21: Growing a Service Based Business and Expanding Your Expertise with Amy Boyd

Today's guest is very cool and very fun, Amy (Amelia) Boyd, who has, together with her partners, grown an incredible business over the last twelve years. Amy, a CPA and an RPA, is the the Co-founder of the 5500 Tax Group Incorporated, a team of experienced professionals, specializing in Employee Benefit Tax Services.   Prior to co-founding her business, Amy was the Senior Manager with Ernst and Young's Human Capital Practice and she served as the Practice Leader for Ernst and Young's National Employee Benefit Compliance Practice. The very smart Miss Boyd has thirty years of Public Accounting experience, with fifteen years of specializing in Employee Benefits. She also has had extensive experience with Governmental Reporting  and Compliance, Non Discrimination testing and Welfare Benefit Plan Analysis.   Amy is a graduate of the University Of Texas, Arlington, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. She also holds Certified Accountant licenses in both California and in Texas. She's a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, an international foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and she serves on the board of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisers (NAIFA), where she recently invited Ursula to speak.    Amy is currently pursuing the designation of Certified Employee Benefits Specialist and she has received the Retirement Plans Associate RPA designation, within the CEBS Program. All of this means that Amy's been really busy, while running her business!    So, if you have a business and you're dealing with some of these challenges right now, Amy can certainly help you! You can email Amy at [email protected], or go to her website at www.55ootax.com, or you can even call her on 805 929 5881.   Today, Amy talks to Ursula about:   As a CPA, she never really considered herself a Salesperson, she saw herself as a more as a technical person- and so she thought that she didn't really know how to sell, or ask for the job, or even explain the fees for her services. As she worked and began to make proposals, she had to get over the thought that she couldn't do it and remind herself that she actually could. She had to change her mindset. She set herself a goal in her business, to match the income that she was getting at her previous employer- and attaining that was the  indication of her success to her. What went into the decision that she and her partners made, to launch their very specialized, niche market business, together.  She and her four partners, all in different parts of the country, had spent a lot of time learning what they knew, so they didn't want to have to re-tool themselves, for their own business. She and her partners have great respect for one another and for their individual opinions. That she thinks of offering services, rather than selling, per se, as they're really helping people to do their job. What she does to make it easier for herself to ask for payment for a job- she looks at the value of what she's offering. You have to be confident about the value that you're offering, when asking for a payment. She's not willing to undercut herself, when asking for fees for her services. She and her partners didn't see the level of growth that they wanted after a few years, so they brainstormed and came up with some new marketing techniques. Mailers turned out to be pretty successful, and this brought new referrals, which made a big impact. They're about to launch another new marketing strategy. She had to remind herself that she's making money by providing a service which really has great value, to...