From Corporate to Consulting | Cameron Williams

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode, Christian Brim interviews Cameron Williams of Kynli Consulting, an accounting and fractional CFO consulting firm. They discuss Cameron's journey in starting his own consulting firm and specializing in working with marketing agencies. They also share some of their worst horror stories dealing with clients who struggle with numbers and financial management. The main theme of the conversation is the importance of communication and collaboration between accountants and creatives to ensure financial success. In this conversation, Cameron Williams and Christian Brim discuss common mistakes and misconceptions business owners have about taxes and accounting. They highlight the importance of clean finances and accurate record-keeping, as well as the need for effective tax planning and strategies. They also caution against fraudulent tax preparers and unrealistic promises of tax savings. The conversation emphasizes the value of working with a knowledgeable accountant who can provide personalized advice and guidance.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS..

• Starting a consulting firm requires taking risks and learning from both successes and failures.
• Niche specialization, such as working with marketing agencies, can lead to significant growth and success.
• Creatives and marketing agencies often struggle with numbers and financial management, highlighting the need for accountants to bridge the gap.
• Clear communication and collaboration between accountants and creatives are essential for financial success.
• Cash flow is a common challenge for marketing agencies, and it can be addressed by managing distributions, loans, and credit card payments. Clean finances and accurate record-keeping are crucial for effective tax planning and compliance.
• Working with a knowledgeable accountant can help business owners navigate complex tax laws and maximize tax savings.
• Beware of fraudulent tax preparers who make unrealistic promises of tax savings.
• Tax strategies should be tailored to each individual's unique financial situation and goals.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.74)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I'm your host, Christian Brim. With me today is Cameron Williams of Kenley Consulting. Welcome, Cameron.

Cameron Williams (00:18.987)
What's up? Thank you so much for having me.

Christian Brim (00:21.946)
I am fascinated to have you on here. I told my marketing director that we were going to have two accountants on a podcast and what could be more exciting than that.

Cameron Williams (00:31.841)
a lot. Not that much. We got a lot to say.

Christian Brim (00:36.439)
Well, I'm hoping that we prove the naysayers wrong. So tell us briefly what you do and how you got here with Kinley Consulting.

Cameron Williams (00:47.799)
Cool. Again, thank you for having me. So what we do, so we are Killing Consulting. We are an accounting and fractional CFO consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia. We've been doing it for, this is now year six. A little bit before that we were in corporate. So I've been in public accounting, which for those of you who don't know, public is like your CPA firm, audits, taxes, will keeping. Then went into private. So worked for like the number one car processor in the world.

I worked for an energy company, worked for a tech company, worked for, I think that was on the three, before I ended up going into my own thing. So like I said, we've been doing it for about six years now. I mean, it's been a fun journey. Of course, a lot of ups and downs because you know, this is the stuff they don't teach you in school. You know, why would they do that? But definitely learned a lot. We just pretty much went all in. had to. And it's been a great ride.

Christian Brim (01:38.445)
Right.

Christian Brim (01:46.03)
So how old were you when you Kinley?

Cameron Williams (01:53.293)
Let's see, 2018, so that would have been 28.

Christian Brim (01:56.494)
Nice. started my company when I was 27. that's, Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron Williams (02:00.909)
Look at that. See, it must be talking about that 27, 28 rings that, you know, life gets really...

Christian Brim (02:07.406)
So did you always work with creatives and marketing agencies or is that something you were drawn to after?

Cameron Williams (02:16.461)
No, so funny story. So of course, I think pretty much everybody starts like, I just want to start making some money ASAP, right? That's part of my story was, that working for that big company, what it was they relocated from, I think, Maryland to here. So of course, only like two people came. So they had to hire a brand new accounting department. 10 months in, they decided, I guess, we have too many people. So everybody that was an accounting supervisor, they laid us all off on the same day.

Christian Brim (02:22.541)
Yes.

Christian Brim (02:31.374)
Mm

Christian Brim (02:45.346)
Ugh.

Cameron Williams (02:45.421)
for the same reason I found out the day after or two days after. So it was everybody on the supervisor level. So after that, we basically had our second kid, which is about to turn seven in like two weeks. But back then, brand new baby and I didn't have a job. And of course, I think y 'all can see the pictures behind me. Clearly I have degrees. I was like, it's no problem. You know, just get another job. Yep, that never happened. So just prayed about it a ton.

and then started the business. at first we were generalists, right? You help any and everybody because we're trying to pay bills. Then of course you start hearing about niche down, niche down. And so we have one client that was a recruiter and they made a ton of money. And if you don't know how recruiter pay structures work, it's essentially whatever your yearly salary is, they get like 15 to 20 % of that upfront. So if they're going to make you, for example, your size of a hundred grand, they're going to get 20 grand upfront. So I was like, that would be great because

Christian Brim (03:18.808)
Mm -hmm. Yes.

