Revolutionizing Tax Advisory With David A. Perez
- Quik! News Team
- 16 hours ago
- 31 min read
David A. Perez is the CEO of Tax Maverick, a company that empowers tax professionals by providing technology and AI solutions to enhance their tax advisory services. Under his leadership, Tax Maverick has significantly expanded its reach, transitioning from individual taxpayer services to assisting tax professionals nationwide with impactful tax strategies. David is a renowned tax strategist, bestselling author, and developer of the proprietary 3% Formula, which enables high-income earners to legally minimize their tax liabilities and invest in wealth-building assets like real estate. Through his book Building Your Own Economy and the BYOE Conference, he inspires individuals to take control of their financial futures and build lasting wealth.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[2:03] David A. Perez discusses how Tax Maverick empowers tax professionals
[5:19] How David transformed 17 years of tax experience into technology and training
[7:18] Using AI and machine learning to recommend personalized tax strategies
[11:01] Understanding client needs through personal experience in tax advisory
[13:33] The power of focus in achieving exponential business growth
[16:28] How Tax Maverick attracts non-tax professionals into advisory roles
[18:09] Why financial advisors are embracing tax strategy as a competitive advantage
[23:26] David talks about overcoming the technology gap to build a scalable software platform
[29:18] How to adapt AI for faster growth and overcome software development speed challenges
In this episode…
Building a scalable business while maintaining exceptional client service is a hurdle every entrepreneur faces. As demand grows, so do the cracks in fulfillment, time management, and team capacity. So, how do you grow your impact without burning out or sacrificing quality?
David A. Perez, a tax strategist and advisor, shares how he overcame these challenges by shifting from direct client service to empowering professionals with tools, training, and AI. He emphasizes the importance of documenting processes, understanding your customers deeply, and focusing relentlessly on one core product. David explains how leveraging AI can close the knowledge gap in professional services, enabling advisors to offer more value and stand out in a commoditized market.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews David A. Perez, CEO of Tax Maverick, about empowering tax professionals through AI-driven advisory tools. David discusses the value of strategic focus, how to productize expertise, and the shift from compliance work to high-value consulting. He also shares insights on attracting financial advisors, building tech without a tech background, and improving client experience through education.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Quotable Moments:
“Where your focus goes, your energy flows, and the more you put your energy towards one thing, you win.”
“I know you because I am you. I've been there.”
“Don't wish it was easy, wish you were better.”
“Our metrics are measured on their success, on your success. If you don't win, we don't win.”
“AI technology has come in and is now just systematizing these things.”
Action Steps:
Focus on one product or service: Concentrating your energy on a single offering allows for deeper impact and stronger market positioning.
Turn your expertise into repeatable processes: Documenting what works transforms individual knowledge into scalable systems others can use and enhances customer experience.
Leverage AI to bridge the knowledge gap: AI tools can help deliver expert-level insights without years of experience, improving onboarding and client outcomes.
Know your customer better than they know themselves: Deep understanding of client pain points allows for tailored solutions that build higher trust and retention.
Say no to distractions, even lucrative ones: Staying aligned with your core mission ensures consistent messaging and avoids derailment from shiny object opportunities.
Sponsor for this episode...
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Episode Transcript:
Intro: 00:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn, grow their business.
Richard Walker: 00:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Bennett Maxwell of Dirty Dough Cookies, Brian Thorp of Wealthtender, and Mike Betz of 11thEstate. Today I'm speaking with David Perez of Tax Maverick. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms.
Instead, get Quik!, using our Form Xtract API. Simply submit your completed forms and get back clean, context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of a thousand submissions. Visit Quickforms.com to get started. Now, before I introduce today's guest, I want to give a huge thank you to Kyle Gray of The Story Engine. Go check out their website at The Story Engine.
They specialize in helping entrepreneurs, coaches, and influencers use storytelling to attract their ideal audience and inspire them to take massive action. Plus, Kyle was on my show, so there's a great episode with him too. Now, David is the CEO of Tax Maverick, a company that helps tax professionals offer tax advisory services leveraging technology and AI. One of my favorite topics. David, welcome to The Customer Wins.
David A. Perez: 01:42
Hey, thank you for having me.
