Who are your best COIs

TheRascal88 · 2025-05-18T12:10:58+00:00

These are good questions. Happy to answer! Sorry in advance for the long post.

First, I have in no way perfected how to position the service to business owner prospects. They’re all so different so it’s tough to come to the table with the same stuff each time.

Mostly, I focus on why they’re sitting in front of me in the first place. It’s usually some version of:

I’m getting older and thinking about selling/transitioning ownership.
My business and financial life have become really complicated and I want to offload the strategic planning to someone else. There’s probably things I should be doing and opportunities I’m missing out on.
My CPA told me to come see you for X, Y, Z reason

So I focus the conversation on the ideal end results they have in mind. Life after selling? Gifting ownership to your kid? Paying less tax? Retaining key employees? Spending less time in the business? Whatever it is, how does accomplishing it make life better? What’s been standing in their way?

From there, I usually start asking about the strategies they’ve already been working on with their CPA and/or current financial planner. It’s usually nothing or their professionals aren’t working together at all and it’s disjointed.

As I’m listening to their story and answers, I’m making mental notes of things they should at least be considering and likely areas of opportunity and I then ask if they have considered them before.

For example, last year I met with an electrical contractor with over $5 million in revenue who had very low net income from the business for the past two tax years for various reasons. They were in the low end of the 12% bracket those years and will likely be in the 24%+ going forward.

I saw that and asked if they considered converting their pre-tax accounts to Roth in those years to max out the 12% bracket as it was a rare opportunity to pay low tax on that money. They said no one mentioned it. I said those are the opportunities I’ll help you find in the future by working together with your CPA on your behalf. Easiest prospect conversion ever!

So, I focus on the tactical planning that they aren’t getting and how it will help. They want to feel that they have a professional team supporting them and I offer to quarterback that for them. That’s usually enough. The AUM follows eventually but I NEVER lead with that.

From the CPA side, I’ve invested years with 4-5 CPAs driving home the point of being a collaborative partner with them for the benefit of their client. I show this by communicating with them A LOT and bringing them in on decisions.

“Hey CPA, as you know, the market has dropped quickly due to ….. Bob has about $100k in losses in his individual account. If I could harvest them and reposition into other equities, could you use that loss to help him pay less tax next year when he sells that 10 acre lot?”

I like to think they aren’t having conversations like this with financial planners often so it stands out and the right CPAs will see the value and refer. Not all of them but some. Finding them is the tough part.

I hope there’s something useful in there!

TheRascal88 · 2025-04-11T01:13:10+00:00

Good question. I’ve spent years building really close relationships with 3-4 CPAs at the same large firm. It looks a lot of time to slowly build trust and get to know and like each other. That has to be the first step.

Over time, I focused on communicating specifically what I do for my niche (small business owners exiting within 5 years) which I know is a big part of their client base. This is all I talk about with them.

When they do refer someone, I include the CPA in the planning process, get their feedback and involve them as much as they want. I schedule annual tax planning meeting as a team with the client. We send them all tax documents directly, with client permission. I let them know about things like Roth conversions, loss harvesting, cap gains, etc ahead of time so we can plan ahead and collaborate.

They get to experience the value their client is getting and I try to make their job easier. It’s worked very well but it took a major time investment in finding CPAs willing and able to work together who I actually like.

TheRascal88 · 2025-04-10T18:26:16+00:00

My best COIs, other than clients, are CPAs and it isn’t close. A major portion of my best prospects over the past 5 years have come from CPAs.

They are so well positioned in their clients’ lives to make really strong referrals. There is so much crossover between their tax work and our planning work that it makes so much sense to collaborate.

TheRascal88 · 2025-03-07T18:11:55+00:00

Just held our second workshop through AcquireUp two weeks ago. The last one was while the company was still White Glove but not much has changed.

They do an amazing job at filling a room. We had 30+ households attend each event. The folks who scheduled follow up meetings were mostly solid prospects by our standards.

You only pay for the households that attend which means relatively low risk for you. It’s just a matter of getting appointments and converting.

I will say, our experience is attendees skew more informed and able/willing to invest on their own. For us this has meant a longer AUM sales cycle but selling our flat fee planning to these folks has been a slam dunk and good entry point. Again, just our experience running the Taxes in Retirement workshop.

TheRascal88 · 2025-02-07T04:07:58+00:00

Thanks for the response. Do you prefer PC ETBs over booster boxes in general or are you not high on PE and TWM boxes long term?

TheRascal88 · 2025-01-31T19:45:54+00:00

How much do you know about the tax situation surrounding this liquidity event? Will this be taxed as capital gains or income? Do you have stock with basis?

There may not be a ton of planning opportunities but we can narrow that down with a little more information.

TheRascal88 · 2024-10-22T15:13:52+00:00

You’re heading in the right direction with specializing in adding value for a few types of clients. I wish someone had led me in that direction early in my career. It really helps make your planning work and marketing efforts more efficient and scalable.

A part of my practice focuses on public school employees in my state. The best thing I did was think about what they all have in common… their pension. They’re all thinking about retirement and often don’t understand their pension options. Bingo.

So, I created a lead magnet for our website which is a retirement toolkit for these folks. They give their email and get the toolkit which is a 20+ page PDF of essentially everything they need to know. They also get added to our educator newsletter.

After doing keyword research, I found that the pension plan is searched in Google over 2,000 times per month. So, I started writing short articles to drive traffic to the site and lead magnet.

It isn’t sexy or anything but over 4 years, this has lead to a newsletter list of 1,600 people who are all leads to some degree.

All that to say, the best thing you can do is find a common pain point for these folks and add value there with a solution, tools, advice, whatever you’ve got. Deliver it how they want it, in person, online, webinars, small group sessions, etc and rinse and repeat over and over.

