Meet MICHAEL RAANAN, MBA, EA

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful MICHAEL RAANAN, MBA, EA a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi MICHAEL, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I’ve been for fortunate to have experienced many challenges in life, both personally and professionally, which have shaped many aspects of my life including building up my resilience. For example, before starting my own businesses, I worked at the IRS and had the unique experience of working directly with thousands of business taxpayers. Through my interactions with those business owners, I had learned a lot about the do’s and don’ts of business and incorporated many of those lessons into my initial business plan.

However, as with all new businesses, IRSvideos.com was faced with the challenge of finding new clients, telling the world that we exist, and effectively and consistently serving taxpayers with the highest quality of IRS tax resolution possible. Although we’ve been at it for over twelve years now and have been fortunate to see a certain level of success, we are constantly faced with regular challenges that keep us on our toes. During these times, resilience through purpose and work ethic has been key. What keeps me motivated, however, is the positive feedback from our clients and knowing that I’m making a positive difference in people’s lives. That alone reinforces the fact that as the Captain of the ship I’m on the right track and inspires me to continue moving in the right direction despite the many challenges.

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Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

In 2004, about a year after graduating college in Florida with a degree in business and information technology, I found myself at a career fair chatting it up with some IRS agents. I hadn’t ever considered working at the IRS, until the agents informed me that the agency was hiring 1,100 people, and the deadline to apply was midnight — that night. I was immediately intrigued, so that night I took and passed the IRS’s 150-question quiz. Before I knew it, I was flying across the country on my own dime to Los Angeles for fingerprinting at 7:30 a.m., mock phone calls, and a one-on-one interview with the IRS.

I was eventually hired and began my yearlong training to become an IRS Revenue Officer. It was my job to knock on people’s doors and meet with them in person regarding the back taxes they owed, after paper and phone communication had failed. I was lucky enough to have a great coach for this job, but those initial meetings with taxpayers were nerve-wracking. I remember constantly walking on eggshells, knowing I wouldn’t be a welcomed sight as I flashed them my badge and talked to them about the money they owed.

But the part of that job that invigorated me the most was talking to people. I learned about the life situations and the fear that led people to this place in their life, and through my conversations with them and the expertise I gleaned during my tenure with the IRS, I was able to educate them about ways they could avoid this distressing situation, again. That lit a spark in me. It made me realize that helping people in this way was something I was meant to do.

After finding my passion for helping others learn about their tax debt and how to fix it, I knew I could open my own firm. Additionally, the eight years I spent at the IRS proved to be some of the best training for the future of my career. I was working at the core of our nation’s taxing system, and I was experiencing pieces of the process other professionals never actually see.

Throughout that experience, I had been working across the table with big-budget companies that promised relief to taxpayers, and I saw firsthand their inability to fulfill their clients’ needs. It quickly became apparent that there was a massive need for professional IRS help, where a taxpayer could have a licensed representative advocate for them to resolve their back tax issues.

In 2012, I left the IRS armed with the stockpile of knowledge I picked up while working there. I started IRSvideos.com in July of that year and immediately began helping taxpayers find consolation from the very organization where I once worked.

After helping taxpayers settle over $500 million over the last twelve years of private practice, I’ve continued to learn about the intricacies of tax law and reconciliation while helping people through their very raw emotions. I’ve learned that the panic and anxiety most people experience is heavier than it should be because human brains exaggerate situations. My job is to help them see the less-stressful reality, and more importantly, I use my expertise to make sure they don’t end up needing my services ever again. Tax codes are complicated and confusing, but solutions to back taxes don’t have to be.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I’ve been fortunate to have many successful entrepreneurs over the years, and they’ve all had the same three qualities in common: Discipline, Work Ethic, Laser Focus.

These same traits have served me well since the beginning of IRSvideos.com. For example, taxpayers and referral partners alike appreciate the fact that we dedicate 100% of our tax practice to resolving IRS back taxes and make ourselves available by phone, email, text, video calls, in-person, and even via social media 24/7. We’re also extremely transparent and explain via our website exactly what our services include and what to expect from the time a taxpayer calls our office all the way through the tax resolution process. We take pride in being guided by personal and professional integrity and having a strong work ethic and a genuine passion for helping taxpayers remove their IRS burden so they can get on with their lives.

If someone dedicates themselves to discipline, good work ethic, and a laser focus on their goal, anything is possible.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

We have recently opened up opportunities for others to partner with IRSvideos.com to share in our collective success. The following experts are welcome to contact us if they’re interested in increasing revenue by collaborating with our existing platform and reach: Tax Preparers, Attorneys, Financial Advisors, Wealth Managers, Family Offices, Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Brokers, Business Brokers, Marketing Experts, Lead Generators, Entrepreneurs.

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