Make the F*cking Investment. I did and DOUBLED | SBA Podcast EP 40

Baldeep (00:01)
All right, here we are for another SBA interview session. This is the second time I’ve used that phrase. I just made it up on the fly the other day, and let’s keep going with it. I’m here with Ross, and we have Stacey here. Ross, you want to kick it off?

Ross (00:15)
Yeah, so thanks for jumping in, Stacey. You know, we reached out to a bunch of our members who had put some pretty good numbers on the board this year as we’re opening up a new kind of training section and wanted to have a conversation with you just to kind of learn a little bit more about you—where you started from, your experience in the industry, and your results so far with Service Bureau Accelerator. So if you want to kick it off, Stacey, just kind of introduce yourself real quick. Give us a little background on your experience in the tax industry and what ultimately led you to jump in with the Service Bureau Accelerator program.

Stacey G. (00:49)
Okay. Hi, my name is Stacey . I have been in the tax industry for about four to five years. I started initially partnering with someone, working under their brand.

This was back when COVID hit. I was actually working for our local electric company here for five years. When COVID hit, everyone was sent to work from home. Schools were out, and I had also just given birth maybe about three weeks before COVID hit. So I was out on maternity leave as well.

At the end of my maternity leave, when I attempted to go back to work, they told me that I would have to have someone to care for my children. That kind of seemed a bit odd to me because everyone else with children was also working from home. But I guess maybe they thought, with me having—I have six kids—at that time, I had just given birth to my fifth. So I kind of assumed they maybe felt like it would be too much noise or distraction or whatever the case may be.

So I ended up extending my maternity leave, which then turned into short-term disability. It was kind of hard to even go back to work. So at that point, I’m like, you know, bills don’t stop, caring for my kids doesn’t stop, finances are piling up, and I kind of, at that time, dove into the credit repair industry. That was something that kind of went hand in hand with what I was already learning at that time. That’s kind of what drove me into entrepreneurship—it was COVID.

Ross (02:38)
Got it. Yeah, interesting story there. It’s kind of crazy talking to people—everyone has so many different stories of what happened during COVID and how it positively or negatively impacted their lives. But sounds like it was a positive result for you, so awesome.

Baldeep (02:38)
Wow.

Stacey G. (02:47)
Yeah, right.

Stacey G. (02:54)
Yeah, most definitely.

Baldeep (02:55)
It’s interesting what you just said—you’ve been doing this five years, pretty much right after COVID. You’ve been with us for three out of those five. I’m just looking—your first year, okay, and then you just finished your third season with us. So you’ve been with us for the majority of your industry experience. Interesting.

Ross (03:16)
Yeah. Were you, like, from the credit repair stuff—did that get you into tax prep? Were you doing tax preparation for a few years before becoming a service bureau? What was the timeline there?

Stacey G. (03:26)
Yeah, so I trained in credit repair with someone that I ran into on social media years prior. She had a friend that was already in the tax industry and offered a tax course. It’s kind of crazy how it worked, because at that time I didn’t have any extra money to invest into learning taxes. So I reached out to a cousin of mine who was doing well, and he actually gave me the thousand dollars to enroll in a tax course and told me that I didn’t have to pay him back.

That was exactly what I needed because I didn’t have the financial resources to pay that kind of money—I’d been out of work for so long already and was barely maintaining. Once I paid for that course and learned, I worked underneath someone for a year or two. Then I kind of just took off from there. I ran into some not-so-happy moments with that, but that drove me into the service bureau industry.

Baldeep (04:44)
So by “not-so-happy moments,” you basically got maxed out on your fees or were stuck under somebody and not really maximizing your earning potential—is that the political way to say it?

Stacey G. (04:55)
Yeah, and it was a situation where someone in this industry—people tend to lifestyle market, which I don’t fall into, being amazed by how people are living or what they have. But it was a situation where she overpromised so much and underdelivered on the back end. And then playing with money was a huge problem. Because if you say I’m going to make this much or get paid this much, or it’s this split and you’re going to pay weekly—and then I’m waiting two to three months for a payout—it’s like…

Ross (05:27)
Yeah.

Ross (05:43)
Yeah, that’s something we’ve heard—you’re not alone in that. Which, at the same time, makes it like, you know, that’s why this is such a good industry to be in. Because you know your story—you go and start talking to EROs, you’re going to hear the same thing. So if I can give them a better experience and set the right expectations, like you said, and actually deliver on them—

Ross (06:09)
I mean, it’s game over. It’s pretty easy to really grow and scale. Yeah, that’s awesome. So what was the shift for you? You were a tax preparer, you were learning that industry—what made you decide, “I need to be the software provider”?