Cameron Williams (03:45.133)
Most people don't know what to do with $20 ,000 once. That's a lot of different opportunities. Well, that didn't work out. Like we tried to market to them and post content and all these things. And I literally had a marketing guy try to help me and he was like, for whatever reason, your stuff is the only one of my people's that's not working. So I had the conversation with my mentor and I'm like, yeah, I think we need to switch niches. So I'm like, what would you suggest? And so I forgot the first one she threw out, but the second was.

Christian Brim (03:49.325)
Right.

Christian Brim (04:07.308)
Mm -hmm.

Cameron Williams (04:13.389)
one was marketing agencies. And I was like, why would you suggest that? And she was like, well, Cam, from an age perspective, y 'all are kind of right there. You you're talking like 24, 25 to like mid 40s. Typically they're family oriented, typically really easy going people. You'll learn a lot. Typically they're not very combative. They love to learn. And typically numbers aren't quite their strong point.

Christian Brim (04:31.042)
Right?

Cameron Williams (04:39.025)
She said, versus you pick recruiters, they're kind of opposite of your temperament. Like you're more low key. They're very, you know, aggressive. They want to try to negotiate everything, right? Because they their job to do. She was like, and you don't really want to deal with that as you saw with the guy you had. So she was like, it worse come to worse. You know, you try it out. And if it's six months in, you're not seeing any traction then, you know, you ain't married to it. Pick a different name. So I picked it and literally.

Christian Brim (04:49.08)
Right.

Cameron Williams (05:06.917)
took a marketing course at the same time, took off. And ever since that was about three, three -ish years ago, I think. And we just decided to just be fully immersed in it. So we try to go to the same conferences as they do, be in the same masterminds and groups, have them on our podcast just to kind of go through their story and their journey, just to encourage other agencies. it's been a blast, honestly. And our company's definitely grown, probably like...

3, 4X since then, so it was definitely a good choice.

Christian Brim (05:38.958)
Yeah. And I like what you said about them, them being nice people when, when we, now you figured that out. Like I, if I do the math right, which I'm not really good at, but it sounded like six months in, it took me, more than 20 years to figure that out. So you, you figured out the niching thing a lot quicker than I did, but we, we just went through our client list. said, everybody go through your list.

give me the top five who you like to work with and who values what we do. And over half of them were industries that were what I would call creative, know, videography, marketing agencies, et cetera. But that enjoyed working with, right? You're right. They generally have a good disposition and they are fun to work with because, you know,

I think by their nature, they just kind of view the world differently, more optimistically, kind of like what's possible. So, okay, now let's get down to the down and dirty. We're gonna swap stories. I'm gonna tell you my worst, not gonna name any names, but I'm gonna tell you the worst in memory story of how bad creatives are with numbers, okay?

So I have a client and they had this brilliant idea that if people would pay them upfront, like a six month project, pay them upfront, they'd give them a 50 % discount. And the accountant that was working with them is, hold on a second. You know what your margin is, right? And he goes, well, yeah, it's like,

70 % and he's like, or no 50 % and he's like, you realize that you've just given away all your profit. Well, no, no, no, no, That 50 % that still leaves me with another 50 % and he's like, no, no, no, that's not, but you know, it's, it's like that, that part of the brain just doesn't connect sometimes.

Cameron Williams (08:01.906)
you

Christian Brim (08:03.286)
And I think that's why it's important to have people like you and me that can help bridge that gap. So what's your worst horror story?

Cameron Williams (08:12.777)
Ooh, worst?

Christian Brim (08:15.158)
Yeah, like what did you see? Like, man, I can't believe they did that.

Cameron Williams (08:19.501)
there was one that comes to mind. there's this guy, he was actually a real estate agent. And so he, one of our, he may be our longest, he's either our longest client or our second longest client. Guy used to go to the gym, went and do CrossFit with, he was like, Hey, I told this guy about you. And so the guy comes in and again, real estate agent. So start there. And so, you know, I say, Hey, you want all this stuff? We can do all this. And I think I called her and I'm like,

Christian Brim (08:42.637)
Right?

Cameron Williams (08:49.549)
maybe.

Cameron Williams (08:52.959)
And so we start doing the work because basically long story short, he was working with the older accountant. The guy's like in his seventies kind of phasing out. He's like, I want somebody new, young, cutting edge, innovative, more attentive. Cool. So then he comes to us in like March. We filed the extension, of course. And so we started working on it. First off, this guy has no financials, right? No big deal or normal to us. So we create those forms. So we get to the tax return and

Christian Brim (09:15.597)
Right?

