Episode Transcription
Glenn Harper [00:00:00]:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. I’m Glenn Harper.
Julie Smith [00:00:04]:
Julie Smith.
Glenn Harper [00:00:05]:
What’s up, Julie?
Julie Smith [00:00:06]:
I’m back to the Starbucks.
Glenn Harper [00:00:07]:
I’m telling you, it lasted about a week and you couldn’t take it anymore.
Julie Smith [00:00:10]:
Well, the kids started school, so I need the good.
Glenn Harper [00:00:12]:
Got your spectacles on today. Looking all dapper like it.
Julie Smith [00:00:16]:
Gotta use anything that makes me look a little smarter.
Glenn Harper [00:00:19]:
There you have it. There you have it. I’m using braille over here. Well, we’ve got a real special guest today. It’s Jackie Meyer, and she has put the CPA in CPA, which I actually love talking to other CPA. It’s a small fraternity and we’re all a little weird, so it’s always nice to talk to another one. Jackie’s company, Tax Plan IQ has found a way to teach other CPA firms how to unlock their potential from a tax sweatshop and converting them to a tax planning firm. Even though she’s still a CPA with a doctoral aspirations and Big four accounting experience, she still can’t escape the lure of being an entrepreneur. She’s also the owner of Jackie Meyer CPA and Meyer Tax Concierge. She loves public speaking, has a relentless energy to fuel her passion, helping empower others to be the best they can be. Thank you, Jackie, for being on a show.
Jackie Meyer [00:01:06]:
Thank you so much.
Glenn Harper [00:01:08]:
Your Texan draw makes one think that you have either become a Texan and acclimated, or you grew up there. Which one is it?
Jackie Meyer [00:01:16]:
Wow. You already saw the draw or heard the draw. Normally people don’t say that until I say y’all, but I guess, yeah, I’m a native Texan. Travel as much as possible internationally, as much as possible. But, yeah, my husband’s family’s here in DFW, and so we’re here to stay for at least a few more years.
Glenn Harper [00:01:36]:
Nice. It looks like you’re based in Southlake Texas, which is on the shores of Great Vine Lake in between Dallas. And is it a is this like a fish and boating lake or is it something you guys utilize or you don’t ever get in that lake?
Jackie Meyer [00:01:53]:
Well, there’s rumors that the lake might be kind of nah.
Glenn Harper [00:01:59]:
In Texas. It’s impossible.
Jackie Meyer [00:02:01]:
But we have friends that have boats that we go out on the lake with, so yeah, it’s fine. It’s great. Little air.
Glenn Harper [00:02:10]:
Sweet. I do extensive inter.
Julie Smith [00:02:13]:
He’s trying to get his MBA or whatever you want to call it, his master’s in stalking.
Glenn Harper [00:02:18]:
Yes, I’m very close. I’m very close.
Jackie Meyer [00:02:20]:
Yeah, I was going to say your intro was very good. I liked it a lot, and I love the weird part because yeah, keep CPA is weird, right?
Glenn Harper [00:02:28]:
Well, it’s important that we do that, but in this extensive research, I found that generally when you’re not working, you spend a lot of quality time at Dairy Queen. And if you’re at Dairy Queen, are you a Blizzard gal or a Dilly bar girl?
Jackie Meyer [00:02:45]:
Oh, blizzard for sure.
Glenn Harper [00:02:47]:
What’s the flavor?
Jackie Meyer [00:02:47]:
I went to jamaica for a conference last month, and I was so excited to find DQ in the Jamaican airport, so I posted that all over social.
Glenn Harper [00:02:57]:
Yeah. What’s your flavor of choice?
Jackie Meyer [00:03:00]:
Oreo.
Glenn Harper [00:03:01]:
Really? Just straight up. Wow. Do you do an Oreo milk kind of girl, too? Is that how you do it? If you’re just do you like them only in a blizzard. All right. No fruit, no chocolate syrup, nothing like that. All right.
Julie Smith [00:03:15]:
Glenn’s only disappointed because he goes and he’s like, can I have the left side of the menu for those toppings in my blizzard? And I’m always like, oh my gosh, all those things mixed together. I’m more like you. Like, I just want one thing. Yeah, that’s why he’s so thrown off by your choice.
Glenn Harper [00:03:30]:
If one’s good ten is better, but it’s awesome. Well, we appreciate you being on the show and getting to know you a little bit. And again, what we’re trying to do is just share the stories with other entrepreneurs of people that might be listening to try to inspire them and make them laugh a little bit and not be as on edge so they can continue down that journey. And it sounds like you’ve had a heck of a journey, and I want to go to one piece from your college part and then ultimately we want to talk about before and after, but I’m still trying to figure this out and it’s very perplexing. I don’t know how you can go to Texas A M, university of Texas and SMU. I don’t even know how you have a loyalty there. Like, which one do you go? And then you end up in Virginia Region University and you’re trying to be a doctorate of all know, you got to help me. How do you get from A to B on that?