Stacey G. (06:32)
So, in all honesty, it actually had nothing to do with money.

Ross (06:34)
Or was it just a Facebook ad?

Stacey G. (06:36)
No, it had nothing to do with trying to make more or lessen fees. I was so pissed off that people were playing with my money. I have children. I couldn’t fail. I was in corporate America for a while, and when COVID hit, it just no longer became viable. Kids were out of school for months at a time, and I just knew entrepreneurship was something I had to make work. I didn’t have a plan B or C.

What really drove me into becoming a service bureau was people playing with my money. Because at the end of the day, I have kids to feed, and I can’t tell the electric company, “I’ve been working doing taxes and so-and-so hasn’t paid me in three months.” These companies…

Ross (07:48)
They don’t care, unfortunately.

Stacey G. (07:52)
Yeah, and they want their money. It was really an effed-up feeling to have to experience that, because it was somebody I truly trusted. And you know, when money starts rolling in, people get to acting funny. I was like, “If I can change this perspective with whoever I reach, I’m doing a service to the industry.”

So my whole mindset was, I don’t want anybody to have to feel how I felt in that moment. Whatever I can do to change the negative outlook on the tax industry—whether it’s one person, ten, or twenty at a time—that was my goal: to not have people feel how I felt.

Baldeep (08:41)
You know, it’s funny—what you’re saying really resonates, because when we launched SBA, the goal was to make sure people knew about this side of the business and also got the kind of deal that I would have wanted when I started.

A lot of times, we’ve signed up people who were already service bureaus over the years, and they just didn’t know what to ask for. Our standard deal was way better than whatever deal they had, but they didn’t know to ask for certain things, right? So it’s just, you know, what you don’t know, you don’t know.

We’ve always tried to be transparent. Sounds like that’s what you’re doing too. And I think the reality is, if you’re authentic and you’re not lifestyle marketing—because I mean, all of our marketing—

Stacey G. (09:07)
Bye.

Stacey G. (09:23)
Yeah.

Ross (09:24)
—with the lifestyle marketing and the rental vehicles—

Baldeep (09:28)
Yeah, you won’t see us doing anything like that. I think authenticity resonates more, and you end up getting clientele who want to improve and grow and aren’t just focused on shiny objects, right? So that’s good.

Then, yeah, it means you’ve grown quite a bit. If you want to talk a bit about your strategy—because your first year, we’ll scratch that year off, you didn’t do much with us. I think it was a transition year, maybe, right? But between last year and this past season that we just finished—you’ve grown to the point where last year—

Stacey G. (09:55)
Yeah. Yeah, but—

Baldeep (10:07)
—just shy of volume incentives. This year, now you’re going to make extra money on top of it too. What was your strategy? What has been your revenue model or your marketing strategy? What does that look like for you over the past couple of years?

Stacey G. (10:21)
I would say my strategy was just trying to get go-getters. It’s so easy to market and get people to sign up. The first year that I—not the first year, because it was a transition year, I came in at the end of tax season—but the following year, I offered a lot of free.

And I realized that people don’t value free. They haven’t invested anything, so whether they do it or not, they’re not taking a loss. I got a lot of people that signed up, but then I realized I was pouring into these people and not getting much in return.

So this past tax season, I did away with the free stuff. I just couldn’t do it anymore. As much money as I invest in my business—with systems, marketing, websites, and all the extra resources I give them, plus the time I’m pouring in—I just couldn’t do free.

So I went from worrying about quantity to quality preparers: people who were go-getters, ambitious, people who didn’t have a plan B or C. This is do or die—they’re going to make it work.

Baldeep (11:45)
Nice, nice.

Ross (11:46)
So you’re looking for your audience—people who mirror you. Yeah, that’s a good way to do it.

Baldeep (11:50)
Yeah.

Stacey G. (11:51)
Like me.

Baldeep (11:53)
That’s usually how it works. It’s a good way to do it for sure. When you can speak the same language, it just makes it easier.

And I vaguely remember us having a conversation about that “free” thing. I think I told you, I would have warned you against it if we had spoken before. And then the conversation probably went something like, “Yeah, I did a whole bunch of free,” and my response would’ve been, “Let me guess, you signed up a bunch of people and no one did anything.”

Stacey G. (12:20)
Yep. But it gave me a great outlook on business because, you know, you can get people all day who will sell you a struggle story. Like, we all go through stuff in life, and we all deal with bills and mishaps. But regardless of what you’re offering, there has to be some sort of price tag on it, because people value what they invest in.

Baldeep (12:22)
Sounds good. Perspective.

