EP346: Jeff Jacobs - How To Build Trust With Your Bookkeeping Clients

Jeff Jacobs (Feb 14): There are so many things that I could do in the IT world, like making cold calls and those kind of things that I did to introduce myself to prospects that just didn't play as well in the accounting industry. There is a whole nother level of trust, I felt like, and maybe even professionalism that applies, I feel like, inside of the CPA world. It has to be softer. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com. The proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back to the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a fantastic one. Our guest is the Director of Development at Wilkins Miller LLC, which is a full-service accounting firm with financial advisory, Wealth Management, IT, Forensic Accounting, Litigation, and Value Services in Mobile, Alabama. Jeff Jacobs, welcome to the show. Hey, Michael, thank you for, uh, for having me. It's, uh, it really is a privilege to be here. I'm, I'm actually a regular listener to the show, and so, uh, I'm, I'm excited to, to get going today. Beautiful. Well, love that you're a listener to the show. It always makes it so much more enjoyable when we have our almost like a friend on the show, which is really cool. And so thank you for being a listener and thank you for coming on the show. Yeah, no, thank you for the excellent content. I've taken more than my share of ideas away from the show. So no, it's great. Great to hear. That's great to hear. Well, Jeff, before we get into things, please tell us a little bit about you, your career journey. How'd you end up being where you are today?

Yeah, so, I actually started out in sales or business development, I guess you could call it, when I was in college. I actually had my first sales gig selling sunglasses in the middle of the mall. And so you've never really been in sales until you tried to sell something in the middle of the mall. And so that was a great experience. It really sort of taught me to be people-centered. And concerned about them and look for their needs and those kind of things. And so from there, I went on to work in the IT space and worked in that job for a while, mostly did support actually, Michael. And I eventually