How Daphne Turned Tax Prep Into Software Sales | SBA Podcast EP 26

Ross (00:01)
You have a little account down there.

Baldeep (00:03)
Countdown. All right, go ahead, Ross. Kick it off, buddy.

DAPHNE  (00:04)
I see it.

Ross (00:05)
All right.

I’ll kick it off. I’ll kick it off. So yeah, welcome, Daphne. Thanks for, thanks for jumping in with us. So this call is, it’s really just kind of a quick interview to hear more about your story, why you started with our program, where you’re at, where you are now, and where you’re looking to go, really. And that’s it. Just kind of do a little breakdown, tell us your story, share, yeah, all the little fun, exciting details in between and everything like that.

That’s really the purpose of this, just to hear a little bit more about your story. And we’ve got a handful of questions we’ll throw out. Yeah. But if you want to start maybe real quick, Daphne, just give a quick introduction of yourself, how long you’ve been in the tax industry for, what your experience was. And we’ll take it from there.

DAPHNE  (00:54)
OK, well, I’ve been doing taxes for now 17 years, so over 15 years’ experience. I seen the ad for other service bureaus, and then I ended up reaching out to some of my quote unquote tax friends to learn more about how do they their own software. So I continue seeing my tax friends selling their own software. So I end up reaching out to this particular dude.

Was, I would say, a little bit close to me, but then he told me when I was asking him about the software program that I had to do like 8,000 or something. I had to have a volume of like 8,000 or something like that in order to start selling software. So to be honest, I ended up going to TaxSlayer, CrossLink, and the actual big brands. And then the prices was it matching what I was supposed to be getting.

So then I finally seen you guys’ ad pop up. I joined one of your live webinars. Yeah, so I joined the live webinar. I ended up doing a one-on-one. I want to say it was with you. It was with one of y’all voices. Y’all sound familiar. Yes, so I did.

Ross (02:05)
The webinars, yeah. Yeah.

Baldeep (02:06)
The webinars, yeah.

Baldeep (02:13)
It was with me. It was with me. That was, you signed up the year that I was still doing a lot of those calls. So yeah. You just finished your third tax season with us.

DAPHNE  (02:20)
That I had with two years ago.

DAPHNE  (02:26)
This my third season?

Baldeep (02:27)
Yeah, the first season was just you doing your own shit. You didn’t sell any software yet, but we’ll get there. We’ll get there. But yeah, you did your call with, I remember. You did your call with me.

DAPHNE  (02:31)
Yeah, I know that for a fact. The first year I didn’t do nothing. I didn’t do nothing.

Ross (02:34)
You—

DAPHNE  (02:40)
And that’s 100% correct. The first year I just did software, because I kind of came in late. I signed up in November, December, somewhere, whatever. So I didn’t market. I didn’t really try. I just had to jump into tax season. So the next year, I was like, OK, let me give it a shot. And then I joined the, was it Teacher in the Box or something like that? Business in—

Ross (03:02)
The Biz in a Box. Yeah, so we had the paths. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Baldeep (03:03)
Business in the Box.

DAPHNE  (03:05)
Yeah, it was something like that in a box. So I ended up joining that, and I was like, OK, so I guess I need to start teaching people because you guys are like, oh, provide value, provide value. So, OK. So I had to get on the internet and start letting people know that, hey, I’m selling software, and if you need training, whatever, blah, blah, bring it on over. So my first year I sold maybe, I know it was less than 10. I know it was less than 10, but again, I was mainly focused on—

I was mainly focused on doing taxes. So last year I was like, OK, I’m gonna give this a real, well this season, I was like, OK, OK, OK, I’m gonna give it a real shot. I’m gonna stop playing, I’m gonna really do it. Cause I wanna say last year my payout was what, 40,000 or something like that. And then I’m not gonna lie, I don’t remember the lady name, but her name starts with an L. I know it’s spelled L-E-I, something like that.

Baldeep (04:02)
Lisa, yeah.

Ross (04:02)
Peace out.