Jackie Meyer [00:04:26]:
Yeah, great question. So I was born in Austin. My dad went to UT Austin. I was raised in College Station. When my parents divorced, my mom became a teacher in college. So, you know, College Station is everybody wants to go to A and M. So it was all about getting into A and M. I had to pay my own way through college, and I was a great high schooler. I graduated a year early, but I made great grades but was not participating whatsoever. I was not into the high school experience, so I wasn’t in all the honor stuff or anything like that to get into A M. And so they actually did let me in. It was the first year of this joint program they did with the community college where you could get most of your credits at Glenn and then do one or two classes at A M and save money. So I did that my freshman year and then I ran out of money anyways, and a friend of mine was from DFW and I decided to move up here and finish my undergrad at UT Arlington and then get my master’s at SMU and yeah, now my doctorate over up in Virginia Beach.
Glenn Harper [00:05:40]:
That’s great. And do you have your doctorate then, or are you still in process?
Jackie Meyer [00:05:44]:
Still in process. I said I was going to finish it by the time I turn 40, which is next month. Oh, my now saying I’ll do it by the time I am 40 because I actually enjoy it so much. I really enjoy all the writing and research and learning, so I don’t want to let it go, honestly.
Glenn Harper [00:06:00]:
That is so anti CPA ish to enjoy writing. I mean, how is that even I can’t even spell. Most accountants can only do numbers. How is it that you have this trend for that?
Jackie Meyer [00:06:11]:
I have no idea. I’m extra quirky.
Glenn Harper [00:06:13]:
Outstanding. Well, the cool part about this is, again, you mentioned a little bit about high school. Did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Did your upbringing did you have people that were entrepreneurs and you were like, hey, that’s kind of cool, or did you just kind of stumble into this thing?
Jackie Meyer [00:06:32]:
I stumbled onto it for sure. Kind of having an unstable upbringing. I wanted to always have a job that I could make sure and take care of myself. And so that’s how I ended up in the business school. I had no allegiance to accounting or finance or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure that I could have a stable living. Right. So fortunately, I started working for a small, know, two, three people in Fort Worth during the end of my undergrad, and he had me start doing tax returns. And I fell in love with it because I love the idea of magically coming up with deductions and tax savings and finding things that don’t exist, and legally, of course.
Glenn Harper [00:07:16]:
Always.
Jackie Meyer [00:07:17]:
Yeah. So then I went back, know, went into the tax arena and found my way in the back door of Deloitte and into their high net worth division. So it all worked out.
Glenn Harper [00:07:31]:
When you were at Deloitte, was that a big shock, going from that little tiny firm to the megacorp and dealing with people with lots more commas past their name?
Jackie Meyer [00:07:41]:
Yeah. So I actually went from the small firm to Countrywide, which we all know where that went. And I was packaging and selling. I was in their finance division selling, doing these million, million dollar wires. It was crazy to deloitte. So I had a little bit of experience going through that corporate ladder, but never enjoyed Deloitte, never enjoyed Countrywide, did not want the corporate experience. And that’s really how I fell into becoming an entrepreneur.
Glenn Harper [00:08:11]:
See how that works, everyone? You’re sitting there getting hassled by the man, and you’re like, you know what? I can do this better on my own.
Julie Smith [00:08:17]:
And here we I just don’t think she likes being told what to do.
Glenn Harper [00:08:20]:
That could be no, I don’t.
Jackie Meyer [00:08:23]:
I really don’t. I went from deloitte to another smaller firm in DFW, about 25 people that was run female owned and operated, which was pretty cool. But I got in so much trouble, I ended up getting fired. And that’s how I started my firm.
Glenn Harper [00:08:39]:
Do tell. The getting in trouble. I love a little scandal. What you got?
Jackie Meyer [00:08:43]:
Well, we were going through some issues with raises and people not getting raises, and I became pretty argumentative about it. And one day, they just had had enough. Like, the day before, they had written this recommendation letter for me telling the Irving Chamber of Commerce what a superstar was. And then the next day, I was gone. But looking back, I realized it was the cultural fit. It wasn’t there, right? Like, I was constantly butting heads, and that was going to mess with the rest of the culture of the company. And so I get it now, although it felt terrible at the time and really out of nowhere, but it wouldn’t have had me start my own firm, and my firm did amazing, and I’ve had a very blessed life. So it was the best thing that ever happened.
Glenn Harper [00:09:28]:
Isn’t that funny? It doesn’t matter if you’re an all chick firm, an all dude firm, or whatever firm. The culture is so important, and if it doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t fit. You can get through all those other things, whatever. But if you’re always butting heads, what’s the point of arguing every day? I mean, that’s no fun. You’re wasting your time.
Julie Smith [00:09:46]:
I don’t know. I find it kind of fun.
Glenn Harper [00:09:47]:
Well, I think you’re a little bit OD duck as well. But aren’t we all, really? And you’re not even a CPA, and you’re an OD duck, so it’s even better. So we love that about you. No, it’s good. Again, everybody entrepreneurs. It’s hard for us to fit in a box. We just don’t. And obviously you didn’t fit in that box. So when you decided to do your own firm, were you doing the same exact thing, just in a different way, or did you blow it up and do something totally new?
