What Your CPA Wants You to Know
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What Your CPA Wants You to Know
76. The Power of Humor in Marketing With Janelle Baum the Ortho Influencer
Ever wondered how humor can transform your marketing? Join us as we welcome Janelle Baum, the orthodontic influencer, who shares her unique journey from an orthodontic treatment coordinator to a sought-after speaker and consultant. Janelle's comedic talents led her to helping orthodontic offices enhance patient engagement and drive sales. Get ready to laugh and learn as Janelle reveals her strategies for standing out in a crowded market with creativity and humor.
Authenticity and consistency are at the heart of Janelle's success, and she shares how embracing your unique personality can set your brand apart. Think of yourself as a "Froot Loop in a world of Cheerios"—and don't be afraid to be different. We'll discuss the importance of regular engagement on social media and the value of feedback from your community. Janelle's insights on blending your true self with your marketing efforts will inspire you to refine your content and style for maximum impact.
This episode is packed with tips for maximizing social media, boosting client engagement, and driving business success.
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because you want to provide I call it edutainment. You want to be entertaining, which you guys are through those reels, but you want to be educational at the same time. So it's going to help bring more value to those that are watching your page.
Speaker 2:Welcome to what your CPA Wants you To Know.
Speaker 3:Tax and accounting help can be expensive, so we've created this podcast to help guide you through it all and make you feel like you have a CPA in your back pocket.
Speaker 2:I'm Carson Sands.
Speaker 3:And I'm Taryn Sands.
Speaker 2:I'm a CPA with over 10 years of experience helping people start and grow their businesses.
Speaker 3:And I'm an MBA with a specialization in marketing and entrepreneurship. Taxes suck and we want to make sure you don't pay more than your fair share.
Speaker 2:We're here to share everything your CPA wants you to know in a fun and easy to understand way. Let's get started.
Speaker 3:Let's do it. I have Janelle Baum on the podcast today. She is an orthodontic influencer, which I'm sure all of you like me are going. What the heck is an orthodontic influencer? So, janelle, can you please start by introducing yourself to all of our listeners and tell us all about being an orthodontic influencer?
Speaker 1:Yes, Welcome everyone to the show. This is going to be a high energy show, so I come with a warning Okay, I'm very excited about this opportunity and to really enlighten and hopefully your audience has a bunch of takeaways. But I'm Janelle. I go by the orthodontic influencer and I'm actually more than just what you probably think an orthodontic influencer is. So I consider myself a humor engineer. I provide consulting services to mainly orthodontic influencer is. So I consider myself a humor engineer. I provide consulting services to mainly orthodontic offices, but really any business.
Speaker 1:And as a former orthodontic treatment coordinator, I love to infuse my in-depth knowledge and love for humor into every facet of the workplace, elevating orthodontic practices with engaging, memorable social media content and tools that really help capture their consumers' interests and drive sales. I also love helping orthodontic companies by helping them create really fun out-of-the-box social media content that's going to help grab their consumers' attention that being an orthodontic office and get their company to stand out and grab attention. And there's so much more that I do besides. Just like the in-office and virtual coaching, I create content. I work with orthodontic brands and companies to create content for them.
Speaker 1:I also love to be sponsored at, say, orthodontic conferences by being their social media pumper upper at their booth so often. If you've ever gone to you know like a tax conference, I'm sure there's booths all over the conference area and they just are. You know the sales reps there are just like caged animals standing behind the booth. But if you hire me, I'm the one that's creating fun content and publicizing that all over the social media or ortho industry, which is then attracting people to that booth, and I create fun little social media skits you know TikToks and reels and stuff like that that help advertise that booth or company's service or product. So there's a lot of cool things that I do there and I also help be the creative brain and the comedian behind any orthodontic company or office with their marketing projects that they have, or if there's something that they want to bring to the forefront, they're like I don't know how we can market this in a fun, creative way. That's where they can hire me.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love that so much. I love how you take something that is really hard for people to do and help them with that, and we're going to circle back to that a little bit. Yeah, first I just want to know where did the idea because this is something I've never heard of where did the idea to do this come from?