DAPHNE  (04:03)
That, you know, it’s like L-E-I-G or something. I don’t know how her name go or something like that.

Baldeep (04:06)
Yeah.

Ross (04:08)
Just Lisa. It’s just Lisa. Seven-letter Lisa.

DAPHNE  (04:12)
OK, so I’m not gonna lie. Seen Lisa and I seen her offer that she was doing, and then she finally showed her number. So I was like, she got me fucked up. Like this lady really out here, she don’t file no taxes, she stays 100% safe, everything is clean, and all she does is wait for the money to roll in. OK, well if she could do it, I could do it. So I pushed a little bit harder or whatever—

This year, and I know this year your girl got her nice little payout coming out cause I’ve been watching the numbers, but that was pretty much it. But I can’t, I will not lie, it was when Lisa posted her numbers that I was like, OK, let me take this a little bit more serious and try to see what can happen. And that’s what happened with last year, my little $40,000 payout, also with this year. So this year moving forward I actually start—

Doing my promotions next month, which is in June, which is the earliest I’ve ever started. But same way she’d be posting them 10,000 things. This year, my goal was a thousand. I know I didn’t make it to the full goal of a thousand, but I don’t know there’s still time. But anyways, this year, my goal was a thousand. Next upcoming year, my goal is going to be 10,000 because I’m pretty sure it took her a couple of years to build up her momentum and just be serious about it. That’s what it all comes down to because I have the same goal.

I no longer want to do taxes. I just want to sell software and collect my little money on the back end.

Baldeep (05:43)
Yeah, and everyone starts at different, like people have a different network, have a different starting point. So yeah, everyone’s got their own path that they go down. You’re not too far off. You won’t hit the thousand because it’s not that it wasn’t transmitted, it’s just not funded. That’s the part, right, and only thing that matters is the funded. But yeah, no, you hit volume incentives this year. You more than doubled, or you about doubled your numbers from last year. So yeah—

DAPHNE  (06:00)
I’m that part.

Yeah.

DAPHNE  (06:11)
Yeah, I’m real proud of that, but my goal was the full thousand. I almost made it, but almost doesn’t count.

Baldeep (06:18)
I’m—

Ross (06:19)
Yeah, but I mean, even just, yeah, I was looking at that too, like doubling the business year over year. Even if you just continue doing that, that gets to the point where when you’re doubling, it’s thousands, tens of thousands of products that you’re adding to your business every year, because it just compounds, right? So it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. But obviously, yeah, I mean, let’s shoot for the stars, right? For next year, next season, do the 10,000 for sure. Yeah.

Baldeep (06:45)
Yeah, all it is is consistency. So tell us a bit about, so what was that change? Obviously, yeah, all right, you saw somebody else do it, you’re like, well, if they can do it, I know I could do it. So what was your process? All right, well, what did you go out and do? How did you go and get more clients? What were the steps that you followed? In vague terms, doesn’t have to be specifics, but as much details you want to give us.

DAPHNE  (06:53)
Correct.

DAPHNE  (07:04)
Well, to be honest, I went back into the Service Bureau Accelerator Group. I seen everybody that was excelling. I went to their pages. I found their accounts where they were doing their promotions. And I didn’t copy them verbatim, but I took their ideas and I pushed them on my side. Then I ended up having to go back and rewatch, because I don’t know if you remember, I had sent you a message saying that I need the Facebook advertising class again.

So I end up following what was in that particular class step by step. I did it exactly how you showed how to do it. And then I just pushed it through. So that’s literally what I did. Yeah, I went, I copied everybody else. I rinsed and repeat.

Baldeep (07:43)
OK. So you just ran ads?

Baldeep (07:50)
You—

Ross (07:51)
That’s day seven of the seven-day launch now. Rinse and repeat, that’s it.

Baldeep (07:54)
And repeat.

DAPHNE  (07:56)
That was it. I mean, there’s no special razzle-dazzle to it, none of that.