Ross (12:47)
Yeah, a hundred percent. They’ve got to have skin in the game. If they’re actually investing in it, there’s more of a connection—they’re exchanging something they worked hard for. They have value associated with it and actually want to do it.

And then you also get people who actually do the work because they’ve got that value built in, versus “I got it for free” and they just never touch it.

Baldeep (12:48)
Yeah.

Ross (13:13)
Right. Because there’s no value there. So yeah, that’s a huge thing that we teach a lot. I’m glad you got to experience it, right?

Baldeep (13:18)
You’re still right—you’ll still run into the people, like we have people who pay us $2,000 and don’t even open anything. So it happens at any price point. You might as well get paid for it. It does change the ratio, though.

Stacey G. (13:27)
Right. Right.

Ross (13:32)
But the ratio changes—you have a lot more people doing stuff when they’ve paid for it.

So, Stacey, I wanted to ask: how did you first hear about Service Bureau Accelerator? And was there anything in particular about the program that made you think, “This is for me, I want to move forward”?

Stacey G. (13:52)
So, I actually heard about the program through Lisa. Lisa, yeah—Lisa gave me insight on you all. And then, of course, I did my own research, and it was literally everything I had already envisioned for my business. I just didn’t know the proper steps to go about doing it on my own.

Through research and seeing that you literally had everything from A to Z mapped out—all I had to do was pay and do the work—it was rocket science.

Baldeep (14:29)
So go into the—

Ross (14:29)
Yeah, awesome. That’s it, right? Just do the work—pay, do the work, and you got it. Don’t overcomplicate it. Follow the roadmap. Follow the game plan and do the work.

Stacey G. (14:32)
I’m doing that!

Baldeep (14:34)
And do the work.

Stacey G. (14:37)
Yeah.

Baldeep (14:38)
Yeah, that’s the other thing—people like to overcomplicate things. Simplifying is key.

Being that Lisa introduced you to it—she’s referred a lot of people over the years—can you share a bit about your experience or feedback going through the training? Anything specific that stood out, or even how you’ve seen it evolve since you’ve been here a while?

Ross (14:41)
Yeah.

Ross (15:03)
Every year your foundation’s progress seems to reset—like, “No, you gotta go through again.” Not this year, though. We’re done, we’re done.

Stacey G. (15:07)
Yeah.

Stacey G. (15:14)
I’d just say the ease of the program is—literally anybody can do it. And being that it doesn’t, you can hop from one section to another without having to, I like how you don’t have to go through the entire program because not everything that you offer everyone is gonna need. It’s there if you need to refresh or, you know, revisit. But the fact that I can go from, you know, this training that you’re offering and then hop over here because I’m stuck on this within my business, I love the way that the program is structured.

Ross (15:55)
Yeah, that was a huge change-up. I think that was last year when we really made that adjustment. We were like, okay, here’s the foundation—the seven-day launch. Everyone goes through this. And then once you’re done with that, we needed everyone to get a baseline.

Like, here’s kind of the base of your business, and then—boom—you’ve got the core trainings. After that, it’s like Pandora’s box: whatever you need, you can just dig around in there for hours. So, awesome, awesome.

And then you mentioned before that you’re really bringing in preparers that mirror you in terms of drive and wanting to put in the work and succeed. How are you going about that? What’s your marketing strategy? Are you doing job posting to recruit preparers? Are you running ads or using social media? What does that look like?

Stacey G. (16:08)
Right.

Stacey G. (16:14)
Bye.

Stacey G. (16:36)
No!

Ross (16:36)
Advertisement, social media—what does that kind of look like?

Stacey G. (16:39)
So, I get people by word of mouth. It’s crazy because just about every ERO I have has been screwed over by someone previously.

And being that I stand on integrity—within my business, within my personal life, just every aspect of me revolves around integrity—and the fact that my name has never been tarnished, I deliver on everything people approach me about. There’s never been any ill will or Facebook posts made about me. All of my partners have nothing but good things to say.

Everybody that’s with me has been with me since the moment I got software from you all. I haven’t had anybody leave. They’ve brought people, just by word of mouth. I overdeliver on everything that I do.

Just as you all have a plethora of resources for me to thrive in my business, my partners—regardless of their level—have that same level of access with the resources I provide them.

When it comes to money, my people know I’m not in the business of playing with it. My people get paid before the date I say they’re going to get paid. And the fact that I’m real, raw, and honest—I don’t try to dress things up to make them sound good—however it comes out is how you’re going to get it. People bask in my honesty. I think just being who I am, both off social media and in business, people appreciate that.

