Clicks, Clients, and Conversion with Daniel Schulte: How CPAs Can Win at Marketing
Welcome back to the Healthy, Wealthy, Wise Accountant. I'm your host, Heidi Henderson, and today's episode is for every CPA or firm owner who's ever said, I want to grow, but I'm drowning in client work. Well, our guest today is Daniel Scholt. He is the founder of WealthyClients.com and a master of lead generation and client acquisition for CPAs and strategic tax planners. Daniel specializes in helping firms book qualified prospect calls on autopilot using proven direct response marketing, funnels, and automation that let you scale without burning out or compromising your service quality.
Heidi:Whether you're a solo advisor trying to grow, or you're a multi partner firm looking to systemize your sales pipeline, Daniel's strategies are all about helping you work smarter, not harder. And finally, get off the feast or famine hamster wheel. Daniel, welcome to the show.
David:Thanks for having me.
Heidi:Hey, I'm looking forward to having this conversation. A little bit of a different topic than what I usually am interviewing or discussing on this podcast. You and I got in touch with each other. Well, I got in touch with you, and I laugh when I say this. You were ran a social media ad and I clicked on it.
Heidi:I admit it. I'm scrolling Instagram and here's this guy. I can get you 30 qualified leads a week. Just click here. And I'm like, whatever.
Heidi:So I clicked the link and takes me through this pretty interesting form. It was very funny because the form had some very specific pre qualifying questions, but it also had some disqualifying questions. One of them was like, are you willing to spend this much per week or this much per month? And if not, you can leave now. It wasn't quite like that, but it was kind of like that.
Heidi:And so I'm like, well, geez. Okay. And I'm like, you know, I'm, I'm willing to have a conversation with this guy. Okay. So I scheduled time on your little, you know, I fill out the form, takes me right to your scheduling page, do a calendar invite, got a time set up.
Heidi:And I'm like, you know, I'm open. I'm also functioning as the CMO for engineered tax services. And we're always looking to grow and we're always looking to expand. And social media has been a huge thorn in our side for years. Additionally, we have never felt that our clients are on social media or specifically Facebook.
Heidi:We've always said, yeah, that's not where our clients are. We have business clients. We have professionals like C level executives. We have the owners of CPA firms. They are not scrolling Facebook or Instagram.
Heidi:So that's just not the right platform for us. So I scheduled this call and I don't remember. Was like a Thursday evening, 06:30, seven pm or something. Fifteen minutes later, get a text message from Daniel and he's like, Hey, Heidi. I saw you booked a call.
Heidi:I'm really looking forward to talking with you. And boom, in pops a video and Daniel's got this video. And he's like, Hi, Heidi. I was just looking at your social media page. And he shows it in the background, turns the camera and looks at me.
Heidi:He's like, Yeah, you guys are doing some cool stuff. I think we can definitely help. It'll be good to chat. And I was like, Woah. That was impressive.
Heidi:All right. This is a real guy. Okay. All right. He's working.
Heidi:So not only that, but before I let you start diving in, have to give this promo for you. The other thing is in the confirmation page, after I scheduled the time with you, you have some testimonials on your page. So the time is booked. It says, looking forward to it. Here's kind of a video of what to expect on our call and what I want to discuss.
Heidi:Here's also a few of the other clients I'm working with. Well, one of the guys on there was one of my clients as well, that I work with a lot. I work with his clients I actually have seen the growth in his success over the last probably three, four months. He's been much more active and he has a bunch of new clients. I'm like, wow, he's really going to town.
Heidi:Well, turns out it's Daniel.
David:The secret weapon.
Heidi:He is the secret weapon. So there is my little testimonial for you. And for listeners, Daniel has a company called Wealthy Clients. I gave the intro as we were starting. Daniel, give us your thirty minute or thirty minute, give us your thirty second elevator speech on really what it is you're doing.
Heidi:And then I really want to dive into this for our listeners.
David:Yeah, totally. So I actually had no plans on doing anything marketing related. I came up in martial arts, and when I was 18, I was asked if I wanted to be a general manager at the school. And I was like, I wanna own a martial art school, and so this is like the perfect opportunity for me to learn while doing it. Well, it's kinda hard to teach classes if there's no students in there.
David:So one of the things I was tasked with was getting new students into the karate school. And there were a ton of things that we were doing at the time, and a lot of it was more traditional things. So it would be like going to a school and breaking a board in front of the crowd, or going to a fair, or doing grassroots community efforts. And back in the day when Ralph Macchio and The Karate Kid was on the screen, it worked great because the movie did all of the marketing for you. But nowadays, well, 2015, there was a ton of competition, karate school on every single block.
