Turning Legislation Into Revenue | How Firms Turned OBBBA Into a Growth Engine

If you think the window to generate revenue from the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBBA) has closed, it hasn’t. The headlines may have faded, but the firms that treated this legislation as a growth opportunity are still converting it into conversations, visibility and new work.

In a recent AAM High panel discussion with Lindsay Sherrill, marketing manager at Schneider Downs, Kelsey Brewer, CMO at McGuire Sponsel and Sarah Dobek, president and founder at Inovautus Consulting, it was clear that the legislation didn’t drive revenue. The way firms marketed it did.

Here’s how they did it, and how you still can, too.

Awareness Only Happens When You Create It

When OBBBA passed, many firms pushed out a single article or email and called it done. Schneider Downs took a very different approach. As Sherrill explained, the team immediately began treating the legislation as an evolving narrative that needed to be shaped and not just announced.

The marketing team’s guiding principle was simple: clients will hear about tax law changes from someone, so it might as well be from their advisor. That mindset resulted in a full resource center, a major webinar, follow-up industry videos and ongoing updates that positioned the firm as the go-to source for clarity.

That resource did more than educate clients. It also provided their internal team a place to learn and quickly get up to speed. That dual-purpose strategy became a theme with firms, too.

Firms Prepared Before the Bill Passed

Every panelist talked about how they didn’t wait for final legislation. They started planning while Congress was still debating.

Sherrill’s team was already drafting content weeks in advance and developing a resource hub on their website. Brewer’s team was building a firmwide OBBBA guide before the final text was even released. Having that foundation meant that once the bill became law, they could move in days rather than weeks.

Timing mattered more than headcount. The advantage went to the prepared, not the largest.

Some Small Firms Outperformed Regional Competitors

One impressive example came from Dobek’s work with a five-partner firm in a small market. They went “all in” on OBBBA. They hosted multiple presentations, partnering with associations, and produced educational content quickly and consistently.

The results were dramatic increases in visibility, major spikes in new contacts, and even an invitation to replace a regional firm on a coveted tax update panel for an influential industry association. It was market disruption powered purely by speed and willingness.

Big firms have more red tape. Smaller firms are nimble and can move. This firm moved confidently and won.

Building Internal Confidence

As is the case every time new legislation is passed, there is fear amongst the practitioners. Fear of being asked a question someone couldn’t answer. Fear of speaking before knowing every detail. Fear of being wrong.

To counter that, the panelists focused heavily on internal training. Instead of expecting everyone to master a 100+ page bill, they trained for triggers. They taught their teams what to listen for, when to bring in a subject-matter expert, and how to start the conversation, even without having all the answers.

Brewer’s firm took this one step further by coaching teams to get comfortable saying, “I’m not sure, but I know exactly who can help.” Rather than undermining credibility, it strengthened trust. And it created space for cross-functional collaboration.

Dobek often uses firm “champions” to reinforce this cultural shift. For example, when a respected rainmaker can say, “I tell clients I’ll get back to them all the time,” the entire tone in the room changes. People exhale. They see that not having answers doesn’t impact success.

Without internal confidence, even the best marketing campaigns stall out.

Monetization Happened When Firms Followed Up

Firms built education hubs. They held webinars. But none of that generated revenue on its own.

The monetization came from the follow-up.

At Schneider Downs, anyone who registered for the main webinar was tagged by industry, allowing partners to send personalized follow-ups with the resources most relevant to that sector. Those conversations naturally led to client meetings, planning sessions, and billable advisory work.

At McGuire Sponsel, the firm used its tech stack to track how OBBBA content influenced the buyer’s journey. One interesting finding was the impact in the middle of the funnel. Prospects who had attended webinars or downloaded resources were far more engaged and moved faster through pipeline stages. In just a few weeks, the firm saw a significant revenue lift tied to those mid-funnel interactions.

Even firms without sophisticated systems, like the ones Dobek helped, saw results by simply creating a list of top clients and proactively initiating planning conversations.

The common thread? Action created revenue.

No More “Silent Compliance”

One concept that marketers can relate to came from Dobek when she talked about “silent compliance.” Many firms perform technical analysis behind the scenes without ever telling clients what they evaluated. The work is done, but it’s invisible to the client. And since the client doesn’t know, they don’t see value.

OBBBA was an opportunity to break that pattern. Firms that explained what they reviewed, what didn’t apply and what might matter in the future created transparency and trust. Even when changes were minimal, clients appreciated hearing, “We looked at several scenarios for you.”

This mindset shift differentiates advisory from technical execution.

Why It’s Not Too Late for Your Firm

Most of the strategies shared by panelists were universal. Regardless of size, resources, tech stack or complexity of the bill, success came down to the same handful of behaviors:

• Start planning the moment legislation becomes a conversation
• Segment early and tailor your messaging
• Build internal confidence before you build client campaigns
• Don’t wait for tax season to talk to clients
• Make your behind-the-scenes work visible
• Follow up relentlessly
• Track a small set of metrics to prove impact

And, most importantly, it’s still not too late to do this with OBBBA.

Year-end planning conversations, industry lists, webinar follow-ups, segmentation and scenario modeling all still have room to run. Legislation doesn’t produce revenue. How firms activate around it does.

And the good news is that activation doesn’t require luck, perfect timing or a huge department. It just requires intention, structure and a willingness to move.

Check out AAM’s upcoming virtual events for more events, virtual campfires, and thought leadership strategies for accounting marketers like these.