Ross (18:33)
Yeah, a hundred percent. It’s so cool you say that, because again, like you said, your whole reason for doing this was to make positive change in the industry. That’s so aligned with what we’re doing as well.

And as you’ve seen in our coaching calls, we’ll swear from time to time, right? People swear. I don’t really trust people who never swear—it’s normal. Being yourself, being raw, and just putting yourself out there—that resonates so much with people because it’s not a façade. You’re not putting on a show.

Stacey G. (18:51)
Right.

Ross (19:00)
Exactly—it’s real. “Take it or leave it.” I love it. So, one question I’m curious about—if you’re open to it—can we share a little bit about your revenue numbers as a service bureau, like from last year moving up to this year? You had, looking at the numbers, about 60% growth in products funded.

Stacey G. (19:04)
Right.

Ross (19:29)
So, are you okay with that if we put some ballpark numbers out there? Okay, cool. Because it’s really impressive.

So, I was looking at the numbers last year—ballparks, not exact—and you were around $40,000 to $45,000 in revenue with your service bureau. Is that correct?

Stacey G. (20:20)
Right.

Ross (20:24)
Okay, cool. Because this year, looking at the numbers and fees plus the rebate, it’s looking closer to $75,000 to $80,000. Is that right?

Stacey G. (20:20)
Yeah.

Ross (20:24)
So the numbers went up—you had about 60% growth in products, but your actual revenue, now plus the bonus rebate, looks like you almost doubled, right?

Stacey G. (20:20)
Right. Double. Yeah.

Ross (20:24)
That’s huge. That’s a massive increase.

Baldeep (20:24)
Yeah—and that’s not even including the fact that now she’s also collecting money upfront. Actually selling.

Ross (20:29)
Yeah, now you’re actually selling software. You’re very close to that six-figure mark. Basically, in two years—since we’re scrapping that first transition year—you’re almost at six figures.

Baldeep (20:43)
Yeah, like she said, that first year she probably just did the tail-end transition returns in September or whatever came in then.

Ross (20:47)
Transition, exactly.

Stacey G. (20:48)
Yeah.

Ross (20:53)
Yeah, that’s huge though. Great numbers—solid growth year over year. Fantastic.

Baldeep (21:01)
And you still have your tax office currently, right? So, safe to say you’re getting close to matching your tax office revenue with your service bureau revenue. It’s getting close, which is ultimately a first major goal: “Let me make the same amount here that I make here.” And once that happens, you’re like, “Okay, how do I get rid of this?”

Stacey G. (21:04)
Yeah.

Stacey G. (21:29)
Right.

Ross (21:30)
Yeah, let it overtake first, and then you can start walking away from the tax business.

So, what’s ultimately your goal now, Stacey? For this year, now that tax season is wrapped up and we’re switching into service bureau season—what’s your goal this year, and maybe even your three- to five-year goal?

Stacey G. (21:52)
So, my goal for the upcoming year is to focus on EROs. Previously, my motto was PTINs.

This year, I just decided—I can’t. Not that I won’t take a few PTINs, but my primary focus is going to be solely on EROs and those who want to venture into the service bureau side of things.

What I’ve actually done and incorporated for the upcoming year—which I’ll start marketing within the next week—is a reseller program. Super excited about that.

But that’s my goal for this upcoming year—to get at least 20 more EROs. I mean, 200 would definitely be nice, yes, absolutely. But my goal within the next three to five years—and I’m almost certain I’ll hit it before that timeframe—is 200 EROs.

Ross (22:40)
Sorry, did you say 200?

Stacey G. (22:59)
ERO goal.

Ross (23:01)
Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that’s definitely doable. I mean, with your motivation and your objective to change the industry and give people the right deals—you’ve seen it now. When you talk to more and more EROs, everyone has the same problem.

Like, 90 to 95% of EROs are all dealing with the same handful of challenges, right? So if you can speak to that and explain clearly how you can solve it—that’s it. That’s all you’ve got to do.

So yeah, I think that’s a great goal. I think 20 is selling yourself short this year—you can definitely do more.

Stacey G. (23:52)
Okay.

Baldeep (23:53)
Yeah, I think you should be doing more. It depends also—another thing, and this comes up a lot—we talk about it all the time. When you launch a new initiative, like your reseller package, a common mistake people make is they stop doing what got them to this point.

So, you said, “Hey, I’ll take a couple PTINs.” Don’t ever stop what’s working until you have a replacement for it.

Keep doing what you were doing, and if you’re launching a new marketing initiative or package, that’s fine. But don’t stop the other thing until you’ve figured that new one out, because you’ll run into challenges and pain points with it.

Stacey G. (24:29)
Right, right.

