Facing your fears and never letting your motivation die out are two important ingredients of personal growth. Michelle Weinstein listens to the abundance story of Ross Loveland of Grow Green Profits, a graduate of her eight-week sales mastery training. Ross looks back on his time of struggle and challenge, unable to find the best strategies to get back on track. He shares how the course allowed him to embrace his fears and went on to triple his rates in just a few months. He also delves into how he found success by truly understanding his value, overcoming his doubts over client video reviews, and his biggest takeaways from Michelle’s course that he still applies today.
—
Listen to the podcast here
An Abundant Accountant Case Study About Growth And Value With Ross Loveland
We have a special guest. His name is Ross. He is the Founder and Chief Profit Strategist at his own company called Grow Green Profit Advisors. After years of working at a multimillion-dollar company with 10,000 plus employees, Ross knew he wanted to have more of a direct impact on the world. That’s when Grow Green was started and it was based on two beliefs. Number one is those small businesses are essential to our communities and to our economy. Number two is that small business lifestyle can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be.
Since 2017, when he started his business, he’s impacted and help dozens of business owners stop feeling like a slave to their business. Finally, having a business that serves them and their lifestyle, and not the other way around. Before we welcome Ross to the show, I want to mention that Ross was also a graduate of the Eight-Week Sales Mastery Training. This is a case study-type interview. A lot of you might resonate with what he went through, going from corporate, leaving the cush job, having a lot of money in his paychecks and a lot of benefits to leaving it all.
Abundance Story: As long as you commit to doing the homework, then no one’s going to come out of the course without huge benefits.
If you’ve been waiting around for that right time and your fears holding you back from creating the firm and life you’ve always dreamed of, I then invite you to have a chat with us. If you want to finally feel in control over who you work with and never give away any free advice again. Have the confidence to ask for higher fees, raise your rates to existing clients and have a step-by-step process that’s proven by almost 100 accountants who I’ve worked with. If you feel like you always have too much on your plate, I would love to get to the truth and the bottom of what’s going on in your firm.
You can head on over to TheAbundantCall.com and we can book a time to chat with me or one of my colleagues, Molly or Denise. We would love to figure out how you can take things to the next level for you in your firm. You don’t need to take my word for it. Ross is going to share how he’s tripled his rates. Actually, in his class, a gentleman Marion did about $25,000 in revenue in the month of December of 2020, which is normally a slow month for him and he knocked it out of the park during a pandemic. Take it from them. Take it from Ross. I’d love to talk to a few of you. You can book your call over at TheAbundantCall.com. Let’s welcome Ross to the show. Welcome, Ross.
Thank you, Michelle. I’m glad to be here.
Thank you for taking out the time to speak to me and share your story. It is an impactful story. Just so everyone knows, Ross was a student. He might continue our coaching calls. We’ll see about that. He completed the Eight-Week Sales Mastery and implemented every element that I taught. That was a big accomplishment. I want to welcome you here, and sharing your success and your wins with others who may be struggling with those things that you were struggling with months ago. Before we dive into our conversation, Ross, can you share with everyone where your firm is and what services you offer? Are you a one-man show or do you have ten people? Share a little bit about you.
Even though they are doing a lot of the same things, just a little pivot can make accountants more valuable and in line with their goals. Click To TweetIt’s interesting because my firm’s focus has changed a little bit because of your course. We were growing bookkeeping and payroll, which is commodity compliance. Get stuff done for you, check the boxes. We’re in the middle of changing our name to Grow Green Profit Advisors. We’ve always had this element of advising our clients and we’ve always met with our clients every month. We’re trying to take that approach to be a partner with our clients in their business. The underlying services are bookkeeping and payroll. Also, during your course, simultaneously, I joined Profit First Professionals. Now, we’re a Profit First Professional firm certified. That’s a big part of what we do, too. We’re growing and expanding. We are in the US and have clients all over mostly in Oregon and Utah, but in other states as well. We’re also already in Canada. We’re fairly a small team. It’s me and two others. We’re going to keep rolling, I’m sure.