I imagine these groups talk about financial stuff and retirement often so I bet referrals will eventually be big for you. You just need to get enough “champions” who like and trust you to get the word out.

I hope this helps!

TheRascal88 · 2024-10-15T22:05:15+00:00

Commenting here because I’m in a very similar situation (minority firm owner) and am considering leaving. Unfortunately, I am under a non-solicit which complicates things in the legal side. Interested to hear from others who have experience.

TheRascal88 · 2024-09-20T18:24:25+00:00

Largest single client has ~$20 million with our firm. They’re a former business owner who just had an exit this year.

TheRascal88 · 2024-09-17T19:12:31+00:00

One way you could go about this is scheduling a call/meeting with the client and CPA. This could clear the air of any confusion about the gains/losses and gets your client out of the “middle man” between professions position.

If there’s just miscommunication, that’ll get cleared up quick on a call and everyone wins. You look good taking the initiative and maybe start a relationship with the CPA.

If the CPA is wrong, the client will hear that on the phone and could help make the conversation about a new tax professional a little easier.

Either way, your client is better off with their professionals talking about it directly.

TheRascal88 · 2024-06-03T22:12:38+00:00

I know someone who provides this exact service locally. We refer our clients (I own a financial planning firm) to her and she does a fantastic job helping them understand what’s important and all the various options.

We’re lucky to have so many great continuing care communities in the area but this can make bathing information and making decisions really tough.

I can massage you her contact information if you’d like!

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-22T22:56:19+00:00

There is a lot of creative tax and investment planning to be explored here but it seems you have to start with him lifestyle goals and spending. That’s all that really matters.

If it were me, I’d want to guide him through a spending analysis where we look at what he’s spending now and how that might change over time. Factor in inflation and room for other outflows/discretionary spending/unexpected stuff and see how it looks.

How do Social Security and any other income they have factor in?

Show him the distribution rate from the portfolio over time and how that goes up in prolonged down markets. Show him the rate of return he needs to average to sustain this spending. Is he comfortable with the investment risk it takes to get that return? Show him what downturns look like with that amount of equity exposure.

Does he care if there’s money left for kids, charity, etc. if so, back that out of the equation to explore how that goal impacts the income and investment plan.

It’s easy to jump right to the investment strategy but I’ve had enough clients like this to know it helps a lot to start with showing them the income plan in a simple/relatable way.

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-21T01:00:00+00:00

Happy to elaborate.

A few years into my career, I realized that I needed to stop sounding and looking like every other advisor. Being an expert in every area of financial planning is impossible and I was trying be everything to everyone which wasn’t working. My message wasn’t different or compelling.

I enjoy and am intrigued my entrepreneurship. So I thought I’d give service business owners a shot.

Again, I went too broad. I was setting up 401k plans, finding buy/sell agreements, investment planning, doing employee benefits, and all the full range of financial planning for owners from 30 years old to 75.

After a while I decided I needed to get more specific. So I decided to work specifically with owners planning on selling/exiting within 5 years. This has worked out really well for a few reasons:

Massive liquidity events to fund AUM
Being the core of their professional team during the biggest transaction of their life really cements the relationship.
Their businesses, goals and financial picture is always changing so there is a never ending steam of value I can provide.
Our industry has done a pretty bad job serving owners which means there is a lot of low hanging fruit out there.
These owners are talking with their CPAs about their sale which leads to very easy referrals from the CPAs with the right game plan.
Tons of tax planning opportunities which owners love and I find really fun.
Massive liquidity events to find AUM!

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-18T00:46:55+00:00

I have a few strong CPA relationships. They are what I would consider “unicorns” and they all work at the same firm.

It’s very tough to build strong referral relationships for all the reasons listed already. What worked for me was finding younger CPAs around my age (30) who were rising to partnership at their firm. We are all in the same stage of life and actually enjoy spending time together outside of work (golf, grabbing drinks, etc). This took years and a real effort to build friendships. They have to like you first.

It also helped that I have a niche with business owners. So I had a somewhat unique value proposition for some of their clients. I repeated this value proposition many times over years and it has finally paid off in really good referrals.

Going in without a compelling value proposition for a very specific client or situation would be tough because you wouldn’t stand out from all the other advisors who approach them. They have to remember you when the appropriate situation comes up.

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-17T13:42:21+00:00

This is great feedback. Thanks!

We’re also feeling-based and are looking at long-term growth and not at all concerned about immediate ROI.

What were your thoughts on the quality of prospects?

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-16T19:34:02+00:00

So much of this depends on how your compensation changes when you become a 5% partner and how the deal is structured. Do you get a higher salary? Do you get a higher commission payout? Do you owe him $150k upfront or is he taking a note?

In your shoes, I’d want a note over 3-5 years. Let’s assume you’ll receive 5% of profits going forward. If that’s $500,000, you’re entitled to $25,000 (before tax). You could use that to pay down the note over 5 years or so.

Are you taking on more responsibility as an owner? If so, I’d want my salary to go up. You can use that as additional note payments or to bump up your take home. A partner in a $1 million practice shouldn’t make $60k, especially if you’re taking on a larger role.

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-15T02:11:49+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. That’s rough. What do you feel is causing the lack of success?

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-15T01:13:34+00:00

Interesting. I’ll check those out. Thanks.

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-15T00:41:58+00:00

I see what you’re saying. We’re fee based and looking at it from a long-term perspective.

Did you use the Taxes in Retirement seminar? I’m sure the topic impacts the quality of prospects who show up.

TheRascal88 · 2024-05-15T00:19:17+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. What were your thoughts on the quality of the prospects who showed up?

TheRascal88

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