Cameron Williams (09:22.189)
I think he ends up going like 70 grand, right? Which I was pretty happy about because I think originally he was starting at like a hundredish. So I was like, hey man, you know, super excited. You got, you owe 70 grand. Well, he's like, absolutely not.

Christian Brim (09:26.126)
All right.

Cameron Williams (09:41.505)
Why not? And so he got upset and he's like, well, you know, I don't think I should owe that much, which that's always such a fun conversation. But long story short, he's like, well, hey, because mind you, he had so many cards and we're trying to clean them up. But what we do or one of the processes is we'll say like, hey, tell us which ones are personal versus which ones are business. If they're personal, of course, that's a distribution.

Christian Brim (09:50.808)
Yes.

Cameron Williams (10:09.171)
So he's like, well, can I see what you put as personal? I'm like, sure, you know, here's the list. So he starts going through and tries to pick apart the Excel sheet that we give him. And he's basically like, these are all business. Man, I'm glad I asked because all of these you would have said were personal and that would have cost me. And so I'm like, well, first off, correction. You've already told me that these were personal.

Christian Brim (10:34.262)
Right, right.

Cameron Williams (10:34.445)
I'm like, literally, because one of the things we do, we'll send those questions, let the client mark them and say personal or business. And we save that in the file. literally start go cross -referencing. I'm like, no, you said all these were personal. Now that you know you owe money all of a sudden, they're business related, right? And then he's like, well, and I got two other cards. I'm like, well, I asked you, did you give us all the cards? Well, no, no. On second thought, I do have these other two cards.

Christian Brim (10:49.292)
Right,

Cameron Williams (11:02.433)
I'm like, well, what do you want to do? Because the deadline is like three days away for the extension. The guy is like, well, just go ahead and file it. And then, you know, we'll make the changes. I'm like, that's not how it works. That's filing a fraudulent, you're filing a return knowing that it's incorrect. You can't do that. You can't just make a note on it and be like, we'll send a new one. no. I'm like, can't, mind you, then he had a whole other partnership.

Christian Brim (11:13.048)
Right.

Christian Brim (11:23.31)
This is our best guess.

Cameron Williams (11:31.841)
that he didn't tell me about to write then. And I'm like, well, let us do the claim, the same process. Let us do the claim, get the numbers. Well, no, I don't want you to do that. But the deadline's coming. Well, I'll see if I can get somebody else to do that part. Just file the taxes. I can't file it because I don't have numbers. So what I ended up having to do, long story short, was basically disengage with the client, to which, of course, you tried to threaten to sue us. And I'm like, how are you going to sue me? You're going to sue.

Christian Brim (11:50.754)
Right.

Cameron Williams (12:01.163)
Man, you don't really, come on now. You already charged me and you're not even filing a tax return. So really you should be giving me my.

You paid us to do the cleanup and to prepare the tax return. It's, you can't ask me, literally that's going, so for those of you who don't know, we as accountants, CPAs, tax preparers, EAs, we're not allowed to file a return knowing that it's wrong. It's one thing if a client doesn't tell you something and then you come back later and file an amended. That's one thing. We already know this is wrong.

you're asking me to file it because you're trying to get the best result. And then you're trying to say, tell them we're going to come back and amend it. That would mean you already know what's wrong. So literally in all of our books, I think I even got one, you know, that big old tax journal book, they'll literally tell you what you're supposed to do. You know, these big old things like this. They'll literally tell you, hey, when you're supposed to tell the client and then if they don't agree, you disengage because they could come and take our licenses.

And so I'm like, literally I can lose my license and ability to do this. I can't do it. He gets upset and he's like, well, that's fine. I'll just see you in court, which of course never happened. Well, I just thought it was hilarious. Like you're mad because you didn't do what we said. You fought us. You tried to nickel and dime me. You didn't sign up for monthly retainer so I could take over everything. And you're only now trying to go back and redo things.

because you know that you owe, you're really trying to do it just, which by the way, us as the accountant, we can't tell you if you're lying or not, by the way, to be fair. But the fact that you've already told me they were personal and you're now trying to go back, now we're on the verge of committing fraud and I just wasn't willing to do that. So that's probably the worst story we've had, just because like he didn't want to let us do the additional work. He was trying to argue with us on why we should file.

Cameron Williams (14:03.283)
even though he and I knew it was wrong and he wanted to. So that was probably my craziest story. Other than that, the only other one I can think of is, which is why we don't offer bill pay anymore. Long story short, client on the South side of Atlanta, we go in, she was super excited, we start working and she wanted us to do bill pay. I'm like, all right, cool. Here's an Excel sheet, tell me all the bills and what's the dates and give me login so that I can log in and be able to do that at a certain time.

Christian Brim (14:15.267)
Yes?