Speaker 1:So with the last seven years of being an orthodontic treatment coordinator, I became obsessed with creating relationships, not just with the patients and their parents, but with the vendors and the sales reps, with all the companies that we worked for, so to help to develop and strengthen that relationship. Naturally, I love creating content. I'm an improv actor. I currently take training classes for acting in front of film and television and I'm taking comedy classes. I continue to do that stuff to fuel that creative, fun energy and during those last seven years I just started doing that with all different products and companies that we're working for and I would create little skits or infomercials about their products and post it on social media, because I knew other orthodontic offices and doctors and treatment coordinators were following us and I would do that as a way to promote their product, not getting paid just naturally and just saying you know this has made me, this product has made me a super successful treatment coordinator, made our office run and grow and these companies started to notice me and then they realized, after they got to know me, like wow, your conversion rate is 98%. What can you do for other treatment coordinators and other offices? So they started hiring me to speak at conferences or host webinars.
Speaker 1:So I really became well known in the orthodontic industry and people naturally just were like you're like the orthodontic influencer. And then there was a point where I had to create, you know, a new Instagram account. That was more of a professional setting and different than my personal setting. So I really wanted to balance the two and differentiate them, and so I use the word the orthodontic influencer and I'm proud to say it's pending trademark right now. That takes like six to nine months to get a trademark, so I'm super anxious for that. So a lot of great things have come from just posting to social media and being successful from the content, and you know my my content stands out and grabs people's attention for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, I can imagine your high energy, your big smile, just happy-go-lucky, really, really helps in making something that's not so fun much more fun and attractive?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I have a problem. I'm the marketer in our business, I do all of our marketing and, like an orthodontist, taxes and accounting is just not very fun. It's very stiff and boring and not one of the most exciting industries, so it makes it really hard to market sometimes and because I feel like it's a boring topic, you have to kind of go above and beyond. So you do such an amazing job with this. I'm wondering can you give us some tips to market a boring business like mine, or orthodontist, or something that people aren't very excited about just off the bat?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can tell you right now you're doing a phenomenal job, as I went down the rabbit hole of your Instagram page. You're doing exactly what Instagram is meant to be. It's short form video content with visually appealing you know text heavy images or text on the screen and fun little images. You're doing it and that's what all companies need to do. Get away from those stock heavy images that are just text heavy, and stock images Create stories. So my first thing would be to embrace your inner storytelling. I'm sure there's stories that you know for any businesses that's watching this, whether they're in taxes or something that's boring, or insurance, whatever it may be. You can take behind the scenes stories of clients that started off in a rough situation and, you know, coming to you, has turned their life around, or just examples of I don't know, just means and parodies that happen in the world of tax or the tax industry, things like that that either other people just like you can relate to, or it's eyeopening to clients because you want to provide I call it edutainment. You want to be entertaining, which you guys are through those reels, but you want to be educational at the same time. So it's going to help bring more value to those that are watching your page. I think injecting humor is super important and don't be afraid to have a little fun. I'm sure there's someone on your team that's, you know, a little bit creative and a little bit humorous that can add to that, because that's what's going to grab people's attention and that's what helps the memory stick. So, whatever information you're putting out there, add a little humor to it and then people are going to remember and then just have it being interactive creating polls and quizzes and asking on Instagram stories and things like that Interesting. But there'll be myth busters about the tax or things that you find that a lot of your clients maybe aren't compliant with. You have to understand your audience and get them and prep them to what kind of content you should be putting out there.
Speaker 1:It's important to leverage all social media, so not just Instagram. My advice is to be on everything from TikTok to YouTube, Instagram, even Snapchat. People are like what Everyone is doing? Taxes, that's on Snapchat. If it's kid, it's not just for kids. I've got a lot of business from Snapchat and um, even working the orthodontic office. It's. It's just the fun side. Every work should have a fun side and you can post that stuff there. Um, collaborate with different businesses that relate to you. That's going to help your you know your service grow online. It's going to help get your name out there and it's just going to get more people talking about you and just the more fun you can have with being educational, and entertaining is key.
Speaker 3:I love. Those are some amazing takeaways, so thank you, hopefully you had a pen and paper and writing those down.
Speaker 3:I do think when you have an industry like ours, it's very boring. My husband was very uncomfortable getting funny and just kind of loose about it and he didn't want us using like cuss words and things like that if it was like a trending audio and so it's kind of been hard for him to take, like how it used to be in the accounting firms. We used to work at these big corporate accounting firms and use my advice on let's make this funny, like kind of let's poke fun at those people who come in the door with all their receipts in a box, like he was like.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, that's kind of mean and I'm like no, but it's eye opening and it's so relatable it's eye opening.