Richard Walker: 01:44
I'm excited to talk to you. For those who haven't heard this podcast before, I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they built and deliver a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. So, David, to understand your business a little bit better, how does your company help people?
David A. Perez: 02:03
So we have a large impact. In fact, I have a deep background in the tax industry where I used to help taxpayers file their taxes, prepare their books, and, and either save money or, you know, pay their liability to the IRS, whatever that is. But recently I've kind of transitioned because, you know, what I've learned in business and from my own personal kind of exploration, there's only so much impact I can have, you know, individually and as a company. And what I realized very quickly is that if I wanted to have a deeper impact, I had to get to more people. And unfortunately, it's just hard to do that at scale.
So in the last two years, I've transitioned my business model from helping taxpayers to helping tax professionals. And today, that can expand our reach where we can actually have a deeper impact in the community. Not only that we serve, but communities all across the country by offering tax advisory, training and technology to help tax professionals really give the best experience to their clients and help their clients win in so many ways. Primarily in tax saving strategies.
Richard Walker: 03:08
Nice. You know that catalyst of saying, how can I have more impact is actually my own story? Because I was a financial advisor and I thought I can help maybe a thousand clients, or I could produce software that could help millions of clients and have such a bigger impact. Was that a hard realization to come to, or was it super obvious?
David A. Perez: 03:29
Well, it became obvious when, you know, as you scale any business you're going to, you're going to encounter challenges, stresses on the business. Typically that challenge comes when it comes to fulfillment. And fulfillment is not easy. It doesn't matter the type of business, even if it's a product or a service, it doesn't really matter. And what we came to the conclusion was, is that continuing to add customers was only going to continue to not only stress the business, but stress me out.
And so, you know, we were very successful in the tax advisory business and I'm still in that industry. I'm just not taking on any new clients. But when I came to the conclusion that I needed to make the shift was really it was very obvious to me, and it was really just because I already had a lot of tax advisory colleagues and people who would ask me, how are you doing so well? What are you doing to help your clients? What is going on in the industry that we need to know about?
And I just by kind of by accident came became kind of an industry I guess call it thought leader. And that was really accidental. It wasn't really intentional. And I realized that because people would ask me these questions. And so it just became one guy asking me, can you help me?
And I did, and I said, man, maybe I'd like to do this. It's it makes it so much more impactful when I know that I can touch thousands of people a day through our through our training, through our technology versus, you know, right now meeting with five clients that I can only handle in one day.
Richard Walker: 04:50
Yeah. All right. So there's another aspect to this catalyst of making this choice. And I'd say most people who have this kind of impetus to start a product-based business do this really well, but some don't. And that is how do you take your knowledge, your expertise, the challenges you face, and turn it into a great experience for others to actually leverage and use?
Because you could just build a utility, right? That's not very nice looking, but does the job. So how did you approach that problem?
David A. Perez: 05:19
Well, I think about technology today as just being tools, right. We have a lot of tools at our disposal. You can have a really nice toolbox. You can have a nice tool bag, you can have the best hammers and drills and all these things in the world, but without having a job to use them on, they're kind of pointless, right? Many people have garages full of tools that will never get used, but once a year, right?
And what I realized is that my unique skill set wasn't just to be able to develop the technology. In fact, I have no technology background. When I started to develop a technology called Tax Maverick to help prepare tax strategies for clients. It was really a self-fulfilling kind of thing. I wanted to help my clients, and then I realized I could help more people.
But what I realized in my own journey is that it's not easy to help clients in this capacity. And so what I take every challenge as an opportunity to learn, right? It's always not, how can I get over this? It's how what can I learn from this? And so we've basically documented the last 17 years of tax industry experience and put that into not only technology, but also through frameworks and processes that they can follow.
So not only do we provide to our clients, which are tax professionals, just this awesome technology that has AI and can really help them make their job easier, which is the tool we actually equip them with the process in order to acquire a new customer or convert that customer into a high paying client and a high value client, but then deliver exceptional service after the fact, which we call implementation and fulfillment. So I just took everything I've learned and just put it into processes for them to follow.
Richard Walker: 06:56
Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, one of the reasons people who have been practitioners and then build products, build better products, because especially if you've been successful as a practitioner and you've implemented the processes that worked for you. I think I could go down the rabbit hole for a long time about AI. So stop me if we go too far. What is your AI doing?