Cameron Williams (14:32.461)
Well, she never does it. And mind you, every week I'm like, hey, don't forget, send me them passwords. So then she sends me, hey, you didn't pay my rent. And I'm like, you never gave me a login. And she's like, but you should have known I was gonna have to pay it. I said, you never told me the date. I said, okay, well, what day do you pay it? Well, the day changes every month, but they usually send it to me like 10 days out from when they want it. You never told me, you never gave me access.

Christian Brim (15:00.054)
Right.

Cameron Williams (15:01.901)
I only have to log into your bank. I don't know when you're supposed to pay it and the number changes and the date changes. Come on, Cameron, if I have to keep reminding you of things like this, then we may have to take this to court because I'm not gonna be paying you all this money and you're gonna make me late on my stuff. I said, you know what, don't even worry about it, disengage. Then she got mad, cause she's like, well, what do you mean disengage?

It's not even worth all that. Here's your money back for the last month and we're no longer going to work with you. We're terminating the contract. And that was it. That's why we don't offer bill pay because I saw right then that a client would try to make it as if it's our fault when they literally didn't provide us the things to do our job. Like we have, we maybe have five emails where we said, here's the template, fill it out. I even went back and said, rent.

phone and try to do all you need to do is put in logins and the date and the amount. She wouldn't do it, but all of a sudden it was our fault that your rent didn't get paid even though you didn't know when it was supposed to get paid or the amount. So that's when I made that decision. I think that was like three years ago. We're not going to offer bill pay because if it's going to lead to that, not worth it.

Christian Brim (16:16.81)
Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I, I take two things away from that, advice for our listeners is one, full disclosure to your client, tell them, tell them what's going on. Think of them as a priest. don't offer absolution. but I, can't, I can't work with what I don't have. Right. and two, you have to still do something, right? It may not be much, but you still got to do something. And so.

You know, a lot of people come to an accountant and they feel like, you know, well, my, my finances are a mess. and they just want to dump the mess in your lap. Right. And it doesn't work that

Cameron Williams (16:57.153)
Which is okay, well, it does with a caveat, right? Like we can fix a lot of stuff, but like, okay, I can build your accounting from scratch, but I need log in so I can get bank statements so I can tie it out. Or like we just had to tell the client this, think last week, they're like, I don't understand why this stuff is not matching with our internal report. I don't know either. All I know is it makes the bank. Like, unless you...

Christian Brim (17:02.198)
Exactly.

Christian Brim (17:09.634)
Exactly.

Cameron Williams (17:26.251)
I think they think once you give it to us and everything's perfect, like, no, we still have to have conversations and I have to know what you're attempting to do or what's coming up because you guys have to remember most marketing agency people move at light speed. It's not like real estate where it's a super slow, marketing people move fast, right? Creatives in general, you're going to have new ideas all the time. So you still have to communicate things. Think about if you're Coca -Cola or any

Christian Brim (17:32.172)
Yes.

Cameron Williams (17:55.819)
regular size company, hey, the finance team has to know what the marketing team is doing, or the finance team has to know what the sales goals are so that we can be prepared. It's not just here's everything by and you handle it. No, we have to be in locked sync with each other. And I think they forget that you still have to tell them, like, hey, we just signed this new client, but the deal is structured this way, which is different from the norm. You got to tell them that otherwise.

Christian Brim (18:01.112)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (18:09.655)
Yeah.

Cameron Williams (18:23.287)
We will put it in just like we would everybody else. So just think that that communication piece still has to be there. Yeah, we can still have it. Once you tell me, I got it. But you can't not tell me and expect it to be this perfect alignment when we're not you. We're not making those judgment calls. We're preparing data for you to be able to speak to your goals, to hiring people or scaling or paying people.

We have the data available. I still gotta know what the goal or the objective is so that I can best help.

Christian Brim (18:55.596)
Yes. I think communication, you nailed it. think, when, when I said they just want to dump the lap, dump the problem in your lap and walk away, it's that walk away problem, right? Like it, it, no, this is, this is an ongoing, conversation. You have to, you, you gotta work with us here. Cause if, if there isn't any communication, then there's going to be problems. so.

What is the most common problem from a financial standpoint that you see with agency on?

Cameron Williams (19:32.333)
Kind of a mix of things, but if I had to probably pick the biggest one, it's typically centered around cash flow. Like Cameron, I'm making 50 grand a month, but why is majority of it not in my bank account? And you and I both know that that's a very multilayered question. But some of the top reasons I would say are A, you're probably paying yourself too much in distributions. B, you probably have some type of loan or credit card payment or.

Christian Brim (19:43.81)
Mm -hmm.

Christian Brim (19:56.184)
Mm -hmm.

