How to Get Referrals in the Age of ChatGPT & AI

Welcome to The CFO Project Podcast, where host Adam Lean helps accountants, bookkeepers, and CFOs build profitable, advisory-driven firms that clients love. Each episode dives deep into the business side of accounting—how to attract clients, scale advisory services, and create a thriving firm that delivers real value. Whether you’re a seasoned CFO or just beginning to shift away from compliance work, this show will help you master the mindset and tools to grow smarter.

In this episode, Adam is joined by Lee Reams, CEO of CountingWorks PRO, to discuss how referrals and client discovery are evolving in the age of ChatGPT and AI. Lee explains why traditional referral loops are being replaced by digital ecosystems where AI tools—like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini—shape how clients find and evaluate firms. He breaks down how accountants can “feed the machine” through structured content, local SEO, and storytelling that differentiates them from generic firms. If you want to stay relevant, protect your referral flow, and future-proof your marketing in an AI-driven world, this episode is a must-watch for every accountant and virtual CFO.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:08:03
Unknown
Welcome to the CFO project podcast. Today we're talking all about how to get referrals in the age of ChatGPT and AI.

00:00:30:14 - 00:00:56:11
Unknown
Thank you. Adam, I'm excited to talk about this. You know what I really want to dig into is how discovery is completely changed for accountants and specifically virtual CFOs, and why visibility now depends on fitting your story into the internet's knowledge layer. Referrals still matter. But the validation step now happens online through tools like perplexity, ChatGPT, and even, you know, these AI driven platforms.

00:00:56:11 - 00:01:15:04
Unknown
So if you're not visible with those conversations, you know where they happen. You're not even part of the discussion. And that's what's happened. I kind of mentioned you when we were just, talking before. Adam is a lot of this has already changed, and accounting firms don't even realize it. And what they're going to happen, what's going to happen is over time specifically, they're heavy into tax prep business.

00:01:15:06 - 00:01:26:11
Unknown
They're going to realize, whoa, where did my web traffic go? You know, where did all my referrals go? And the reality all these conversations are still occurring, but they're happening in these new ecosystems. So I'm excited to talk about it.

00:01:51:10 - 00:01:53:05
Unknown
primarily get clients?

00:01:53:05 - 00:02:11:17
Unknown
I like going back. So in the old days, which isn't that old anymore, you know, you got new, new clients for referrals, right? So one client told another in the loop was closed. You know, they weren't going out and finding other information about you. They weren't googling you and reading reviews. They weren't asking others for more referrals.

00:02:11:19 - 00:02:28:12
Unknown
And more importantly, they weren't asking their AI assistant or their best friend. Now, ChatGPT, you know, what do you think? What should I do? So now that same loop is digital. Okay, so someone here's your name. Go.

00:02:28:14 - 00:02:55:07
Unknown
Get.

00:02:55:09 - 00:03:11:21
Unknown
Great. And that. And what? And I said was as a closed loop. Meaning Susie wasn't asking Betty and Uncle John and and the internet. And then, more importantly, an AI tool, you know. Is this a good choice? Am I making the right decision? So that's a big differentiator.

00:03:49:01 - 00:04:14:03
Unknown
People go to LinkedIn, they'll ask multiple people, they'll go to next door, they'll go to Facebook, they'll obviously go to Google. But more importantly, what's changed is people are having discussions with ChatGPT and they're asking, you know, what's the best fractional CFO in Orange County? And it can be Florida, California. We're in both areas. Or, you know, what is the top, CPA for construction businesses near Denver?

00:04:14:03 - 00:04:41:09
Unknown
Okay. So, you know, these tools aren't like asking your past clients. They're scanning your content. So it's no longer like this little closed funnel. Like, this is a process now where all everything about you on the internet is now feeding these conversations. And and I do realize sometimes I, you know, people don't totally understand how ChatGPT or perplexity or Gemini work, but think of them as basically having conversations with another human in some respect.

00:04:41:14 - 00:05:06:21
Unknown
But all of their talking points, all of their knowledge is coming from the outside world. So they're looking at what are people talking about you on social media? What type of reviews? What are people saying about you? What is your website say you do. And that's the big differentiator is if you use that tool correctly and you have 105 star reviews, you have content about construction businesses in Denver.