David A. Perez: 07:18
So it does several things. Number one, I mean, it's a combination of machine learning and AI, right? Obviously the AI functionality is more for research questions, answers. So for an example, if you were a newly so just to be to do draw a delineation there, there are all kinds of tax professionals in this country. There are people who identify as tax professionals who just do bookkeeping.
There are some who just file returns. There's some who handle audits, resolution. There's all these this mix of different types of what we would call focuses areas of focus, and almost every one of them kind of overlaps each other. So people who do bookkeeping also do tax and vice versa. And so all these, these just kind of mixture and all of those services have become very we'll call it commoditized.
There's kind of a race to the bottom. AI technology has come in and is now just systematizing these things. If you want bookkeeping done, you kind of don't need a bookkeeper anymore. You just sign up with some sort of AI tool, and it'll categorize all your expenses. And you click the check box that says, I agree, right?
Tax returns are very similar. Even the IRS has explored ways to be able to pre-populate tax returns and then utilize the data that they've been given through other vendors, and boom, they should be able to do your return. And so what I believe is that that sector, which we call compliance-type work, has become very commoditized. And so to stand out, we believe that you have to become more valuable to your clients, and that becomes an advisor role. Unfortunately, a lot of these advisor roles, you know, require at least some knowledge or background in either tax saving strategies or maybe structural stuff.
And so some of that thing, those things would take years to gather either in experience or mentorship or schooling. And so what we've done is we've taken our years of knowledge, our years of experience, and we've put it into to an eye function that understands how an advisor would integrate or not integrate, rather how they would engage with the client so they would enter information about the client's unique tax situation. And our AI would then evaluate that client situation, determine what tax strategies apply to that unique situation, and then use that to prepare reports and analysis so that they can use and look more professional to their clients. In addition to that, there is functionality of conversations. So if they don't fully understand maybe a strategy, if maybe they're having, oh, well, what if this happens.
What if scenarios can they have these conversations? And to top it all off, we've also created like a marketing bot inside of there that they can kind of toggle to, and they can say, hey, I have challenges getting new customers. I have a business, I have this many tax clients. What should I do? And it'll literally lay out a formula.
Okay. First step, you know, evaluate your list to filter your list to this three. Do this and it'll actually tell them how to go get new customers. And so that's been a very big hit. So it does a lot of things.
But really what it does is it solves the big problem of solving the knowledge gap.
Richard Walker: 10:20
And will you do this for me.
David A. Perez: 10:22
And yeah let's go man. Let's go I'm ready.
David A. Perez: 10:26
Yeah I mean, one of the challenges that I keep.
Richard Walker: 10:28
Addressing in my own company is I'm building different consultants or coaches. ET cetera. To evaluate things like on the sales side and the marketing side and asking it very specific questions. The other day we were asking, what is the best way to go after, say, fortune 500 style companies and learn like what are the best in the industry actually doing to do that? If they're in my shoes and they're a smaller company, SaaS, whatever.
It sounds to me like you have built, like all those models into one place for the tax professional to go. Is that fair?
David A. Perez: 11:01
Yeah. Well, what it comes down to is, you know, those who know the customer better than they know themselves win. Right. And I know my guys because I've been there. And it's kind of crazy because I tell people the reason I was good at tax advisory is because I was my first client.
You know, when you when you have your own tax bill and you have a little bit of knowledge like I did in the tax industry, and I didn't want to pay that bill, it becomes a pain that I can solve myself, right? Like I can treat myself. And so that passion became kind of my own, you know, journey to solve my own problem. And in that journey, I realized that I had acquired the skill sets not to solve anyone else's. At the time, that wasn't the goal.
But then I realized it could be converted. Same thing in this journey. I was doing this tax professional gig. I was helping. Hundreds of clients were saving millions of dollars, and then I all of a sudden realized, man, I know this business and I know that business.
I know these people. I know what they're going through. I know the stressors, I get it. And so the persona of my, my, my client, I just I know it so well. And in any industry, I think there's going to be somebody who stands out that way.
And that's us in this industry. Like there are people out there who obviously have competing products. And I tell I, I tell my team all the time, you know, it's we're going to win because we know our people better than they know themselves. Like there's just no one else out there that knows them better than I do because I I'm them. I am them, right?
