My Yelp Review of Myself

Jay is a great guy; professional, smart, funny, serious, down-to-earth, empathetic, helpful, responsive, and I give him ten stars!

O.K., I admit it, I’m reviewing myself. Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m using this “review” to write a personal letter to my fellow Yelpers. I decided that now is a good time to do this. First, it’s after the April 15th filing deadline (so I have a little bit of breathing room now), and second, I’m really bugged by the one-star Yelp reviews that I’ve received over the last few years, all of which were during tax season. I think that the people who wrote those reviews (and not a single one has ever been a client) had unrealistic expectations and/or really don’t understand what CPAs go through between January 1 and April 15. Since you probably got to this “review” while doing your research to find somebody to help you with something tax related, I want to give you a little information that will hopefully save you some time.

One of my “five-star” clients wrote in his Yelp review “Jay is direct and to the point in emails”. Understand that when you contact me, you don’t get an assistant, or a staff person, or somebody screening my calls or emails, you get me. And keep in mind that especially between January 1 and April 15th, I’m responsible for a lot of people all at one time, and it’s quite a job to keep everybody happy, and also field inquiries on top of everything else. I have loads of clients, friends, and contacts who tell me that they don’t know how I do it. So if you contact me, and I’m direct and trying to get to an answer really quickly without endless rounds of emails, don’t take it personally, it’s the nature of my biz, especially during tax season.

A very important thing to know about me is that I don’t do “interviews”. I’ve been in the public accounting profession since 1981, and I’ve been in practice for myself since 1992, and after all this time I know what I’m doing, and I have a file in my desk that’s stuffed with testimonials and happy thank you notes from clients, attesting to that. So if you want to come to my office for the sole purpose of meeting me to decide if you want to work with me, I’m really not interested, sorry. If you have tax questions or issues that you need help with, you can schedule a paid consultation, and you’ll be able to see me in action, which will be all the ‘interview’ you’ll need.

From a procedural point of view, I bill clients by the hour for all work that I do, and for tax returns there’s a minimum time/fee charge. As I mentioned above, consultations are paid, and are an hour minimum. I don’t do fixed fees, and having been burned over the years by people trying to hold me to estimates I gave them when I had no idea what I was walking into, I’m very hesitant to give estimates. The bottom line here is that I’m not interested in “shoppers”, that is, people who are just looking for a price. Please don’t take what I’m saying as being conceited or anything like that. To me, the important factors are experience, knowledge, and the ability to help solve problems, and for people who seek me out for those reasons, we’ll get along just fine. For those who place price ahead of knowledge and experience, we’re just not gonna be a good match, sorry.

What all of the people who gave me one-star reviews don’t understand (since none of them ever came in the door as clients) is how I go out of my way to be as helpful and responsive to my clients’ needs as a one-person-firm can be. For people who send me inquiries, I try to be friendly, helpful, and responsive too, but understand one thing; this is a two-way process. If you’re nice when you contact me, I’ll be a lot more responsive and helpful than if you act like a jerk, and you wouldn’t believe some of the words and tone of email inquiries I’ve received over the years, some of which were from the people who gave me the one-star reviews. There are a lot of badly behaved people out there. Remember too that I’m not required to accept as clients everybody who contacts me. Taxes are very personal and there’s a lot of close work between my clients and me, and if we don’t have a good working chemistry, it’s going to be painful for you and me both.

Please keep in mind that I’m not saying any of this to be mean, snotty, rude, or anything, but as I alluded to earlier, based on my minimum fee, I’m just not cost efficient for people with comparatively simple returns, so I try to point those people elsewhere. I’m just trying to save them time and money, not just trying to stuff money in my pocket.

So that’s a little bit about the person behind the picture on the Yelp profile and the website. If you can deal with a “tough love” New Yorker who’s going to be honest and blunt with you, smack you over the head when it needs smacking, push you when you need to be pushed, and will take a kick on the ass himself when it’s deserved, I’m the guy. If you’re looking for somebody who’s going to say “how high” when you say “jump”, or will agree that the world revolves around you, I’ll save you the time of having to write a one-star Yelp review.

My fellow Yelpers, thank you for your time and interest, and I look forward to helping those of you who value a professional’s experience and time!