00:05:06:23 - 00:05:32:21
Unknown
ChatGPT is going to recommend you, not someone else. And that's the big that's the big change. And and the reality here is that, you know, the whole linear funnel is gone. So people might even check multiple sources when they're doing research on you. Right. And then ChatGPT, for example, might be pulling references from multiple sources. So they might get, reviews, for example, from taxpayers or, you know, they saw someone on Reddit what they said about you.

00:05:32:21 - 00:05:40:22
Unknown
And that's the opinion or even the talking point that they're going to use when evaluating you, whether you're a good fit for that particular CPA.

00:05:40:22 - 00:05:51:20
Unknown
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00:06:26:11 - 00:06:48:21
Unknown
Well, no, not necessarily. It might get asked follow up questions. And again, it's a conversation. So instead of just following a bunch of blue links. So Google get Google search results. There's a bunch of blue links. It's a popularity contest. It's an algorithm. People gamed it. You may not have been finding the best, CPA for you. For example, you might have been the most popular CPA.

00:06:49:08 - 00:07:08:20
Unknown
But now ChatGPT, for example, and I'll use them as a is the main thing because they're the most popular, but they're now able to scrape all the knowledge about all of the CPAs and accounting firms that are in the Denver area based on who is writing about those particular things that I am looking for. So it's personalizing the referral for me.

00:07:08:23 - 00:07:34:08
Unknown
So ChatGPT may know I am already I'm a CEO of a construction company. I work in the Denver area, so I'm it's going to recommend, logically, a CPA who's in the Denver area, who has great reviews, who has shown expertise in the construction, accounting, virtual CFO, you know, world and where it finds that content is your blog is your website, it's social media is the review site.

00:07:34:08 - 00:07:56:17
Unknown
So, that's where this content come from. And it's almost like you need to think of two ways you're thinking, regional content. So it's like localizing and then niche related content. So there's a bunch of ways to feed these engines and these knowledge layers, your information, and think of it as almost like training the the best salesperson you ever could.

00:07:56:17 - 00:08:15:05
Unknown
And the best way to do this is go, go to ChatGPT and ask it about your firm. You know, would you recommend, you know, Lee Reams and Associates? CPA, if you were a contractor in in Denver and see what it says, it's going to come back and give you your it's like a Swot analysis, right? It's good to say here's the weaknesses, here's their strengths.

00:08:15:06 - 00:09:08:07
Unknown
And it only knows what it can find. So the beauty of the modern way people are using it is you can create content that is specific to these type of use cases. If that's the type of client you want to find. So is it starting to makes a little more sense?

00:09:08:09 - 00:09:30:00
Unknown
Yeah, think about it. You could have a full conversation about the problem that you're experiencing in your business. Right. And chat if you would be following the conversation at some point, say, hey, you know what, you may need professional help. Do you want me to create a list of recommended professionals in your area? And that is the way those conversations are occurring.

00:09:30:00 - 00:10:00:22
Unknown
So, and then what I'm my point of view here is that it's again, taking knowledge from multiple locations, multiple different places. And that's how it's building up your reputation and your trust. And then what that becomes is your visibility inside of ChatGPT. So if you have a generic website, you have a template based website, or you have a website that says there's no personality, it's not written like a full narrative of who you are, who I work with.

00:10:01:00 - 00:10:22:11
Unknown
It's more about designations and commas. And, you know, these are the six things. And I do, you know, accounting services, it's so generic. You're just one of, you know, tens of thousands of commodity firms in the modern age. You need to develop exactly why I work with contractors in Denver because I had a background. My family were developers.

00:10:22:11 - 00:10:40:18
Unknown
Right. So you can take all this information and now start feeding all these engines. That they're going to say, hey, this is a really good expert and this is why. And they're again going to sell and recommend you. And this could be I'm just we're using contractor niche, but you can do this for locals. You know, there's a lot of different ways.