David:And so what was working wasn't quite having the same impact since everybody was doing the exact same thing. So we, we were part of a franchise, and there was this guy that we would compete with at, like, national tournaments, and we would kick his butt every single time we went to the tournament. But for some reason, he had a waiting list to get into his school, and we were like wondering where the next student was gonna come from. And so luckily, we reached out to him, and since we weren't in competing territories, he was like, yeah, you know, we're doing Facebook ads. And we were like, you're like friending people on Facebook, and like, commenting on their wall, poking them.
David:He's like, No, no, no, no, no. We run this ad, people request, you know, information or some kind of introductory lesson, and then they come into the school and we're like, okay, we'll we'll try it out. And so he basically gave us his playbook, and we ran the playbook. And it was like overnight, this little faucet drip turned into a fire hose. And we had no systems in place to handle the amount of traffic.
David:And so that's when I really dove down the marketing rabbit hole, and I was like so impressed and just intrigued. So up until that point, I was gonna open a martial arts school, and then after going down this rabbit hole, I was wow, this stuff's like really interesting. So three years later, 2018, I started a marketing agency just helping local businesses. Gotta tell you, marketing B to B versus B to C for kids karate is a completely different feat.
Heidi:Yeah.
David:I was like ramming my head into the wall, like I'm supposed to know marketing, and I can't even get clients for myself. So I started investing more in mentors, programs, learning. If I turn the camera, you'd see the three bookshelves that I have, which are primarily like human psychology, marketing, and sales. And I came across a concept called direct response advertising, which is what I specialize in now. And when I went down with direct response advertising, I basically went from not knowing where my next client was gonna come from to basically having kinda like the cry school situation, a wait list of people wanting to work with me.
David:I wasn't doing any type of cold calling. I wasn't doing any type of cold outreach and it was a predictable and consistent system. And so now I took everything that I learned from that situation and I helped my clients do the exact same thing.
Heidi:Well, you make it sound so easy. In terms of, yeah, we just, we just help and we, we grow that. And as I explained in my story, we had been kind of playing with different things. We'd tried some ads. We tried social media.
Heidi:You know, when we look at B2B, so business to business advertising, we're looking, looking for business clients typically. Have been a few different avenues. I mean, there's email, there's Google, Google ads, Google search, SEO, it's analytics, making sure you pop up on the Google pages. And now all of sudden there's the social media thing, which again, yes, LinkedIn, there's LinkedIn, but Facebook, Instagram, this is, this is a whole different world. So can you talk a little bit about what you've seen happen?
Heidi:I feel like there's been a pretty tremendous shift from just looking at the Google Analytics and Google Ads world to now all of a sudden social media for visibility and exposure. What is driving that? And I mean, have you seen that shift and what do you think drives that?
David:Yeah. No, that's a great question. So let me answer it this way. Humans, whether it's B2B, B2C, I heard this from a guy named Michael Bernoff one He said everything, doesn't matter what it is, it's all h to h. Human to human.
David:And so if you look over the past, you know, hundred thousand years, human psychology hasn't really changed. It's just the method in which they're receiving and ingesting information. So, you know, a hundred years ago, we were just getting radio. Right? Fast forward a little bit, we were doing TV.
David:Right? Now, it's all online. So it's not necessarily that the the principles of marketing have changed at all. It's really just where the attention's going now. And if you're not where the attention is, where attention goes, money flows.
David:Right? And so a lot of the time it's the exact same principles that worked a hundred years ago that work nowadays as well. It's just a different platform and maybe a different format in which it's, you know, in which it's consumed. So there was this ad.
Heidi:I can't remember if I
David:sent this to you or not, but there was an ad that was ran by Merrill Lynch in the nineteen sixties. And this was a full page ad in a magazine. Mhmm. And the guy who wrote the ad was he actually came from a journalism background. And he basically got fed up with journalism, wanted to try his hand in writing somewhere else, so he went into advertising for Merrill Lynch.
David:And the page was 6,500 words in, like, the smallest print that you could think of. And up until that point, all of the advertising that was done was very, like, brand image, who's here we are, or here's who we are, excuse me. Merrill Lynch, you got this big picture. Right? So it was maybe, like, two or three words and a cool picture behind him.
