Your firm can grow, here’s how

Plus: Google Ads that actually convert | Niching tips for accountants who hate small talk

The Net Gains

17 Jun 2025 • 7 min read

This week's issue is all about growth without (too many) growing pains. Whether you're looking to niche down, level up your marketing or finally make peace with Google Ads, we've packed this edition with tools, tips and inspo to help your firm thrive.

We've got daily bite-sized nudges, SEO reality checks and networking advice for those who'd rather hide behind a spreadsheet than work a room.

Scroll on—your future (more focused, more profitable) self will thank you.

From IRS to entrepreneur. A former IRS agent builds a boutique bookkeeping business by getting real about boundaries and burnout.

Those tiny to-dos add up. Want daily growth tips? Martin Bisset is sharing 366 bite-sized nudges on pricing, pipeline and practice building.

Team tactics fuel firm-wide growth. Karbon's latest guide shows why scaling starts with your people.

Turn your side gig into your main gig. This Aussie bookkeeper took her passion project full-time without burning out.

Clicks and clients: A Google Ads gut check

You don't need a six-figure ad budget to make Google Ads work for your firm. But you do need a solid strategy. Robert Satrom, founder of Feedbackwrench, helps accountants and bookkeepers stop wasting money on the wrong clicks and start turning ad traffic into paying clients.

In this Q&A with The Net Gains, Satrom shares the biggest mistakes firms make with Google Ads, how to get your local listings working for you and why your landing page should talk less about bookkeeping and more about solving business problems. -Janet Berry-Johnson

Getting into Google Ads can feel overwhelming for accountants and bookkeepers. What’s the most important thing to get right before spending a dollar on ads?

First, start with Google Ads in your local community, particularly within a 20- to 50-mile radius around your Google Business Profile location. Then, you'll not only get the regular Google ad placement, but if you connect your Google Business as an asset in the ad account, your Google Business profile, with all your credibility-building reviews, can also show up. Our data shows local business owners are drawn towards local bookkeepers and accountants.

Second, build your landing page to actually convert business owners. Financial services are very difficult to sell for a number of reasons, and business owners are a fairly sophisticated prospect. So you want a website that adheres to some best practices, which we teach in our Accountant/Bookkeeper course.

What are those best practices? Well, it's not about you, it's about your prospective client. You need authentic imagery of you and your team, customer-focused, compelling messaging that aligns with what's important to the client, social proof and a really great video sales letter on your landing page.

The bottom line is if your landing page isn't an amazing swing of the bat to get a business owner to take a step with you, trust you and see that you're a great solution for their problems, your Google ads are pointless.

The market is heating up. Our clients, as well as many other accounting and bookkeeping firms, realize they can add huge value to business owners as their outsourced accountant, fractional CFO, tax strategist or other value-focused role. This means they can legitimately charge significantly higher retainers, which in turn attracts more people willing to spend higher amounts of money on advertising. A local accounting or tax business should be prepared to spend between $15 and $300 per day on Google Ads, depending on their growth goals, available capital and capacity.

What kinds of offers or services perform best in Google Ads for accounting professionals (tax prep, cleanup, monthly packages, something else)?

People come looking for a core service, and your process sells them more comprehensive services or "outsourced accountant" or Fractional CFO services. Your typical contractor or home service business owner is looking for business CPA, business tax returns, business accountant, bookkeepers near me, bookkeeping services, etc. We actually provide the top keywords people use for this on our website.

It's easiest to sell tax returns to individuals; it's hardest to sell the monthly retainers. The key is to understand that people search for the solution they THINK will solve their problem, but your process of discovery should uncover that they need tax planning, excellent bookkeeping, monthly reports on sales, job costing for construction companies and so many other things.

How can firms avoid wasting money on clicks from the wrong audience when they serve a specific niche or only want local leads?

Google Ads is all about the keywords people associate with what they think will solve their problem. My suggestion is to start with LOCAL leads. I've laid out some of the best practices, but you need to be ready to stomach the costs of advertising. Many other business verticals understand the costs associated with generating leads, but accountants, bookkeepers and tax professionals are hilariously averse to investing.

Ensuring you switch your location setting to market ONLY to people living in the area is huge. The other is to uncheck the display network and the search network. These will waste your spend.

You need to get enough front-end activity going to fuel enough discovery calls and analysis sessions. Google Ads, SEO, Meta Ads, YouTube Content and other digital platforms are very easy ways to leverage your capital and create front-end marketing activity.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Rethink your SEO strategy for the AI era

In episode 209 of the "Future Firm Accounting Podcast," host Ryan Lazanis, CPA, breaks down how SEO helped him build two 7-figure businesses and why that playbook might not work the same way today.

With more people searching through AI tools like ChatGPT and Google pushing AI-generated results to the top, traditional SEO is losing its click-through clout. Lazanis explores what's changing, what's still worth doing and where accountants should focus their content energy next.

Why this matters: If your growth strategy still hinges on blog traffic, it's time for a reality check—and maybe a rewrite. (Future Firm Accounting Podcast)

Small talk, big results

In a recent episode of "The Law Firm Empress Podcast," host Jessica Gonifas, CPA and Fractional CFO for law firms, spills the beans on how introverts can crush networking without pretending to love mingling.

Inspired by the book How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes, Gonifas dishes out easy-to-use tips for making memorable first impressions, actually enjoying conversations and showing up with confidence even if you'd rather be doing literally anything else.

Why this matters: You don't have to be the loudest person in the room to win business. But you do need to say something more than, "So, do you like numbers, too?" (The Law Firm Empress Podcast)

29.6%

The percentage of marketing budget high-growth firms allocate to conferences and events. (Association for Accounting Marketing)

Niche, please

If you're still trying to be everything to everyone, this article by Becky Livingston is your gentle nudge to niche down. She breaks down smart strategies to position your firm as the go-to expert in a specific area, whether that's creative freelancers, cannabis startups or construction contractors.

From identifying the right vertical to refining your messaging and optimizing online visibility, it's packed with practical tips to help you build a loyal client base that actually wants what you're selling.

Why this matters: Casting a wide net might get you attention, but not traction. Specializing lets you charge more, market smarter and serve better. And let's be honest: "generalist" sounds way less fun on a podcast intro than "Fractional CFO for six-figure Etsy sellers." (CPA Practice Advisor)

The Net Gains is your one-stop shop for fresh, FREE accounting insights. You can reach the newsletter team at thenetgains@mynewsletter.co. We enjoy hearing from you.

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The Net Gains is curated and written by Janet Berry-Johnson and edited by Bianca Prieto.