My 3-Month Plan for Launching a CAS Service

Read Time: 3:40 minutes

✋Welcome to The CAS Cache, a newsletter designed to help accounting firms grow their CAS offerings in five minutes or less.

Disclaimer: Some links below support my writing of this newsletter, and some give you a deal.

Issue Sponsor 😎

If revenue is stalling during the summer months, Full Stadium Marketing has a few slots available to help boost your accounting firm’s momentum. They craft focused plans and execute them to connect you with your ideal clients. Book a strategy meeting today.

Want to sponsor The CAS Cache? Reply to this email to get more details.

I was recently asked for advice on how to get traction in a new CAS service and what the plan of attack should be in those critical first few months. I wish someone had answered this question before I launched my fractional CFO firm.

Upcoming Live Events that I will be at:

• Built to CASh out – How to build a Scalable, Valuable, Exit-Ready Firm with Daniel Talbott (firm owner and accounting M&A guru) on June 3rd at 12 PM CST in The Kick C@$ Community.

• All Things CAS Roundtable - Have you got a question, challenge, or idea about running and growing your CAS service? Join our live, unrecorded monthly roundtable in The Kick C@$ Community. A space to ask anything and hear what’s working (or not) from fellow CAS leaders in real time on the second Tuesday of every month at 3 PM CST.

• The CAS Quarterly Marketing Roundtable - Marketing a CAS firm isn’t one-size-fits-all. This live, unrecorded quarterly roundtable is your space to crowdsource ideas, check your strategy, and hear what’s moving the needle—from lead gen and niche positioning to referrals, content, and beyond. Join us on July 16th at 1 PM CST in The Kick C@$ Community.

• Bridging The Gap Accounting Conference on July 22nd through July 24th.

• Intuit Connect on October 27th through October 29th.

Here’s the simple roadmap I shared. It’s what I wish I had done from day one. If you’re still in the planning phase, ideally, you should start doing these things before launching your firm. I was fortunate to do this accidentally before taking the leap.

Month 1 – Conversations > Collateral

Most firms get this wrong. We try to build a fully automated tech stack, iron-clad pricing model, and shiny website before we ever talk to a real prospect.

What happens?

❌ Analysis paralysis
❌ No cash flow
❌ Services nobody wants

Instead, buy coffee and beer—lots of it.

I’d focus the first month exclusively on conversations with local professionals—EOS implementers, CPAs, CMOs, fractional COOs, you name it. These folks work with the clients you want to serve and are usually happy to chat.

Show up in LinkedIn comments, not DMs. Share your thinking out loud. Skip the five-page PDF service menu. Instead, practice a single sentence that sells your outcome, not your services.

Think: “I guide $2-10M service firms to grow profit and calm cash flow chaos.”

Not: “Monthly close, reporting, dashboards, 3-year forecasts, oh my!”

Alex Hormozi nailed this: “Sell the vacation, not the plane ticket.”

Month 2 – Widen the Circle

Once you’ve got some coffee chats under your belt, start branching out into local business communities—EO, Vistage, YPO, Chamber of Commerce, 1 Million Cups. Some of these groups can be hard to access cold, but here’s a trick that’s worked for me.

Offer to give a presentation that provides value to members of the community, such as cash flow tips or how a fractional CFO can accelerate growth.

Seriously. You don’t need a slick keynote or fancy slides. Just teach something real. Walk through how a CFO reads a balance sheet or the #1 cash flow blindspot you see in service-based businesses. It positions you as a helpful expert and builds trust quickly.

And here’s the only marketing piece I’d have ready by this point: a simple follow-up email.

Hey [Name], great connecting today.

Here’s a quick summary of how I help:

Who I work with: Service-based businesses, typically $1M–$10M in revenue

Common challenges:

• No real-time financial data

• Wanting to be more proactive in growing their business

• Struggling with cash flow

• Not a financial expert, and want guidance from a financial guru

• Tired of billing by the hour and working too many hours

• Wanting to work on the business, not in the business

Ideal Outcomes:

• Grow the bottom line, sell the business, or transfer the business

• Eliminate trading time for dollars

• Financial clarity

Let me know if I can ever be helpful or connect you with someone in my network.

Month 3 – Let the Market Shape the Offer

By month three, the goal isn’t “perfect.” It’s profitable.

Close a deal. Any deal. Then use what you learn in the sales process to refine your offer. What questions did they ask? What part of your process got them excited? What almost lost them?

This is the mindset software companies have nailed. As I mentioned in “How to Start Offering Advisory Services in Your Accounting Firm”, they don’t wait until the product is “perfect.” They ship a minimum viable product and let user feedback shape the roadmap. You’re doing the same thing, just with services.

As I explained in “How to Sell CAS - Feedback Loop,” honest feedback comes from actual sales calls, not brainstorming sessions or whiteboard strategy meetings. Want to know what business owners care about? Try selling to one.

Every client becomes a source of intel. Each deal teaches you something about packaging, pricing, delivery, and what not to offer. That’s why, as I wrote in “The Perfect CAS Offering”, you shouldn’t waste time chasing perfection. The perfect offer doesn’t exist. But the profitable and evolving one does.

Thanks for reading, Luke Templin!

P.S. There are four ways I can help you grow your CAS offerings when you are ready:

1. Join my How to Start Offering Advisory Services Cohort.

2. Cannot wait until it starts? Check out the pre-recorded version here.

3. Join The Kick C@$ Community to grow your CAS offering alongside others doing the same.

4. Automated white-labeled financial digests for your clients with FinDaily.io