Speaker 1:I did that with orthodontic treatment all the time. It helps improve a client communication and compliancy. Okay, so patients in the orthodontic world don't wear their retainers and don't wear their rubber bands. Hoking fun at that is like a slap in their face, but it's still like that's me. Okay, I'm not gonna do this and so, anytime, I always encourage orthodontists to use patients in their social media and in their marketing, because using your own patients or for you, your own clients in their own healthcare or in their own tax prep is going to make them much more compliant and it's gonna to improve their communication between what is needed from them and what you do for them. It's full circle.
Speaker 1:So if you are, for example, use one of your clients in a parody style, poking fun at a client in your reel, they're never again going to make that mistake of bringing the receipts in a box right, and then it's social media gold because you want to tag them. Then they're going to think they're like a movie star because they were tagged on this awesome Instagram page and if you cross post it, you're tagging them everywhere and then you send them a text or an email with the actual link and say share this with your friends and family. You're Instagram famous. People love that. They feel valued. Plus, they're being given all this educational information at the same time, all while having fun.
Speaker 1:So definitely encourage adding in your clients into the reel. That helps add different mix. So if your husband's like I'm not really funny, our client is, I'm sure, right, or someone on the marketing team, so you can still and even he should ask himself or anyone listening to this what do you enjoy most when you go to Instagram? Do you enjoy a stock image with a bunch of text information on it, or do you like the ones that are, you know, doing some sort of funny trending skit and things like that there's I'm going to go off tangent a little bit, but there's a local law firm in our.
Speaker 1:I live in New York and there's a local law firm that has really changed the landscape of social media by doing all these funny little skits when they are, mr and Mrs, super serious talking about you know their law firm and stuff. But it has taken the internet by storm. So many Buffalonians are commenting saying, oh my gosh, this is great, this is great and they're sharing it and I'm like all because they're being different. They're still conducting business the way they are and they're still being valued and looked at as professionals. They're just having fun with marketing, as they should.
Speaker 3:So I think that's such a great point that I think that was the reason why he didn't want to do all of these funny things, as he was thinking that people wouldn't take us seriously and we're supposed to be professional. But we've really seen the opposite of that, because when we are actual people and being funny and even using some of these maybe out there trending audios, that's when people are like, can we hire you? For some reason that makes them feel confident in us. Just seeing us, you know be real and not so stiff. So that's a really great piece of advice, absolutely. So.
Speaker 3:Speaking of all of those things that you know are working and that you know that you can get more visibility and be creative, I know that I've learned a lot from doing things and trying them and seeing if they work or not, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Sometimes it just is not a good idea, and I don't really like to call it just a failure, because obviously you live and you learn. So is there anything that you have tried or you've done in the past that didn't work and you learned from that?
Speaker 1:you can share with us my biggest life lesson that I've learned is to be true to myself. When I tried to act like the mentors that I have in the consulting space, or trying to be this big corporation, I guess I was like what, why am I trying to be like the people I envy and adore? That? I envy and adore them for different reasons. I know I am very different. I call myself a Froot Loop in a world of Cheerios, and every day I have to remind myself that when I go to make content or post or speak on stage or present a webinar, I'm not like other people. So I give a warning like listen, I'm not normal, I'm a creative, my mind doesn't work right. So I I give a warning like listen, I'm not normal, I'm a creative, my mind doesn't work right. Like I'm a certified clown and all of this stuff makes me so unique. So tell people is be yourself and be authentic, and that's what wins.
Speaker 1:When you try to act like someone else or you try to do marketing, that's yeah, you can. I mean, that's what social media is. You find a trend and you mimic it, right, but and I encourage that but when you're trying to like brand yourself like somebody else, it's gonna fail. So I'm a one woman show and when it came time to developing my business planning goals, some people, even my mentors, were like Janelle, I don't know if this is right, I don't know. With your mohawk you're not the conventional looking. That's the thing. I'm not your conventional marketing company, your conventional consultant. I call myself a humor engineer for a reason and it's just. I'm very true to myself and if you don't like my quirky personality, completely okay, then we're not meant to do business together. So one takeaway is to be authentic. Another thing is consistency is key. I found and this is going into a little bit of the world of social media If you're not continuing to post every day and I'm not encouraging people just post to post, because Janelle says you have to be consistent and people on the internet say you have to be consistent If you're really trying to grow your practice on social media or business, you do have to be consistent and that comes with posting.