David:And he wanted to come in with this ad, had to pull teeth to get it. And the ad was called What Everyone Ought to Know About the Stock and Bond Business. And it was literally a page full of valuable information that prospect, if they were interested in stocks and bonds, which pretty much everybody was because it was booming at the time, they would wanna read through that entire thing. And in the very bottom right corner, if you didn't read, you would completely miss it because it was buried in all this text. In the very bottom right corner, there was a little excerpt saying, hey, if you found this information useful and you want to know more, request our free booklet called How to Invest.
David:Right? Now remember, this was back in the nineteen sixties. And as a result, they ran this in the New York Times as like a test. They started getting loads of leads. Like, were getting so many leads that they had no idea what to do with the volume, but on top of that, they were getting handwritten letters from people saying, oh my gosh, thank you for this information.
David:Like, I always wondered about these things. You are an absolute godsend. And it was all because they followed basic principles such as give value first before asking for anything in return. And what I like to call this is this is a demonstration. You're demonstrating your expertise.
David:And so I hope you don't mind me sharing one of your successful ads, but one of your successful ads is you talking for three minutes about, hey, here's the five common mistakes of cost segregation. Mhmm. And here's what you need to do instead. And like, the very last ten seconds is like, oh, hey, and by the way, like, if you want to know more, see how much you can save, book a call. And it's the exact same premise.
David:And just like how the Merrill Lynch ad absolutely dominated and sucked in leads like a Dyson on steroids, There's did the exact same thing. Newspaper back in the day, social media nowadays, but the principle that demonstration asset is the exact same principle.
Heidi:Interesting. So you are targeting CPAs and you're targeting strategic tax planning or strategic tax planners, which I think is really actually brilliant, but interesting. Why that market and what exactly are you doing for that space or those specific clients?
David:Yeah, that's a great question. So before I started working with tax planners, I was actually in the restaurant marketing space. And if any CPAs are on here listening, I'm sure you are well aware of restaurants and their margins and how in and out of business that they go. I think it's like four out of five restaurants go out of business. And so it was like nearing the end of, you know, CV '19, and I was like, I had had it with the restaurant niche.
David:I built this system to get myself clients, and not just like leads. I'm sure you're familiar with Alex Hormozi and the purple book, hundred million dollar offers.
Heidi:Mhmm.
David:And that kind of like decimated the marketing industry in my opinion, because everybody started doing these hard offers. And so, know, I was running ads and restaurants were coming on, but they were like, yeah, who are you? This is like the sixth ad that I've clicked on. What do you do again? And I was just sick and tired of it.
David:So I built a system that actually mirrored and mimicked the referral process offline. Because we all know that we love referrals. They are the best possible clients to get because by the time they come on, if they're on a sales scale, they're on a nine out of 10. Mhmm. But somebody who just clicks on an ad and comes, they're at like a one out of 10.
David:So I had basically gotten fed up with people coming in on a one out of 10, and I was like, how can I mimic the referral process, so that when somebody comes on and actually talks to me, they've gone through enough of my content, they know who I am, they know, like, and trust me, my process, and by the time they talk to me, they're as close to a referral as possible? So I built this system for myself. And one day as I'm just, you know, again, hitting my head against the wall working with these restaurant clients, I get hit with an ad from Kevin O'Leary. Know what ads I'm talking about?
Heidi:Yep.
David:And here he is sitting here like, if you own a business, I can save you $10,000 or more. And I'm like, you know, I bought tax free wealth by Tom Wheelwright. Like I knew a little bit of this stuff, right? Not a lot, but I was aware of, like, accelerated depreciation, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay.
David:I wonder if this is like a big thing. And I thought about it. And I was like, hey, there's 34,000,000 businesses in The United States. So if all of them pay taxes, and it's a money saving offer, which means it's a net net savings, they're not paying anything additional out of pocket, this has to be like a gold mine. And I started looking, and I really couldn't find that many people advertising out of, other than Kevin O'Leary with TaxHive.
David:And so, you know, I did I did kind of my due diligence this time because with restaurants, I just kind of got success with one client, and then I was like, alright, off to the races. But I really did my due diligence, right? Like, it's something that can be sold nationwide. Typically, it can be high ticket, it's sold over the phone. It's something that you have to actually have expertise around, right?
David:So I could actually help them with a sales process. Like when it came to restaurant stuff, I didn't really know about inventory or anything else, but I was a service based business, just like a lot of these tax planners. So, anyway, after doing the research, I reached out to Mark Pearlberg. I don't know if you're familiar with him or not, but I'm not. I was like, hey, I saw you're in this marketing group.
David:Why don't we, like, test this out? Here's my plan. And he was like, yeah, sure. We can go for it. So he was actually gonna be in town for a conference by is it NASBA?
