Welcome back to the Retirement Tax Services Podcast! Steven’s guest is Michael Eckstein, the founder of Resting Business Face (formerly known as Eckstein Advisory). There’s more to Michael than a hall-of-fame-great firm name, though. Today he’s focused on super small business.
Do you have any smaller-business clients, such as freelancers? Not many advisors do.
Super-small business clients don’t always invest in retirement savings. Often this is because they don’t have someone in their corner letting them know they should.
In fact, many of them aren’t saving like they need to for their old age. In some cases, this is because their options are limited. However, in others, they simply don’t know where to start.
Most of them aren’t aware of their options, like a SEP-IRA or solo 401k. Unfortunately, some financial advisors aren’t, either.
That’s why, when someone asks how their taxes could be reduced, Michael Eckstein, CPA, asks, “Have you thought of saving for retirement?”
Productive conversations usually result. He covers the basic mechanics of saving. Next, they consider involving a financial advisor (unless they insist on a D-I-Y approach).
The considerations that follow are largely overlooked among small business retirement accounts. For example, a SEP-IRA account holder can contribute much more than someone with a traditional IRA.
Consequently, the taxpayer can speed up their savings, if they choose. As long as they make enough, they can build their assets sooner.
Meanwhile, a solo 401k can also be a Roth 401k. That means Roth conversions are possible, too.
None of this means that you, as a financial advisor have to be a walking IRS encyclopedia. As a matter of fact, you can provide significant value by helping them vet CPAs.
For best results, this requires getting proactive. However, there’s a potential bonus: If you focus on providing value to everyone you advise—and gently stress this desire with tax preparers to-be—long term professional relationships can result.
This, in turn, can lead to recommendations. You just have to be patient and stay focused on your clients. Build a solid, organic working relationship first.
At the same time, you are probably in a great position tell clients, “Here’s what we should look for.” That criteria can help them find someone who’ll truly look out for them as much as you do.
By necessity, most CPAs are focused on compliance; the here and now. This makes your focus on mid term financial planning and long-term tax planning that much more important.
You don’t need a CPA’s knowledge of the tax code to be a helpful expert, either. Even basic knowledge is more than many people on the street are familiar with.
In time, the more tax planning you do (and the more tax preparers you work with), the more your knowledge base will grow. This experience teaches you what to look out for.
As a result, when someone’s setting up a business, you can familiarize them with considerations for a retirement plan. Having things set up well overall doesn’t mean they are properly geared for retirement.
Steven and guest Michael Eckstein have more on success with smaller business clients in today’s Retirement Tax Services Podcast. Please visit us at Retirementtaxservices.com, too. Feedback and unusual tax planning stories can be sent to advisors@rts.tax.
Thank you for listening.
Steven Jarvis:
Hello everyone! And welcome to the next episode of the Retirement Tax Services Podcast: Financial Professionals Edition. I am your host, Steven Jarvis, CPA. In this show, I teach financial advisors how to deliver massive value to their clients through tax planning. Really excited to have on the show with me today, a fellow accounting nerd, Enrolled Agent, Michael Eckstein, who is going through a rebrand of his business, and it is going to be known as Resting Business Face. And I can not be more excited to introduce a company than, than that name! So Michael, welcome to the show!
Michael Eckstein:
Thank you for having me. It’s a fun new name, right? I think everyone will enjoy it..
SJ:
Yeah. Yeah. And especially for the accounting crowd out there, like it definitely, it sets you apart right out of the gate that, hey, maybe you think about these things a little bit differently. So Michael, we got connected and I invited you on the show because you spend so much of your time working with small business owners, commenting on a lot of things beyond simply taxes, but there’s a lot of tax elements in there as well. And between my podcast audience, primarily being business owners, themselves as financial advisors, and then working with business owners, I just thought it’d be great to chat about some of the things that you see as really impactful to the clients that you serve and how we can kind of take this to another level for our listeners as far as things they should be thinking about.