Speaker 1:If you can post three times a week, keep that three times a week. You know ongoing. If you don't and you decide, oh, I've not, I haven't been on social media in like two weeks, and you go on there. The algorithm not so much as shadow band you, but it sees you're not going on there a lot. So when you finally post a piece of content, it's not going to serve it out to a large audience because you haven't been interacting with them. So it's a two-way communication tool. You've got to be consistent with messaging and tagging and having conversations with all of your followers and those that you follow as well.
Speaker 1:And if you haven't been on for two weeks and you decide to go on TikTok or Instagram, it is need you to catch up to the current trends. So you are going to first get served all these old trends because algorithm is trying to, you know, get you up to date. So if you see an old trend, you don't know it's old because you just hopped on and you're like, oh, I'm going to go do this. And you go to do it and you get one, like you know, three views. It's because the algorithm knows this is old content. People have since swiped past it and now you're jumping on it. People are swiping past it. So, again, don't just post a post, but keep yourself engaged and constantly scrolling, spending half hour a day. It's not something like a nine to five. You've got to be on there, but staying consistent is another, I hope, good takeaway that I've learned and I want to share with others and then embrace feedback.
Speaker 1:I'm not a numbers person. I'm not into looking at my analytics, which every social media guru out there is like study your analytics. Yes, I see, you know, oh, wow, that piece of content went viral. Or man, I really was hoping that piece of content would go viral and something. The algorithm engineers found it. You know, something was wrong with it, whether it was the sound image in the background, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:I do study some of that in a way, but my best form of feedback is from my potential clients, my current clients and even my friends and family when they tell me like, oh, I love when you do this kind of style, that's the style I got to run with, if it speaks to me too. So a if you are a numbers person, you like to look at your you know analytics and stuff. I encourage you to do that. That's just not in my wheelhouse, my brain doesn't work that way, but I want to encourage others to do that and then also ask for feedback and continue just to hone in on your branding and your style of content so that it can be consistent, so it can be authentic and be you, and so that you can still make your audience happy because you're valuing their feedback.
Speaker 3:So many great takeaways. This is going to be a good episode. I think this is exactly what people need when they're trying to market for their business specifically. So I hear a lot of these questions that you've answered a lot, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to go off of this for just one moment, and this is an analogy I want to use because, like I said, you are doing great with your Instagram. A lot of people know tax stuff and tax terms and things like that. So I in my generation I'm 42 years old when I hear of, oh, I got to make a doctor's appointment, the first thing I do is I go to see if they have an Instagram. When I meet business owners like, do you have an Instagram? That's just me, that's what I'm involved in all day long. But think of people who have no idea what they're doing when they go to meet with a tax person. Okay, well, what are they doing? They're going, maybe, to social media. If there's someone like me have an Instagram page, facebook, tiktok, whatever it may be filled with tons of short form video content that's entertaining and educational. They're now ready and prepared for your appointment. That's your goal is to have clients coming in prepared.
Speaker 1:Imagine you, as a parent, having to take your kid to. We're going to use an orthodontic office, for example, and the kid is terrified of getting braces because he hears from horror stories on the back of the bus. They nail the braces on your teeth and you got to wear this obnoxious headgear. Obviously, no one really does headgear any any more, but, as a parent, what are you going to do? You're going to go to Instagram and you're going to hope that you hop onto an orthodontic office that is not filled with just text, heavy stock images that provide nothing for an eight-year-old to understand, right?
Speaker 1:But imagine if you hopped onto a business page and it had a bunch of short form video content of what it's like to get on braces and they're using real patients and then having testimonials of real patients being like I just got my braces on, I'm not crying, I'm not bleeding, I'm not numb, and it's providing that educational information that they're going to then learn in a consult. But any business owner can do that. So any system that you have in place, any protocol, is a CPA that you have. Try to turn it into a short form video content so that you can post it and start to educate your potential clients so that they're fully prepared. You're going to have the most best communication between you and your clients and the most compliant clients, because they're coming to you, who are the pros, and they're constantly learning from your page, but also being entertained, and that's what keeps them coming back.