Baldeep (24:43)
Just keep that in mind. And a simple way to convert preparers is to help them get their EFIN—help them become an ERO—and now you’ve converted them.

Stacey G. (24:47)
Right.

Stacey G. (24:56)
And I’ve honestly been doing that with my existing PTIN holders. Some don’t want the responsibility that comes with it, and some have tried to get an EFIN and are still waiting—or have been denied. Those are the ones I’m keeping and holding on to. But my primary focus is building out my ERO program.

Baldeep (25:03)
Yeah.

Baldeep (25:08)
Okay, yeah—simple enough.

Ross (25:24)
That’s fair. At least you’ve got your base—keep nurturing them. Make sure they know you’re still there to support and help.

Baldeep (25:34)
Yeah, and if you ever end up running into somebody that doesn’t want their EFIN or can’t get it, or they’re coming through your funnel—you’ve got EROs you can give them to.

Stacey G. (25:44)
Bye.

Ross (25:46)
Exactly—you’ve got your own referral network internally.

Stacey G. (25:50)
Yeah.

Ross (25:52)
Cool. So, a couple last questions for you, Stacey. One is about support. I know support is a big challenge many EROs face—trying to get help when they need it.

I want to ask about our SBA support—the ticketing platform, helping you as a service bureau. What’s been your experience with that? Have you used it much? How’s your experience with the team?

Baldeep (26:18)
Yeah, a frequent flyer?

Stacey G. (26:19)
I definitely take advantage of you.

Ross (26:24)
I’m letting Stacey answer that.

Baldeep (26:28)
You.

Stacey G. (26:29)
I take advantage of your support system quite often. I like it—they’re very responsive. And if they don’t understand something I’ve sent them, they’ll immediately pick up the phone and call me.

I like that they’re available, responsive, and prompt—very prompt.

Ross (26:53)
Yeah, awesome.

Baldeep (26:54)
Yeah, see, that’s the thing—the calling. It’s like, hey, just pick up the phone and call them, then leave the notes in the ticket. It’s something we’ve been working on the past couple years, and you’ve definitely seen the change. Cool.

Stacey G. (26:58)
Yeah.

Stacey G. (27:12)
Yeah, they’re amazing though.

Ross (27:14)
Yeah, awesome. Let’s get you here.

We always love that. When we do surveys, we’ve actually started monthly internal meetings with our team, and in our first all-hands, I brought that up—the support team sometimes doesn’t get as much credit as they deserve.

I always try to be their cheerleader because, every time we do feedback from the SBA group, support is always the highest-rated department. I’m like, you guys are always killing it. Awesome job.

Stacey G. (27:22)
Huh.

Ross (27:45)
So I always love hearing that feedback.

So, one last question for you—and I think Baldeep has another one—but ultimately, Stacey, if someone’s looking at becoming a service bureau—nowadays there are a lot more programs out there—if someone’s looking at Service Bureau Accelerator, what would you tell them, based on your experience?

Stacey G. (28:15)
Make the fucking investment. Simple as that.

Ross (28:18)
There you go. Baldeep couldn’t have said it better himself. Awesome.

Baldeep (28:25)
We’ll clip that and run it on ads—and get blocked.

I do have one last question. Did you pay back your cousin?

Stacey G. (28:34)
He told me I didn’t have to pay him back. When I tried, he wouldn’t take the money.

Baldeep (28:39)
Okay. Fair enough. At least you tried. Cool.

Ross (28:41)
So you tried, yeah—you tried to pay him back, and he still wouldn’t take it.

Stacey G. (28:44)
But I’ve paid him back in other ways—by helping support the kids and spending time with them, and so forth.

Ross (28:52)
Awesome.

Baldeep (28:52)
Nice. And if somebody’s watching this and wants to work with you or reach out to you in any capacity, how would they find you?

Stacey G. (29:00)
They can find me at taxstateofmind.com, Stacey  on Facebook, or they can give me a call at 727-744-7989.

Ross (29:13)
Bam, look at that. We might clip the phone number.

Baldeep (29:13)
I don’t know—we may want to bleep out the number, just in case. There are a lot of weirdos out there sometimes.

Stacey G. (29:20)
I mean, it’s publicized on Google—it’s a business phone number.

Ross (29:23)
Okay, yeah, if it’s your business line, we’ll leave it in. If it was your personal cell, we’d say no way.

Baldeep (29:29)
Okay. All right, well thanks for doing this, Stacey. I appreciate all the time you took on this call, and we’ll talk with you soon.

Stacey G. (29:39)
Alrighty, thank you.

Ross (29:39)
Awesome. Thank you.