ME:
So, I guess there’s all sorts of things, small business finance is an endless topic. But the one thing I always, I guess rant about and not just cause I’m on this podcast, but retirement savings for small businesses, right? That sounds like I’m pandering to this audience, but I’m not, it’s something I bring up with all my clients because there isn’t enough of it. And I guess the people listening at home or in their car driving somewhere, like if you reflect on your clients, chances are, there’s very few super small businesses and freelancers cause that little demographic just doesn’t save for retirement. Right. And there’s a ton of them out there. And as we kind of move into the gig economy, there’s more and more freelancers and all these people just aren’t saving. They don’t know how they don’t know where to start. They don’t know their options. And there’s just kind of like this whole area. I don’t know.
SJ:
Yeah. It’s kind of interesting because you know, so many of the headlines and articles around retirement savings really, I mean kind of begin and end with, ‘Hey, put money in your 401(k).’ You know, that’s great for people who are in a W2 world, or work for an employer who has option already available to them. But for a lot of people, they can get pretty far in life without ever having to think, ‘oh, maybe I should start a retirement plan. Or, or what might that look like? Or is that even available to me?’ And so whether you’ve been a W2 employee and you’re switching to more of a gig or small business, or maybe you’ve been a business owner all along, but you just never knew that option was available. There actually are some great options available to business owners, even if they don’t have the backing of a big company with 10,000 employees.
ME:
That’s exactly the issue when you’re at the big company, it’s all taken care of for you when you’re your own boss, you’re working for yourself, you don’t even realize these are options, right? And some accountants, financial advisors, lawyers, the people that serve these small businesses, aren’t even aware of all of the options, right? Like everyone’s kind of aware, oh, there’s IRAs and stuff, but there’s other kinds of retirement accounts that are set by IRAs. They’re simple IRAs and 401(k)s. There’s, you know, one participant 401(k)s, right? And while 401(k) is, don’t make sense a lot of the time for the super small business and they are difficult to manage from the financial advisor’s perspective ‘cause there’s a lot of compliance record keeping testing there, pain. There are a big project plans like solo 401(k)s are a great opportunity to help clients that have small side hustles that are freelancers or small business owners save for retirement. And they solve a lot of problems that come up around tax planning for retirement.
SJ:
Yeah. And I, I put this reminder out there a lot, but as we talk more about this, it’s important to keep in mind that tax laws were not created to make sense. So we’re not going to spend time on why the contribution limits for 401(k)s are higher than just IRAs or anything else. Or as we record this, the IRS just recently announced contribution limits for next year and 401(k) contributions went up, but IRA contributions didn’t. I have no answers on how any of that makes sense. It doesn’t, it has to do with lobbying. Uh, and we don’t have time to go through all of that. But it’s important to recognize that whether you agree with the reason or not, there are advantages to certain types of retirement plans over others. So Michael, as you work with small businesses, I mean kind of what’s what’s this progression look like at what point are you saying, “Hey, this is something you should think about?”
ME:
So I always gently push my clients into saving for retirement. On one hand, I can only push so much because I can’t give financial advice. I can only suggest they get started. I can’t be like buy these things. Right? So the progression kind of starts with every single client wants to reduce their taxes. And they’re always like, ‘how can I reduce taxes?’ And I’m just like, ‘have you thought of saving for retirement? That’s a great way to reduce your taxes.’ Right? Obviously it’s not the end all be all of tax planning, but it’s a tool at our disposal. And that kind of starts a conversation because every client wants to save taxes. So when they hear it, they’re like, please go on. Right. And then it kind of becomes the same kind of, I want to say game, the thing you do with everyone more it’s like, all right, first, we got to learn how to save.
