Skill Set
Like his teaching, Keebler's writing for CCH, Leimberg Information Services and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants emphasizes clarity and usefulness.
"Bob is able to get ahead of the curve in how to use estate planning tools and techniques and explain what they look like when they are modeled. He is a visionary," says one of his editors and mentors, estate planning legend Steve Leimberg, namesake and CEO of the tax news and analysis service.
Keebler also holds awards such as the "Distinguished Accredited Estate Planner" designation (there are only 66 such individuals), which bears further testament to his technical prowess. But that alone does not a firm build. The truth is, Keebler is a pretty sharp cookie when it comes to marketing, too.
Staying on the cutting edge is vital to his teaching and writing brand. "So we move very quickly," Keebler says. For instance, when the IRS recently announced an extension of the deadline for certain estates to elect the spousal portability of the estate-tax exemption, within hours Keebler & Associates blasted an e-mail to practitioners spotlighting the affected clients and steps advisors should take.
"We try to be the first people on the block with the news and how it's going to apply," says one of Keebler's three partners, Stephen J. Bigge.
Inside The Engine Room
Each morning at the firm, another partner, estate-planning attorney Michelle Ward, begins her day with a visit to the Web sites of the IRS and a variety of subscription services. Her purpose is singular: to sift through the myriad news alerts and find the nuggets. "I'll check to see whether anything relevant to our clients has come out and, if so, I'll post it to our Twitter account and Facebook, and then pass it on to Bob," says Ward, who has worked with Keebler since he hired her into the tax profession in 2000.
When Keebler deems a topic worthy of dissemination, he then turns to one of his partners. "We'll figure out how the pronouncement applies to our client base and do a brief write-up on the rule," explains Bigge, who Keebler hired right out of school from their shared alma mater, Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wis., in 2001.
Backed By A Power Trio Of Experts
Keebler is the front man, enabled by his three partners' strong, complementary backgrounds. Ward, an attorney with a master's in law (LLM), tends to handle the research for private letter ruling requests while Bigge, a CPA, crunches the numbers for Roth conversions, sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts and other strategies clients are mulling.
The other principal, Peter J. Melcher, holds an LLM in tax plus an MBA from the University of Chicago. "Pete does the heavy tax research for white papers and opinion letters," Bigge says. An executive assistant, Emily Rosenberg, rounds out the five-person operation.
Many accounting firms thrive on audits and tax-return preparation-dubbed "annuity work" by the CPA profession because of these services' recurring nature-but that's not the case at Keebler & Associates. There is no audit practice, and preparing returns accounts for only about 10% of total revenues. "Most of our revenues come from either Bob's speeches or new tax-planning work from existing clients or referrals," reports Bigge, who doubles as the firm's chief financial officer.