I know you because I am you. That's what I always say, I am you. I've been there.
Richard Walker: 12:26
Yeah, but there's One other ingredient that you didn't say. And I know you know this. You took action to build a product. There's a lot of people that have certain knowledge and recognize it, but they don't take that action to say, you know what? I could actually make a bigger impact.
I'm going to build a product. I'm going to take the risk to switch my career around. And so I give you kudos for that because that's a huge risk. I mean, I went through it too. And it sounds like you only did this a few years ago, but I know you've had other businesses, so you've been successful and you know how to how to run them, right?
David A. Perez: 12:54
Well, I don't know if I've been successful in the past, but I know I am. I don't even know if I'm successful today. I would just say that, what I have learned, I'll share this with you. Is that where your focus goes? Your energy flows.
And in the last two years that I have been in just focused on Tax Maverick. My business is ten-x my my, my life, my quality of life. Everything has just gotten incrementally, not even exponentially better because I focused on one thing. Yeah. And for years I focused on too many things.
And today I see that.
Richard Walker: 13:27
Yeah, I just got that. Advice again two nights ago. Stay focused. Right.
David A. Perez: 13:33
Amen. I would, if you don't mind, I can add something to this because I, I've recently had to kind of define things in my life. And I'm a big guy that has to have a definition to something in order for me to really understand it, I got to define it. And, you know, somebody asked me about six months ago, what's the difference between a business owner and entrepreneur? And the truth is, is that both have very similar qualities.
Just entrepreneurs tend to chase every opportunity. And that can work when you have unlimited resources. But the majority of entrepreneurs have limited resources, limited money, limited time, limited people. So entrepreneurs rarely succeed because they have too many things going on. And even if their income goes up on top line, the bottom line either stays flat or goes down, even though they continue to add and they wonder why they're working so hard.
And they're on a stationary bike and they're gunning it, and then they get off and they're sweaty, but they have no progress, right? Where as an as a business owner, your goal is to grow one business, specifically that business. And if you want to be a great business owner, then you focus on one product.
Richard Walker: 14:45
Yeah.
David A. Perez: 14:46
Because the greater you can give your focus, the more attention where your focus goes, your energy flows, and the more if you put your energy towards one thing, you win. And so I came up with that a few months ago. And it's it stuck with me because every time somebody tries to distract me with some really awesome idea or opportunity, you know, I have to say, you know, no, Satan, I'm cool right now. I want I really want to work on this thing right now. And people, people will get mad at me because they're like, dude, you can do this.
You can make money. And I'm like, I, I can make money a lot of ways. Yeah.
Richard Walker: 15:18
I think that's a great, great assessment. And I'm proof of that too. In 2014, we started actually saying no to clients. We were saying yes to so much, almost everything. And we finally stopped and said, no, there's only two things we do.
We do them exceptionally well. Everything else is a no. And that's when revenue grew 50% year over year over year because we were so focused. And, you know, it changed our messaging. Our customers would come to a website, put in a lead.
We talked to them and they went from, oh, I didn't know you did that to this is exactly why I called you. This is what I wanted to see. So yes, all hail the focus, angel.
David A. Perez: 15:55
That's right. Man. If there was, if there is an angel for focus, I actually probably need to put it in this building because we definitely need it.
Richard Walker: 16:03
All right. I want to go back to AI because the question's been asked many times. I've asked it on my show over and over again. Do you think AI is going to take jobs, etc.? I want to ask a slightly different question.
What you've built sounds like it makes tax advisement way more accessible to people. Do you feel like a product like yours could actually attract non-tax professionals into thinking or doing tax work?
David A. Perez: 16:28
Interesting, because it is I, I get on a monthly basis, we we get a lot of new users, right. We add about 150 new users a month or subscribers, and probably 20% of them have no background in taxes, like just engineers, doctors, you know, it's just rare. There's all kinds of backgrounds. I would say that, yes, it does. And to be truthful, I mean, we made it that easy.
So it's kind of it's kind of it's kind of hard to tell people this is not for you when it really is easy enough for them to do it. Because advisory doesn't require filing a return, it requires helping somebody make decisions prior to the end of a year that could have favorable consequences on their tax return. It has nothing to do with the filing of a return. So if you don't have experience in filing returns, it would not really matter because the majority of these decisions are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, and the majority of them require just some sort of investment. And it's it's kind of easy.