Then we gotta set you up with someone that knows about this. So either financial advisor or if you’re going to do it yourself fine, right. Start saving. And it’s slowly work up the ladder of accounts, right? So the simplest accountants open is of course the traditional or Roth IRA, right? They’re easy to open. There’s minimal compliance. There’s really nothing to think about. It’s just, here are these contribution limits. Great, that’s it! And financial advisors and accountants are all very familiar with them. So we also don’t have to think about them that much, or it’s very easy to give advice. If someone talks to me a question, what’s the contribution of the men on a Roth IRA. I know that much easier than what’s the contribution limit on a solo 401(k), right? It just, for all of us, it’s off the top of our heads. But once you start max out those accounts, there’s this whole space of the small business retirement accounts that’s not taken advantage of. Right?
And that is the next step. Like I think I said a little bit earlier, it solves a lot of the problems. So for example, if you use a SEP IRA, you can contribute much more to a SEP IRA. Then you could into a traditional IRA and that’s nice. Cause you get to speed up your savings. You get to, I guess, fix any holes in the plan. If your client has a problem where they’re not saving enough and there’s not enough assets in these retirement accounts, you can only catch up contributions only helps so much. You know what I mean? Like sometimes you need more money in there. And these retirement accounts like SEP IRAs and stuff like that help cause you get to put more money in and then the next step beyond that or solo 401(k)s, they do have a little bit of a compliance issue.
Like they don’t have all the testing kind of requirements, the record keeping requirements, but over $250,000, you still have to do the tax return. Right? So the client has to be aware of that. But you could really, if the client is of that mindset, really sock money away into these things, right? Cause you get to do the employee side contribution and the employer side contribution, plus they can be Roth. You can have a Roth solo 401(k), right? Which is in and of itself like a great opportunity because I’ll sometimes talk to my clients, financial advisors. And one of the questions they always ask is, you know, what’s their AGI? Are they going to push over the threshold and not be eligible for a Roth? Are we going to have a problem that we’ve been putting money away in the Roth the entire year? And like now at the end of the year, we have to figure out what we’re doing with this money.
You don’t have to worry about with that with the Roth 401k, you know, for whatever reason, like you’re saying, I don’t know why their role is different, but it is. And you know, why sit here and struggle and have that concern every single year being like, oh no, did they make too much money? Right. Cause you don’t want to have a situation than a year where you’re like, ‘oh no, they made a thousand dollars too much!’ Right. And you can’t like recommend to your client, ‘Hey, stop making money.’ Right? So it, it kinda helps you get around some of these issues. And it’s great for that. You know, not to mention like when we talk Roth conversions, right. Everyone knows Roth conversions, right. Or at least clients love to say when they want to sound really like smart and educated to you. It’s one of those fancy finance terms they’re aware of.
But when you do the Roth conversion and you do the pro-rata calculation, it’s all IRAs. It’s not just traditional IRAs, it’s simples and SEPs as well. So if you’re really putting money into a SEP IRA while yes, they’re easier to open it administrate and take care of. And the calculations for contributions are a little bit simpler. That’s great. That’s included in the calculation. Whereas if they have this solo 401(k), it isn’t. And these kinds of concerns where in the moment may not matter like today when they’re just getting their financial plan off the ground or while they’re just getting the ball rolling. They could matter 20 years from now, they could matter 30 years from now. When they, or maybe they just have a down year and you’re like, ‘let’s do this conversion, this is my moment.’ You know, it makes a difference, and these different, small business retirement accounts are a great opportunity…
SJ:
Yeah it really provides a lot of flexibility. And decision-making over the long-term. I liked that you started your explanation with kind of the behavioural aspect of it. That it’s not just a matter of what are they eligible for, It’s getting them to understand the importance of doing it and getting in those habits, because creating the account, if it doesn’t get funded really does no one any good. And of course, you know, there like any retirement plan contributions, I mean, there’s gotta be earned income, you know, there’s, there’s some other things that we need to be looking out for to make sure that these are done correctly, but from a high level, I love that idea of just really having this conversation with anyone who has a small business owner to get the idea going to, to kind of get that, that seed planted and then have them better prepared from a, perspective standpoint, uh, when, when it’s, when it is a good idea to start executing.