Jackie Meyer [00:10:14]:
I was pretty traditional at first, but I did kind of push the envelope from the beginning, so I was always focused in on tax strategies and planning. I just didn’t know how to make it really pop. And so as the years went on, I started my firm in 2010 into 2013 rolls around, and my husband and I are expecting our first baby. And I realized, like, wow, I can’t just do the traditional method anymore. I can’t work nights and weekends. I can’t not be available in April and completely miss Easter. So I found a business coach. His name’s Chuck Bauer. And I said, hey, I don’t want to do this anymore. I need to change. What can I do? And he asked me a really simple question who do you like working with and why? And based on that question, I developed these packages around high net wealth entrepreneurs, and we essentially quadrupled the firm’s revenue. I was able to let go of clients that weren’t a good fit, about 60% of them. And it was a game changer to get my time back. And I eventually was able to work my way down to 4 hours a week, like Tim Ferriss in that wonderful book. So I was onto something.
Glenn Harper [00:11:30]:
Hold on. Wait a second. 4 hours a week? That’s insanity. I think that’s amazing. So, two questions. Come on. Your comments. First of all, when you were pregnant, did your husband lose gain weight with you? Was that a thing? Gained distress weight?
Julie Smith [00:11:47]:
They were on the Dairy Queen diet.
Glenn Harper [00:11:50]:
I mean, the sympathy pains are real. It’s a big thing for a guy to get pregnant like that.
Julie Smith [00:11:55]:
That question didn’t even come to my mind.
Glenn Harper [00:11:58]:
Oh, no. I think about that all the time. That’s why I’m a little you know, the crazy thing. An again, speaking specifically as accountants, it’s really hard for us to change and get out of our own way. And Julie and I have oh, it’s been a struggle to get me off certain things, and once you do, it’s pretty cool. But that emotional trauma, letting setting free clients that just don’t fit your model, that’s a traumatic thing to do. And then once you do, everybody’s happier, right? Because they’re getting what they want, and you’re not battling them anymore and trying to justify things. You’re like, this is what we do and how we do it. Either you want it or you don’t. You probably felt pretty good after you did that.
Jackie Meyer [00:12:34]:
Oh, yeah, it was a game changer. And I had one client that was like, oh, you’re dumping me. But I was like, sorry. Not sorry. I need a better quality of life, and I’m not doing the best possible work for you anyways because I’m so bogged down, so you’re better off somewhere else. And my coach actually asked me to coach other accountants with him after the transformation of my firm. And so now I coach other accountants, and I talk about this constantly. I just really wish that they would listen.
Glenn Harper [00:13:06]:
It’s impossible.
Julie Smith [00:13:08]:
They’re the worst.
Glenn Harper [00:13:10]:
I tell you that when I say accountants are OD ducks. There is no doubt about that. And the reality is, pretty much most accountants probably do a great job of what they do. They’re good accountants, but they’re just not good running a business and bringing what they have to offer in a good way to their clients, right? And that makes this little struggle. So you’re probably on lots of meds as you go and talk to accountants and come out of there going, what the heck was that all about? But again, the passion is there. You can see it in your eyes and tell in your tone that you enjoy doing it. It’s just, again, if you get one out of a 20 it’s a win. Right?
Jackie Meyer [00:13:51]:
Exactly. And that’s what you have to focus on, are the wins. And they do happen. It’s rarer than I would like. I would like to influence more people, but just one is a great win every now and then.
Julie Smith [00:14:05]:
And so you working 4 hours a week. I imagine you had figured out how to build a team. How early on, when you went on your own, did that light bulb go on that this isn’t me. It has to be bigger, better. I have to empower, I have to make that change.
Jackie Meyer [00:14:22]:
Yeah. I did not realize that for several years. So I was a micromanager. I had serious trust issues. I did not want anyone to do any of the work for me.
Julie Smith [00:14:32]:
You sound like a closet accountant.
Glenn Harper [00:14:34]:
Yes.
Jackie Meyer [00:14:35]:
Yeah, I know. But having children again kind of forced me out of that because I realized if this is going to continue and continue well, I have to trust others, I have to delegate and I have to have other people. So we went pretty quickly from just one or two kind of part time helpers for several years to a dozen people. And I assigned what I call a project manager to every client, which was one of the better things that we did as well. Instead of just having staff account and senior account and all the traditional roles and whatnot, I wanted the clients to be taken care of really well and I didn’t want to be in the middle of it. And so I elevated and delegated. That sounds so awesome.
Glenn Harper [00:15:21]:
It’s awesome.
Julie Smith [00:15:22]:
But I think for our like, obviously now we’re like, oh my gosh, that sounds so even. I think, you know, Glenn kind of gets it too. But what happened? Or how did you let that go? Because obviously that’s a hard step and especially for entrepreneurs. So how were you able to work through that mentally and to get there? Obviously kids are a big part of it, but it’s obviously your business too. That’s also your baby, right?
