This tax expert tripled his fees (and didn't lose his business)

You shifted your tax practice solely into advisory work two years ago and created your packages based on a core group of clients. How did you determine which clients were the best to cater your new services to?

This took a lot of soul searching. I had to be honest about what was making my practice feel scattered, chaotic and reactive. The common denominator was my once-a-year tax clients.

They would disappear for most of the year, then show up during busy season with disorganized books, a list of tax questions and the expectation that meaningful planning could happen while their return was being prepared.

Then I looked at a different group of clients. They participated in quarterly tax projections and ongoing advisory meetings. They asked questions throughout the year, followed our proactive advice and came into tax season prepared.

That's when it clicked. The client journey wasn't determined by my clients. It was determined by me.

I stopped offering a menu of optional services and built advisory packages that lead clients through the planning process. After all, we're the experts. Our job is to guide clients toward what they need, not wait for them to ask for it.

What was the biggest surprise after you changed your business model?

Honestly, the biggest surprise was how many clients stayed.

I told my entire practice of more than 250 clients that I was moving exclusively to an advisory model. I fully expected to start over from scratch. Asking clients to pay nearly three times their previous fees was a big leap, but many had already experienced the value of proactive planning and believed in the direction I was taking.

In the end, I replaced more than 70% of my revenue with a fraction of the clients. Even those who chose not to continue were supportive and appreciated being referred to another professional. That experience showed me that clients value honesty, and the right clients will invest in a relationship they truly believe in.

Your advisory engagements have now grown to up to 6X more than before. What changed in the way you package or deliver your services that made clients comfortable investing at that level? 

Two things changed: value-based pricing and consistent delivery.

I stopped pricing based on hours and started pricing based on outcomes. Using our BizTax Playbook software, I quantify potential tax savings before presenting an engagement. When clients clearly see the return on investment, the conversation shifts from cost to value.

On the delivery side, I built repeatable systems through a practice management platform, standardized workflows and added a dedicated team. That allows us to consistently deliver the same advisory experience to every client. More importantly, it shifts the relationship from simply servicing clients to partnering with them year-round.

You’ve said that educating clients helps them ask better questions, which leads to offering them more services. What are some of the most effective educational materials you provide clients and prospects?

Client education has had one of the biggest compounding effects on our business. The more we educate clients, the better questions they ask, the more proactive they become and the more opportunities we have to help them.

The challenge is that one-on-one education doesn't scale. That's why we built the Business Owner Hub within BizTax Playbook. It gives clients access to educational resources, tax strategies, deadline reminders and planning tools whenever they need them.

Instead of answering the same questions repeatedly, we can focus our time on higher-value advisory conversations. Better-informed clients don't replace advisors. They create better opportunities for advisors to deliver meaningful guidance.

If a tax-focused firm wants to make a similar shift into advisory but only has time to make one change this year, what would you recommend they prioritize first?

Start offering real-time quarterly tax projections.

That's the single change I'd make. It not only creates more revenue, but it opens up more planning conversations, uncovers opportunities before year-end and keeps your firm engaged with clients throughout the year instead of just during tax season.

For years, quarterly projections were too time-consuming to scale because they relied on complex tax software. Today, technology has changed that. We use BizTax Playbook to streamline the process, allowing team members without deep tax expertise to prepare high-level projections that advisors can review and turn into meaningful planning conversations.

Advisory isn't built in one meeting. It's built by consistently helping clients make better decisions before those decisions become tax returns.

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