Speaker 3:So think of that little analogy. Yeah, yeah, I love that. My oldest just is in Invisalign right now, so she was very nervous about it and the orthodontist we chose. I saw on their social media that they had like a big sign when you come in for the first time and it's like welcome, and you can take a picture by it. It's very fun. And I saw that and I knew as soon as we walked in that she would be giddy and that she would just kind of lose those nerves. And that's exactly what happened. She was like hey, we take my picture by it because it says my name. Yeah, and so they do that for every single patient. They put up on a letter board and they get ready for them. And as a business owner, I was like brilliant, Like that's amazing. And when I posted that to my Instagram, so many people commented asking me where are y'all going? We want to go there. So that one little thing.
Speaker 1:That was social media gold, and I even take those kinds of ideas. Those are things that I've been in my office for seven years. Anything around the office I can help any business turn. Do you see a lot of clients in your office or do you meet with them virtually, and things like that? Okay, so a lot of times, any business that's listening to your um, listen to your podcast, they probably have the same thing they meet with clients virtually and an office. So what can you do that's outside of social media? That can also get your, your business, to stand out and grab people's attention.
Speaker 1:I developed what was called an intro video. Now, a lot of different consultants in the orthodontic industry have worked with this too, as do many offices. But as a treatment coordinator, what I would do before each new patient came to their consult is I made a personalized video on my cell phone saying Hi Billy, I'm Janelle, the treatment coordinator. I'm gonna be hanging out with you when you come in for an hour. We're going to take a bunch of pictures. Talk about your teeth. And then I showed him all these props and just said this is what your appointment's like. I set the expectation, made it fun and exciting and then we text it to the parents, and every parent that got it for that new patient was, like my son's not scared anymore.
Speaker 1:Business owners can do the same. They don't have to be customized and personalized and be sending texts all day. This can be pre-recorded. Just sending it out to the client to prepare them instead of like one lengthy email saying all the things that they have to have. Yes, it's important because I know clients need to come to you with, like you know, those receipts in the box and all of those things. But try to make it so it kind of stands out and gets them to listen better and then they retain that information better. Can you put everything they need into that video? No, you shouldn't. It's just a way to introduce yourself and give them that value of they are lucky that they chose you and then put the information they need to bring to that appointment with you in the body of the email. But just little things like that. I thrive on just creative out-of-the-box solutions just to enhance that relationship that you want with your client and turn them into raving fans, which is then more sales and more revenue in any business.
Speaker 3:I'm just thinking how we can implement that already in our business. We always send mass emails around tax season because there's so many instructions when do you want your documents, what turn time do you have, how do you pay your invoices, what do you need to e-sign? And a lot of times people just space out. They don't read anymore. You just sign. People don't read emails.
Speaker 3:So I'm wondering if we could just put a video in there at least saying Hi, it's tax season, we're so excited, please, you know, you know, check our checklist and you'll be good to go. Something like that, just to catch everyone's attention, would be so much different, personalized and, yeah, no one else is really doing it that I know of, so that's an amazing idea.
Speaker 1:And it can even work as like a confirmation call, because even us as consumers, we're bombarded all day long by text messages. Any store you shop at and you subscribe to their text alerts or emails, I'm bombarded by store notifications all day long. We're having a sale. So when I get a text reminder from a doctor's office, it's just blending in and yes, I know the appointment's at nine, at 10 o'clock, whatever. But when I get a video message that's basically confirming my appointment or telling me what to bring, I'm like, I'm so more compliant and I'm invested now. So it's got things like that. We got to stand out.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I love that advice. When we first started our business in 2016, there were so many things that I knew we needed to get set up. We needed to build an email list, we needed a website, we needed ways to set appointments with our clients, and it seemed very overwhelming, especially for someone like me who is not very tech savvy. We stumbled our way through all of this and did a little bit here and there, and it was a very long and complicated process, but just recently we found out about something called a stand store, and it is a all-in-one business tool that gives you everything that you need to start, and I wish we would have had this sooner.
Speaker 3:This would have made things so simple from the beginning. Stanstore will build your email list for you. You can also upload a digital product webinar or any other training that you have for clients or potential clients. You can do email marketing, create memberships so many things with StanStore. Stanstore is incredibly easy to run. I got a product on there within about 15 minutes and set it up. You can accept payments through there.