ME:
Yeah. The earned income thing is… It’s not that earned income is a problem. It’s the contribution limits are a little bit more confusing.
SJ:
Definitely.
ME:
So with a traditional IRA, it’s like six grand. Cool. That’s the number. With SEPs and 401(k)s, I think they just made it $61,000. Although if you’re listening to this a year or two from now, that could be different numbers. So Google it check the IRS website before you take my voice on this podcast’s advice, right? But they have much higher contribution limits, but the calculation for how much you can contribute changes and you don’t really have that in traditional IRAs. It’s like traditional IRAs, Roth IRA. It’s like, ‘Hey, you got earned income. Your spouse doesn’t have a retirement plan at work.’ You’re good to go! But here you have to consider, you know, are they contributing to a 401(k) somewhere else, at like an employer?
ME:
So like, if this is a side hustle, right, you have to consider the employer’s 401(k) plans. Right. You have to consider how much their compensation is because SEP IRAs and solo 401(k)s, the contributions are based on the amount of compensation. Right. You have to consider what kind of entity they’re business is. Right? Cause compensation changes. So if it’s like a sole proprietor compensation is all their profit. If it’s an S-corp or a C-corp compensation is their salary, right? So there are a lot more factors to consider. And in the beginning, learning, it can be a little bit of a pain like, and really wrapping your head around it. But knowing it is huge, there’s a lot of opportunity.
SJ:
For Financial advisors listening, part of the good news is that, that you don’t have to be the ultimate authority on all of this to help your clients get started. That’s I mean, honestly, financial advisors are in a great position when it comes to that, to be able to say, ‘Hey, here’s some things I know we should look for some things we should consider and okay, great! Let’s work with your tax preparer. Let’s work with a tax professional to make sure that we are dotting our I’s and crossing your T’s. Let’s find someone like Michael, who spends a lot of time on this so that we don’t get to the end of the year and realize that we were thinking about how the contribution limits for the ‘solo k’ are determined as opposed to the SEP, because we can come out with different answers.’
ME:
And it helps, you know, when accountants have conversations with clients about what entity to choose and their business and all these things, accountants typically tend to think of the here and now tax plan. They don’t think of the long-term retirement planning or midterm financial planning. That’s just not on the radar. And yes, there is a echelon of accountants, you know, where like me or Steven, where we like, think about these things. We think about how retirement savings kind of mixes with business. This isn’t always a concern that crosses people’s minds. So a lot of the time you’ll find these situations where it’s just like set up, not advantageously from their retirement planning perspective. So that’s a nice, I don’t wanna say value add, but like it’s a nice value add for you as a financial advisor to come in and be like, ‘oh, you’re setting up a business. Here are the considerations for retirement planning.’ You know, you kind of become part of a team and you know, there’s you being a knowledgeable expert in their corner..
SJ:
Yeah again, I like that. Even though we’re talking about, Hey, I said, you don’t have to be the, be all end, all of retirement plans. You still refer to a financial advisers as experts which I think is important because at the end of the day expert means, you know more than someone else. So relative to your clients, you are the experts. And the more you spend time on this, the more experience you’re gonna get and the more of these kind of facts and figures you’re gonna know. And you’re also gonna know what to look out for because I recently reviewed a tax return for an RTS member where the tax preparer somehow had got it in their head that the 401(k) contribution limit was a unique to each type of plan. So they had gone ahead and said, ‘great, you have…’ It was a, it was a person who had W2 wages as well as a side hustle.
And they had a solo 401(k), and they max contributed to the employer’s 401(k) plan and a solo K plan. And this is a great advisor who had something that’s returned. He said, Hey, I’m pretty sure this is a problem. Right. And so even as an advisor, being able to kind of raise that red flag and say, wait a second, is this an issue? Even if you don’t know, for sure the answer being the one who will help your client get to the right answer is hugely valuable. So I was able to give some feedback to that advisor to say, ‘Hey, yeah, you’re going to need to sort this out. This is a, this is actually a big problem.’
