u/9figs

I'm building a business that runs on referral/affiliate partners (other professionals who already work with business owners and can send them my way, instead of me marketing to those owners directly).

What I'm stuck on is the outreach itself. When you're reaching out cold to a potential partner, what actually got them to engage? I'm trying to understand how to frame it, because it's not a normal sales pitch. I'm not really selling them anything, I'm basically offering them a way to make money by sending me people they already work with.

I don't know if I should lead with that directly, or lead with something else and get them talking first, or what actually lowers their guard enough to have a real conversation. For anyone who's done this from scratch, I'd love to hear how you approached the messaging and the outreach, and what got people to say yes

I sell to business owners, but instead of going to them directly, we're using cold email to recruit referral/affiliate partners, like other professionals who already work with those owners and can send them our way. Cold email is the channel we're good at, so we're leaning on it hard to get those partner conversations going.

The thing is, I know one channel isn't really a system, and I want to build an actual machine around this. What I'm trying to figure out is how outreach to a partner should be different from outreach to a customer, because the psychology feels completely different to me... I'm not really selling them anything, I'm proposing they make money by sending me people. I'm curious whether that changes how people think about the cadence, the copy, the whole approach.

Beyond cold email, I want to know what other channels actually worked for recruiting partners specifically, and what the follow-up looks like once a partner says they're interested. I'd rather build one channel deep and add the right second one than spray across five and do all of them badly.

If you've built partner or affiliate recruiting at any real scale, I'd love to hear how you'd approach it.

I sell a service to business owners, and my strongest channel is other professionals who already work with those owners (accountants, consultants, vendors, etc.) referring them to me, rather than direct to business owners. I'm trying to build my whole marketing engine around that instead of direct outreach to businesses.

Recruiting partners isn't the hard part, getting them to actually send referrals is. I've got a couple who refer kinda consistently, but most nod along, and then go don't send anything.

For anyone who's built this kind of referral engine:

• What separated your active partners from the dead ones? Was it the type of partner, how you onboarded them, or something about the incentive?
• For those paying referral commissions, what structure actually changed behavior? Flat % per deal, tiered, bonuses, non-cash perks? Curious what moved volume vs. what did nothing.

Appreciate any war stories.

Curious how others approach this. Most of the cleanup work I've seen is just "catch up the books" but I run into situations where the client is trying to qualify for financing (line of credit, term loan, SBA), and the books have to be fixed specifically so everything ties out for a lender. Example: P&L matching the tax returns, personal and business expenses separated, clean balance sheet, debt schedule that reconciles, etc

For those who've done this kind of work:

• How do you scope it vs. a standard cleanup?
• What is most looked at if a lender's the end reader?

Hey all, need some advice as a new broker here.

The only marketing channel I’ve mastered over the last 5 years has been email marketing. As I dive into this space, I’m seeing it’s going to require absurd amounts of volume and very good data in order to get fundable files via cold email.

My issue is that I have limited financial resources. I just need to get my few 2-5 deals in the door so we can invest into more of an omni channel approach with inbound channels active.

Has anyone in here had success with cold email to get solid merchants really looking for alternative financing solutions? Is there something I’m missing?

Really any advice as it pertains to generating revenue and flow would be extremely helpful.

Does anyone have any experience restructuring MCA’s? If so, what has your experience been like? Is there appetite for this? Is it tough to fulfill?

Does anyone know any lenders that help consolidate MCA's?

I’m urgently looking for a bookkeeper in Louisiana. This person needs to be fluent with quickbooks and can help with a cleanup + ongoing support

Can anyone in here help?

I’m urgently looking for a bookkeeper in Louisiana. This person needs to be fluent with quickbooks and can help with a cleanup + ongoing support

Can anyone here help?

I'm based in Montreal and I run a B2B financial services business that only serves clients in the US. Right now everything runs through my Canadian Inc, which is federally incorporated in Canada.

I'm at the point where I need a US entity. The reasons are practical. I need a US business bank account, a US tax ID so I can sign agreements with US partners who require it, and a US address on the website for trust signals with American customers.

After reading a lot online and talking to a couple of people, the structure I'm leaning toward is this. My Canadian Inc owns 100 percent of a US C-Corp. The C-Corp is the operating entity that signs all US agreements and holds the US bank account. I would form it in Wyoming because the annual fees are low and there's no state corporate income tax.

The reasoning I've seen is that US LLCs are usually bad for Canadians because Canada treats LLCs as corporations while the US treats them as pass-through entities. That mismatch creates double taxation and the CRA often denies the foreign tax credit. C-Corp is cleaner for cross-border. Having my Canadian Inc own the C-Corp also reduces dividend withholding to 5 percent under the Canada-US treaty instead of 15 percent if I owned it personally.

A few questions for anyone who has actually done this:

1. Is Wyoming the right state for a non-physical operating business, or is Delaware worth the extra annual cost?
2. Has anyone hit problems with US banks (Mercury, Relay, Brex) opening accounts for a Canadian-owned C-Corp? Are there banks that work better than others for this setup?
3. What did your annual cross-border accounting actually cost once everything was running? I'm trying to budget realistically.
4. Anything you would do differently if you were starting over?

Thanks for any input.

I’m a Canadian with a Canadian corporation. I’m wanting to operate purely out of US. In simple terms, I want to do business in the states only, not in Canada.

Do I need a U.S. entity in order to work with lenders/funders and be paid out our commissions?

Hey guys -

As a newer ISO, should I be focused on cold outbound, getting a cheaper cost per lead, but less leads, or should I go straight into paid advertising and have a higher CPL but higher quality lead.