Jackie Meyer [00:15:48]:
Exactly. To be honest, I had health problems, so I started having like fibromyalgia type symptoms, chronic fatigue after having my first kid. And it was literally make or break. I told my husband, hey, if we have another kid, which we did, and Gabe is here and he’s six, and I’ve still kind of got my wits about me. I was like, I lose my entire brain power here because I felt like I lost half my brain power, whether it was postpartum or whatnot. But the health condition just forced me to change and I don’t want that on anybody else. But unfortunately, sometimes it takes that serious of a thing for people to change. I just try to give them my story and other people’s story so that they can maybe try to just get around that instead of hitting it face forward in the wall with them.
Glenn Harper [00:16:42]:
It seems a pattern of behavior for entrepreneurs that they don’t make a decision or get out of their own way until they literally are backed in the corner like a caged rat and then they have to do something and it’s never a regret. It’s just like, oh, son of a biscuit moment where you’re like, man, if I’d have just made that decision a little bit prior, wow, that would have been you still are who you are and everything would have worked out just fine. But it might have been a little bit less of a struggle in that period if everybody could figure that out. So the takeaway is when there’s a time to when you just feel like you might have enough before you snap and get on top of a church tower, you might want to make the decision to empower and trust somebody. And on that note, when you did trust and empower the people around you, how we hear different things. Sometimes people trust people all the way and give them a chance to EFF it up right away. And sometimes they dole it out and see what happens and then they get disappointed later. Were you an all in girl at the beginning or did you just do it a little bit at a time?
Julie Smith [00:17:51]:
She’s an all in all in right away.
Jackie Meyer [00:17:53]:
Yeah, I’m all in. But if I see any signs of trust issues, I’m going to be all over that and I’ll take it right back. But there are people in the earlier days that were so trustworthy and so helpful and dedicated and loyal that it was really a great opportunity to realize that people are out there now. Of course I had some bad ones too, but don’t we all?
Glenn Harper [00:18:26]:
I tell you, when you find a good one, you want to hold on to that because it’s a really important thing because it’s really hard to find that because again, everybody is doing their own thing. But if somebody can link up and say, hey, I want to truly help and they truly want to be part of and they want to lead, in a way, it’s kind of cool to have that. So when you get that, you might want to hold on to that. So that’s another thing. As an entrepreneur, you’re going to butt heads, you’re going to have issues. But you know what? Stay the course. Because if you know you got somebody’s got your back, it’s really hard to find that amen. Now go ahead.
Julie Smith [00:19:01]:
So you have your CPA firm and you’ve changed this way you’re doing it. When did tax plan IQ come to formation?
Jackie Meyer [00:19:10]:
Yeah. So I had gotten my time down quite a bit in the firm and of course as an entrepreneur, I’m a workaholic and I needed something to be busy. I wanted to learn something new.
Glenn Harper [00:19:25]:
Time out. Can I ask you’re working 4 hours a week and now you’d want to do something else because you weren’t working up. You just said you’re really busy but you only work 4 hours a week. So what’s going on here? Talk to me.
Jackie Meyer [00:19:34]:
No, I’m not busy.
Glenn Harper [00:19:35]:
I needed something. All right, great.
Jackie Meyer [00:19:38]:
So I was doing the coaching, which that was super fulfilling, but I did set pretty good boundaries around that. And Chuck had taught me pretty good boundaries around how to respond to people, how to communicate. And so it wasn’t taking up a ton of my time. And so my mind was like, I need something new, I need something exciting to do. And so COVID hit and while everyone was scrambling around to go paperless, we had been paperless and fully virtual since 2010 and it was just another day for us, right. We already were doing virtual meetings and that kind of thing. And so I went to a software developer vendor of mine and said, hey, I have this idea. I want to combine all of the things, all of the processes and workflows that we did to convert to this amazing tax advisory firm into one software. Will you make it for me? They said yes. And that’s how Tax plan IQ was born. So we’re two years in. We have about 250 firms using it. I wish we were three times that, but it’ll come eventually.
Glenn Harper [00:20:47]:
So you decided to become a computer programmer in the middle of this. That’s impressive.
Jackie Meyer [00:20:54]:
Yeah. And man, it has been a kick in the pants, I’ll tell you. That software development sounds really sexy and it’s really not. It’s really hard work. So it’s kind of been like starting over, refining my identity because I ended up selling my CPA firm last fall and now I’m just doing fully tax on IQ and the coaching. And so I’m really just figuring out how that one to many model works because I love working one on one with people and seeing results, seeing change, and it’s hard to see that from 250 user perspective. Right. So I’m finding my groove with all of that.
Glenn Harper [00:21:36]:
So I’m a little bit aghast here that you’re out of the tax planning game. You gave it up, you cut me real deep.
Jackie Meyer [00:21:46]:
I do miss it. I love tax planning, but we do consult with our users and so we’ll partner up on tax planning gigs sometimes and that’ll be fun.