David:Yeah, so he was in town for a conference for NASBA. So we go to the Lowe's Hotel together to meet up to shoot some ads. And we go to the front desk, we're like, yeah, you know, we're looking for a place to shoot some ads. And they're like, Oh, yeah, you need like security clearance. So we walk off, sneak into a conference room, and we're like, okay, we have twenty minutes to record these ads.
David:So we record these ads. We end up launching the campaign, and it was insane. Like, within a seven day period, we had one person come in who was a manufacturing company doing $3,000,000 a year. We had a Facebook employee that was doing, like, 7 figures in income as a w two employee who owned real estate. And then we had another guy who came in who was about to go public with an IPO for his tech company.
David:And as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh my gosh, like I have to take advantage of this opportunity. And that's when I really fell into the tax planning.
Heidi:So as this comes full circle, what's interesting is I was in the offices of TaxHive having a We were bantering about some different things and some different strategies, and they have a very interesting model. It absolutely backed by Kevin Leary. They're really pushing this firm towards a pretty tremendous amount of growth at a time when the CPA industry is really struggling with capacity. And they're honestly struggling with, with customer service just because of the capacity issue. So as I'm talking with them, they told me, they said, oh yeah, we're scheduling 300 calls a month.
Heidi:And I said, I mean, it was like, I had to really sit back and think about that. I'm like, wait, wait a second. A hundred calls a month. I don't even like, is that even? Do you have a call center?
Heidi:What are you doing? A % meta ads. And they lead in with strategic tax planning and they do tax planning and then shift into compliance. If that's a need, that can be a choice whether a client does the compliance tax preparation work or not. That was one of the first things that started to trigger with me that, wait a second.
Heidi:That's crazy if people are seeing these kinds of results. And then, as I continued to have conversations, I spoke with another firm, similar results, actually more than they were actually scheduling more calls and they were adding nine people to their sales team to be able to take all of the leads that they were getting. And they were a business coaching consulting group.
David:Can I guess who that was?
Heidi:They're called Wealth Factory, and that's another core enterprise. Utah does a fantastic job. They have a lot of really, really great clients that we get to work with as well. So again, my wheels were turning. So to validate what you're saying, we started to try this.
Heidi:I was the ultimate skeptic. I'm like, whatever, Daniel. He's like, let's record this video. I'm like, okay, whatever. We're playing with some different things.
Heidi:One of the first, I think five calls that I had to your point was a gentleman that has five investment properties is in the tech space. His spouse is not working. She's managing, managing the property. Associates, a qualified real estate professional. He makes well over 7 figures.
Heidi:He's a California taxpayer, an incredibly high tax rate or tax bracket. And he invested in a startup that is expected to have an IPO this year and will probably cash out anywhere between $50,000,000 to $120,000,000 sometime this year. And he's looking for help. I was like, this guy clicked on a Facebook app?
David:Believe it or not, they're not just on LinkedIn.
Heidi:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so I wanted to just share my experience and you're not just saying that this, this is exactly what my experience has been, even in just the short time that I've, I've been working with you. So, so To that end, let's talk a little bit about the CPA space. Now, this is interesting.
Heidi:We have a lot of new younger CPA firms, younger CPAs that are starting their own firms and wanting to grow. But we have a lot of firms too that, as I said, this is a weird time in the industry with a bigger issue with capacity than maybe ever before. Staffing issues. There's too much work to go around and they're just completely overworked and there's not enough time to even get done what's happening right now. What would you say when you have a firm that is like, well, okay, that's cool.
Heidi:But the last thing I want to do right now is go and do this big sales push and schedule, you know, ten, twenty, 30, 40 calls per week. First off, what a waste of time. Who's going to have time to do that? What about the work? Talk a little bit about, about your experience to that end and, and what you're doing that's really different.
Heidi:Cause I think what you're doing is it's a whole different ballgame. Yeah.
David:Yeah. So I think that falls a little bit more under like operations and productizing your actual service so that it becomes more of like a conveyor belt. I'm not the biggest expert in that space. However, with that being said, what I've personally done and what I recommend that my clients do is a lot of the accounting firms out here that I've noticed at least is they kind of offer everything to everyone. And when you do that, you really, it just becomes really hard operationally.
David:So if you see what TaxHive's doing as an example, they've productized it down to where they're pretty much only advertising tax strategy. And then once somebody gets in the door with tax strategy, they can offer them all these other array of products that they have. However, with that being said, right, it really comes down to like, okay, pick one market, one niche, one product, and then one sales process and one traffic channel. Right? So it really gets rid of all the stuff that's not necessary, and it really allows you to create systems around one predictable, repeatable system from literally somebody seeing an ad all the way to client fulfillment.