Any advice would be tremendously appreciated and would mean the world to a new-comer who doesn’t wanna get financially obliterated

Hi guys, I’m looking to bring in a cold email marketer. This person is in house, so no 3rd party agencies.

I’m located in the U.S. ideally the individual is overseas.

Role will start as part time and move into full time.

If this resonates with you, let me know in the comments

Hi guys,

Curious to hear your answers as everyone’s will probably vary.

If you were to start an ISO today, what would you do to get the business to 30-50k/mo in 90-120 days?

This means:

- marketing channels
- messaging
- core products
- # of funders
- nurturing systems
- etc

Hi guys. I'm building an outsourced bookkeeping and fractional CFO business. I'm not a bookkeeper, CPA or fractional CFO. I'm a sales and marketing guy who sees a ton of potential in this industry and know's how to get customers. Currently, I outsource all our work to another bookkeeping company. We have a white-label relationship. All the work is branded by my company, and customers pay my company. They don't know about the other company. They pretty much do what we do. We're just better at marketing.

My issue is this: I have no idea how I should be looking at this from the fulfilment/systems perspective. I have no idea if pawning off leads to this guys business is efficient, scalable, etc. Our margins are tight, because we're outsourcing to a business.

My question is this: What would you do in my situation? Again, I have no accounting backround at all. I'm just good at marketing and sales.

A few paths I'm weighing:

1. Stay with our current white-label partner (overseas team, sub 50% margin, when industry standard margins are over 80%)
2. Hire one US bookkeeper or controller, give profit share, call him a partner and let them sit on discovery calls to help with sales (since i don't know the language) and do the fulfilment. add more as we scale.

As operators, what would you guys do in my position?

Hi guys. I'm building an outsourced bookkeeping and fractional CFO business. I'm not a bookkeeper, CPA or fractional CFO. I'm a sales and marketing guy who sees a ton of potential in this industry and know's how to get customers. Currently, I outsource all our work to another bookkeeping company. We have a white-label relationship. All the work is branded by my company, and customers pay my company. They don't know about the other company. They pretty much do what we do. We're just better at marketing.

My issue is this: I have no idea how I should be looking at this from the fulfilment/systems perspective. I have no idea if pawning off leads to this guys business is efficient, scalable, etc. Our margins are tight, because we're outsourcing to a business.

My question is this: What would you do in my situation? Again, I have no accounting backround at all. I'm just good at marketing and sales.

A few paths I'm weighing:

1. Stay with our current white-label partner (overseas team, sub 50% margin, when industry standard margins are over 80%)
2. Hire one US bookkeeper or controller, give profit share, call him a partner and let them sit on discovery calls to help with sales (since i don't know the language) and do the fulfilment. add more as we scale.

As operators, what would you guys do in my position?

Hi guys. I'm building an outsourced bookkeeping and fractional CFO business. I'm not a bookkeeper, CPA or fractional CFO. I'm a sales and marketing guy who sees a ton of potential in this industry and know's how to get customers. Currently, I outsource all our work to another bookkeeping company. We have a white-label relationship. All the work is branded by my company, and customers pay my company. They don't know about the other company. They pretty much do what we do. We're just better at marketing.

My issue is this: I have no idea how I should be looking at this from the fulfilment/systems perspective. I have no idea if pawning off leads to this guys business is efficient, scalable, etc. Our margins are tight, because we're outsourcing to a business.

My question is this: What would you do in my situation? Again, I have no accounting backround at all. I'm just good at marketing and sales.

A few paths I'm weighing:

1. Stay with our current white-label partner (overseas team, sub 50% margin, when industry standard margins are over 80%)
2. Hire one US bookkeeper or controller, give profit share, call him a partner and let them sit on discovery calls to help with sales (since i don't know the language) and do the fulfilment. add more as we scale.

As operators, what would you guys do in my position?

Hi guys. I'm building an outsourced bookkeeping and fractional CFO business. I'm not a bookkeeper, CPA or fractional CFO. I'm a sales and marketing guy who sees a ton of potential in this industry and know's how to get customers. Currently, I outsource all our work to another bookkeeping company. We have a white-label relationship. All the work is branded by my company, and customers pay my company. They don't know about the other company. They pretty much do what we do. We're just better at marketing.

My issue is this: I have no idea how I should be looking at this from the fulfilment/systems perspective. I have no idea if pawning off leads to this guys business is efficient, scalable, etc. Our margins are tight, because we're outsourcing to a business.

My question is this: What would you do in my situation? Again, I have no accounting backround at all. I'm just good at marketing and sales.

A few paths I'm weighing:

1. Stay with our current white-label partner (overseas team, sub 50% margin, when industry standard margins are over 80%)
2. Hire one US bookkeeper or controller, give profit share, call him a partner and let them sit on discovery calls to help with sales (since i don't know the language) and do the fulfilment. add more as we scale.

As operators, what would you guys do in my position?

As you can see from the title, I’m building an outsourced bookkeeping company. I’m really not sure how to approach the infrastructure aspect of this business. I am personally a sales and marketing guy, not a CPA or bookkeeper. I currently have a fulfilment partner who is credentialed and great and what he does, but he has his own business we’re outsourcing the work to.

My questions is: how should I approach building my own version? Should I partner with a CPA/bookkeeper? Should I outsource overseas? Should I partner with a different CPA/bookkeeper in multiple state, and forward leads we generate to each of the individual states?

How would you guys approach this if you were in my shoes?

I do mainly bookkeeping and cleanup + catch up work. How should I be approaching CPA’s/accountants if I’m trying to build a referral network? Anyone have any approaches they prefer to receive? What would you want to hear from someone like myself to be happy sending me opportunities?