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Know Your Marketing Metrics
Make a Mistake, Make a Pivot
Sometimes, even the best-laid plans go wrong. That reality hit me a few weeks ago when Roslyn and I tried out a new marketing strategy we learned about called a Quiz funnel during one of our mastermind group meetings we attended. We purchased the program and developed a quiz we named “Discover What Your No. 1 Tax Practice Growth Killer Is.” The concept was pretty simple: Accountants and tax preparers would find the quiz on YouTube or Facebook, take it, and at the end of the quiz, if they gave us their email address, we would send them their results letting them know what their results were and what was holding their practices back and also invite them to join our “5 Day to 5K Tax Resolution Challenge.” I can’t tell you how excited I was about this quiz. The guy who created the program shared so many success stories that
Michael andDave rehearsing for the “5Day to $5K Tax Resolution Challenge.”
Roslyn and I were sure it would be the best thing since sliced bread for our business. I spent hours on the project with our digital marketing team to get it launched. There were five possible quiz results, and I filmed a 10-minute video and wrote up a 10-page report for each one. I even thought that if the quiz was a success, I could pass the formula on to our tribe to help themget more clients the same way. It was going to be a huge win, and I couldn’t wait to press the“Go”button. Finally, the day came! Feeling totally gung-ho, we launched the quiz on Tuesday, and…killed it 48 hours later. It
Some people might have felt discouraged, or worse, stayed with the quiz instead of cutting their losses sooner. But I don’t look at this as a failure at all. In fact, I learned a great deal from the quiz disaster. It reminded me of two things. First, no matter how experienced you are in business, you will still make mistakes! You’re not immune to putting out duds, and neither am I. What matters most is that we catch those mistakes early and cut our losses while we can. Second, to succeed in business, you need to know your marketing metrics. I know Roz Strategies’ key performance indicators (KPIs) like the back of my hand, and it’s a good thing I do. Since I knew we usually
To succeed in business, you need to know your marketing metrics.
performed terribly! Out of every 100 people who landed on the quiz’s welcome page, fewer than one person joined the“5 Day to 5K Tax Resolution Challenge.” I couldn’t believe how flat the quiz had fallen, but I made the call to kill it right away.
have a 55%–60% conversion rate on landing pages for our launches and webinars, I realized right away how terrible
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DON’T LET FEAR BE YOUR GUIDE FOOD FOR THOUGHT (BY ROSLYN ROZBRUCH)
How many times have you stopped yourself from moving forward on a decision you really wanted to take because the little voice in your head was telling you all sorts or scary reasons why you shouldn’t? I hear all the time about why someone doesn’t follow their dreams. Just recently, I spoke to a friend of mine who shared how her daughter and husband, who have three children (and didn’t have any when they purchased their house), had outgrown their home and wanted to move to a bigger one. Her daughter lives in a neighborhood where the prices have gone through the roof, so she could sell her house and buy exactly what she wants in a different but desired area. The problem is, my friend explained, that she’ll pay more in property taxes. It’s not that her daughter can’t afford the property taxes — it’s that they’ll be higher than what she’s paying now. It made me think, “Does that mean your daughter will never move? Property taxes are only going to go up, so if she doesn’t want to pay more now, it will even be higher later.” My friend’s story made me think of one of my Roz-isms: “Don’t let fear be your guide.”Yes, we need a little fear in our lives. Like years ago, when Michael and I sold our house and invested some of the money in our company Roz Strategies, I didn’t let fear stop us frommaking that decision, but I let fear stop us from Michael joking that we should go to Las Vegas and bet it all on the roulette table.