00:10:40:18 - 00:11:04:17
Unknown
So people aren't just comparing you to other firms anymore. They're comparing you to who shows up first. When I ask a question online. Okay. And if your story, your expertise or credibility aren't out there in the form of what I'm going to call structured content, I and Google and Google, by the way, is already pivoting. So Google is using they're a they're trying to compete and they're, you know, they're smart obviously.

00:11:05:13 - 00:11:24:15
Unknown
But if your content is out there, you know, the AI these tools can't recommend you. Okay. And that's where you're going to start seeing. Well, wait, I don't get as much website traffic anymore. Well, you may not get that much website traffic in this new world anyways because people are talking about you inside these other ecosystems. But that doesn't mean you're not getting business from it.

00:11:25:03 - 00:11:47:02
Unknown
But you know, so the change is already occurring and has happened. It happening rapidly.

00:11:51:03 - 00:12:15:01
Unknown
You want to feed the machine, Adam, feed the machine. So, I will tell you. So, when I say structured. So there's things like schema which tells these engines what data is. So who are you, where do you what services do you provide? Are you an author or an expert? What is your locale? So you want to make sure that your website tells that story inside.

00:12:15:01 - 00:12:34:01
Unknown
It's like basically it's like a library card for the LMS. That that makes sense. So they need that structured data to recommend you. That means then what type of content should you be putting in there? So FAQs are huge okay. Local blog content, niche specific articles. This is kind of all the fuel that kind of feeds these engines.

00:12:34:03 - 00:13:02:20
Unknown
And I'll give you a couple examples. Off the cuff. So, you know, this is a question like local FAQ, what does a fractional CFO cost in Denver. So you want to have content that answers that question on your website. You want to create an FAQ page that has the answer. You know, when a, let's say, when should a Los Angeles based business hire a CFO or, you know, what is the difference in, between a virtual CFO and a controller?

00:13:02:20 - 00:13:25:09
Unknown
Right. So I'm giving you, you know, what's the difference between a bookkeeper and a virtual CFO in California? So I'm giving you that. Those are the types of questions you would ask. Right? So that would be the top of your title, of your FAQ. And then you would have a, an answer to that. That's really concise. It could be a 2 or 3 sentences, but those are the types of things in an FAQ that are getting, reference.

00:13:25:09 - 00:13:46:14
Unknown
So other examples, five cash flow mistakes, you know, Newport Beach business owners make and how a virtual CFO can help me. And now I'm localizing it. I'm going. I could even go a step further. And set of five cash flow mistakes Newport Beach businesses make. I could say dental firms make in California. And how can a virtual CFO help me?

00:13:46:18 - 00:14:10:05
Unknown
How can Hawaii tax law changes affect my small business? So these are different things that are going to, kind of set you up to start feeding these engines the right type of content. And it's what's amazing about it is you create this content and there could be FAQ pages so you can have, you could refresh these where like every month you add 3 or 4 more, you know, FAQs.

00:14:10:05 - 00:14:29:17
Unknown
And you can make it a long section on your website, but you can also do blog content specifically to the examples I gave. And then, you know, try to get 2 to 3 articles a week. Basically, the fresher the content, the better. And this is kind of the infrastructure now that will make you discoverable. So what are you and give you that use case.

00:14:29:17 - 00:14:53:07
Unknown
Go to ChatGPT and ask it, you know, what are the strengths and weaknesses of such firm. You can develop all your cues around that and you can create content, even your service pages about what ChatGPT sees. Because you might go, no, no, no, I'm great with, you know, movie producers. I'm an expert in movie producers, but yet it says that, you know, a movie producer is looking for somebody and it's like, well, they they don't even recommend you.

00:14:53:12 - 00:15:13:18
Unknown
But there's ways to create content that kind of creates that new, flywheel. If you say so. You know, what does that flywheel look like? Publish educational content. Then you'll get found in search. You know, Google's new search or I, you know, answers. This starts building trust and visibility in your brand. They're going to start seeing your name all over the place.