I’m sure you have grown quite a bit and feel free to share any numbers that you would like to share, Ross. I know that you’re “based in the US” but what would be awesome if you shared your vision on the life that you wanted to create. Because this is the Abundant Accountant show, I would love to know what your vision of abundance was. What did you want your life to be? Because you basically have created it. I know it’s scary, probably terrifying. All those things that come up when you make a big shift but I think that would give a lot of the readers some context about if you want that life of abundance, each of us has a different definition. What was that for you?
For us, location and independence was a big thing. My wife and I wanted to be able to travel both for ourselves, but also to give our children experiences. When we’re talking about an abundant lifestyle or lifestyle design, figuring out that ideal lifestyle, we always talk about this with our clients, that’s going to be true for a lot of readers, too. We talked about that with our clients. In turn, it helps them work towards that, but are we doing it for ourselves? We decided that we were going to sell our house, which we did at the end of 2020. We lived abroad for a while. We’ve been in Mexico, in Acapulco for over two months. It’s a dream. It’s a gorgeous place. The weather’s amazing. I go to the beach almost every day. People are wonderful. I’m working on my tan. That’s awesome.
You’re also headed off to Colombia in a couple of months. You’re able to have 100% remote business with all the systems, still meet your clients every month and still grow revenue, and have that what you call location independence. That for you was abundance. That’s how you’re fulfilled. For each of us, we all have a different vision. I know, for many people, we feel underappreciated by our clients. We feel like they always want to nickel and dime us. You deal with the tire kickers and all those things. Let’s talk about it before we met. Before you enrolled in the Eight-Week Sales Mastery Training, what was business like for you prior to months ago?
It’s interesting because business wasn’t bad. 2020 wasn’t a great sales year for us. When we look at our sales process, there wasn’t one. I would basically wing it with each prospect. Some conversations went fine, and others didn’t. Even those that did sign were underpriced. We didn’t communicate value well to them. I didn’t even understand our value, so how could I communicate it to our prospects, to our clients?
When you say you didn’t understand your value, can you share a little bit more about that? When you say, “I didn’t even know my value. We’re underpricing.” What were you thinking? What were those thoughts? What did that feel like?
Before your course, I had looked at some pretty high-level metrics in terms of my clients. Their revenue was this before me and was this after their profits. Nothing in terms of how has their lifestyle changed? What are their feelings? What are their emotions? What’s their peace of mind? How do they view the services that we’re providing to them? Understanding all of those things. The prospects don’t care about monthly reconciliation. What they care about is knowing where their money is going, having peace of mind, feeling secure and feeling like their business rewards them. As we aligned our focus to those things, it better syncs up with them. Even though we’re doing a lot of the same things, a little pivot makes us much more valuable and much more in line with their goals.
From listening to you, it’s not that you can connect to them at their level. When you talk about, “No one cares about the number on the balance sheet,” maybe they do but that’s not the primary. The primary is they want to see the fruits of their labor. They want to see that they’re getting paid first. They want to see that they worked so hard and there’s still money in the bank account. Those are the things that the business owners actually care about. When we communicate to them at that level, they feel heard. They feel understood. You have a deeper connection, which immediately improves the value. Business wasn’t bad in 2020. What’s it like in 2021?
It’s amazing. By the end of your course, our recurring revenue was up $4,000 per month. That’s a testimonial I have shared before and will continue to share. It’s been amazing for us. Our rates are almost triple than what they were before. 2020 was a great year. 2021 is already on track to double it. This March 2021 is our current all-time highest for sales. It probably won’t be long until we beat that.
What were those feelings and the challenges that you had? Because like you said, “2020 wasn’t bad.” It’s not bad but what had you enroll in the sales course. I know it’s terrifying for you at first, too, because it wasn’t bad. What made you take that jump, that leap of faith, and make these shifts? Now you see the end result. You tripled your fees. You’ve got extra $4,000 recurring revenue, which I’m sure is growing. You’ve had the best month ever in your firm and you’re on track to double your revenue from where you were in 2020, which is fantastic. What it was before and what made you do that shift?
