Episode 17 - The Process Guy with Brandon Hall

March 24, 2023 •Concierge CPA Marketing

Today we will uncover ideas about how the accounting industry is adapting and changing to our new world, processes on pre-qualifying clients, mentors and coaches, and much more. We encourage you to listen to the podcast for the full conversation as it is filled with an abundance of content specific to Real Estate and tax strategies! 

About Brandon Hall

Since day 1 Brandon has been on the Real Estate side of the accounting industry. Jackie and Brandon go way back to 40 under 40 CPA Practice Advisor. You’ll find him on the list we linked, which is an accomplishment itself, but Brandon has higher aspirations as well. He says his ultimate goal is to change the accounting industry. 

His large scale CPA firm that was started in 2015, and at this point is off to a good start when it comes to changing the industry. The goals of the firm originate from rather simple ideas: 

  • Do things differently 
  • Operate remotely 
  • Create much more profitability than traditional firms do 

Brandon spent 3 years working with Big Four firms and after understanding he liked doing his own thing, he started full time in 2016 at Hall CPA PLLC. Now his firm is a team of 40 with a focus on scaling and providing clients with great service. 

Why Change the Industry?

Brandon’s why behind changing the industry starts with billable hours. It didn’t make sense to him that a project window was given, but the project did not necessarily take all the time that was allotted. For example, being told one needs to bill for 8.5 hours, when in reality it only took 7.5 hours to complete. 

Once he realized this, Brandon noticed a gap -  time tracking data was not useful to make decisions as a business owner. Having real and raw data to make decisions off of is much more effective than the standard practices that we’ve seen in the past. He leaves us with a couple different data points that can be useful outside of time tracking: 

  • Turnaround time on projects 
  • How long something sat in a certain status 

The other desire to change the industry comes from the overall billing ideology, i.e. hourly billing. The work days of a 9-5 are slowly dwindling away as more of a gig economy is introduced. 

To summarize, the saying ‘we work to live, not live to work’ holds some truth to this. As long as the business is grossing revenue, the question of its billing model loses some relevance. In this new age of work, the priority tends to shift toward job completion whenever, as long as it meets the deadline and other specific requirements. How do our employees get there? Well that's up to them. 

Brandon is onto something here, because if employees are given the flexibility to complete jobs on their own time, we may begin to see further productivity. This at the root, comes down to society’s  increased value and definition of work-life balance.  

Pre-Qualifying Clients 

Brandon co-hosts a podcast called Tax Smart Real Estate Investors Podcast which creates thousands of leads for his firm. 

Jackie raises an interesting point: 

“How do you pre-qualify clients to be a good fit for your firm?”

We’ll break down Brandon’s process below: 

  1. An intake form is filled out by the prospects and scored by Hubspot based on how the questions are answered. (1 = under qualified; 10 = highly qualified). 
    • The 8,9,10’s of the submitted forms are prospects that they feel should be called immediately. 
    • The 6 & 7’s need further detail before offering a phone call. 
    • Anything below a 6 typically falls into the ‘under qualified category.’
  2. Automated emails are sent out. 
  3. The emails are contingent based on the scores and fall into 3 categories. 
    • Low end: Thanks for your application, here is our information business (courses, paid memberships, etc.) 
    • Middle end: Brandon and his group are trying to qualify this segment of applicants. 
    • High end: We need to get on the phone immediately. 

Brandon and his team use Lead Scoring on Hubspot if you would like to learn more about this feature. 

Expanding Your Brand

Towards the end of the podcast, Brandon and Jackie talk about media platforms and their powers. (We’ll include ways to get ahold of both of them at the end of this blog.) 

Brandon tells us that anything we can do to expand our brand is an action worth doing. He and his team plan to go ‘all-in’ on YouTube in 2023. Currently, video is the number 1 way to expand your brand, according to Brandon. So what better way to get this done, than to use the second largest search engine, YouTube. 

Brandon and his team have seen the exponential success that media offers from their Facebook page (14,000 members) and podcast, so the move to focus on a YouTube channel just seemed to make sense. The difference between 10,000 subscribers on a channel and 100,000 subscribers can have endless positive results. 

Mentoring is another large piece of growing and expanding brands. Brandon tells us it's important to have someone that is 10 steps ahead of you in order to help navigate the potholes from their past experiences. 

Beware, there are plenty of coaches and consultants in the world. Brandon and Jackie exchange conversation on the value of those who maybe are industry specific to the niche your business is in. For example, a coach that hasn’t exactly run an accounting firm before. It may also be valuable to note that finding a mentor or coach with specific experience can help you solve specific problems. It’s essentially hiring a board of directors to help you navigate your business, one that they are also familiar with. 

Social Media and more 

On the personal side, you can find Brandon on Twitter @BHallCPA and LinkedIn. 

As promised on the business side, you can also find him and his group on Facebook, YouTube, and speaking on his podcast. This is where you will find content on those Tax and Real Estate conversations. 

We like numbers too, so here are some associated with Brandon’s accounts: 

Podcast: Tax Smart Real Estate Investors Podcast with 130,000 monthly downloads. 

Facebook: Tax Smart Real Estate Investors with 15,000 group members. 

YouTube: Tax Smart Real Estate Investors with nearly 13,000 subscribers. 

As always, ConciergeCPA is hosted by TaxPlanIQ. To learn more about Jackie and how she helps others, visit jackiemeyercpa.com or join her Facebook group - Accounting Firm Influencers. 

You can also find Jackie on most socials under, Jackie Meyer, CPA.

To purchase books discussed in the podcast, click the links provided:

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