Business

Michel Valbrun Shares Tips With Firms About Asking The Right Questions While Hiring CPA

Published

5 years ago

June 23, 2021

Michel Valbrun, CEO & Founder Of Valbrun Group Brings In Value Based Learning For Firms/Entrepreneurs

Michel Valbrun, a reputed CPA, helps entrepreneurs and businesses understand the importance of saving money on taxes and use it as a tool to create wealth. This has helped many of his clients create generational wealth. His multiples of experience in the corporate and accounting firms helped him start his own venture ‘Valbrun Group’ – where he opened his own accounting firm. He is sharing some tips with the firm owners and brand owners on how to ask the right questions when they hire a CPA.

Question #1

Afraid of the IRS? Not suitable then. An individual with the CPA role should be absolutely comfortable and work willing, and try to engage with the idea of handling an IRS audit.

If they are overly nervous about the IRS audits or how they work, find someone else to do the job for you. Some of the tax preparers often advised: “Don’t take this deduction, even though it’s legitimate, because it might raise a red flag and get you audited.” This is a statement that comes from a place of insecurity and unpreparedness.

Question #2

Are you ready to handle IRS communications, if necessary? Hire the best tax advisor who is highly capable to deal with an IRS auditor, not you. Michel shares, ‘I cannot emphasize this point enough. It is highly advisable that you as a business/brand owner don’t converse with the IRS directly. No means no!.’

Be it a simple request or an extensive audit, the IRS could easily flood you with too much information as you are a common man who is unaware of the depth of the knowledge they hold. Your CPA should know this depth even more than the IRS.

Question #3

Have you experienced an IRS audit before? Listen to them carefully. How was their experience with the rendezvous? Ask them a few examples if you don’t understand something. Also feel free to understand how it ended at the end. There can be 100 different scenarios in your case, however, it is necessary to understand how they react in such instances.

Losing an audit means losing a huge refund for the client. In some cases, it means a huge tax refund if the auditor won. In fact, it is better if the taxpayer was better off losing when you combine the two years of tax paid.

Question #4

Do you know how to build a relationship with an IRS auditor? This is a moment changing answer usually. CPA with good people skills can make the IRS auditor feel comfortable and really do their best to coax them. Auditors usually have a really tough job, and building rapport with them can make a big difference in the results.

Keeping proper documentation of expenses can keep the tax return in check. Always ask for a list of the documents you need to keep for emergencies. It’s critical to keep good records. Led and mentored by Michel Valbrun, most small and medium-size businesses can easily reduce their tax burden legally and ethically. To get some tax or finance saving advice from the genius himself, check out Michel’s website and save all your money to create wealth for the upcoming generations.

Business

Why Victorious PR is the Leading PR Agency for AI Companies

Published

12 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Matthew Wiles

Key Takeaways

Victorious PR helps AI companies turn complex, technical products into clear, compelling narratives that earn coverage in top-tier outlets like Forbes, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch.
Through campaigns for companies like Olas and Cluely, Victorious PR has consistently transformed emerging AI startups into recognized voices with strong media presence and industry credibility.
Victorious PR operates on a weekly placement model that builds compounding visibility rather than relying on isolated press releases that fade quickly.

An AI founder builds technology that could transform how entire industries operate. The product works. The team is strong. However, when investors search for the company name, they find nothing. When enterprise buyers evaluate vendors, the startup gets filtered out because nobody on the committee recognizes it. The engineers the founder wants to recruit are joining competitors with inferior products and louder profiles.

This visibility gap kills promising AI companies every year. According to Statista, the global AI market is projected to reach $347 billion in 2026, with 37 percent annual growth expected through 2031. Thousands of startups are competing for the same investors, talent, and customers. Strong technology is no longer enough to stand out.

Victorious PR has built its reputation by closing that gap for founders who refuse to let great products die in obscurity. The agency blends deep understanding of emerging technologies with established relationships across the publications that influence how innovation is covered.

An Agency Built During Uncertainty

Victoria Kennedy founded Victorious PR in 2020, launching at the height of the pandemic when most businesses were scaling back. The agency reached seven-figure revenue within its first year. Victoria’s background differs from most PR founders. She is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and member of both the Rolling Stone Culture Council and the Fast Company Executive Board.

Before starting the agency, Victoria built a career as a classical opera singer, touring Europe and performing alongside artists like Andrea Bocelli. That experience in performance and personal branding shaped how she approaches client work today.

The agency operates on a press-every-week model. Clients do not wait months between placements, hoping something lands. They move through a steady stream of podcast appearances, thought-leadership articles, and features in respected publications. This consistency compounds over time, building brand recognition that shapes investor decisions and strengthens customer trust.

Victoria describes her philosophy directly. “I built this company with one goal in mind,” she says. “To lead with integrity and help impactful leaders and businesses be seen and heard to have a greater influence on the world.”

Campaigns That Produced Measurable Results

David Minarsch, CEO of Olas, faced a difficult challenge. Olas builds user-owned AI agents on blockchain infrastructure, positioning itself against centralized players like OpenAI. Despite raising $13.8 million, the company struggled to gain visibility outside technical circles. The technology worked, but the broader audience that needed to hear about it was not paying attention.

Victorious PR positioned David as a thought leader through ghostwritten op-eds and expert commentary that connected Olas to larger shifts in AI development. Coverage landed in VentureBeat, CoinDesk, Mashable, Forbes, Fast Company, and USA Today. The campaign generated placements in more than 100 publications, helping Olas reach the mainstream tech audience it needed.

Roy Lee, co-founder and CEO of Cluely, faced a different version of the same problem. Cluely had built an AI meeting assistant that worked well, but Lee needed visibility to attract serious investor attention. Victorious PR launched a campaign that secured coverage in TechCrunch, Business Insider, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Benzinga, Hackernoon, and MSN.

The press exposure put Cluely on the radar of major investors, resulting in a $20 million raise that included $15 million from Marc Andreessen at a16z. The coverage accomplished what cold outreach could not. It brought the right people to Lee’s door.

Why AI Companies Need Strategic PR Now

AI technology is often complex and misunderstood. Investors hesitate to fund projects they cannot explain to their partners. Enterprise buyers need confidence that a vendor will still be in business in two years. Generic PR approaches fail because they do not address these specific challenges.

Effective AI PR requires translating technical innovation into narratives that resonate beyond technical audiences. This means connecting product capabilities to business outcomes that journalists, investors, and customers actually care about. It means identifying angles that make a company newsworthy within the context of trends editors are already tracking.

The Victorious PR team focuses on finding the most compelling aspects of each client’s story and framing them within larger industry conversations. For AI companies, this often means linking technical work to discussions around autonomous agents, enterprise automation, and the intersection of AI with other emerging technologies. The approach has enabled the agency to build relationships with editors at publications including Forbes, Bloomberg, and Wired.

Their client roster includes partnerships with NVIDIA, Solana, and Olas. Placements span Forbes, VentureBeat, Fast Company, CoinDesk, and more than a hundred other outlets that influence how tech decision-makers think about innovation.

The companies that win in AI will not always be those with the best technology. They will be those who can explain why their technology matters and build brand recognition that influences decisions before the first pitch meeting.

About Victorious PR

Victorious PR is an award-winning full-service PR agency that helps businesses get featured in industry-specific media, local press, podcasts, and top publications to be seen as industry leaders in their fields. They have won numerous awards, such as the Global 100 Award for Best Public Relations & Communications Business of 2026, and are members of both the Rolling Stone Culture Council and the Fast Company Executive Board. To book a call to become the #1 Authority in your niche, click here: victoriouspr.com.