00:15:13:18 - 00:15:59:20
Unknown
And then if they go to LinkedIn, they go to social media, they Google you. They that basically gives more trust signals. And that's big for all of these engines. Which then brings inbound leads and then you convert them. Right. And then you just repeat the cycle. So if you focus very hard, whether that be in a service, it's easier to stand out or a niche or a locality, it's much easier to do.

00:15:59:22 - 00:16:05:09
Unknown
Yeah. It's.

00:16:05:11 - 00:16:30:04
Unknown
Right. So you're it you're you're yeah. You're changing from keywords to having conversations. And it is now almost more human. And more importantly, you now can compete. So the Google search engine was broken. I mean if you were in Forbes or you weren't CNBC, it was very difficult for your brand or the big Intuit's of the world. It was very difficult for you to rank.

00:16:30:04 - 00:16:53:17
Unknown
They would either buy real estate in display ads, right? They would usually rank, the CNBC's, the Forbes. The fortune's ahead of your brand, even if you were more knowledgeable in the more local, more authoritative. And then often you had journalists writing about topics tax and accounting that they had no freaking clue. Right. So it was an unfair system.

00:16:53:17 - 00:17:14:07
Unknown
This is completely leveled. The playing field. It really wants that. If I am a again, I am a user of ChatGPT I and it gets to know me. It learns my memories, it learns my preferences, it learns for all my search queries. It has kind of an idea of who you are, what you need. It's taking that information and now trying to find a match for you.

00:17:14:10 - 00:17:57:17
Unknown
So if you have created content, around this, it's going to be much easier for you to be found and then more importantly, be recommended over and over and over again. In these in these new tools.

00:17:57:19 - 00:18:02:19
Unknown
Now they cheated. You can say that.

00:18:31:11 - 00:18:50:12
Unknown
Yeah. Well, think of it also, the old day I had to now click through ten links and I only that's why I only top 2 or 3. You know, one, two, three is wherever one went. So now ChatGPT has done perplexity. Whatever is done, all that analysis for you immediately and you just you go straight to the what it needs.

00:18:50:12 - 00:19:13:22
Unknown
And then again, it proactively asks questions based on the last response or your last question. Do you want me to look for this? Do you want me to help you here? So if you're again, if this is where everyone is going now for answers, if knowledge is now been, you know, in some ways commoditized up to a point, I always say, and tax and accounting being 95% right is still 100% wrong.

00:19:14:00 - 00:19:36:07
Unknown
And what's great about these tools is, is, yeah, it gets you a long, you know, a closer to an answer to make a decision. But for the foreseeable future, humans in the loop is is a huge part of this. So accounting firms are going to have huge demand. Obviously they're overworked and they're understaffed. Right now, the beauty of AI and technology is these are tools.

00:19:36:07 - 00:19:57:01
Unknown
Now that we're going to help them, you know, do, what I call the commodity, like, you know, the boring tasks. A lot of that's going to be automated. They're going to be able to say hours and hours of time that they used to do mindless stuff, and now they're going to be able to do real, you know, real things that are changing the results of their their financial outcomes for their clients and do much more advisory work.

00:19:57:01 - 00:20:18:09
Unknown
And, you know, better budgeting and even kind of planning ahead. You know, we don't have to worry about how we're going to scan all these these, you know, receipts and, and organize them and put them together into the tax return or the financial statement. So that's the beauty of it. And it's, it's I think it's a for now, I think it's a really, really good opportunity for the virtual CFO side.

00:20:18:20 - 00:20:39:14
Unknown
Obviously CPA firms, rolled agents. This is a game changer. And if you are in the old days, it took it was like a 90 day rule. Any SEO strategies usually take 90 days and see, you know, how how well it did. There is still a time period, but what we have found for our clients and when we're doing what we call a geo optimization.

00:20:39:14 - 00:21:00:17
Unknown
So SEO is search engine optimization. The Geo is for these, these labs. We have found clients, ranking immediately, even new firms. We had a craft brewing company that was in Indiana or Illinois. We created all this great content, unique narratives. Again, this is about storytelling. So just don't do the same thing that every CPA says.