David:So in my personal experience, that's what I've seen work really well. I don't know if that's answering your question exactly.
Heidi:Yeah, it does because part of it is also about properly qualifying leads. So I think that's one of the things that you have the ability to do. And I'd like to dive into that is how is it even possible first off to pre qualify and know that these are leads that are worth your time because look, it's time to take a call and do a consult. And how are you helping people really understand what is that market that I want to focus on? Then is it possible to really make it so specific that it is my ideal client?
David:Yeah. Okay. That's a great question. This is gonna be kind of a long winded response, but it'll definitely get the point across. Did you end up reading direct response No BS Direct Response Marketing by Dan Kennedy?
Heidi:I did.
David:Okay. I sent you that.
Heidi:You So
David:you're familiar with the results triangle. Yeah? So for anybody who's not familiar, Dan Kennedy was the guy who actually, like, he's quoted as the godfather of direct response marketing. And so pretty much everything that I do now in the modern age, I've learned from him or one of his gurus that came from him. Right?
David:So, he talks about these results triangle. The results triangle, excuse me. And in any campaign, doesn't matter what you're doing, whether it's SEO, direct mail, whether you're targeting, you know, nurses or moms in the product, there's three things that every campaign needs. The first one is the market. The second one is the message.
David:And then the third one is the medium in which you get that message to the market. Now, the medium is already taken care of because for pretty much most people listening, you'll be able to reach them on Facebook and Instagram, believe it or not. I know they are on there, as Heidi and I have both told you. But the second thing that you have to understand is your market. And when a lot of people talk about a niche, they really talk about an industry.
David:So I had a client come to me, his name's Ed Lloyd. Some of you may know him, some of you may not. And when we first started working together, he was like, yeah, I'm targeting dentists for tax planning. I was like, okay, awesome. Let's do some let's do some research on the numbers.
David:And there were a 82,000 dentist offices. And I'm gonna do some math here. So as I'm as I'm looking over here, let me pull up my calculator. But I was like, okay, cool. So there's a 82,000 dentist offices.
David:Now, on average, based on some statistics somewhere out on the interwebs, it says that only 4% of businesses reach a million dollars per year in gross revenue. So I said, okay, let's take that exact same number, and let's apply it to the 82,000 dentist offices that you wanna target. K? So we have a 82,000 times 4%. So, we're only looking at 7,200 dentist offices.
David:Now, when it comes to outbound and outreach, k, or sorry, actually, one more thing. Of the 4% that qualify, not all of them are interested in tax planning, because Ed's a tax planner. So I said, okay, now of that, right, 3% of the market is buying right now, and another 7% is like possibly interested and could be persuaded. And that's for every market. Right?
David:Like, if you go and look at people who are buying cars right now, or people who are looking at cost segregation studies, R and D, like at any given time, 3% of that market's buying now. So we have to take that 728 people, and now we have to multiply it by 10%, which is the qualified market that's actually looking for your services right now. And that only gives you 728. And so a lot of the times, the reason that the advertising doesn't work is because they're kind of going after a specific industry where there's not enough in that industry who could qualify, versus going after a problem as a niche. Right?
David:So let's take that exact same number that we had before. 4% of businesses make over 7 figures per year. K? Mhmm. Well, let's say we take the 32,000,000 businesses that are in The US, and let me see if I'm doing this right.
David:Yep. 32,000,000 times point four gives us basically 1,200,000 businesses that now qualify. So now if we take that same 10% of people who are in market with the exact same problem, so you can speak to that problem versus a specific niche, now we have a 28,000 businesses, and your market is exponentially bigger, while still being able to get great results. Okay? Because again, we're we're niching down, we're productizing around tax strategy, tax reduction in this scenario, so you're able to kinda speak to that problem.
David:Now the last thing is the message. K? So if you're wanting to get a better qualified person in the door, the bait that you put out attracts the critter that you get in. So since I have a pop quiz for you since you read the book, if you put out cheese, what animal are you gonna attract?
Heidi:I would assume it would be a mouse.
David:Or a rat.
Heidi:Yes. Yes. However Here in Vegas, yes.
David:If you put out a block of salt, what do you attract then?
Heidi:Oh, I don't know.
David:A deer. Yeah. Okay. The last one, I don't know if this is true or not, but if you put out tartar sauce
Heidi:I can't answer this one.