Glenn Harper [00:21:54]:
Was that hard? And again, just speaking as another CPA, this is what you believed. Your purpose in life is to help clients and advise them in that way and to just say, I’m going to skip over that and do now teach the teachers. Right. Was that a hard decision to make or was it just you had to do it because you only have so much time in the day or your passion disappeared? Which one was it?
Jackie Meyer [00:22:19]:
My passion changed. So I realized that I really enjoyed working more with accountants because I could see the change so much quicker and they could influence so many more people, right. So my passions changed and kind of realigned with working with accountants, it was hard to let go of the firm, but it was also really easy because it was one to two years in the making of back and forth, like, should I hang on to this? Should I not? If my passion is not really here still. And I really do believe truly that I can influence a lot more people by targeting the accountants, teaching the teachers, like you said, and then them influencing the world. So we’ll see.
Glenn Harper [00:23:01]:
Love it. That’s pretty cool.
Julie Smith [00:23:03]:
So I feel like your journey has been some with some curves, right? And you’ve had some surprises in there. But as you’ve gone through that, what do you think your superpower is?
Jackie Meyer [00:23:15]:
Oh, that’s a great question, and I came up with that a week ago. Well, it’s always changing, evolving. But last week I found this one word that I was like, why did this all work out for me? And it doesn’t work out for some people. Right. A lot of successful entrepreneurs think that what is that one thing, right? And it came down to the word courage for me. So when I get rejected or I ask for something from someone and they say no, it hurts. Yes. But I keep going and I keep pushing and I don’t let up. And so I think having that courage to just keep moving forward and knowing like you are going to succeed if you put your mind and heart and soul into it is going to make it work out. And so I wrote an article for Forbes last week about that that hopefully will come out soon.
Julie Smith [00:24:08]:
I also hear perseverance, though, through your definition and description, like, you have courage, but you also have the perseverance to push through those hard things, right?
Jackie Meyer [00:24:18]:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. It’s all just a matter of perspective because growing up, I had kind of a mentally unstable home. And so anything that I’m comparing to that seems like a walk in the park, like an unhappy client or someone getting a divorce or whatever. Yeah, those things suck. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing compared to mental illness and permanent issues that some people have out there. And so you just have to always keep it in perspective.
Glenn Harper [00:24:51]:
Well, I think the passion that comes that you believe in something so much that you are not going to let one person or one situation knock you off that track. You just can’t. Because every day, how many times you get told no a day by somebody about something, if that defines you, you’ll never get anywhere. So I think that’s great. I don’t know if it’s really thick skin. It’s just like, well, they just don’t get it. I’m going to move on, talk to somebody else. That’s probably how you had to do it.
Jackie Meyer [00:25:19]:
Yeah, exactly. But also the initial ask. Right. If you don’t ask, you’re never going to get it.
Glenn Harper [00:25:25]:
Isn’t that the craziest thing that people are scared to ask? It’s the weirdest thing.
Julie Smith [00:25:31]:
But I also think you didn’t let something that happens to many people, instead of just giving into that being your story and you being the victim, or that being a crutch, or this is my why you were able to completely change your perspective and lean on that to push you through hard times. I’m sure you’ve had hard times as an entrepreneur where you want to throw in the towel, you want to quit, I’m done. But instead, you’re like, you know what? That was hard. This is easy. And so I give you a ton of kudos for changing your path when it could have been something completely different.
Jackie Meyer [00:26:09]:
Thank you. I really appreciate that. Yeah. Actually, there was a huge event that happened back in 2018 that did help me change the whole trajectory of how I felt about work stuff. And that was when my sister was moving Florida, and she fell, hit her head on concrete up double bird surgery, and she had, like, a flap off of her head for several months. My dad and I had to fly back and forth and help her at these various hospitals that were taking very good or very poor care of her to help her walk, talk, everything again. And it took about a six month process, but the only way I was able to do that is because I had transformed my firm. And so everything kind of came to a pinnacle at that point of why I was able to be there for her and help her. And that was so much more important than me getting 50 tax returns done that week or whatever. Right.
Glenn Harper [00:27:07]:
Can you elaborate a little bit on one piece of this? So some people again, I really believe entrepreneurs are just born that way. Right. But I think a lot of people that become entrepreneurs just need a little push off the cliff to take the jump. When you were going through this thing where like, wow, this is really hard, and I am not giving up, was that something that you just is an innate thing inside of you? Or was it something that you got some help with, some coaching, consulting, some therapy, something that I guess brought that out in you, or did you already have it?
Jackie Meyer [00:27:46]:
That’s a great question. I remember it just being this innate response of, I have to be there, this is my role, I need to do this, and this is going to happen. Right. And I think that that’s the same feeling that I have whenever I do something scary at work or start a new business or anything like that. Right. It’s just that feeling that this is where I need to be. This is what I need to be doing. And I won’t be satisfied if I.