Cameron Williams (20:01.101)
least favorite merchant loans, that's just destroying your cash flow. See you over hired, you know, because you listen to your buddy and they got, you know, 12 contractors and you think you should have 12 when in reality you may only need five. That's one. And your tech stack is out of control. You signed up for some things that, you know, may have been good at one point, but either they're outdated or you thought you canceled them. So those are kind of the top.

four things that we see that kind of mess up and disturb that. And it's the hardest one to fix is the loan, right? Because you got a loan because of something, but those terms are typically not good. They're pretty bad. So to try to help them get out of that is probably the biggest and hardest challenge for us. Or when they like owe money for their taxes and they didn't know, like that's the season we're in right now, would it be an extension season? And we just finished.

Christian Brim (20:42.605)
Right.

Cameron Williams (21:00.989)
an S -corp return for a guy, he's gonna hold about 24, 25 grand and he's like, what? I didn't know, why is it so much? And I'm just like, man, if I only had him last year, I know for a fact I could have probably slashed that bill in half. He probably would have only owed maybe, maybe 10, but it's like, I didn't have you. I can only tell you so much after he came to us, I think in March.

Christian Brim (21:14.562)
Right.

Cameron Williams (21:28.909)
I can only tell you so much, the year's already over, you know? So it's very hard for us as accountants and CFOs and all of that to see it, because to us, we know how to fix it. But typically, you gotta kind of let that first year, six months kind of run its course of whatever the past person did for it to kind of be a clean slate. So like in that tax example, like 2024, I'm like, you're not gonna have none of these problems, but you still gotta pay 20.

Christian Brim (21:31.596)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (21:55.522)
Right. Yeah. And I think that's a good, you said first year. think if you make a change with an accountant, plan on being with them for a year because you're not going to see the full benefit most likely until that second time around. Exactly.

Cameron Williams (22:14.197)
Yeah, when their stuff takes into effect. And that's the crazy part about tax season, right? And I think you'd attest to this tax season is every account is most profitable time, January through April. But it's also the if your accountant has a hard, it's the hardest time because if I didn't have you on monthly retainer prior to January 1st, whatever your last person told you, or in my case, a lot of times didn't tell you.

there's not that much we can do to fix it for a 2023 stuff. But now 2024, all of this is gonna be changed. It's gonna be a lot different way better. But like in that guy's case, the only reason that his taxes got destroyed like that was because he was an escort and the last account didn't tell me how to be on payroll. So he took out all these distributions and you know how that goes. You take out all the distributions, no salary.

Christian Brim (23:02.56)
Ehh...

Cameron Williams (23:09.933)
They're going to hit you with capital gains tax. basically to put it in English, since this is for the creatives, basically the IRS says, Hey, you thought you were slick by not being on payroll and trying to just hit that transfer button? Nope. We're still going to get our money. So we're going to tax you and you don't get the control by how much. If we say we're going to tax, I think his was like 150 was his total distributions. We're going to tax 89 grand of it. And this is the number.

Christian Brim (23:25.058)
Yes.

Christian Brim (23:29.73)
Right.

Cameron Williams (23:39.021)
Like there's nothing you can do about that. And I feel so bad because he's a good dude. He works hard, family man, involved in his community, right? All of those things. But that was only because they didn't tell him that as an escort, you need to be on payroll. And that's what destroyed him. So of course it's like you hurt as the guy trying to come in, cause it's like kind of got to bite the bullet for 23, but now 24 going forward, you're going to be crystal clear, right? But.

That's always the hardest thing for us and just trying to communicate like, hey, I can't fix that because that year's done over with, but I can fix everything.

Christian Brim (24:17.526)
Yeah, I think a lot of business owners think that taxes is, you know, your H and R block where you, you know, bring all your forms and they put it in the computer and it spits out and, and, you know, they don't see a lot of value in it, but, it's kind of like, I would equate it to not go into the dentist, right? And then, you know, your mouth starts hurting and

You go to the dentist and they go, we got to extract these teeth and do surgery and all this. And it would have been a lot better if you had been coming to us for the last five years. Right. And, and I think it's, you know, once they have that toothache, they don't want a toothache again. And, and that, but a lot of them, it takes a while before they realize, Hey, I really do need an accountant. It's not just a, you know, something I have to do. It's something that brings value to what you do. And, and.

Cameron Williams (25:12.909)
Well, yeah, and I think to your point, like what we tell people is you got to remember, you've never made $30 ,000 per month. I'm not talking about the year, per month before in your life. Right? Most, the average American, which shout out to you guys, we love you, but the average American, right, you're talking, they're bringing in four to six, maybe seven grand per month. And that's before you take out tax.

versus on the agency side, it's very common for us to see 30 to 100K months, not year, but months. So if you've never made, let's just do easy math, three times 12 is 36, as is zero. If you've never made $300 ,000 in one year before, you have no idea about my taxes being what? I gotta owe them how much and I gotta pay the feds and the state? What?