Instead of making fear-based decisions, I say dig deep and let intuition be your guide. I have an intuitive nature, and I’ve learned the more I use it, the stronger it gets. There’s also part two of fear-based decisions. I call those the “other people in your head” fears. That’s when you’ve made a decision to move forward, share it with others, and someone tries to talk you out of it. Like you’re not supposed to move forward with your idea because they don’t think it’s a good idea. There are a lot of times where I’m not sure about what decision to make, and plenty of times, I ask people for their opinion. But once I make up my mind about what I want to do, I don’t care what you think, and you’re not getting in my head to tell me otherwise. In 1998, when Michael started his tax resolution company, no one thought it was a good idea. Some people actually said it was bad or stupid idea. They asked Michael, “How are you ever going to get paid from people who owed tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS?” I told Michael to stop telling people what he was doing, that I believed in him, and the rest is history! A few years after that, some of those naysayers actually apologized to him. When you tap into yourself and tune others out, you give yourself permission to follow your own path in life. When we put on our first Success Summit in 2016 in San Antonio, I was so excited to put on
an event. Other entrepreneurs we knew said it wasn’t a good idea, that people won’t spend money to fly somewhere, then pay for a hotel, and blah, blah, blah. But I didn’t care what they said because I had a vision. I thought maybe I could get 35 people to show up. I also asked the hotel planner if there was a bigger room available in case more people purchased tickets. We ended up selling that event out, and 140 people attended, and last year, 500 people attended our virtual event. That doesn’t mean when I make a decision all goes well. There’s always going to be a risk involved in pursuing something new. It’s uncomfortable, it’s messy, and you can’t predict the outcome. But as my mother always said, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” So, here’s my question to you: What is the little seed in your mind of what you want to pursue in your life? Don’t be so quick to walk away from it and don’t let others talk you out it. Believe in yourself and follow
your intuition, not your fears, because you have the ability to figure it out andmake whatever that “thing” is you want to do become a reality.
Instead of making fear-based decisions, I say dig deep and let intuition be your guide. I have an intuitive nature, and I’ve learned the more I use it, the stronger it gets.
–Roslyn Rozbruch
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PRACTICE CORNER FROM THE
No Records, No Problem!
You have a prospective independent contractor/1099 client who needs help with his IRS issue, and he needs to file delinquent 1040 tax returns. He has not filed in years. He then tells you he does not have any records, receipts, or even bank statements! The first thing you need to do is get retained and get his tax transcripts and wage and income (IRP) data from the IRS. Now what do you do? How to Prepare Income Tax Returns for Schedule C Business ClientsWhen No Records Exist, Not Even Bank Statements Not to worry, you can still file returns. The IRS will almost always accept income tax returns based on estimates. You will need an estimate of the annual gross income as a starting point. You should use the website BizStats.com to help in the preparation of these returns. This website reflects the latest available IRS financial information and breaks down average revenue/sales and specific line-item expenses (in terms of percentage by industry, based on years of historical empirical data of returns filed with the IRS). When using this as the basis for preparing returns, you should also attach a statement to the return that states, “This return was prepared based on the best estimates of the taxpayer. All original source documents have either been lost and/ or destroyed. We used BizStats.com, which is based on IRS tax return data, in conjunction with the preparation of this return.” How far back do I need to go to file delinquent returns? IRS Policy Statement 5-133 provides a general rule that taxpayers must file six
years of back tax returns to be in good standing with the IRS. The policy also states that IRS management would have to approve any deviation from that rule, however, if there are SFRs prior to six years, you can always file an original return to replace those returns to reduce the amount owed. Additionally, the IRS can request returns be filed prior to the six- year rule. If your client is a wage earner, you should prepare and attach Form 4852 (Substitute for FormW-2, Wage and Tax Statement) when your client can’t produce W-2s. You can get the information that goes on this form from Income Reporting Program or IRP data obtained from Practitioner
Priority Services (PPS) or e-services. A separate Form 4852 needs to be prepared for each missing W-2. Meeting with prospective clients who cannot produce income records or expense receipts is not uncommon at all with tax problem resolution clients. Get used to it. Do not turn these clients away. This burden has sat on their shoulders for years and has worn them down. They want and need your help and are very willing to pay big bucks to get this behind them. Once the returns are filed and processed by the IRS, you can now work on getting them an OIC, PPIA, streamline IA, or penalty abatement resolution. –Michael Rozbruch
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Tracie Lowe, CPA, Founder’s Mastermind Member Member Spotlight:
In today’s fast-paced world, we’re all juggling something, but for Florida- based CPA Tracie Lowe, she is the ultimate juggler working as a CFO, running her own practice, being a busy mom to four children, owning a menagerie of pets, being a league bowler with a couple of perfect 300 scores, and being involved with community service. Tracie, who has a master’s degree in accounting, worked with the Fortune 500 company Deloitte. After six years in public accounting, she was hired as chief financial officer of a global medical supply company. After working there for 10 years, she realized she had reached an employment value ceiling. “My talents weren’t valued, and my value was not going to increase, meaning monetarily,” she says. “I set out a vision to say, okay, where do I want to be in five years, 10 years, 15 years? I wanted to have my own place and work my own hours and knowmy own value. So, I opened a small office, and I split my time between company CFO and my own practice. It was a leap of faith.” That faith was quickly tested when the IRS came calling. “I got audited because I had my W-2 income, which was substantial, and I had my self- employed office. Initially, it was reporting a loss because, as a CPA, I knew everything I could legally deduct as expenses against my business.” Tracie experienced what so many tax resolution clients do: the IRS’s “you’re guilty until you prove you’re innocent” attitude. Tracie recalls, “I started going through the audit process and was totally disrespected. I wondered if they’re treating me like this, how are they treating people who don’t know anything about taxes?”