ME:
Yeah. And I think there’s a point there. You don’t have to know every single tax nuance of every single possible retirement account. So when you really want to look at it, like there’s all sorts of accounts that we’re not even gonna talk about, like, you know, pensions and stuff. Like you could have a cash balance pension for small business. Like it’s a possibility, but it’s not about knowing every single nuance it’s about being aware of the potential issues and the different red flags, you know, and being the resource because your client doesn’t know, that’s why you’re in the picture. And sometimes the accountant either doesn’t know or doesn’t care because it’s not what they’re paid to do. Right? So you’re that professional. That’s why you’re in the picture.
SJ:
Yeah, there’s so much value that a great financial advisor can add with that, that forward-looking perspective. Because while I always love meeting other accountants like Michael, who will take this forward looking approach, that’s why I invited him on the show. It really is the exception still. And you kind of commented on it that it’s not really how the industry was built. It’s not how the compensation model for accountants is built. Not that, that means it’s the right way to do it. I would love to see a huge shift, but they didn’t ask me the, the overseers of accounting did not ask my opinion on that. So while I can go off and offer a new service model under my firm, getting the industry to change may take a little bit long.
ME:
Yeah. It’s, it’s going to be a while..
SJ:
Unfortunately. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities, in the near term. So Michael, any other thoughts specific to our retirement plans as it relates to small business owners? Otherwise I have another question for you ask
ME:
Ask the question, then we’ll circle back.
SJ:
Perfect, so one of the things that prompted me to reach out to you was it was kind of,, so I can remember zero posts or comments you had made on LinkedIn, but, uh, about charitable contributions and finding ways to put that through the business instead of just on your ‘schedule a’. So talk a little bit about how you maybe start with like the, the benefits of why, why even consider that, and then maybe how you approach this topic with your clients.
ME:
Okay. So what’s charitable contributions. There’s I guess let’s start with a backstory in the context of how they work on a tax return. Right? So, on the tax return, there’s like a, it used to be two pages. There was the first page, everything above the adjusted gross income line, which was above the line deductions. And then there’s the second page, which was below the line deductions, right? Above the line affects AGI. Below the line doesn’t, right? Schedule ‘a’ does not affect AGI, right? So while you can deduct charitable contributions on schedule ‘a’ and you do get a deduction, it doesn’t reduce your AGI. And that kind of sucks for all sorts of things like there’s credits that are based on your AGI. So, I mean, financial advisors might be more familiar with the net investment income tax or the additional Medicare tax. You know, these things are considerations in being as tax efficient, as possible when tax planning your finances, right? And your investments and stuff like that. And on one hand, yes, you can avoid the capital gains and the interest and the dividends. On the other hand, you could reduce the AGI. For this and for different credits, you know, where the HIL comes into calculation. If you can reduce it outright, you’re better off. Right. So sometimes it isn’t as simple as can I deduct it, but what’s the most efficient way to deduct it. And if you can figure out a legal way to deduct it on the business tax return, that will reduce the AGI. Whereas it’s deducting on the schedule ‘a’ I won’t.
SJ:
At anytime I can help, keep something at AGI. I’m definitely gonna look into it, and the other piece of that is the IRS’s most recent study, I think was 2018, really right after the Tax Cut and Jobs Act took effect, but only like 10% of taxpayers actually itemize. So in a lot of cases, if someone is just contributing to charity, they probably think they’re getting a tax deduction and they’re not. Yeah. Like I said, 90% of people get zero tax benefit from their total contributions, which that’s not why they give, we want to support great organizations. But if we’re giving anyways, may as well get a tax benefit. And so, but between getting a tax benefit of any kind and then doing what we can to lower AGI, there’s some pretty big incentives to being able to, to Michael’s point legally deduct that on our tax return. We’re not just saying, ‘Hey, uh, just reclassify it and move on.’ Like there needs to be a business purpose for it, but we can get a little creative with what that business purpose might be.