Ross (08:03)
You just put in the work though, right? That’s what it comes down to. We mention that all the time where it’s like, look, there’s nothing secret, right? Our training is literally here’s the blueprint. You just have to do it. So it’s awesome, right? You did it and, yeah, you grew.

DAPHNE  (08:19)
Now the one thing I will say that I’m gonna do different this year is I’m gonna be doing those free webinars that y’all recommend. Now this will be my first year doing that because I’m very shy and I don’t like to be on camera. So yeah, I don’t even want to be on here.

Baldeep (08:29)
You’re on here now.

Ross (08:32)
Ooh, ooh, question for you though, Daphne. When you watched our live webinars, were we on camera?

Baldeep (08:32)
You—

DAPHNE  (08:38)
Um, no. No, you was not. It was a whole screen.

Ross (08:39)
No, we were not. We don’t do them on camera. There you go. Exactly. So neither do you. You don’t have to be on camera either.

DAPHNE  (08:47)
Yeah, and then with the live webinar class that y’all actually give the breakdown of what to basically say. Now, I’m not going to lie, too. When I did my calls, the call list that you guys provided, I tweaked it to, you know, huh, what is it? Yeah, the call scripts. I did use your call script. Now, I tweaked it and, you know, removed sections because I know that I remember you saying something in the class about it should be—

Baldeep (09:00)
The scripts, you mean? The call scripts? Like the conversation, yeah.

Ross (09:02)
Call script.

Baldeep (09:15)
You—

DAPHNE  (09:15)
So many minutes or whatever. I’m not gonna lie to you. I don’t have as much of an attention span as y’all do. So I had to get that call script down to five minutes. So I did.

Baldeep (09:25)
Yeah, so the discovery call, it’s 15 to 20 minutes typically, right? So yeah, you could always trim it down where you trim it down, but where it ends up helping in the long term is as you’re speaking to more and more people who have no clue who you are. Just think about you signing up with us. There was a whole bunch of steps involved in that, right? You spoke to other people, then you spoke to C & R thing, then you spoke to us, then you signed up. Those are—

Ross (09:26)
Yeah.

DAPHNE  (09:33)
Yeah, it’s been dealt.

Baldeep (09:53)
That conversation, that discovery conversation and how it’s structured, helps you uncover a lot of things to help you close more deals later on, right? So if you’re looking at it like, hey—and this is something that we’re going to talk about in the Elite training that you’re invited to—on those follow-up steps, you have all this information from these people. When you start looking at out of every 10 people I speak to, I close one, well, how do I get—

DAPHNE  (10:01)
Hmm.

DAPHNE  (10:09)
Me.

Baldeep (10:21)
That from being for every 10, instead of closing one every 10, I’m closing three or four every 10. And that’s when those things become more important. So if you’re running ads and you’re having conversations, you’re closing deals here and there, that’s fine. But those incremental percentage points on closing from one to three add up so much more than spending money on ads. We’ll show you numbers. If you come to the convention, we’ll probably talk about this.

DAPHNE  (10:40)
Mm-hmm.

Baldeep (10:50)
Or in some of the trainings we do at Elite, we’ll talk about these. We’ll show you how those incremental percentage points actually mean tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, of more dollars for you. So that becomes a bigger focus, and that’s when that becomes really important.

DAPHNE  (11:03)
OK.

Baldeep (11:06)
But yeah, it’s good that you used it because it’s a good starting point. A lot of times, you know what happens? People are not comfortable on the phone, right? You don’t really know what to say. It’s the first time selling this stuff. You’re maybe a little bit here and there, but at least it gives you that framework, that starting point on, all right, cool, this is how this conversation should go. And later on I could tweak how to get them to buy. Right? That’s a whole other set of the training. So you’re going to jump into the webinars. Webinars are a good—

DAPHNE  (11:08)
Yeah, it is.

DAPHNE  (11:22)
You—

Baldeep (11:34)
Strategy: simple—run ads to webinars. What’s going to be most important in the webinar strategy is the follow-up. The follow-up of, cause there’s going to be out of every webinar we run, there’s 30% of the people show up, 70% of the people don’t show up. So now you have to get those 70% of the people to get back onto it. So it’s a lot of follow-up. So I would definitely recommend you hire for that. Hire for the follow-up, which we’ll also be talking about in SBA Elite. Yeah.

