1:

That's so interesting. I mean the thing that comes to mind for me like anything expensive, there's just a perceived higher value. You think about going out and buying a lambo. You're not going to expect you get in a lambo and it's going to be clunky and fall apart like you're expecting premium, and that's just what is naturally associated with more premium pricing. So for anyone listening yeah, just like increase your price be perceived as premium and it just goes hand in hand. So it I mean that idea itself should sell itself. Just like increase your price be perceived as premium, and it just goes hand in hand. So I mean that idea itself should sell itself, just like the tax plan.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1:

So Tax Plan IQ, it's not just a software, it's a whole methodology. What's the core framework behind it and how does it help firms scale smarter?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the ROI method is behind everything we do there, so we put together custom presentations and proposals for the users so that they don't have to be the salesperson, because accountants hate doing that. Right, we also actually will do all of the tax strategy suggestion work for you. So if you're busy which most of us are 99% of accounts are extremely darn busy you upload the client's 1040 PDF and we suggest over 50 tax strategies just like that exact estimates, and we have this list of like. You can upload a hundred returns in bulk and I'll list out. Hey, you know, this client has 80,000 of potential savings. This client has 60,000. It's just like it's mind blowing, amazing what you can do these days with AI and technology, and it's been a lot of fun to be involved in that.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome, it's. Yeah, I mean to just have that in bulk show where, where all the savings are. That would get me fired up to go back and tell everyone, hey, this is exactly how we could save it. And boom, here's the price and you'd be insane not to say yes to this. Here's the math.

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Speaker 1:

You've said you're building a movement of proactive accountants. What does that mean in practice and how is it different from the status quo?

Speaker 2:

Well, the status quo is very reactive. We get stuck in this compliance mindset where we're just cranking out returns and then we feel like everything's out of our control because the government's telling us this or they're changing the new tax code to this. But in reality you can actually control a lot more than you think with those things you can. You know, I'm a huge advocate of time blocking time block for those fires, time block for new tax code changes, time block for the IRS being you know what you know. Put an hour a week towards nonsense and then you know you can stay ahead of the curve. But then that puts you more in that proactive mindset instead of the reactive, because reactive is I mean. I don't have to say it, this is probably the five billionth time anyone listening has heard this but I mean AI is going to take over more and more compliance. It just is what it is and it's better for everybody because it's more accurate that way. And so we have to shine where we can shine best, which is that human, relational and advisory side.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. Where do most firm owners get stuck when trying to shift from compliance to advisory?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think they're already quite burnt out if they have a current client load and they're trying to move over. So, honestly, some of the most successful people I've seen do tax advisory started from scratch. Or they sold their client list and started over, or they just fired a bunch of clients to start over. Because it's really hard to get out of that grind if you've already kind of trained your clients in a different manner. It is totally possible. But again, you have to have that confidence and support to know that, like, you're going to be OK, you can let go of these clients. One new tax advisory client is going to treat you so much better than 20 others. Tax advisory client is going to treat you so much better than 20 others and it's going to give you the same amount of revenue, right? And so I try to like break it down into micro steps. Like just pick one client, one client who's a fan of yours, that you can take that return, get those strategies and be like hey look, I'm going to be straight with you.

Speaker 2:

I haven't offered tax advisory services in the past. I've just kind of given away free advice. That's not best for either of us. I'd like to quote you on an ROI-based proposal and show you a tax savings estimate. Would you like to do that? And the clients were like well, of course, you know, I thought we were, that's what I thought we were doing this whole time. And then you show it to them. They're like great, let's do it. And if they complain about the fact that they didn't pay you for this before, you can just circle back to the fact that they didn't get any results before. So you know, if you want results, you have to pay. You know you get what you pay for, right.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. You were speaking a little bit about the you know that mindset shift as well of getting paid what you're worth blocking out time, finding it. A lot of people are always like, well, I don't have, I don't even have time to block out time to do the things. What would your advice be to those listening who are like, yeah, I know I need to time block and I know I need to do X, y, z, but I just don't even have time to do that. How do you overcome that hurdle to make time, to have the time? How?