David:You attract a whale. Oh my gosh. So your message really has to come down to like, okay, let's say we have three different targets. You have a business doing a hundred thousand dollars a year, a million dollars a year, and $10,000,000 a year. Well, the business that does $10,000,000 a year in this example is probably gonna have a lot of different problems versus the person that only has a hundred thousand dollars a year.
David:Right? So the message that you put out into the market has to speak specifically to those problems, and the more granular and focused you can get on those problems, it's kinda like taking a magnifying glass and shining it on that specific object where it gets really focused in and you're able to create a hot, hot ad that absolutely just disrupts the market and creates stellar results.
Heidi:It is. It's, it's fascinating. I find it fascinating because I do find marketing very interesting. Not everyone may feel that way, but I do think that what is so interesting is you, you have really, like, I think you've cracked the nut in terms of really understanding the why behind what you're doing and then how to use the tools and the algorithms and the platforms to make it so targeted that it is the right client. And so I would, I would say to listeners, you know, in any business who are looking for clients, including CPAs or strategic tax planning, the difference with growth is not we are just growing with any lead that comes in.
Heidi:It's that you are choosing who you want to work with, And you are handpicking those clients that are your ideal clients that allow you to be more efficient, to be more profitable, and to actually then take the clients that again, really are your ideal as you grow your firm. So it's really, I find it fascinating. The change with AI is I mean, I think the algorithms with like meta and all of that are all linked into AI from my understanding, but is this also shifting like what we're seeing with Google? Cause I've heard that there's a big shift with like Google ads and all of that with how Google algorithms work and why there's such a big shift. Because even the traffic and the results of doing the typical Google SEO stuff is not nearly as effective as it used to be even just a year ago.
David:Yeah. So when it comes to Google, I'm actually not, the expert on Google. I think you had somebody on here, Katie Thomas. Yes. Yeah.
David:So, funny enough, she lives ten minutes up the street from me. We're good friends. She would actually probably be a better person to ask that in terms of like the Google algorithm. Mhmm. But at the end of the day, there's two types of advertising.
David:K? There's what's called demand capture, and then there's what's called demand generation. K? So to give you this example, I pulled up some numbers. I had a feeling that maybe this question was gonna get asked.
David:When it comes to Google, people go there when they have a problem, they know that they have a problem, and they need an answer to that. Okay? So, I want you to take a guess. I want you to guess how many monthly searches there are for plumbers near me.
Heidi:Oh, wow. Like in total on all of Google? Oh, I guess they were a hundred million. I don't know, 17,000,000.
David:Not quite. So they, I'm using Google keyword planner. They give you pretty big ranges, but it's between 11,000,000 searches per month. Wow. Which makes sense.
David:Right? Yeah. You're not gonna go and look for a plumber if your toilet's working perfectly fine. Only once crap's flying out, shooting up to the ceiling that you're like, get me a plumber now. Right?
David:On that same token, people aren't going to Google and being like, oh, man. Like, I need a Snuggie. Right? They see a commercial. They get interrupted, and they capture their attention.
David:So with that being said, I I went ahead and also ran a search for cost segregation. So take a guess on how many average searches there is for cost segregation.
Heidi:I should know this, but I haven't actually looked in quite a while. Your monthly?
David:Yep. On Google.
Heidi:Monthly on Google, gosh, I think there's, I think there's a couple hundred thousand.
David:So it's between 10,000 and a hundred thousand. Okay. So not even a couple hundred thousand, right? And we're not talking about like website visits or if somebody clicks off of an ad or receives an email. We're just talking about Google searches.
David:Mhmm. So just look at that difference. You have one to 10,000,000 searches a month with plumbers. Yeah. And then you have 10,000 to a hundred thousand per month with cost segregation.
David:K? Now, guess how many there is for tax adviser near me?
Heidi:I I have no idea. You gotta give me that one.
David:10 thousand to a hundred thousand. Interesting. K? So let's say that it's on the high end of a hundred thousand, and you have to divide that hundred thousand by 50 states. K?
David:Well, per state, that's now 2,000 searches per state. But based on Google, Google's gonna try and find somebody that's near you. So now we have to break it down to the actual city level. Do you know how many cities there are in California? A lot.
David:Right? So what ends up happening is when you go with the demand capture route for a product or service that's really more geared towards the demand generation route, what ends up happening is you're fighting over scraps, and the cost per click on these is absolutely huge because the market is all going after that three to 10% that's in the market right now for that product or service.
Heidi:Yeah. That's that's been exactly our experience.