DAPHNE  (11:53)
Me.

DAPHNE  (11:59)
Thanks.

Ross (12:00)
Which we’ll also be talking about in SBA Elite.

DAPHNE  (12:04)
The virtual assistants.

Ross (12:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Baldeep (12:05)
Yeah, yeah, that’s the simplest first hire for sure.

DAPHNE  (12:10)
OK.

Ross (12:12)
Awesome.

So a couple of questions I have for you, Daphne, because one thing that we hear a lot from people, whether they’re looking at joining the Service Bureau Accelerator or they’ve had software in the past, is a lot of support challenges when they’re in tax season and they’re trying to get stuff done either in their own office or if they’re a reseller, if they’re a service bureau, getting the help that they need when they need it. I was just curious, what’s been your experience with our program as far as support goes? So if you have questions or if you have—

Challenge or you’ve got some tech issues, you got to reach out to us.

Baldeep (12:44)
Have you used it all?

DAPHNE  (12:46)
Yes, I’ve used support and my EROs have used support. The only big issue that they ever have is the compatibility with MacBook. But other than that, everything else is pretty much straightforward. When they call on the phone, everything goes well. They do dislike the fact that they’ll have to go to another computer or whatever in order to use the software when the software feels like it doesn’t want to be software.

Baldeep (13:15)
Have you used our, what about you and using our ticketing system? Have you used your support with us? Have you used that a lot? I mean, I’ve seen your name pop up here and there.

DAPHNE  (13:23)
Yeah, I’ve used here and there because I don’t never really need nothing. But yeah, I’ve used it. You guys normally, if y’all don’t get back to me the same day, it’s the next day. I can’t even say 24 hours. I’m gonna say it’s like 12 hours. Somebody’s gonna say something.

Baldeep (13:40)
Haha.

Ross (13:43)
That’s good. That’s what we aim for. We’re trying to be as fast as possible on the support, cause it’s just, I know if—yeah, yeah. That’s when it’s all hands on deck. Even I jump in the support during the tax season and help out. That’s good.

DAPHNE  (13:48)
Yeah, it’s pretty fair.

Baldeep (13:48)
Especially during season when people are panicking.

DAPHNE  (13:51)
Yeah, literally.

Baldeep (13:53)
Everyone does.

DAPHNE  (13:57)
OK.

Baldeep (13:59)
So Daphne, how many EROs are you currently at?

DAPHNE  (14:03)
Don’t know. Twenty-something? Thirty? Huh? One hundred?

Baldeep (14:03)
You don’t know? Twenty-something? Goal for next year? Goal for next year? OK.

Ross (14:11)
Nice.

DAPHNE  (14:13)
That’s the goal for next year.

Baldeep (14:13)
We’re gonna mark that and we’re gonna have to hold you to that one.

DAPHNE  (14:16)
That’s the goal. I mean, all my EROs this year are renewing, that’s for sure. And then next year’s goal is to do the number. I keep everybody that I had last year and add another 100.

Ross (14:17)
Ha.

Ross (14:21)
Nice.

Ross (14:29)
Yeah, yeah, it’s all—

Baldeep (14:29)
Yeah, you’ll find that once you kind of get that acquisition engine going, even if a couple drop off, you sign up 100 more, you lose five, it’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal at the end of the day.

DAPHNE  (14:38)
That’s not a big deal.

Ross (14:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s awesome. And another thing is you’ve already got the blueprint, right? Because you did last year. So you know what needs to be done, which is amazing, right? Now all you have to do is turn the campaigns back on and just dial it in and keep going. Yeah.

Baldeep (14:54)
Yeah. One thing I will say, and a mistake a lot of people make and I don’t want you to make it, is you have a strategy. You’re like, hey, I’m going to go and do some webinars. So when you launch that, that doesn’t mean not to do what you did to get you to where you are. You never launch a new thing and bank all of it. That’s a philosophy that we’ve been living by since we launched ESM back in the days. If it’s working, we don’t stop it.