Christian Brim (25:48.866)
Right. Right.

Christian Brim (26:03.374)
exactly right. That's exactly right.

Cameron Williams (26:10.797)
I got to do, they've never experienced that. So that's again, going back to the heart of an accountant, like that's what kind of breaks our heart as people. it's like, and you know, my mentor is completely opposite for me. She'll be like, Cameron, you don't need to be so whatever with them because think of you made 300 grand and you'd know you didn't pay no taxes the whole year. I don't want to hear that crap. Even though she used different language. Me, I'm just like, yeah, but coming from

Christian Brim (26:36.93)
Right.

Cameron Williams (26:40.749)
Remember, I got let go. So I know what it's like to be on the food stamps and to barely make money, right? Now you're making 20, 30, 40, 50 grand in a month. You happy. You're not thinking about saving for taxes and building up your rainy day fund and building up a savings fund and building cushion. Babe, you want to go to the best restaurant. Let's go travel. Like that's what they're thinking about. So to have to kind of bring them into reality and say, hey,

I'm so happy you made 500 grand this year, but taxes on that at the least and being super conservative, yep, 500 grand, probably, you know, about 60, 70 grand. But then you got to lead them through that, but hey, you you went to that conference, Funnel Hacking Live and Bid Summit and, you know, Go High Level and all these different things. If we can use those, that 500 now becomes 250. Taxing on 250 is...

Christian Brim (27:21.198)
Sure.

Cameron Williams (27:37.869)
45 ,000. And then if we do this special tax strategy, maybe we can turn it into an S quarter. What is that? Well, hey, now we got it down to 35. So like you got to walk people through that because in their mind is make as much money as I can. Right. And then, hey, let's just either spend it on scaling or let me just save it all. That's cool. But you need to know if you're going to scale, which we tell people you following the two categories.

Either you're the conservative person. We had a guy that used to be like, Cameron, I don't know what it is. It's not like we grew up broke or nothing, but it just does something to me when I can log into my bank account and see $100 ,000 in a bank. Okay. I'm not mad at that. You just need to be aware that you being more conservative, AKA not spending means you're going to pay higher taxes. So we need to accommodate that. Then I got some of my other people, I call them aggressive.

Christian Brim (28:21.315)
Right?

Cameron Williams (28:34.561)
Can we trying to get the seven figures? We gonna spend it unless you tell me stop. I'm trying to get people in, I'm trying to spend it. We trying to blow money on ads. Okay, cool. Less cash because you're spending it all, but that also means less in taxes. We just gotta play that line of keeping some cushion in there in case something happens, in case you lose some clients and still scaling. So typically people fall into two sides, but it's our job as the accountant.

to try to get you in the right profile so that we can best support you. But again, going back to your earlier comment, you got to communicate these things to us too. We need to know, are you trying to get the seven figures? Are you just trying to pay bills? Are you just wanting to save? What are those goals so that we can best help?

Christian Brim (29:13.336)
Right.

Christian Brim (29:21.742)
Yeah. And, and I think to, summarize it, you know, let's say you started the bank account was zero and you ended the year and you didn't pay yourself. Right. Okay. We're just going to say it's all in the bank. Everything stayed in the company and you end the year with a hundred thousand dollars, but you haven't paid any taxes. You know, that a hundred thousand isn't all yours. It, you know, it could be 15. It could be 30, depending upon your situation, you know, outside of the business and

What else, what state, you know, blah, blah, blah. you know, it's, it's not, you're not done until you've paid taxes on it. another thing that I see a lot of business owners getting hung up on our loan payments. you know, they, think those are deductible, right? And it's like, cause the cash went out the door, right? And I'm like, well, did you pay, did you pay tax on it when you got the money? no. Okay. Well, you then you don't get it when you pay it back.

Cameron Williams (30:09.047)
They're not.

you

Christian Brim (30:19.5)
So, what I, I'm, I'm a little older than you. I want, I want a tax tip tax strategy for marketers. Give me your most obscure one and see if I haven't heard of it. Cause I, yeah. So like, yeah, I love, I love tax while you're thinking I had, I had a client once. and he came to me, he was in the real estate business.

Cameron Williams (30:32.954)
Mm

our apps here.

Christian Brim (30:49.912)
partly and he said, well, I'm going to do this and do this and this is going to allow me to do this for taxes. And I sat there and I went, huh, that's actually brilliant. And my client taught me a tax strategy. So I'm always looking to learn for new ideas. So here's your shot cam.

Cameron Williams (31:09.431)
I don't know if I have a new idea. The most practical, I would probably say, that is often overlooked. Everybody, I want, give me them strategies Trump has. Or I know if Trump's not paying taxes on all that money, I need the same thing. And I hate to say it, but the best, most practical tip is you gotta have clean finances.