Glenn Harper [00:28:14]:
Don’t either lean into the wind or run away. And lean into the wind is a lot funner.
Jackie Meyer [00:28:19]:
Right. Not to say that I don’t have helpers. I have counselors, coaches. I have, like, five coaches all the time. So, yeah, I mean, I always lean on others. You need that outside perspective, for sure.
Glenn Harper [00:28:33]:
I like this question because it’s kind of cool, but you are obviously good at what you do. You used to help individual clients, helping with their situation. Now you’re helping the teachers who teach. What would be your ideal client? Go, man, if I could just get in with that firm, I would rock their world. Is that something that’s on your you don’t have to name them, but did you have somebody that’s like that’s on my list to go target that and go get that? Or is it just like, I eat them as they come in?
Jackie Meyer [00:29:01]:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Honestly, it’s totally opposite of what I thought it would be. So when I first started coaching, accountants, we would only take more established firms because we wanted I don’t know why. Because that was wrong. That was totally wrong. The perfect firm for coaching and change is a newer firm that’s open to the ideas.
Julie Smith [00:29:25]:
No bad habits. Right?
Jackie Meyer [00:29:27]:
Do it.
Julie Smith [00:29:28]:
No bad habits.
Jackie Meyer [00:29:29]:
Exactly. Yeah. And so we have seen the most amazing progression. Greg O’Brien at Go CPAs is a great example of that. He just won AICTC of the year. He’s featured on a lot of podcasts and whatnot. He grew to millions within, like, two to three years. And we were a part of that journey because he was always seeking learning, education, applying everything that he could learn. And so I can’t think of a particular firm that’s like that that I’m like, I need that one right now, or else I’d say it. But anyone that’s open minded on that fast track with a newer firm that wants to skip all the crap, that’s the perfect client for us.
Glenn Harper [00:30:13]:
Yeah. The crotchy old guy is impossible. You’ll never get that one. That’s just the way it is. I can’t explain it, but, man, that’s a tough nut to crack.
Jackie Meyer [00:30:20]:
It is.
Glenn Harper [00:30:23]:
Do you have a specific mentor or somebody that kind of took you under the wing, put their own mind, and said, look, this is what you need to do? Jackie, what they said to you transformed you. Obviously, it was that one coach, I think, that might have said the one thing. Was there anybody else that did that prior to you to kind of like, hey, if you’re in the dark, dark days and somebody grabbed you and gave you a helping hand and pulled you up and helped get you on your way, is there somebody that did that for you? At some point?
Jackie Meyer [00:30:53]:
I would say I was pretty much a loner growing up, but my husband is literally, like, the most trustworthy person in the world, and the kindest person in the world and very reliable. And while he’s not an entrepreneur, he supports everything I choose to do. And I don’t think that I could have probably made these kind of big decisions without him and his support. So I would have to give kudos to Mark for sure.
Glenn Harper [00:31:21]:
You might want to hold on to that guy.
Julie Smith [00:31:23]:
Yeah, he gets the kids ready in the morning. I’m like, Sign me up for well.
Jackie Meyer [00:31:29]:
You know, we made some agreements. I was working, like, three jobs when we got married, and we agreed, like, hey, I have these big goals with work. You don’t have that big of goals. He’s worked at Fidelity for 25 years. He’s very happy with his role there. He does not want to be a manager. He doesn’t want a promotion. He just does financial advisory support. I said, you’re doing the dishes, you’re doing the laundry. And when he gets upset at me these days, because you have two children and things are a little more high strung, I’m like, hey, remember what we used to remember?
Glenn Harper [00:32:11]:
He’s like what? Me. I would never think like that.
Jackie Meyer [00:32:14]:
Yes.
Glenn Harper [00:32:19]:
Do you have a moment when you were on your journey where you were like, wow, if I could just redo that piece. And I don’t want to call it a regret, but is this something that you would recognize by that moment in time if I change that? I know we talked about that a little bit, but is there a specific point in time you’re like, wow, if I’d have just made that decision, then when you look back, that had changed this whole trajectory. Do you have anything like that?
Jackie Meyer [00:32:46]:
Yeah, I do. I think, though, it’s more about just high school and college. Me not seeking mentorship or trying to rely on other people and how much that could have helped push me forward. Studying and education was always really easy to me, but it was a mental block in regards to wanting to work with other people and trust other people. And I think that I really could have probably gone a lot further if I had had that mentorship in high school or college or embraced that.
Glenn Harper [00:33:22]:
It’s funny about that. I think, like my generation, there was no help at all either. You somehow got in some club and learned it, but you’re on your own. There’s no resources. And then you kind of came probably through that transition where it was starting to be available, and now it’s so common. So I think the takeaway of our listeners is that there are so many resources that you don’t even think most entrepreneurs want to help other entrepreneurs. It’s a fraternity. It’s a little family thing that we like helping each other, so don’t be scared to reach out. People want to help. It’s the craziest thing, because most entrepreneurs, once they kind of I don’t want to say made it, but they’re doing fine. They would rather give back than circle the wagons and just do their things in a vacuum. And I think people have to be aware that if they just ask, people will help.