00:21:00:17 - 00:21:25:11
Unknown
This is their marketing. Well, what's what's Moss Adams saying? Okay, let's just go duplicate that. Let's create industry pages. Duplicate it. You're all the same now. And now these these alums are smart enough to know we're looking for someone that's differentiated, that has personality that fits my searcher. You know their needs and that's the big deal. So if you're still in the what I'm going to call the cookie cutter stage, I, I even changed our website.

00:21:25:11 - 00:21:43:21
Unknown
Cookie cutter is dead. And the firms that are still doing the same. You know, if you Google a site and you see 10,000 of the same site, say the same exact thing, you're not going to be recommended. So it's you need to start getting into branding. It's, you know, you need to become an apple. You need to become a Starbucks.

00:21:43:21 - 00:22:12:15
Unknown
You know, it's going to become branding, positioning. Your biggest mode is your client base, right. So what you want to do is protect that moat. You have all these AI competitors coming in right now. And if you're looked at as some commodity, like every other CPA firm, they'll be able to whittle down and start beating you. But if you differentiate, if you niche down by service, by, profession, you're going to you're going to be the person that's recommended and all these all so you're going to be part of that conversation.

00:22:12:15 - 00:23:09:17
Unknown
And I keep saying conversations. Think of it as literally a virtual salesperson. You know, accounting firms never really had that until now. If you do this right, if you create the right folks, if you're creating the right blog cadence, unique, again to your narrative, your personality, you're going to get a ton of business through this.

00:23:09:19 - 00:23:13:13
Unknown
Perplexity. And yes.

00:23:13:15 - 00:23:47:05
Unknown
Yeah, but but it's not just what I think accountants always do is they like to put their head in the sand and they like to say I, you know, there's change happening, but I want to do it the same way I did it last year over and over again. This is the biggest technology change, you know, since whatever you want to call it, the, you know, the invention of the, you know, the internet or, you know, the idea of, this change is happening so rapidly, like every month, something there's a big step.

00:23:47:05 - 00:24:06:20
Unknown
So it's not a matter of ignoring it, and the problem will go away. It really will become next year. I'm saying after this tax season, if you are not doing what I'm talking about, you will start seeing your referrals go down. You'll see your visibility and your web traffic go down. And you'll start seeing it affect business.

00:24:06:20 - 00:24:22:18
Unknown
And there's others that are going to be huge winners. And those are the ones that are really jumping into you know, optimizing those.

00:24:22:20 - 00:24:48:06
Unknown
Yeah. So County works. Procom is our main website. We are basically the digital front office for tax and accounting firms. We have created an AI model called Max that enables us to create custom narratives at scale for our clients. So we work with mostly small to medium sized CPA firms, enrolled agents, virtual CFOs, and we do everything for them from the awareness stage.

00:24:48:06 - 00:25:09:11
Unknown
So how do they how do they get found in LMS? How do they rank in Google? How do they have a a narrative style website that brings their prospects through a conversation that says hired me. Okay. And then from there, what we do is we we kind of optimize these other digital client facing touchpoints. So how do we make it better for the client to get onboarded?

00:25:09:17 - 00:25:26:09
Unknown
How do they how do I send a proposal? How does the client pay me? Is there a questionnaire or an intake form? Do I have an engagement letter that is digitized? So these are all the things that we kind of we try to optimize everything. We're not a back end player. We're not trying to be a tax prep product.

00:25:26:13 - 00:25:45:05
Unknown
We're not trying to be an accounting software. We're not trying to use AI to do any of that. But we are trying to create a growth engine for small to medium size firms and more importantly, save them a ton of time. We're giving agency level narratives and branding at scale for, you know, clients at a very small monthly cost.

00:25:45:05 - 00:26:02:05
Unknown
So if you're interested in anything that we talked about today, we do all this for clients. It's turnkey, it's automated, it's trusted. We have a knowledge layer again that's trained on the tax code accounting rules. It is much more accurate than what a generic, chat bot would do. We'd love to hear from you. So again, County works.

00:26:02:05 - 00:26:14:18
Unknown
Procom. You can reach out to one of our, business development people, and they can kind of walk you through if this is a good fit for you.

00:26:14:20 - 00:26:33:05
Unknown
Thank you. Out of those great.