David:Yep. So that's a, you know, a big change that I see happening is that side of things, is that I think people, especially you, right, you're coming to realize that like, okay, I think there's another way that we can get these leads, and it's by actually showcasing the client that they have a problem, demonstrating value through education, information, and then becoming that trusted adviser who moves them from the problem state to the solution state to the buy now state. Cause again, when you're only going after the three to 10% of that market, you're leaving the other 90% of the market that could be a potential client completely off the grid because they don't even have they don't realize that they have a problem. So they don't go to Google to search it out. So just to kind of bring bring this back full circle of like, you know, the algorithm, Facebook meta targeting, just to put everybody on some game and bring everybody up to speed.
David:The targeting on Facebook and meta platforms specifically and TikTok, YouTube, which are all interruption based demand generation platforms is completely different than it was ten years ago. So ten years ago, you could go in and you could pick your audience settings. So, like, you could go in and be like, hey, I want to target people with an American Express who have a credit score of seven fifty or more that have a net worth of a million dollars, and I only wanna show it to these people. Well, what ended up happening is Facebook and these platforms realized that the way they make their money is by the data that they allow the advertisers to be a part of. So what they started to do was instead of giving the control to the advertiser, they started moving it over and giving it to the algorithm itself.
David:So fun fact, do you know how many data points Meta has on each individual user?
Heidi:I'm scared to ask. Gosh.
David:On each user. So as you go in and you like a post or you visit a website that has Facebook's cookie on there, all that information gets reported back to your profile. Mhmm. So just to kinda keep us on track here. So what ended up happening is they started limiting and reducing who you could pick to target.
David:So what worked ten years ago where it was like, hey, I have this ebook. Like, have you seen those little ebooks that are like, oh, seven financial mistakes restaurant owners make? Have you seen Oh,
Heidi:yeah.
David:Okay. They are everywhere. And I believe that back in the day when you could choose who to put those in front of that that would work. But now the way that meta and the platforms do their targeting is based on two things. The first one is what's said in the ad on the creative and the landing page.
David:K? That's where the AI goes in and reads it, and then based on what you say, it tries and matches it to the ideal user. Now the second thing that it targets based on is the information that you send back to the platform on the leads. So let's take that same exact example of the ebook. Let's say that you get 10 leads that put in their name and their email, and nine of those 10 leads are absolutely horrible quality, and you would never wanna do business to begin with.
David:Well, Facebook doesn't know the difference between a good lead and a bad lead unless you tell it. So what it's gonna do is it's gonna take those nine leads and say, okay, cool. I'm gonna show it to more people like the ones filling out the form. And it becomes this perpetual cycle of crap in, crap out. So, basically, now what you have to do is you have to put filters in place so that only clean data gets back to the algorithm.
David:I call this the flywheel effect, because the better the data you let through, the better the targeting gets for the ads, and it becomes a flywheel and a cycle of better data in, better prospects out. Better data in, better prospects out. And that's why we're able to get such good results for our client is because we're not only using good messaging, good copy, good creative going after their ideal client, but we're making sure that we don't let crap quality get in there and screw up the entire thing. We make sure to leverage up to date marketing practices with this AI algorithm and all the technology out there.
Heidi:Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, I have always felt like I was pretty technically savvy. And anymore, it's like every single day with AI and algorithms and apps and all of this stuff, it is super overwhelming. So talk about briefly what exactly are you doing for clients?
Heidi:Because I know that it's overwhelming for me, and I've now been working with you for a few months. I still get on the back end and look at what's happening, and it's like a foreign language. I'm like, Why do I not grasp what all of this is? But it's fine because you're doing an amazing job of managing what we're doing and really coaching through that process. So share with our listeners about how you're helping, what you're doing and what they would have to do if they decide to work with you.
Heidi:How much is on their plates?
David:Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a great question. So essentially what we do is we help firm owners get in front of their ideal clients, attract and acquire the ideal clients through direct response advertising. And so, yeah, I mean, it's really kind of, just like how the algorithm has a feedback loop, marketing and sales is really one. A lot of people think of them as separate, but they're really, they go hand in hand.
David:Right? They're they're like twins at the end of the day. And so, we started working together, I was like, hey, every call that you get, send it over to me, and I want you to grade it on a scale of one to 10. Not on how well the sales call went, but on the quality of ideal prospect that you had coming in. And so what I did is I started a feedback loop between marketing and sales.