Speaker 2:

do you overcome that hurdle to make time to have the time. So packaging and selling clients or firing clients gets you a lot of time back, so that's one way to go. Another thing is, like I tend to say, which is what same thing I did. You know, you just got to increase the hustle for like one more month, right, put in three extra hours each week over the next month. That's targeted, focused on this concept and selling one tax plan, right. And then when you see the results happen to you, you'll be like, oh wow, this is amazing. Let's rinse and repeat this. And then you just kind of naturally start letting go of the low value work and then you're bringing in the higher value work and then your time frees up along with it.

Speaker 1:

Before we get to a book that I want to talk about. Is there any books you'd recommend that help with that mindset of finding time and like where to buy back time? Any recommendations?

Speaker 2:

Oh for sure, well there's Buy Back your Time by Dan Martell. That's a great one. There's Redeeming your Time with Jordan Rainer. That's one of my favorites. Oh my gosh, I'm such an avid reader. I love Dr Ben Hardy's stuff. He has a book called Personality Isn't Permanent that a lot of people don't know about, but it helps you realize like you can change and mold the way that you interact with people and become a better version of you, and that's required when it comes to these big changes in people's lives and recreating their own firms. So, gosh, I could list off like five billion books, but those are a few that you can start with. Boundaries by Dr Henry Cloud is great about. Like whoa. I've been letting people walk all over me, family included, and that may be a huge time sucker. It is for a lot of people. They're way, way overdoing it when it comes to things they should and shouldn't be doing for their family members, for friends, for clients, and it's a great reset.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. Now I've kind of self-teed myself up for this segue. But speaking of great books, I would love to hear about the Balanced Millionaire Advisor edition that's coming out very soon by yourself. Tell me what that's going to be about. When is it dropping? What can readers expect? Where can people get a copy of it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so this is actually the first interview I'm doing about the book, so it's exciting that we get to release it together to everybody. But I finished a doctorate in leadership a couple years ago and my final project was actually creating what I'm calling like a happiness audit or sometimes I'll call it the balance sheet of life, because accountants understand that and it's just measuring different aspects of your life and then optimizing them on a quarterly basis, which we should all be doing. It's just math, y'all, it's simple math, and so that book has been like my end-all, be-all for any entrepreneur and I'm working on a traditional publishing deal for that next year publishing deal for that next year. But in the meantime, rick Telberg, who runs CPA Trendlines and he has an audience of half a million accountants he saw kind of the spark in me and really appreciated the passion I bring to the table and he asked me to create an edition for advisors. So I have a very targeted edition that will be coming out in the next couple months with CPA Trendlines, just for any kind of accountant, tax advisor, financial advisor or want to be tax advisor If you want to start revamp, grow and then eventually sell your firm, which I did for seven figures with 56 clients.

Speaker 2:

I give you the exact blueprint of how to do that. So there's a lot of noise out there. I am a no BS-er. I'm like we're going to get down to exactly how to do this. I actually created a custom AI bot that will come along with the book and it will allow you to interact with it to do the action items. So like creating core values, implementing packaging. It gives you everything you need to start doing packaging in your firm. So it's all those little steps that really add up and it's going to save someone gosh, you know months and months, if not a year, worth of work to help them move in a better direction. So I'm really, really excited about it.

Speaker 1:

This is so cool. When is this? When's the official release date?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's a good question. I just I just asked that myself yesterday, because they are doing the final tweaks on the formatting and we're getting the graphics done, and so I'm hoping it's going to be in October 2025. I did start a book waitlist and I'm doing something a little crazy. I'm going to be sending out chapters of the book for free to anyone on that wait list. I feel like we need to just get this out there, and if you can't afford to buy the book itself, I'm going to give it to you anyways. So I would love to give you that link, james, and you can give that out to your audience and continue to spread the word, because it's going to be, I hope, a revolution.

Speaker 1:

Let's make it happen. This is super exciting. Thanks for the generosity. Again. More resources, jackie, for an accountant who knows they're undercharging or stuck in tax season burnout. What's the first move you'd recommend they make today, listening to this episode.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So, going back to the philosophy of you get what you pay for, I myself was stuck in burnout. I had awful health conditions. I was wanting to just quit. I didn't know if I could even continue in my own firm and the one thing that helped me reset that was hiring a business coach, and it was the biggest investment of my life at the time. So you know, 2015 or so, it was like eight grand and I was like I've never paid that much in my life for anything like this.