Julie Smith [00:34:10]:
Well, and I think it goes back to the beginning of the podcast. She said, I’m willing to ask. Right, so you have to be willing to ask sometimes for that assistance or that advice. And people usually are very giving with that.
Jackie Meyer [00:34:25]:
Yeah, there was one particular professor in my master’s, Dr. Van Bretta at SMU, and he was so hard on me and my papers and whatnot, but I got know mad about that instead of embracing the fact that he cared enough to actually grade me in more detail and give me notes and that kind of thing. And so that’s one of the things that it reminds me of. Like, hey, I should have opened up that conversation but I wasn’t there mentally ready for that at the time. I needed to emotionally mature and so here I am now.
Glenn Harper [00:35:01]:
Isn’t that funny?
Jackie Meyer [00:35:03]:
Mature?
Glenn Harper [00:35:04]:
Well, it’s just funny that sometimes you don’t recognize, not you, but people in general don’t recognize that there might be somebody in front of them that is going to provide some sort of incredible advice or some kind of guidance and we just don’t know enough to know that, to recognize that opportunity. And when we always evaluate going back and looking like, you know what, I remember that guy or that gal that did that. And man, I should have just man, imagine if I’d have just listened.
Jackie Meyer [00:35:33]:
Right. But honestly, from the coaching perspective, I think that every week I think why aren’t more people reaching out and asking me questions? I’m an open book. I tell them to email me, I tell them to reach out. Yes, I’m very busy, but that’s my passion. I love helping people. And so I just ran like a ten days to closing a tax plan challenge with hundreds of people and they don’t show up to the meetings and they don’t ask the questions and you’re.
Glenn Harper [00:36:02]:
Like, you got to ask, just ask what’s funny. I still think there’s a stigmatism out there of some sort where people still can’t believe that you an entrepreneur. Myself, Julie, people are out there that we would really love to help and they just can’t believe that somebody be willing to give their free time or give a secret away. Like how could that even be possible? But it’s possible. It’s really the way it is.
Julie Smith [00:36:27]:
Yeah, well, and you know Jackie, you and I kind of coincide in some of the things that we do and I think for me, and I’m going to guess the same as for you, is we would rather give away all that advice to help impact someone’s life rather than saying no because of some outside reason. I’ve always found that to be true. I’ve never been told no in regards to like, hey, just quick question or can you share your story or can you share your advice or let me run something by you. And I think people, for whatever reason, are so scared not to have the answer, maybe that they don’t know that outcome, that they’re almost scared they don’t have the courage to ask.
Jackie Meyer [00:37:12]:
Yeah. It’s also a balance, though, because you can tell someone what to do all day, but that’s why coaching is important, because they have to discover it for themselves. And so there’s a fine line between just like, vomiting out all this information that they need to do or trying to get them into a program of some sort where you can follow along, hold them accountable and that kind of thing too.
Glenn Harper [00:37:38]:
Absolutely. It’s an absolute miracle that anybody can do anything in the world with all the stuff going on. I mean, it is so hard, but it doesn’t have to be hard, but it just is. And even after you figure it out, it’s still hard because every day you got to make even harder, bigger decisions because it affects more and more people. We always talk about as an entrepreneur. Sometimes you go out and you want to do business, meaning you want to be a CPA and you want to help clients, so you then go help clients. And that’s a great business model. It works. People are comfortable doing their own thing, and nobody’s telling them what to do. They get to pick and choose. But you kind of become a slave to that thing, and you can’t scale that, and then you make the decision to transform yourself to building a business. Right. When did you decide that you were going to transition that from doing business to building a business? When did you realize that, this is crazy, I can’t do it all on my own. I want to build a business and be a true owner investor, not an owner operator.
Jackie Meyer [00:38:36]:
Yeah. First I’d say a big realization I had is, yeah, as an entrepreneur, I don’t have one boss, but now I have 300 bosses. Right. And it’s even harder. And that was difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that I wanted that control. And really other people were demanding so much of me when switch from in the business to on the business? That’s a great question. I think that it was kind of just a slow transition over those years that I knew that I didn’t want to be a workaholic and do the traditional methods anymore. And so I think every week when I met with my coach, he would give me new ideas or a new concept, and I would implement most of it. And as I implemented those things, I realized, like, wow, this is me working on the business. Right. Or, I just need to block 1 hour a week to think about what I’m doing for the business instead of in the business. If there’s like one thing that any listener can do to help them move in that path. It’s just block some time for it. Right. Because we’re going to be taken by everyone else’s deadlines and urgencies if we don’t schedule that time to work on the business ourselves.