I mean, I hate to say it that way, but it's you. You could do it. I mean, you could build your own plan using it and save yourself, you know, whatever your tax dollar is, you could do it. It's that easy.
Richard Walker: 17:51
Man. I partly ask because a lot of my audience is in the wealth management space. Their RIAs, their financial advisors, their certified financial planners, etc. and I know many of them do tax work or they have a partner who does tax because it's a strategic component of your financial plan. Are you attracting financial advisors to this?
David A. Perez: 18:09
Let me actually, this is a good, good case study is recently in January, we had a new a new subscriber to Maverick. And we also do workshops. And so we'll have workshop attendees. And we had this financial advisor who came in and it was him and two other financial advisors, a little firm. And for years they've been doing financial advisory for 20 years.
And they handle some AUM. They do a lot of life annuities and just, you know, a lot of the financial services world product. And so he came to me and he came to the workshop, and after the workshop, he she subscribed, joined our programs, all that stuff. And we had a in-person event recently, about two, three weeks ago, we had an in-person event here at my headquarters, and he came down and they came into the event. It was three of them, and I said, hey, how's it going?
And they said, you know, this has been so different. And I said, what do you mean? And he goes, look, for years we've been trying to convince people that they need an annuity or that they need, you know, that they need a life insurance policy or to move their money. And he goes, you know, I mean, we've been successful at this. And don't get me wrong, it's been good.
But you know what? The constant thing we get asked about every freaking client that we talk to. And I said, what's that? And he goes, they always ask about their taxes. And he says to me, you know, I never really realized that.
He goes, we just avoid it. We would just be like, yeah, you probably need to talk to your CPA. And then we would have conversations with CPAs and we'd do all these things. And he goes, you know, I've been dodging this opportunity for years and now I see it. And he goes, now that I have this and what you taught me, like literally they're exploding.
Like, literally he was wearing a cap. I saw him on a webinar just two days ago, and it says, this cap actually wants this tax advisor. He's wearing it everywhere now. And he goes, man, I don't tell people I'm a financial advisor anymore. I tell him I'm a tax advisor.
And when they come to me, then I help them strategize and then I get their AUM, then I get their insurance, then I get everything under the sun. Because and if you really think about this, this is really it's I didn't obviously come up with this. I mean, I'm just saying it from a perspective of one of the biggest pains any wealthy person will have is their tax bill. Like, doesn't matter. You have to convince people that they need life insurance.
I mean, some people will get it, but the vast majority of them will have. Do I really need that much? Do I need this? Do I need that? I don't have to convince anybody that they don't want to pay taxes.
I don't have to twist your arm. I don't have to call you every day like you've made that decision before we met.
Richard Walker: 20:41
Yeah. So, yeah.
David A. Perez: 20:42
They're problem aware.
Richard Walker: 20:45
Man, that is amazing. Because, look, if you go to a typical CPA, they're highly conservative. The traditional CPA is protective and risk-averse. You're but you go as an entrepreneur or business owner or whatever. You go to them to try to build wealth because you understand lowering taxes, paying less is an excellent way to keep your wealth and your advisor, your financial advisor wants to help you build wealth.
So it's always been a question of how do you get the financial advisement to be a tax advisor so that you don't have that ultra-conservative, super risk-averse perspective saying, don't do that, don't do that versus here are some strategies you can consider. And so maybe you're going to help more advisors do that then.
David A. Perez: 21:26
Yeah I mean I was I kind of knew this could happen. We believe that we could serve tax professionals, estate planners, financial advisors, insurance agents, bookkeepers, any CPA or tax financial firm. We can help them with this, this product, what we offer, we can help them. What we've been very, very distinction. Distinction, if that's a word right.
Distinct about is just focusing on the tax pros. Because again this goes back to where your focus goes. Your energy flows. And it's very hard for me to say well let's talk to that guy. And then that gal and this girl.
So we're just accidentally attracting these people like accidentally. If we went all in, I think we would do very well with that market of financial advisors. I just, I feel like I only got so much time.