There are a few factors. One thing is that I didn’t have a sense that we were underpriced. That we were providing great value, but I didn’t know how to change that and how to communicate it. Another thing related to that was pricing. I never knew what to do in terms of pricing. I was too low and I didn’t know what the right number was. I was hoping for some coaching in how to price and to feel confident in the pricing. Those things made me start looking into it. I met with Molly and talk to her. She was the first person I communicated with. When she told me the price, I was like, “I guess I won’t be doing this.” That was my gut reaction.
It’s the price to enroll in the Eight-Week Sales Mastery Training. Molly is one of my colleagues on my team. If any of you want to inquire, you’ll talk to Molly or me or maybe even Denise. I wanted to give that little backstory. You heard the price. You’re like, “No way.”
At the same time, I knew it was a service that I needed. I checked out your testimonials page, watched a lot of those videos, read a lot of those reviews, and felt that it would be pretty impactful for my business. Molly did something that was great. She said, “Think about it for two hours. I’m going to call you back.” I did. I thought about it a lot.
What were those thoughts in those two hours?
The thoughts were that basically, it comes down to, “Do I believe in the services that you’re offering?” If I do, then the price is going to justify it. I’m going to get great value for it and it will be a great investment. One of my other thoughts was that, “If I move forward with this and I put this money into it, then I’m going to do everything Michelle asked me to do.” That was one of my thoughts. I put the courses on a credit card. Within a month of the course thing over, I’d already paid the card off. It was not a financial burden at all, quite the opposite. We’ve already talked about amazing results for my firm and will continue to pay off. I still use your processes. I do my weekly follow-up and follow the sales process with the prospects.
Ross, I have a new tool that I’ll be sharing here on the show. You’ll get it in my emails, though. If you guys want to hear about it, then make sure to go to my website and opt into the emails. I don’t spam. I send updates about the show. You get two a month from me and that’s pretty much it. If you’re a graduate, you might get 3 to 4 a month. That tool might even up your game a little bit more. The fact that you’ve implemented everything, what you did Ross, and I’ve shared this before with you, and I’ll share it here again, it took courage.
It took being uncomfortable because ultimately, you’re going into an unknown at all times that we do things. Be it your education, coaching, different services. It’s an unknown until you get into it. I’d love for you to share what we shared about the course and what you received after you put all the work in. By the way, it doesn’t work if you don’t actually do the work. That doesn’t work. I’ve already had a couple of people prove that to me. Because we each have this like idea of, “I think this is what it’s going to be and then this is what it actually was.” Can you share a little bit about your experience in the course?
Abundance Story: Those applicable steps creating templates and prepared responses for situations just make it so that you’re not caught off guard.
My experience in the course was that you taught us layer upon layer processes that we could follow in our sales efforts and even in some of our communication with clients or referral partners. One week, we might learn about one aspect of the sales process. Maybe, communicating with prospects and how to filter those prospects that come into your business. The following week, you might talk about the discovery call and the steps that you take to make that discovery call a success. I found everything very practical and applicable. I came out of the course with a process that I still follow. I have a meeting with a prospective client. I’ve already blocked off an hour before that meeting. We’re going to go through the pre-sale sheet.
You keep that up, Ross. You’ll double revenue again next year. If you follow every single little, itsy bitsy thing you’ve learned, the people that I’ve seen who are still on the coaching calls are pretty much are consistent double revenue. It’s going to be interesting in the next two years to see a high trend.
Those applicable steps, creating templates, creating prepared responses for situations, make it so that you’re not caught off-guard. How to respond to different things that come up. That’s pretty valuable.
What about the fears that you had? A lot of us, we own our business or maybe you’re in a firm and you want to quit. You want to start your own firm because you’re sick of working hard for somebody else. You probably never thought that you signed up for a 24/7 sales career because that’s what you are if you’re meeting with prospects. I don’t think as accountants, EAs, CPAs, and profit-first professionals that ever crossed our minds. Can you share with us what those fears were? What was that like for you to make this transition?