DAPHNE  (14:55)
More.

DAPHNE  (15:04)
OK.

DAPHNE  (15:10)
OK.

And that’s it.

Baldeep (15:24)
But we’ll try other things, and we’ll never stop what’s working. A mistake I see a lot of people make, especially over the past few years, is they’ll do well, and then they’ll try a whole other different thing, but not even keep doing the thing that was working. So when you go to launch, launch the same shit that you launched before, get that going, and then start playing with the webinars and stuff like that, because it will take you time to dial it in, and you don’t want to slow down something that you know works. So just keep doing that, and then add in the webinars.

DAPHNE  (15:51)
OK.

Baldeep (15:54)
And phase that in. And once it does perform equally as good, then you could cut the other one.

DAPHNE  (15:59)
So basically have two promotions going on at the same time, two different type of campaigns.

Baldeep (16:01)
Well, I mean, a webinar is two different type of campaigns. You’re selling the same thing, right? On either one, you’re selling the same thing. It’s just a different way to get the message out there or speak to the masses, right? So webinars are one-to-many. So don’t stop doing the other shit because that other shit got you to where you are. And it’s probably, you have a pipeline of people there too that I’m sure didn’t buy yet. They didn’t buy last year. So you can start reaching out to those people and invite them to the webinar or kind of feed it a little bit. But when you launch the webinar—

DAPHNE  (16:28)
Mm-hmm.

Baldeep (16:31)
Don’t not launch the other thing that you know works. Do that too.

DAPHNE  (16:33)
For the people from last year. So should I call them or just send them an email?

Baldeep (16:37)
I would call them because email open rates are going to be 10 to 20%. So you might as well be calling them, get them on the phone and all that. Yeah.

Ross (16:45)
I’m going to suggest do all of it. Set up an email, text, put a little drip campaign, email, text every week or two, and then call as well behind it.

Baldeep (16:47)
All of it. Email, text, and phone. Yeah.

DAPHNE  (16:49)
OK.

Baldeep (16:53)
And there’s going to be one important thing to remember when you’re reaching out to these people. You’ll probably remember what you’re reaching out to them about because it’s your business, but they don’t know who the fuck you are. They didn’t remember you. They’re not going to know anything about what they signed up for. So you need to give them a reminder. Something like, hey, you signed up for XYZ software promo last year. Here’s a couple, there’s a couple of changes coming this year. When’s a good time for us to hop on a call to see if it’s something that may be a better fit for you this year?

DAPHNE  (17:03)
Go.

DAPHNE  (17:23)
OK.

Baldeep (17:23)
Right, you gotta give them a reminder of what they signed up for, what they inquired about, because they’re not gonna remember.

DAPHNE  (17:30)
OK.

Baldeep (17:34)
I’m all tapped out of ideas.

Ross (17:36)
Yeah, no, that’s good stuff. Any— I mean, we went over a lot of information there about how you got started and everything. I would say maybe two questions for you, Daphne, just before we wrap up the call. First question: Was there anything— I don’t know if you can remember back to it— specific about the Service Bureau Accelerator, about our program, that made you decide to move forward? Was there anything specific that you can recall, or was it kind of just the deal that we had available?

DAPHNE  (17:46)
OK.

DAPHNE  (18:05)
No renewal fees for net net, and I do the same thing with the software—no renewal fees, you pay a one-time fee and here you are. Yeah.

Ross (18:06)
No renewal fees.

Baldeep (18:13)
Ross, you know, she also had me on her sales call. So come on.

Ross (18:13)
It’s good for retention, right? Yeah.

Ross (18:20)
Yeah. Yeah. I was like, other than talking to Baldi, other than him. Cool. Then the final question for you, Daphne, would be: What would you say if there’s someone who’s been looking around—because obviously kind of a self-inflicted wound that we’ve been dealing with is so many more people know about service bureaus today, right? When we launched, it was kind of hush hush. You talked to your—exactly. You talked to your—

DAPHNE  (18:23)
You—

DAPHNE  (18:36)
Yeah.