Richard Walker: 22:17
Well, and, you know, your audience and your audience is the tax advisory world. I got to say this to my audience, if anybody's listening to this, I did not plan this part of this conversation. I am not planting seeds. I'm just super curious and discovering this and thinking out loud with you, David. So I hope nobody thinks like, oh, they got together to try to sell this product to financial advisers.
David A. Perez: 22:40
And the funny thing is, like, I'm telling you, we don't I'm if a financial advisor comes to me and says, David, help me build out a process. I mean, I know I can conceptualize it. I'm not oblivious to it. But it was it wasn't my business model. Right?
Like, I'm not in that world every day. So I in the tax world, I'm in it and there's no one. I'm telling you, I could figure it out very quickly. So. But yeah, we didn't plan this.
This is kind of cool though.
Richard Walker: 23:05
Yeah. No it is, it is. I want to ask you a very different question now, which goes back to you starting this business. You said yourself you're not a technologist per se. How did you start this business then? How did you overcome the technology gap to get your ideas built into real product?
David A. Perez: 23:26
You know, so, to showcase like the technology thing was never our background. And in fact, our business was growing so fast in the tax advisory space that the building of the technology was literally we'll call it selfish. I built it for us internally because I knew that at the scale that we were in the trajectory and the scale that we were growing, I knew that I needed to shave off hours of time. So what was happening is we'd get a new client and it would take us about 3 to 4 hours to really get enough information to gather, to deep dive, to understand that client's tax scenario so that we could prepare a report or an analysis. It was taking us four hours per client, and when we were really cranking, I was getting probably on a daily basis, 200 new leads.
And I was and I was cranking out on a daily basis. We would add 20 to 30 clients a week. And so and these are high-end clients that expect a lot. And so I'm going through this challenge and I and I'm talking to my team. And I'm like, man, how long has this taken?
They're like four hours. I'm like, dude, there's we can't scale this way. We've got to solve this problem. And I said, let's, let's document the process from A to Z manually, what we're doing. Let's document.
And then I took that and I said. This is the framework by which we need to solve this problem. And I said there's got to be a technology. So we search for technologies and could not find one. There were several out there that we felt could solve pieces of the problem. But then I said, piece by piece, it still, you've got to integrate.
You still have to build these things to connect. And then if those break and I said, this is just not it. And so I reached out to a friend of mine who had a who had built an app in the past, and I said, hey, do you have the contact information for a good development company? And he goes, you know, good is, is a very vague word, right? At all, especially in technology. But he says, yeah.
He goes, I'm going to give you one. These guys I use, he goes, I wouldn't call them, you know, great. But I would call him trustworthy. And I said I'll take a trustworthy.
Great. Okay. So I took this guy's contact. I called him up. I said, let's meet.
And the guy says, look, I can help you. And, you know, they were very honest and open. The investments were very clear at the beginning, set expectations and I believed them and we ran with it. It took us about three and a half months to put together something that we could start using. And then over the next three months, about six months, we actually had it built.
And it was a very yeah, we moved pretty fast and it was just a great experience. Now I have somebody on my team who I kind of put in charge of that. His name is George. Great guy. He's been with me in our organization since 2013, so he knows this industry just as strong as I.
And I put him in charge of that project. And ever since then, he has no technology background. By the way, when we hired him, this is he'll tell you this because his funny story is he was a manager at a Whataburger. You've got a Whataburger there, right?
Richard Walker: 26:28
Oh, yeah. Whataburger. Great. Great place. Yep.
David A. Perez: 26:30
So he's a manager there, and then he comes to me to do taxes. Let's just say that. And so no tech background, no background in those things. But what we've done is I always said the most important part is going to be user interface. And so I've used enough technology to understand user interface, and I've used enough software to know what's smart and what's not and what makes sense.
And so that's where I came in. And then he learned to work with the development team. He learned sprints and he learned code. And he's learned a lot. Now I wouldn't call him a, you know, an app builder or any of that stuff, but he knows how to do it.
And we've just been so blessed to work with a great team of of developers that has just been super transparent, man. Like, I'm just blessed. I mean, we've spent a lot of money, but every step of the way they explain it like this is what's about to happen. This is why it is if you don't want to do it, we don't have to do that. And I've heard horror stories when people build things.