It was about that time that Tracie discovered ASTPS and attended her first tax resolution conference. Michael Rozbruch was on the program, and Tracie’s first meeting with him helped her to see what she didn’t know about tax resolution. “I didn’t know I was supposed to charge for an Installment Agreement. I didn’t know I was supposed to charge for a POA,”Tracie says. “I was at the happy hour, having a good time, meeting people, and Roz comes over to me, introduces himself, and says, ‘Well, what’s your goal? Howmuch do you charge for a tax return?’ I think I said something like $125, $250, and he hits the table and says, “‘Did you spend all that money on your education and all that time sitting for the CPA exam to charge less than what H&R Block charges?’”Tracie joined Roz Strategies shortly after that. Understanding the value of her services, Tracie put Michael’s strategies to work. “I put authority figure image in my branding, and I get called now,” she says. “I’m doing FaceTime Live. I’m doing YouTube. I’m sending letters. And now I can implement other things because that foundation is there. That’s what creates the bulbs that go off in my head. And it’s kind of fun!” One of the letters Tracie sent landed on the desk of the president of one of the largest chambers of commerce in the Tampa, Florida, area. “He works at a bank, and he said, ‘You can’t imagine all the IRS garnishment letters I get in here, but I didn’t know where to send people with tax problems.’ He invited me to speak at the South Tampa Chamber event on April 15,
2020. Unfortunately, we got shut down with COVID-19. But he did refer one of my first customers that I was able to charge a full engagement fee. It was $7,500, no questions asked, and that came from the letter.” Tracie says her business is growing just in time, since she has two children in college. She and her husband, Jerome Lowe, Sr., have been married 21 years and have a blended family. Jerome is in the Air Force; AJ attends Hillsborough Community College; Anise will be attending Barry University (Miami, FL) on an academic and volleyball scholarship; and Alina is going into the third grade. In addition to being a busy CPA, mom of four, caretaker of animals, and a league bowler, she is also the president of the High School Volleyball Association. She officiates local basketball and volleyball games. “I’ve found that the community service aspect allows presence in the community,”Tracie says. “It also allows for authority in networking because a lot of people who officiate are professionals. I actually get referrals through them.”