A few years ago, I was in corporate finance and I had a stable job, fantastic benefits and great growth trajectory. I could have had an easy, comfortable life. A lot of people in that company stayed for a long time. A lot of us feel this draw to do something on our own, to have a more direct impact with others. At some point, you have to accept those fears. Those things that are coming up, they’re all the reasons not to and decide if you are passionate enough to overcome that and make that choice. That’s something that I did at that time, to make the leap, and to start my bookkeeping and payroll business. To grow and develop it from there. It was a process. It requires, of course, patience, time and effort, and lots of sales. Even in your course, there were a lot of moments where I had to do that to come up with something that was uncomfortable, scary, and terrifying. I’d have to decide, “How much am I putting into this? Do I want to do that? It seems hard.” I had made that decision earlier, where I said, “I’m going to do a Michelle tells me. I’m going to do my best,” so I did.
Let’s do a real-life example. I want to know what it was.
Probably the hardest part for me emotionally was the video reviews with clients. The idea of doing those terrified me. I had to decide whether I wanted to move forward, trust you, ignore the uncomfortableness of stretching myself. Did I want to give in and remain stationary? I made the first choice or I wouldn’t be here.
Your review page is amazing. A lot of people don’t do that. It is uncomfortable. It is scary. It is terrifying. Whatever it is, for each of us throughout the sales process, you’re going to come along the bumps in the road. It’s similar to the bumps in the road of growing pains of owning a business. You could have been at your corporate finance job, it was comfortable. I’m sure you’re making a great salary. You probably like you said, great benefits. You had paid vacation. You better have enough recurring revenue to sustain you for a couple of weeks. You then don’t have to worry about anything. You have paid vacation all the time, especially with your location independence. I know you said the reason why was because you made a commitment that if you’re going to pay for the course and roll, you’re going to do everything I say and trust that it’s the right thing.
In addition to that is seeing your testimonials page, and also knowing how it was impactful for me. I knew it would have a lot of power. If I wanted to get my business up to another level, making a page like that wouldn’t do it. It would help set me apart.
Share with us the results because what was the uncomfortable, scary, and terrifying part? Was it getting rejected that people wouldn’t do it? Being told, “Ross, you’re crazy.” I’ll never share this information with you I don’t want to share anything about me or my business or me even working with you. What was the stuff underneath that made it so uncomfortable?
Clients don't care about the numbers on the balance sheet; what they care about is knowing where their money is going. Click To TweetAsking clients for the reviews was a little bit uncomfortable. Doing the video reviews yourselves and putting myself on camera, then putting it on the website, that was the scariest part for me. I decided that I would do it. I have another in the next few weeks. I still get nervous about them. I don’t know if I’ll ever be 100% comfortable with them. I know their value and their importance. They can share their stories with other business owners like them and hopefully, it helps us to help more businesses and make a difference in their lives.
That’s what it’s about because of the review page I had. That’s what I always say it’s like Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall. How do you get them to go over the edge and have a great fall but in the right spot? Because I know it’s going to help. Those reviews are so powerful to grow a business. You read the book Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini.
Parts of it.
The one about social proof in the book Influence. This has been talked about for way before Michelle was born years ago. It’s definitely impactful. It is huge, and it will take your firm to places you didn’t even know was possible, like it helped me. I’m on top of it. Every single graduate, I asked for a review. I haven’t been told no. That’s a lot of people. I have many reviews that aren’t even on the site.
That was my experience as well that every single client I asked said yes.
Sometimes we think, “They’re not going to do it. They’re busy. I don’t want to get rejected. That’s uncomfortable.” People want to share why they like you. They want to share what a difference that made for them in their business, especially for monthly bookkeeping, accounting services, and profit-first on these monthly recurring revenues. You can grow a firm to levels you’ve never seen before. It requires a great video, not only a video and a written review page. Kudos to you for doing that.
Thanks.
You’re welcome. Thanks for implementing and doing it, and sharing it with me. He sent me a link with it. It was awesome. If you go to my page and look at the reviews, his looks the same. I always say you can copy mine. It’s a template.
It’s what I did.
Each of you is more than welcome to go and copy my review page. Ross, thank you so much for sharing your journey, where you’ve gone. Is there anything else that you’d want to share? Let’s say you were speaking to Ross a few months ago. The previous Ross. Is there anything else you’d want to share with him to a reader that maybe you’d never shared before your experience that in the eight-week sales mastery training, your experience with all the work and the homework? Because it’s definitely not easy. Anything else that we haven’t touched on yet?