I hate to simplify it, but we've seen such a difference. people just kind of come in and wing it like, yeah, I think I made about 500 grand and I probably spent about 200 grand. I'm like, do we want to think or we want to know because that's a big difference. And then you start doing all the numbers and all the math, come to find out they made 625 ,000, but they spent 450. Well, that's still a...

better than just swinging it. So that would be one. I'd probably like to talk more about with S -Corps, it's not the best move for everybody because the goal is never really, if we're being honest, to pay the least amount of taxes. The goal is to have the least amount of cash come out of your pocket because what a lot of people don't realize about S -Corps is, yeah, I'm not paying self -employment tax.

Christian Brim (32:12.846)
And I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Yes? Yes?

Cameron Williams (32:36.075)
Yeah, but that just turned into payroll tax too. And if it turned into payroll tax, then you got to have a different level of compliance, right? You have to have financials now. There's a bigger and a completely separate tax return. So now your compliance costs have gone up. There are so many other things to it. Sometimes you will save more cash going out of your pocket by simply staying in LLC, but that's something that your accountant needs to walk you through.

Christian Brim (32:39.096)
Right.

Cameron Williams (33:05.111)
with some type of presentation or entity analysis. So be aware of the accountant that just says, yeah, be an escort. You should be one. It'll save you on taxes. it can, but see what if your wife is married and work, or wife is married, what if your wife is working and has three W -2s or two? That can throw that off. You may not need it. So there's so many different aspects to that. I mean, we post a lot of content on social, but.

Christian Brim (33:26.722)
Right. Right.

Cameron Williams (33:33.973)
let your accountant bring the concept to them and let them put that in a presentation or an analysis for you so that you can see what's best for you. Because just because it works for your buddy doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. Your buddy could be the stay at, you know, his wife's a stay at home mom. He's the only one working. Perfect. For you, if your wife has a high income job,

It may not be the best thing for you once you draw out the fact that you got three kids, she works a high income job, she withholds a ton and you're in a state that has high state taxes. Well, we don't know that. So I would just encourage to run the numbers, aka have those financials in place before you start trying to do all these fancy holding companies and all these other fancy things.

Christian Brim (34:23.256)
Yeah, I, you're, you're a hundred percent right. I, as you were saying that the analogy would be, I'm going to go take whatever medicines you're taking, because that's going to make me feel better. Right. Like that. doesn't work that way. Right. there is a, there is a company out there and I, I wouldn't share the name if I remembered it, but I'll send you, the, link to it because it, it just blew my mind.

around what they were selling as far as tax advice and tax strategies. And I think to what I want, Cam's right on, right on the head with you need to not listen to other business owners. You need to talk to the professional about your situation. But the reality is if you want to screw your taxes up,

there are plenty of people out there that will take your money and screw them up. And, you know, I don't want to say commit fraud, but in some of these cases, I mean, they're flat out fraudulent.

Cameron Williams (35:31.885)
Okay, we got to go here. So you asked for a story. Tell me why this happened earlier this week. So I get a guy, you know how they do on Facebook. Hey, I need an accountant that can help me do blah, blah. He wants us to do a tax projection. Get him on a call. All right, talk me through it. So he starts talking. Hey, I make about 70 grand. So I'm like, ooh, that's

Christian Brim (35:35.606)
All right.

Cameron Williams (35:55.597)
So I want to project my taxes for the rest of the year. All right, do you got your income? Do you got what you projected at the end of the year for income and expenses? He then says, well, I've already talked to another accountant. This guy says he can save me $25 ,000 on taxes. So now my first thought is like, wait, you make $70 and he going to save you $25

I'm like, well, let me look at your tax return. He's like, yeah, it should be just like last year. We started looking. He's, I see the business and it was around 70 years last year, but then there's this huge like negative $72 ,000 lost on some weird names. I'm like, what is this? yeah. The guy who did it, he asked me, did I have any property? And I kept telling him no. And he was like, well, do you have some?

And he put me some property in India and marks it as a $72 ,000 loss. So I'm looking like, well, let's ask the basic question. Do you have a property? He's like, no. And I kept telling him that. I'm like, well, it's definitely on your tax return. So I'm like, well, let me look for the Schedule E to see, like, how did you do it? There was no Schedule E. It was just the fallout piece on there. Nothing with the what happened that interest or the expenses or income or anything.

Christian Brim (36:53.903)
No, no,

Christian Brim (36:57.422)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (37:08.299)
Right?