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Puzzled on how to take your tax resolution practice to the next level? Join us virtually for the 6TH ANNUAL TAX RESOLUTION SUCCESS SUMMIT AUG. 26–28, 2021 RozStrategies.com/summit
At our three-day conference, we dive deep into the best practices for marketing, sales, client care, and representation, and by the end of the third day, we’ll have put all the pieces together for you … … so on Monday, you
can SuperchargeYour Practice! For more information, go to RozStrategies.com/summit, contact our concierge Ruthie at
Ruthie@RozStrategies.com, or call our offices at 888-670-0303. RozStrategies.com/summit STRATEGIZE * IMPLEMENT * MULTIPLY
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S H O U T
Awesome job to Owais Shamsi for starting to do Facebook Live videos after the YouTube webinar training with Founder’s Mastermind member LuSundra Everett . Way to go on the follow-up, Jon Donenfeld , Mastermind Member, by having a lead from 2018 sign an engagement letter this year — three years after they first made contact with you! Michael always says the money is in the follow-up, and you are proof of that! Kudos to Antonio Nava , Mastermind Member, who did $26,450 in sales in one day! High-five to Mike Ornelas , Mastermind Member, who did $44,095 in sales in one week! A big thumbs up to Bianca Adams for getting four new
clients, including one with a $50K retainer fee, by using Roz Marketing strategies! Kudos to Joaquin Torres Hernande z for getting a new client with a $100K assessment from the Florida Department of Revenue. Hats off to Ben Butterfield for getting clients from your Google Ads! Congrats to Ben Golden, Mastermind Member, for landing a $10,500 case from a federal tax lien mailing. Hurray for Jeff Johnston , Mastermind Member, for getting a $27,000 lien released plus a refund for his client! High-five to Tracie Lowe, whose newsletter was shared with 5,000 people by the
... continued from Cover
the 3% conversion from the quiz was, and no matter the tweaks to the audience, copy, and offer, nothing was going to get us anywhere near a 55% conversion rate, so I pulled the plug. Thanks to our diligent tracking, I could also use data from the quiz (like the participation rate, quiz completion rate, percent of people who gave us their email, percent that joined the challenge, etc.) to find out why it didn’t work for us. During that analysis, I realized one mistake we made was there was zero urgency to take the quiz. There was no deadline, but inserting one didn’t make sense. The second mistake was charging quiz-takers $55 to join the “5 Day to 5K Tax Resolution Challenge.” That wasn’t a hit, so I took note and made registration free! And added in a VIP group with extra bonuses for $97. I’m happy to help you learn from my mistakes, but honestly, I like teaching you all of my success strategies instead! Professional practice owners who religiously track and know their marketing KPIs are the ones who know when a marketing strategy is working or not. Running a business without them is like flying a plane without an instrument panel.
First PlatinumMastermind Meeting in 2021. So great to meet in person again!
–Michael Rozbruch
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O U T S ! hairstylist Tracie spotlighted in her newsletter. Tracie’s newsletter is now framed in the salon! Kudos to Jason Carney for using the Roz pricing model to close his first Phase III client! Congrats to Sharon Lewis, Mastermind Member, for getting two new tax resolution leads while at the car dealership! Way to go, Deb Lofquist , for raising your Audit Protection Plan prices with no resistance from clients!
High-five to Peter Paulino and John Wallace for mailing out referral letters!
Congratulations to Eric A. Stamps on his recently released book, “The IRS is After Me, NowWhat?” And thanks Eric for your shout out in your book to Michael and the Roz Team!
We like your hat, KevinHuston. It looks good on you!
Do you have a story or picture to share with us about something you’ve implemented, a client you’ve helped with a tax problem, or anything else you’d like to share? If you do, email it to Info@ RozStrategies.com, and we will give a Shout Out to you!
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11271 Ventura Blvd. #612 Studio City, CA 91604 Inside This Issue pg 1 ∙
Make a Mistake, Make a Pivot
Food for Thought
pg 2 ∙ pg 3 ∙ pg 4 ∙ pg 5 ∙
From the Practice Corner
Member Spotlight
6th Annual Tax Resolution Success Summit
Shout Outs!
pg 6 ∙ pg 8 ∙
IRS Terror Tale of the Month
IRS Terror Tale of the Month Robert De Niro Is in Tax Trouble — Again!
In 2015, actor Robert De Niro’s financial situation made headlines when the IRS went after him for $6.4 million in back taxes. According to the agency, De Niro failed to pay his personal income tax from 2013, and he owed them big time. The actor claimed he hadn’t known about the oversight and quickly had a $6.4 million check hand-delivered to the IRS. That seemed like the end of his tax woes. But according to Page Six, the Academy Award winner is now back in the agency’s bad books — this time for back taxes. De Niro reportedly owes $18.25 million from the 2018– 2019 tax year. The income from his next two movies — likely “Wash Me in the River” and “Canterbury Glass”— will help him pay the bill.
You might think that after paying off $6.4 million without breaking a sweat in 2015, this tax trouble would be easy for De Niro to handle. Unfortunately for him, that’s not the case. His debt to the government is complicated by his messy, ongoing second divorce from his estranged wife Grace Hightower, who is supposedly spending millions of their shared dollars. Still, it’s difficult to feel bad for the “The Irishman” actor, whose net worth is estimated at $500 million. As Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Matthew Cooper put it, despite the tax debt and divorce, “[De Niro and Hightower] will still come out of this richer than almost any human being who walks this Earth.”
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