Baldeep (18:38)
Yeah, you said it before: you need 8,000 products, all the stuff we heard about, nobody wants to tell you about it. You were exactly the type of person we’re speaking to at that point.

DAPHNE  (18:43)
Yes.

Ross (18:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so now there’s the scenario where now everyone knows what a service bureau is and everyone’s shopping around. So out of your experience with us, the growth that you’ve seen, being a part of the community and everything like that, being able to see what other members are doing as well, what would you say to someone who’s looking at becoming a service bureau if maybe they’re looking at other options or looking at a service bureau? What would you suggest to someone who’s shopping around?

DAPHNE  (19:15)
Well, first of all, like I said, there’s no renewal fees. The second thing that I do like most about the service bureau is the continued mentorship. Even though it may not be quote unquote mentorship, I like the fact that I’m able to log in on my own time whenever. If I need to take a class, I can go in the search bar. And as long as I’ve already done, of course, all of the pinpoints, I don’t have to go through everything step by step. And then even if it is locked, all I have to do is send a ticket.

Ross (19:44)
True enough.

Baldeep (19:45)
We gotta talk to the support team about unlocking stuff prematurely. So Daphne, where—

DAPHNE  (19:49)
You—

DAPHNE  (19:53)
Trying to get nobody in trouble.

Ross (19:58)
Yeah.

DAPHNE  (19:58)
But no, I think my stuff would be, was unlocked because it may have been new for that year or something like that.

Baldeep (20:04)
Yeah. So we continue to change the training, right? The training has been up since you’ve joined. It’s night and day—completely different. So what happens is, you went through—you mentioned you already went through the Business in a Box path, and we’ve got rid of paths two years ago. And because we’re like, hey, there’s a better way to do this. So we structured a better way. So in scenarios like that, while we don’t want to make you watch a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t—you may have seen various iterations of—

Ross (20:06)
Yeah.

Ross (20:12)
Completely different.

DAPHNE  (20:13)
Yeah, literally.

Baldeep (20:32)
So we just unlock more stuff so you can go find what you need. But yeah. So, Daphne, where can people find you? Say somebody’s watching this video and they’re like, hey, you know what? I just want to continue my journey as an ERO and I want to work with Daphne. Where can we find Daphne?

DAPHNE  (20:48)
On Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok as The Real Coach Juice or The Credit Foodie.

Baldeep (20:55)
The Real Coach Juice, J-U-I-C-E.

DAPHNE  (20:57)
Mm-hmm. Yes, Credit Foodie. Mm-hmm.

Baldeep (21:01)
And then the other one was The Credit Foodie. All right, send us that information. We’ll make sure it goes in whatever notes, wherever we end up putting this up. But yeah, that’s all I got on my end. Ross, any final words from you?

Ross (21:06)
Nice.

DAPHNE  (21:10)
OK.

Ross (21:14)
Yeah.

No, that’s everything again. Yeah. Thanks for, thanks so much for jumping in, Daphne, to have a little call. I don’t—I’ll have to double check to see if you’re already in the Elite. I know we sent out some invitations before, but I think, I don’t think you were, so I’ll shoot an invitation to you later on today at some point. So next time you sign into the training platform, just check the notifications. You’ll see an invite. Just hop in there. And I think we’re going to have the first call the first or second week of—I think it’s going to be second week of June. We’re actually going to do a first Elite call. So—

DAPHNE  (21:20)
OK.

Ross (21:46)
Well, you’ll see all the information posted there. Awesome. All right, well, thanks again for jumping in. Thanks for joining us, Daphne. And yeah, looking forward to the 10K for next season. Put some big numbers on the board. Awesome. All right, thanks, Daphne.

DAPHNE  (21:48)
Alrighty.

DAPHNE  (21:56)
Yeah, that’s the goal. Yeah. OK.

Baldeep (21:59)
On the board. All right.