And so I feel really blessed right now. And so that's, that's kind of the edge or the angle we've taken. And I think we've done a great job doing it.
Richard Walker: 27:34
I think your assessment of being blessed sounds accurate. I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in building product wrong or having bad proposals or just things get muddled up. I, you know, obviously I've been in software for over 20 years, so I have more maybe horror stories around it, but oh my gosh, I made a lot of people who are like, I have an idea. I'm going to go get a team, and they spend all their money and get nothing out of it and fail. But you succeeded.
So man, that's awesome.
David A. Perez: 28:01
I would tell you this and maybe you can answer this. What I absolutely dislike about our development team, this is funny, but maybe everybody feels this way. I heard a story once and somebody said it. They moved too damn slow for me, man. I mean.
Richard Walker: 28:14
This is always the truth.
David A. Perez: 28:16
Okay, okay. I just, I mean, I get on calls when I'm like, I thought we talked about this two weeks ago, bro. Like, what are we doing here? Two months ago, six months. I'm like, I'm all mad. And they're cool.
Like, we get along, but I get a little heated because I'm like, didn't we talk about this in December? It's like, you know.
Richard Walker: 28:35
Yeah, the thing that pops up. So number one, are they really adapted to a full scrum methodology. You said sprints, but are they truly doing it in the letter of the law so that that their most efficient manner. But two, there is something most people don't realize about software and it's called technical debt. And technical debt is all the buildup of things that you're not maintaining or not paying attention to.
That could be software versions, servers that need upgrade, APIs that go out of style, new methodologies. There's so many things that add to what's called technical debt. So it's really easy to spend 30 to 50% of your time in software development just handling the technical debt and therefore not building the new stuff you've been asking for.
David A. Perez: 29:18
I've never heard of this. What you just said. That's such a good perspective. You know one thing though, that I do beat them up on and I went pretty hard. I, I've laid off it was January and I'm you know you listen to a lot of podcasts.
You hear a lot of stuff and then I hear that Microsoft, and Facebook lay off all these developers and now AI is coding. So I get on my phone right away and I'm like, hey, man, look, all I need to know is the head developer. I'm like, look, all I want to know here is if they're laying off people and AI is coding for them, what the hell are we doing? Because they got to know something I don't know. And why is this happening?
And he just like, you know, he comes back with his whatever. And I'm just thinking to my man, either he doesn't know or he's not telling me. I'm trying to figure this out.
Richard Walker: 30:04
I'll tell you. There's a lot of people who don't know. It's a challenge to figure out how to put AI into your coding process. But it's also, I think, a lot of these big companies, I mean, they have hundreds of developers, and now you've turned them into cogs in a wheel, and they're doing minor things or micro things, and those things can be more automated with AI.
David A. Perez: 30:23
But that's what I'm trying to. That's what I was trying to find out. Like, I wasn't asking about doing things in our software. I'm trying to like, build faster. And I think we're missing something, and I I'm not saying they're bad.
I would just say there's got to be a way to move faster with AI, like, I can't.
Richard Walker: 30:37
There is, there is. And everybody's got to train on it and figure it out. We've been working on this for over a year, trying to get our team immersed in it. So they have to first change their own mindset and adapt to it. And two, they have to actually be taught how to really leverage it because most people look, you're the entrepreneur, you're solving problems. The developer is solving a different kind of problem.
But they're not thinking innovation. They're not thinking, how do I become a better developer every day? And that's what you're asking when you say, are you using AI? So that's the challenge you got to put in front of them. Can you become a better developer, or should I hire somebody who already is?
David A. Perez: 31:09
They by the way, the moment that I had sent that message, the guy reaches back to me. He goes, you know, we just hired this guy who's a very, you know, he's some sort of consultant on AI. And I mean, I don't know what they're doing, but I told them and they were like, no, we understand this is coming and if we don't adapt, we're going to get eaten alive. And I said, you know, I'm glad you pointed that out because, I mean, I would never leave them. I trust these guys so much.
But at the same time, if they can't keep up with me, it's kind of it's going to be A very bad Ride For them. They're going to be annoyed all the time with me. That's probably a better statement. I can share that.
Richard Walker: 31:41
Perspective, my friend. Man, I want to keep talking to you, but I'm gonna have to wrap this up. And before I do and I get to my last question, what's the best way for people to find and connect with you, David?