Cameron Williams (37:19.981)
And so he was like, well, you know, now that you kind of brought it up and talk me through it, I did think that was kind of suspect. And I'm like, well, this one, your tax return. So you signed it and you got like a $3 ,000 refund. So I said to be clear, you, I said, this is your choice to make, not mine, but you either need to be okay with this and roll the dice and hope that you don't ever get audited or you need to file an amended return, which would be my suggestion.

Christian Brim (37:28.588)
Yeah, and you signed it, so...

Cameron Williams (37:48.845)
Because if they were to ever ask, hey, what is this property on this schedule? That's negative 72 grand. You literally just told me you don't know. You don't have an idea and there's no documentation about it. So to your point, he, then he says, forgot this part. Well, Cameron, this new guy I'm talking to says that he's going to charge me 1500 for a consultation, 3k to see if he can save me money. And then another 3k to do.

plan and he swears he can save me 25 grand. And I was like, no offense. I said, cause I haven't taken a dime from you. This is just a call. I said, if you make 70 K, how's he going to save you 25 grand? That makes no sense because you and I know this just for a super generalized thing, just for the non -numbers people at best, right? You're going to pay at least 15%. So super easy way to do it was 10%.

Christian Brim (38:25.901)
Right.

Cameron Williams (38:48.013)
and then add a little bit more to it. So if you make 70 grand, 10 % is seven grand. Round up, let's be nice. At most, you're gonna pay 10 grand. He ain't gonna save you 25. Well, he was saying that he's gonna link the amount of savings that he can get from me and gonna tie that to his feet. I was like, yeah, that's a flag, bro.

Christian Brim (39:09.43)
Yeah, absolutely, that's a flag.

Cameron Williams (39:12.245)
You know, now he's not incentivized to be correct. He's incentivized to make whatever the result is to get you a refund. Therefore, you will justify his fee. And we've never done that. All the good ones, let me just say it on record, all the good accountants, tax preparers, CPAs, EAs, they're never gonna promise you a percentage. Why? Because like, our accuracy, like, we know we can save you money if we do it correctly.

Christian Brim (39:36.618)
It's unethical. Right.

Cameron Williams (39:42.157)
But I mean, for me, we may just charge you like, for example, to do a tax projection and an ETT announcement and all this stuff. Let's just be nice and say, hey, it'll be five grand. We'll do the accounting from January 23 to, what are we in? September 24. We'll do the S -corp return for you. We'll do the analysis and get you on payroll all for six grand. If I'm telling you six grand, that's because I've already calculated the numbers to know I'm saving you 35 grand. But I would never frame it as

This is a, we're gonna charge you a percentage of savings because if you do the return, you technically don't know because the client's gonna forget something. I forgot to add this. Yeah, throw this in there too. So you just gotta, if it sounds too, too good to be true, it may be a good change.

Christian Brim (40:32.556)
It, you're, and like I said, they're out there and people are throwing money at them because they tell them what they want to hear. And, that's not a recipe for success. I, I, I'll close with one, more story when I was very new, probably second or third year in business, I had this guy and he had a business and we did his return. And that was back when you had to come in and physically sign them.

and, then he looks at me and he pulls out this, driver's license and he goes, are you ready to do the next one? And I looked at it it was his picture, but it wasn't his name. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And this was right after, the, earned income credit had come, come into play. And so he's like, well, I need you to file another turn. And I said, absolutely not get out of here.

I'm like, I don't want to see you again. but you know, people, people think about, taxpayers committing fraud. Yeah. But there are also tax preparers that commit fraud and, you know, I it's, it's not, it's not a good situation. cam, how do people find you to learn more about Kylie consulting?

Cameron Williams (41:59.597)
So you can always connect with us on Facebook. I'm pretty active on there when I'm not in stuff like this or in client meetings. So you can just find me, Cameron Williams. You can go to our website, is Kenley Consulting, K -Y -N -L -I Consulting .com. But for the most part, I tell people Facebook, for us, you get a lot of free value, a lot of tips, a lot of things to watch out for. Hey, is this you? You probably should check this. Just kind of the same conversations we're having here.

you need to go and just follow us for that. Ending up, it said, if you were to follow us, you'd get so much value in regards to what should my salary be looking like? Am I paying myself too much, too little, et cetera? So we just help people reach out to us on Facebook. Again, that's just Cameron Williams, my first and last name. Or you can just go to the website. We have some information about us and what we do. But yeah, we just try to serve first. That's kind of our motto for this year.

So anyway, we can help you that of course Christian and his team cannot. The interest free trial to us alone is not.

Christian Brim (43:02.456)
Cameron, thank you very much for joining me today. For our listeners, if you like what you've heard, follow the podcast or subscribe, depending upon your platform. If you don't like it, hit the link and send us a message and tell us what you'd like to hear next. Until next time, ta ta for now.

Cameron Williams (43:26.773)
Thank you for having me, see