Speaker 3:It really is an all-in-one software that makes it easy for business owners to sell digital products, have a website, have various links in there and do it very easily. You don't have to hire someone to create a stand store. If you want to check it out, they do offer a 14-day free trial and I will put the link in the show notes for you to check it out. I promise you, if you use it once, you're going to love it. Now back to the show. So you talk a lot about making a memorable customer experience on your content, and I love that. I love the ideas that you've already shared. That is one thing that we have really aimed for since we started our business and I do think that has really helped us grow because we're doing things differently. So can you elaborate just a little bit more for our listeners about what this means for their business and different businesses and types and how they could do that?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. So I'm going to start first by talking a little bit on yes, every office or business out there should have almost all of the social media platforms and you can create content you know on one platform and cross post it, as long as you remove the watermarks and things like that. Those are things that can help businesses with, or if you have someone in your office that's a social media guru, that's important. So first, you should be on social media. The content that you're posting on social media should be a reflection of your brand and should be super valuable, entertaining and educational At the same time. How are you advertising your social media? A lot of people aren't advertising it, they just post to social media. So when a client calls your office, ways to stand out and get more followers and get them to watch your content so they are high on the compliance list is on that initial phone call when they're calling your office, end it with make sure you follow us on social media. Your voicemail to your business should not be thank you for calling so-and-so office, because in the orthodontic industry, people are going on three consults before they make a decision. So I am obsessed with helping offices stand out and grab attention so they don't go to those other conference consults but having a fun, different voicemail greeting as your business voicemail greeting is huge. If you're, say, traveling cause you're going to a tax conference, have that be on there because that's value and you should be showcasing that also on social media. But say you're not in the office because your team is obsessed with being up to date with all the industry, what that you're, you know certain industry has to offer and you're out taking the team on on a team learning adventure With that as well. When the clients come into the business, you should have social media cards. It's not going to sit there and say the address, the phone number, the email. It is simply to showcase the social media platforms that your team or your office is on.
Speaker 1:In addition, to create some memorable experiences. Now that you've got them in the office and you've advertised having things like patient testimonials, or if you're talking with clients and they're asking you, finding that clients or consumers or whoever are asking the same questions, get it on video and be like hey, do you think you could be in our social media reel for today? We're just going to create some, you know, b roll footage of you asking the same questions and you can turn that into like a parody and or a learning adventure and then incentivizing your clients or patients or whoever with a $5 Starbucks gift card just for being on your social media. That's marketing dollars. That's not, that's going to go really far, but it's not going to burn a hole in your wallet and people love getting money. So if you have kids in your office that are coming with parents, entertaining them with social media or getting them on there or having you know your clients, like I said, do a testimonial is huge.
Speaker 1:I used to do social media takeovers. So if any of you listening have been in orthodontic practice, you know that you sit flat, lay flat on the chairs until the dentist comes up and works on your teeth. So most of the time as the patients are waiting for the doctor, they're on their back staring up the ceiling playing on their cell phone. So what I would do is come over and say hey, I see you're on Snapchat or Instagram or Tik TOK. Can I do a social media takeover? Introduce myself, just tell them you're at the office and if they want cool braces like you, make sure they come to the office and just by doing that.
Speaker 1:Can I give you a $5? We have Tim Horton's coffee here, tim Horton's gift card. The kids were like you're giving me $5 for doing this? Yeah, sure, that is free advertisement. Well, yes, it costs $5. But this 13 year old who's on Snapchat, who has thousands of people following his Snapchat stories and Instagram stories all day, is now getting advertisement from us in a fun, creative, quirky kind of way that doesn't make them feel like they're watching a commercial. So any business owner can do that with their clients, with their consumers and things like that, and I can help coach business owners or team members on how to do all that.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's such a good idea. It's a huge experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm telling you, parents will leave our office giving us raving reviews by being like this is the only doctor's appointment that my kids love coming to and their siblings get FOMO when they don't come here. So don't tell my you know five-year-old daughter. Her brother, billy, had an appointment today Cause she's going to be mad that she can't come here, and that spoke volumes to me. I'm like that's what I want to create is an experience for every business, not just a mundane tax appointment or a mundane eye doctor appointment. Everything I do. Like I said, I'm a Froot Loop in a world of materials. I drive that creativity all day long.