David A. Perez: 31:52
So you could reach me on any social media channel I am. So I am David. And then the letter A Perez. So I am David A. Perez. Or you can go to our website davidaperez.com if you want to speak to me or any of my team, but also taxmaverick.com.
If you're a tax professional or financial professional, want to offer some form of advisory to your clients. You want to maximize and to be honest with you if you want to make more money, because a lot of a lot of what's going on in the world today in the, in the, in the tax, even financial services in general is so commoditized today. Everything is being commoditized. And you have to stand out in order to be able to charge a premium fee, or you're going to have to reduce your fees. It's a race to the bottom.
And so what we offer is an opportunity for you to do that. There's a 14 day free trial on the site. We have workshops every two, two days a week. I mean, we do so much for our users, our subscribers. I believe that if you're going to work with us, we're going to help you win.
And our goal, our metrics are measured on their success, on your success. If you don't win, we don't win. And that's just how we roll here somehow.
Richard Walker: 33:01
You just answered a question I wanted to ask, but we're running out of time, which was to give us some techniques of how you're improving customer experience like two days a week doing workshops. Wow. Okay.
David A. Perez: 33:13
Well, let me add, I know we don't have much time, but let me just say something. I measure success in our business through either NPS, CSat, or sales. And I don't mean our internal sales. We actually every meeting, every workshop, every day when we reach out to our subscribers, the first thing we ask is share your wins. And the moment that they share their wins, we share that with our entire community, internal and external, because we believe that if they win, we win, and there's no reason for us to get paid.
If they're not making money, there's no reason for us to make money. If you're not making money, that's a real belief here. You have to be activated for us to win. And if you don't activate, we need to figure out what the problem is. Because if it's not working, then we ain't working.
Richard Walker: 33:56
Okay, I'm going to steal that. How do I I'm going to start asking our customers, share your wins with us. That's such a good idea. Okay, I'm not going to put you on the spot and ask your NPS score and such, because I love that too. But let's get to the last question.
I'm telling you, we can keep talking for a while. My last question I love this one. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role today.
David A. Perez: 34:19
It's interesting because I could probably name 2 or 3 people, but there's one guy who stands out the most. The guy I never met, and most people would know his name. His name is Jim Roan. Jim Roan was one of the early motivators of the world, but I don't consider him a motivator to me, you know? So I have a unique way of.
Digesting kind of feedback. I'm not a guy that gets activated or excited by somebody praising me for some reason. I'm kind of I don't know, it's kind of weird, but I really enjoy when somebody tells me the truth. The hard truth, like, just gives it to me straight, doesn't sugarcoat, it doesn't give me participation awards, doesn't say, you know, you did a good job today. I want somebody to tell me you sucked, right?
And, Jim Roan, I've never met the guy. Never talked to the guy. I just I've consumed almost every piece of content Jim Rohn has ever created. I read every book I've watched, every webinar, every seminar, every speech. And the guy has just led me in a way.
And I used his style like and that actually is somewhat negative at points. And I say that to my team all the time because I have a hard time praising mediocrity. I have a hard time praising, you know, average. I have a hard time telling people they're doing a good job when they're not doing a good job, because, you know, Jim did that to me. He never let me get away, even though I never talked to the guy.
He never let me get away from, you know, hey, if don't wish it was easy, wish you were better. You know.
Richard Walker: 35:52
I love that phrase.
David A. Perez: 35:54
It's just that guy has had such an impact on my life. I mean, I wish I would have gotten to meet him. I didn't even know who Jim Rohn was until about 2013, 14. He was already past by then. And so. Yeah. If I would have known, man, I'd have been front row man.
Richard Walker: 36:11
Seriously, he's such an amazing speaker. Occur and I get what you're saying, motivator. But believe me, I've been motivated by many things he talked about and said too. So that's a great story. Oh man.
Okay, so look, I have to give a huge thank you to David Perez of Tax Maverick for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out David's website at taxmavericks.com And don't forget to check out Quik! at quickforms.com where we make processing forms easier. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. We'll click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins.
David, thank you so much for joining me today.
David A. Perez: 36:51
Hey, I Appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for all the good work you're doing.
Outro: 36:56
Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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