David:You said, hey, this one was good. Hey, this one was not so good. And so over time, I was like, hey, I'm noticing a lot of similarities between these ideal clients. Can you make a new ad that talks about pain point one, two, and three that we're seeing on these sales calls? And we did, made the new ad, relaunched it, and as a result, we were able to really fine tune and get those ideal clients coming in even more than we were before.
David:So you know, we help we help clients really with the entire sales process of click to close, right and making sure that people come in warmed up and ready to buy not just asking Yeah, so which firm are you with again? So funny story, when we started working together, she told me, hey. You know, we're looking at this guy who does organic content, and he makes you go viral through Phone Farms. So, yeah, you know, I I don't really know you. I don't trust you.
David:So I'm gonna pit you head to head against this Phone Farm. And I looked at Heidi. I we were either on the phone or texting, and I was like, there's no way that this is gonna be me. So, I now, if you're looking for a marketer to partner with, I think there has to be some level of competitive edge and being, you know, they have to want to be the best in the game. And so I knew that this guy didn't even have a chance of beating me, and I fucking slapped him around.
Heidi:Well, it it was pretty funny, and it was amazing because we did happen to set up the metrics so we could really measure side by side. And it was amazing. Like I got to tell you, it was absolutely awesome to see the difference. The, and one final point is there is a massive difference between posting content and having people see it. We're seeing impressions and then shares and comments.
Heidi:So we have people that are engaging with the content. That's great. Those are great metrics, but oftentimes that converts to nothing. And that's what we've seen. We have a lot of followers.
Heidi:We have a lot of activity. We post a ton of stuff. The engagement is good. In fact, sometimes we see thirty, forty. Last month we saw 80,000 impressions that are videos or things are being seen by people.
Heidi:But if it doesn't actually convert into somebody then coming over to the website or wanting to do something with you, what's the point? And that is actually what we were comparing is someone really focused on growing those impressions, people seeing what we were posting versus what you're doing, which actually doesn't have anything to do with content, meaning it doesn't have anything to do with posting a video or posting things on my page every day. It is just utilizing ads and it is two completely different things, but the success, yeah, there's absolutely no comparison. So pretty amazing.
David:You can't, you know, you can't, you can't deposit impressions and engagement at the bank. Yeah. Right? Like the whole goal of direct response marketing is how can we turn $1 in advertising into $25 10 in return fast. And that's the only metric that I care about, right?
David:Is money in, money out.
Heidi:Well, and that's been our hardest issue with marketing is marketing can be one of those things that is incredibly hard to monetize. It's like, oh, well, it's brand awareness and it's brand building and it's reputation and it's all of these things. But those are, it's so hard to really correlate that to an actual return on investment. And I'm very driven by ROI. If we're talking with accounting and CPA or business owners, we're like, okay, what are these efforts resulting in?
Heidi:That is one thing I really appreciate is the ROI 100% visible. The metrics are there to understand if I spend this much, I'm going to essentially result in this much and then kind of carry that through. It really is. I feel like it's just such a huge change, but it's pretty exciting. Yeah, absolutely.
Heidi:So for listeners that want to learn more about working with you, what your process is, how you charge for setting this up, where can they reach out to you? What's the best way to connect? And, what's the best way for them to start getting their leads on autopilot?
David:Yeah. So if you go to WealthyClients.com, that's our website. It's got free resources on there, shows you how the system works top to bottom. And so you can go there, check it out. And if it's something you're interested in, then you can request an appointment.
Heidi:That is awesome. Well, Daniel, thank you so much. I was excited to have you on because really, I mean, I'm sharing what I feel like is our secret sauce right now. It really has been fascinating. I think what you have learned in your niche and how you've essentially solved it, or as I said, cracked the nut on this particular area, I think it's pretty fascinating.
Heidi:And it's been incredible to see the success and hear other people who are seeing significant success as well. So thanks for sharing all of this. I will share your contact information in our show notes. And again, appreciate you being a guest.
David:Yeah. Thanks for having me on.
Heidi:What a refreshing and practical conversation with Daniel Schuldt. I think every CPA listening today has either felt the pressure to grow without really knowing how, or they've tried marketing strategies that just didn't quite stick. Daniel reminded us that it is absolutely possible to build a consistent lead flow without burnout, and that the right systems can make client acquisition almost effortless. From direct response funnels to automation and strategic positioning, there's so much firms can start doing today to shift out of overwhelm and into scalable, sustainable growth. Be sure to check out WealthyClients.com to learn more about Daniel's work and get access to his training, his templates, and his strategies.
Heidi:Thanks for tuning in for another episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise Accountant, and if you found today's insights helpful, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the show with your peers. I'll see you next time.
