Guest Blog: Your LinkedIn Profile Can Create Business Opportunities!

I come across colleagues and friends who tell me they just don’t get anything out of LinkedIn. It’s like the old joke of the man with peas in his ears and nose. He goes to the doctor and complains of malnutrition and the doctor says “You’re not eating right!”

{ba-boom!}

You can use LinkedIn better too, just differently! 

Indeed Charlie and Ted Lanzaro are using LinkedIn right. 

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August 8, 2017 could be the day that ultimately alters my career path! The day that converts me from pushing a pencil to full-time rainmaker. It’s the day I got a LinkedIn message from Charlie, a local CT CPA. Charlie noted that we were both CPA’s and real estate investors and said he welcomed an opportunity to get together to chat.

Some background – I run a one person (me!) CPA firm specializing in tax strategy for real estate investors and forensic accounting. I have a good business, but not without challenges. One is growth – how to handle more clients. The other is managing the unexpected –  illness, death or hopefully, retirement.

We met initially for coffee. Charlie is a great guy – a positive, “think big” personality who runs a firm with 12 CPAs. Several meetings followed – discussions about synergy between our firms, collaboration possibilities, referral potential.

Charlie noted my enthusiasm for the marketing and sales part of being a CPA. It’s the part I really love. He told me and I agreed that helping clients solve their problems and bringing them into my firm was the highest and best use of my time.

This led to a collaboration between our firms whereas his staff helps me do my work while I market and build my practice. And today, we decided to join forces to start a new bookkeeping firm. That is the power of LinkedIn!

Ted Lanzaro is a CPA, author, speaker, and real estate broker / investor who runs Lanzaro CPA, a boutique tax strategy firm for real estate investors located in Cheshire, CT. He is also a forensic accountant specializing in divorce and business fraud. Ted is the author of “The Tax Smart Landlord,” a book of 39 tax strategies for real estate investors. See more about Ted at www.linkedin.com/in/tedlanzaro