Speaker 3:Yes, I love that so much because so many times you go somewhere and have such a poor experience Maybe it's just because the front desk person isn't very friendly or something like that, and you don't want to go back. So making sure you take the steps to make it a memorable experience is a little bit of work, but it just pays off continuously A hundred percent. So I love all these takeaways.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to implement some of those in our business as well just because I am always looking for ideas to make taxes more fun, because it's never fun to tell someone they owe a lot in taxes. I know. I know it's hard, always the bearer of bad news here, Because this is an accounting podcast. I do like to ask everyone is there anything that you struggle with on the tax and accounting side of your business, or did you feel like it was fairly easy to get that side of your business in place?
Speaker 1:Well, to be completely honest with you, I have gone to our tax appointment. My husband and I go every year together and he's a photographer on the side. So I learned quickly like, oh, you can write that off, you can write that off. Okay. And through this, that experience of going with him for 10 years, I learned Now I go by myself because now I've got this business portion that I have to handle.
Speaker 1:It's very intimidating, but if my advice to you is just stay on top of you know, keeping a checklist of your inventory, anything you've purchased, anything you paid for, things like that will make your tax appointment time so much easier. But it's still overwhelming because I'm like, am I even doing this right? I have an Excel spreadsheet over here, I have QuickBooks over here. I'm like the bookkeeping accounting thing is not in my wheelhouse and it is intimidating, but it's super important and I can't just worry about it once a year and be like, oh, I'll just suffer for a couple weeks as I try to get it all together.
Speaker 1:Staying organized and on top of it is something I'm always conscious of. But in my local hometown we have a college called Buffalo State College and they have a free business development center. The state pays the people to provide the service, but they have hooked me up with an accountant. I already have one, but that's something that's great for you. Um, as a business owner, you can go to colleges and say, hey, do you have a you know, a free business service? Why don't you connect, you know, collaborate with them and say, hey, can I give you my service information? So when businesses come here for help on how to run a business, they you can be a resource for them. So that has helped me and that's part of my to-do list is to now dive into some of that and meet some of those people and make sure, like my bookkeeping and accounting and all that is up to par before I meet with my tax people in January.
Speaker 3:That's really great advice, I think, just using all the resources there's so many just like this podcast. It's free. But a lot of times people just think, well, that's what my CPA is for, and yes and no, they are for to help you explain things, tell you about things that maybe you weren't aware of. But there's a lot of learning you do have to do as a business owner and your CPA cannot do all of that. They can't do your books and make sure that you are keeping good records and because if you're not, you're missing out on so many expenses that you can write off, which means you're paying too much in taxes. So, just taking the time to focus on that side of your business and prioritize it some I know it's not the fun part, but if you don't, then you're definitely gonna be overpaying and feel like you don't really know what's going on.
Speaker 1:No, it's scary. And then you're just think like no, I'll just survive, I'll just survive. But I mean, I worked in orthodontic office. The doctor, the business owner, really didn't have his hands in that pot, didn't have his hands in that pot, it was up to the office manager. So even like I want to send office managers from orthodontic offices to your page to be like listen, I know you're handling the books for your doc. Follow these people's guidelines. You're constantly posting really important information that's going to get them organized throughout the year.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, just taking all the free content you can get and just teaching yourself along the way is just such like my number one tip to do, because a lot of people just think that it's not their job, but it kind of is. It is 100% Well. I have loved this interview so much, I think this is going to be such a good one.
Speaker 3:I'm so excited. I know you can't see Janelle right now, but she's just so happy and brings so much energy even to a Zoom call. So I wish I could be that type of person. But I am going to take some of your advice and infuse some more of our content and our customer experiences with more fun and just humor. I love it. I love it If our listeners want to connect with you, find more where are you on social media and how they can reach you. Let us know where they can find you.
Speaker 1:So on Instagram and TikTok I am the ortho influencer. It's not all one word, it's the underscore ortho underscore influencer. But my website is the orthodontic influencer dot com and my phone number email. All the things are on my website is the orthodontic influencercom and my phone number email. All the things that are on my website, all the services, all you know the great testimonials and all the um Google reviews you guys can find on the website as well. Reach out to me if you have any questions, um, and then just keep plugging away. If you guys have any questions about social media or just about how to bring creativity and fun into the workplace, you let me know. I love training people, just because so often employers, you know, train employees to do the job, but they don't train them on how to enjoy the job. So I help energize people's talents and show them the fun at work.
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely Well. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today and until next time. Thank you so much for listening to what your CPA Wants you to Know. Podcast.
Speaker 2:This podcast is intended to provide accounting and tax information for educational purposes only. All tax situations are unique and should be handled with the assistance of a tax professional.