ME:
And a quick side note, this explanation is why qualified charitable distributions are so powerful over just doing the distribution, then donating to charity, you know? the qualified distribution reduces AGI and you don’t have to worry about them itemising. Yeah. Right. That’s I mean, I feel like while we already do all explaining, it’s gotta end there. Right. But when it comes to deducting things through the business, the question is, is it a truly a charitable contribution? You know, a lot of the time I feel people kind of look the other way when it comes to charitable contributions. And they’re like, yeah, no, that’s charitable when really it’s not. So for example, you’re not supposed to receive value in exchange for charity, which makes sense. That’s how charity works. It’s not really charity if you’re getting something, you know what I mean? It’s not charity when I go to the pizza place and give them $5 for a slice of pizza, it’s an exchange. Right? So sometimes these charitable contributions are really transactions. So things like say there’s a charity golf outing and you buy advertising there depending how you look at it. Yeah. You could colloquially call it charity, but if you’re receiving an equal exchange in the advertising, that’s advertising expense. Right. And there’s a lot of either charitable opportunities for businesses that are kind of like that. Or if you really dig through the transaction, you’ll realize there was a transaction, there was an exchange of value it’s deductible for the businesses.
SJ:
Yeah. If you’re, if you’re giving to a charity that has newsletters or other publications and they highlight their donors, they highlight their contributors. You know, that something’s put in your logo, your name out there. And, and this isn’t us trying to get cute with misinterpreting rules. Like you literally are getting. And honestly, you’re probably getting in front of potentially your ideal customers too, because if you’re giving to organizations you care about, and a lot of us tend to gravitate our businesses towards people that are like us. There’s a good chance that other people contribute to that. Charity really are your ideal clients. And that that’s actually really good advertising for you. So we really do want to make sure that we’re thinking through this and there is a legitimate business purpose to it. But really the point of this conversation is you need to expand your mind a little bit on what that might look like. It’s not as simple as, ‘Hey, you know, I put some money on the collection plate, you know, there are other options for, for giving or for advertising.’
ME:
Yeah. I think the point is, like you said, we’re not trying to be cute about, these are valid, you know, and you gotta be reasonable about it. You can’t be like, oh, this three by three ad. Um, they are a catalog was totally worth $30,000 contributions. Like it has to be realistic. Yeah. Right? And there are plenty of opportunities out there. Like, I mean, I must be invited to way too many charitable golf outings and every single one is looking for sponsors. And most of those, if you really look at it might not be charitable contributions at all, but might be advertising expense. Might be meals expense. It’s an opportunity. Yeah.
SJ:
You definitely got to look at it that way. Well, Michael, we always like to make sure that our listeners know what they can do from the information that we’re sharing. So we’d like to wrap up with action items so that we turn knowledge into value. So if you think about the conversation we’re having today, I mean, what are some action items you could recommend to advisors?
ME:
So I know, or I believe you’re a big proponent of reviewing your client’s tax returns, right? While you’re reviewing the tax returns for all the usual things, look at their businesses, you know, you don’t have to know the nuanced details of how these forms work, but be aware, is there a business? And some examples of business might exist, might be like a schedule ‘C’ showing up that’s a sole proprietor or a schedule ‘E’ page two, right. That there may be an owning an S-corp or something and look and say, ‘Hey, schedule C showed up. That means they’re a business owner. Let’s look, if there is a business retirement accounts.’ right. Which would show up, oh, I don’t remember the name of the schedule off the top of my head. Oh, they moved things around the other year. Please cut me some slack.
SJ:
It’s Schedule 1 or Schedule 2. It’s one of those right behind the 1040.