Speaker 2:

I talked to my husband about it. He's like no way of desperation where I had to change something to get better, and hiring that business coach just helped hold me, hold my hand, hold me accountable and encourage me to know that, like, I'm making all the steps in the right direction and it's what really helped transform my entire firm, be able to help other accountants and go from there. So long winded answer to say hire a coach or consultant and invest in that. I don't care who it is, there's a lot of great ones out there. They're flooding the market, get referrals, of course, and recommendations, but that's going to have someone that's going to hold you accountable to getting things done and figure out that timeline with you so that it's not so overwhelming.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. I I a hundred percent agree with everything you just said. When I started this almost six years ago, I put down I think it was like almost four grand, and I live in Canada, so four grand us was very scary number dollars, not great, um, and at the time I was just let go from a job and I was like this is insane. I'm just paying a stranger who lives in Florida and I think his sales rep on the phone was from South Africa and I was like what am I doing? I'm pretty much giving away all of my money. But from there I've just continued to grow and invest in other coaches and I can guarantee I would not be where I'm at today without taking that leap. And you get to follow in the path of other people who've done it. You can avoid the ditches they went through. So, hearing you say that as well, I couldn't back that more that everyone should be doing that full circle.

Speaker 2:

So I got along so great and had so much success with my business coach, who was Chuck Bauer. He's now retired, but he asked me to start coaching with him and so we did these masterminds for hundreds of accountants over a few years. And, like everything that I learned and taught to people in that group which was eight grand or so for small group sessions that people paid for I put into this book the advisory edition of the book, and so it's literally like jam packed full of tens of thousands of dollars. And I'm just, you know, I want people to succeed. I don't want to have any reason why people can't have a perfect tax advisory firm. So it's all in there.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing. I can't wait to get a copy and read it. Jackie, outside of publishing books, speaking on stages, building software, AI bots, doing it all for the accounting industry, what do you like to do outside of quote unquote work?

Speaker 2:

I love spending time with my family. I love my animals. I have three dogs, two cats, and I love traveling. So we're actually building a home in Costa Rica. I've been there about a dozen times and it's my favorite place on earth the Pura Vida lifestyle. I am so in on that and so, yeah, that's what I do. My kids are very active. They are just starting sixth and third grade, they're in select soccer, they're in elite baseball you know all the things. So my personal time is absorbed all around them right now, but I'm okay with that because they're turning into some pretty cool little human beings.

Speaker 1:

So that's amazing. That's amazing. And last question for you what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I just started re-listening to what's it called the Shoe Dog book by the founder of Nike, and it made me remember that one phrase just do it. That literally has gotten me so far in life. When I start overthinking something in my mind, I'm like just do it. Just do it, stop overthinking and just do it. And by taking those small actions, even though they're scary, it produces the most amazing long-term results. So just do it.

Speaker 1:

I love it. What a, what a great way to tie a bow on this episode. Um, I okay Not, I guess, the last question, but that was the last like real, real meaty one. But where can people get in touch with you, jackie? I'm sure everyone already knows who you are anyways, but where can we make sure people are continuing the conversation with you? How can they? How can they reach you?

Speaker 2:

Well, that's very sweet of you, but, um, I am very active on LinkedIn. On YouTube, I have the concierge CPA channel and my podcast there. I'll be doing a special podcast series all around the advisor edition of the book as well. I can't wait to start releasing that very soon. And then my general website it's just Jackiecpa, so you can visit me there.

Speaker 1:

Amazing. We'll make sure all the links are in there. We'll grab the other resources you were speaking about. Jackie, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. I'm so excited that we were the first spot. You were releasing the news for your new book. Yeah, I'll make sure we get a copy of that. And yeah, for anyone listening, make sure you get in touch with Jackie. Make sure you get a copy of her book. She's absolutely amazing. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

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 3:

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.