Accounting for the Design Industry Niche
| |In this episode of Accounting Marketing Doesn’t Suck, join host Hugh Duffy as he talks with Peter Lang, founder of The Designer CPA. Peter works exclusively with interior designers, decorators and home stagers and shares his story of how he decided upon this niche, how being a guest on a popular podcast amplified his brand and work and why Instagram is his social platform of choice. Tune in to hear more about what makes this niche tick and how Peter not only provides accounting and tax services but is creating online classes to educate his client base as well.
Guest Bio
Peter Lang
Peter Lang, CPA is an accountant who specializes in the unique accounting challenges faced by artistic professionals. Designers and other artistic professionals may find that ordinary CPAs are simply unequipped for their needs, but with 16 years of tax and accounting experience under his belt, Peter is a proven expert in helping interior designers do their taxes and all the other financial duties that art school didn’t teach them.
Peter moved to Boston in 2004 to pursue his Master in Taxation degree. It was there that he began working at a large cutthroat accounting firm, where he was written up for the first and only time in his professional life for “helping people too much.” He then moved on to a small firm where he quickly became bored with the life of a traditional CPA and noticed that interior designers were consistently underserved by standard CPAs, so he decided to pursue his dream of running his own firm and settling down with his family and business in Rhode Island.
Memorable quotes from this episode
“Eighty to 90 percent struggle with the finances and they will admit it. They are looking for someone to clarify that stuff and help them understand.”
“Gross margin percentage and then mark-up percentage is very important to them. We are always looking at that together.”
“I use Instagram the most because my clients are so visual and that’s where they are hanging out. It’s been fun to see the reach.”
“When this all started, I just wanted more clients for my accounting firm that are interior designers and now it’s just expanded to more than I ever imagined a year ago.”