ME:
One of those 1, 2 or 3, I don’t recall. But know that, Hey, there’s a schedule C. I should look for the business retirement account. And if there isn’t a business retirement account, that’s an opportunity to talk to the client and say, ‘Hey, are you trying to save more for retirement? Right? Because here is a vehicle for us to, instead of saving the five, $6,000, plus the brokerage account, plus the bonds. You know, here’s a way to really – I always called turbo charging, even though I know it’s not like a legit term – here’s a way to really turbocharge these retirement savings. You know, we don’t have to hope we get a better matching at our employer. You know, we can take it into our own hands’. And then the next thing is, if you have business owners that you have Roth contributions for, and you’re always worried about the AGI, take a look into whether or not 401(k)s make sense in that situation. If they’re solo, you’re probably fairly safe. If they have a part-time employee, make sure they don’t break the solo 401(k). Right? Cause I guess that’s how they work. I’m assuming everyone knows because it’s financial advisors podcasts, but solo 401(k)s have to be solo.
SJ:
Yeah. It’s always a good reminder!
ME:
And the rules for what solo is, are very nuanced. Like I believe husband and spouse might be one employee, but double-check that right? But if you have a business owner and you’ve been making Roth contributions and you’re concerned about the AGI threshold, consider the solo 401(k), because now we don’t have to worry about it. Right. And we can make more Roth contributions because there’s a bigger threshold there. And then the last action item, if you have any clients with SEP IRAs open through you, go and look at the possibility of switching to solo 401(k)s. Because if you ever want to do a Roth conversion in the future, that SEP IRA is going to be lumped into the calculation. Whereas if we pivot now into the solo 401(k), I mean, maybe we’ll never make the conversion, but you’re kind of protecting yourself just in case, you know, you’re covering all your bases, leaving the option on the board.
SJ:
Yeah. It definitely gives us a lot of flexibility. Really appreciate those action items. So the only thing I want to highlight from that in particular is that you’re right. I talk all the time about getting tax returns and the way you described that really emphasizes why it’s so important to get the entire tax return. The first two pages of the 1040 only tell you so much, looking for whether or not they’re making business retirement contributions first who pays of the 1040 are not going to tell you that you got to dig deeper. And so make sure you’re getting the entire tax return. Now Michael as advisors are listening to this. I know there are some who are thinking, okay, wait, now we’ve got Steven and another accountant who will actually think about this stuff. How do I find out more about him? So if somebody wanted to follow up with you because they have small business clients, they’re like, I need someone who will think proactively about this. How would people learn more about you?
ME:
So you’ve really got two ways to go here. You can find me on LinkedIn, Michael Eckstein right. Simple enough. But that’s tough to spell. I recently found out and I hope it stays this way. If you Google – “LinkedIn skew this accountant”, my profile comes up.
SJ:
That is amazing.
ME:
That’s a truth. Right? How funny? So Google that, that’s probably going to be easier to remember than me spelling my name at you while you’re driving your car to go get groceries. Cause that’s where I listen to my podcasts.
SJ:
Yeah. Well, we’ll make sure that, uh, that you’re linked in the show notes for sure. But Googling LinkedIn’s skew this accountant. And I’m going to give that a try
ME:
That’s for a shorter form thoughts typically around business or go to my, probably up by the time this podcast is published website, restingbusinessface.com to hopefully subscribe to my newsletter, please that’d be awesome. And that’s more mid to long form business thoughts. I don’t talk about financial advice for obvious I’m-not-FINRA-licensed reasons. Right? But, it never hurts to know a few things about business to help your clients with, to be like, ‘oh, Hey, I know this solution for that. Or I’ve heard of that before. I know where to point you out, you know, which direction to send you in.’.
SJ:
That’s great! Michael, thanks for coming on the show today and sharing your insights and perspectives. It has really been great having you here.
ME:
Thanks for having me, this was fun.
SJ:
Yeah, of course. And to everyone listening until next time, good luck out there! And remember to tip your server, not the IRS!