Glenn Harper [00:39:56]:
I mean that is the curse of the entrepreneur as we’re really a slave to everyone. Even though we think we’re free, we’re really not because we still got to get the work done because you got to get paid and to carve that time out is crucial. Wow. So if you’re an entrepreneur and doing things, I think what’s cool we kind of talked about this a little bit, is that it’s? Not again. I think Julie and I think and you are one of the and we know some common people that we’re really on this crusade to change the industry of accountants, because Lord only knows we need a little bit of modification here. It’s a hard journey, it’s hard to get these people do it. But again, it’s bigger than just a little thing. It’s trying to really seismically shift how the industry is in that scope of clients that we deal with, the firms. And I mean if everybody would listen to that a little bit, the ability for those CPA firms and those accounting firms, what they could do for their clients, their entrepreneurial clients, to help advise them in a better way, I mean that will literally change the world.
Jackie Meyer [00:41:05]:
Sure, exactly. Yeah. And I will say on a side note, a book that really helped open my eyes in regards to working on the business is emyth. So the fact that we’re all technicians, when we get into this, we’re really great technicians and we need to move to kind of manager and then true entrepreneur and owner. So I would recommend that book if anyone hasn’t read it.
Julie Smith [00:41:27]:
So I have one last jackie Meyer, you’ve had a CPA firm, you’ve worked in the big four, you have Tax Plan IQ, what is your end game?
Jackie Meyer [00:41:41]:
My end game is to be on the board of all these companies and just be a visionary. So I just want to envision cool new things, have them happen and have other people do it. And then I want to travel the world with my family. I would love to do more like missionary trips type stuff and I set a goal a few years ago to travel a month in the summer with my family, which we have been able to do and we just got back from that trip. But there’s so much more, so many more places we could see and so many more things we could do.
Julie Smith [00:42:17]:
So what I hear is there’s no end game. You’re going to keep going.
Glenn Harper [00:42:23]:
You know too much, why would you stop? And if you can be so impactful, why would you ever stop? Well, I think the only other question I have, are you a cowboys fan.
Jackie Meyer [00:42:33]:
Then my husband is for sure.
Glenn Harper [00:42:36]:
What are you?
Jackie Meyer [00:42:38]:
I’m not a huge sports person. I’ve got way too much like accounting tax geek out stuff in this head. I don’t need to do any sports except my kids. Soccer, baseball, karate. I’m really getting into that stuff, for sure.
Glenn Harper [00:42:50]:
You’re getting into karate? That’s kind of cool. Well, for myself oh, I thought you were doing it. That would be pretty cool. Well, I tell you, we really appreciate you having you on the show, and I hope our listeners get some value out of this. And we just keep hammering some of these points home because, again, I think there’s just a couple of concepts that if entrepreneurs understand and can execute on, it really will transform their lives and they can transform the people around them. Would you want to give a couple plugs of your firm here so we can listeners that they want to reach here, anything like that? They know what to do?
Jackie Meyer [00:43:22]:
Sure. So if you go to Jackie.CPA, you can see all the coaching, consulting, and offerings that we’re doing right now. Tax Plan IQ is meant for tax advisors or accountants that want to be tax advisors. But if a taxpayer goes and tells their accountant about tax and IQ, I won’t be mad, because sometimes it takes the taxpayer client to tell the accountant that they need to do something before they’re actually going to get it done. But, yeah, I would love to significantly grow the software, which in turn shows us that we are making that difference that we want to make in transforming this industry.
Glenn Harper [00:43:59]:
Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show, and we appreciate you taking time on your busy day, even though you’re only working for 4 hours a week. We do appreciate this extra time. I’m messing with you.
Jackie Meyer [00:44:10]:
Yeah. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.
Glenn Harper [00:44:13]:
Well, Julie, another doozy here, so it’s a good time here, and I’m looking forward to the next one.
Julie Smith [00:44:18]:
Absolutely.
Glenn Harper [00:44:19]:
Take care. This is Glenn Harper.
Julie Smith [00:44:21]:
Julie Smith.
Episode Show Notes
In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting the remarkable Jackie Meyer, a visionary tax strategist and the founder of a highly successful tax advisory firm. Jackie’s journey from a traditional approach to a trailblazing entrepreneur will inspire and motivate you to create the business of your dreams.
We dive into Jackie’s transformative experiences. From seeking guidance from a business coach to developing unique packages for high-net-worth entrepreneurs, Jackie set out on a path that quadrupled her firm’s revenue and allowed her to focus on clients who align with her vision.
But it doesn’t stop there. Jackie shares her strategies for reducing work hours and embracing a flexible lifestyle, all while creating an entirely virtual and paperless business long before the COVID-19 pandemic. She also reveals how a life-changing event compelled her to prioritize family and the importance of building a business that supports personal values.
Throughout this episode, you’ll discover Jackie’s philosophy on the power of trust and empowerment, not only in her own business but also in the entrepreneurial community at large. She encourages listeners to lean on the vast resources available and seek support from fellow entrepreneurs. Jackie’s insights will leave you inspired to make proactive decisions and take action, rather than waiting for circumstances to force your hand.
So, grab your headphones and prepare for an insightful conversation with Jackie Meyer as we explore her journey of transforming her business, overcoming challenges, and leaving a lasting impact on the accounting industry.