The main thing would be to encourage me, encourage others like me, to do it. As long as you commit to doing the homework, to following what you teach, then no one’s going to come out of that course without huge benefits. Without a big difference. Without improved sales process and greater pricing and whatever else they might need in their business. That’s all I can do. I can’t recommend your course highly enough. I’m glad I did it. I am grateful.
I’m grateful I was able to support you, see your growth, and look forward to continuing to see your growth. It was an honor to have you here and be able to share with others who sometimes, we get in our own ways. When we step to the side, this is where massive change can happen. Not only on your personal level and your personal life. You’ve been able to travel the world and be location independent and have that abundance already. Not even the financial stuff, that’s different. This is like you said, you could be comfortable in corporate America but you made that jump. You made the transitions. You got comfortable being uncomfortable, so kudos to you. Thank you for being here on the Abundant Accountant podcast. It was an honor to have you.
Thank you, Michelle. It’s been great being here.
—
Thank you all so much for joining Ross tonight on the show. Reading his story from having a cush job in corporate to taking that leap of faith and creating the life he wants and loves. To be living in Mexico and Colombia. Having his family travel is pretty impressive. I do want to share what he was talking about. Ross definitely was uncomfortable many times. He said it. I want each of you to think about this because with like public speaking for me, it’s never comfortable. I never enjoy it. I spoke at QuickBooks Connect in 2021. I’m speaking at another conference in October of 2021. I always get nervous. There are always going to be elements in your firm, in your business, and in the parts of the business that we need to operate that are not going to be that comfortable.
However, with practice and repetition, it’s like a baseball player going up to bat. We have to keep going up to bat and we have to keep trying. When I remember the last time, I was at QuickBooks Connect, it felt so much more comfortable than all the other times that I’ve presented at different academies with Dominique Molina, a certified tax coach, with Profit First at Profit Con. This new event that’s coming up, there are many different elements that I’ve put myself in. Sometimes we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Because of the jitters, the anxiety, the stress that comes with it, the little sweats, you get warm quick, all of that it’s normal.
In some areas, we’re great. We’re confident. We’re comfortable. You’re probably great at cashflow projections, accounting, the taxes, all the technical stuff, but how do we have the confidence to ask for those higher fees? How do we get the strategy to raise our rates to existing clients like Ross did? He actually didn’t mention that, but he raised his rates to his existing clients, too. Pretty much all of them said yes. Except for a couple that didn’t even want to work with him anymore and he didn’t want to work with them anymore. It’s a great way to weed some people out.
What I’m saying is that I’m still nervous about public speaking, and I’m sure Ross is still nervous doing video reviews, and he will be for a long time. My guess is probably forever. It gets a little easier every single time. If each of you wants to have control over what happens next in your firm, and you need to do something different. Ross, this story impacted you. You want to feel in control over who you work with finally. Never give any free advice away ever again. Have a proven system that you can follow. You’ve tried other things. You’ve tried to figure it out on your own, and it hasn’t worked. I then invite you to contact us at TheAbundantCall.com. Book a call. You’ll talk to me, Molly, and Denise, one of us and we’ll get to the truth of what’s going on in your firm. If we feel we’re a good fit to work together, we’ll talk to you about that too.
Once again, you can go over to TheAbundantCall.com to schedule your complimentary call. We’ll see and figure out how you can get to that next level and be similar to Ross. Tripling rates and getting recurring revenue to $4,000 a month extra on top of what he already had. Those are pretty normal results. If you put in the work and you’re ready to put yourself to the side because sometimes our self gets in our way, then let’s chat. Thank you all for joining us here on the Abundant Accounting podcast. I’ll see you in the next episode.
Important Links:
About Ross Loveland
Ross is the founder and chief Profit Strategist at Grow Green Profit Advisors. After years working at a multi-billion dollar, 10,000 employee company, Ross knew he wanted to make a more direct impact on the world. Grow Green was started based on two beliefs. One, that small businesses are an essential part of our communities and our economy. And two, that the small business lifestyle can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be. Since 2017, Grow Green has helped dozens of business owners stop feeling like a slave to their business, and finally have a business that serves them and their lifestyle, not the other way around.
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Abundant Accountant Community today:
