Video: 5 Steps to Price & Offer Premium Advisory Services with Confidence | Duration: 5520s | Summary: 5 Steps to Price & Offer Premium Advisory Services with Confidence

Transcript for "5 Steps to Price & Offer Premium Advisory Services with Confidence": Buddy, welcome. I'm Michelle Weinstein. And today, we are talking about the 5 steps to price and offer premium services, especially your advisory services and how to do that with confidence. So if you wanna type in the chat box where you're at in the country, Also, I'd love to have this very interactive, so if you've got questions throughout, feel free to type them in the chat box. And just so we can focus on the slides and everything else today, I will be turning off my video for most of the presentation. Then at the end when we get into some q and a, I will come back. Okay? So we will get started. Also, just a little bit more about me. I have helped 100 of accounting, tax, and bookkeeping firm owners not only double their firm revenue, but gain time and freedom by a process that I've spent the last 20 years perfecting. And our clients to date here at the abundant accountant have increased their revenues by over $20,000,000 from their base revenue. And when it comes to helping firm owners out, confidently present and get paid for monthly bookkeeping, CFO advisory services, and even taxes at a premium fee, we are the best at what we do. There are a few things, though. Oh, we don't have the other slides. But I wanna just share it is possible to, you know, charge 3 times more than the competition. It is possible to really offer premium services and create reoccurring revenue within your firm. And it is completely possible to get paid upfront and say goodbye to burnout once and for all and plan those vacations during tax season instead of being stressed out like your back is up against a wall. And so you can really stop grinding 14 hours a day. I mean, who here wants to keep working like a workhorse? I don't think anybody does. And if you have old AR, you can totally collect that too, and you can raise your fees to your legacy clients. Now it is possible to do all of this even if you've never charged a whole lot before, even if you've only offered transactional compliance services only and never have had advisory as an option. And even if no one is doing it this way and even without losing any revenue and even if you feel like you just wanna quit. And no matter how long things have been piling up, it is possible to make these changes and increase your fees without the clients leaving you, especially if you've had your current clients for a really long time. And just so you know, I've made a decision just to keep my video on. Why not? Right? So let's keep it moving and just some housekeeping stuff and best practices. You know, there is a survey at the end. So if you can, make sure to take that short survey, that definitely helps everyone out at the Intuit world. And if you're having any tech issues, just type your tech issue in the chat box. And then, also, this is available for a CPE credit. How cool is that? But you must stay for at least 50 minutes. Okay? But I recommend you stay the whole hour because q and a is always the best part, and we're all here to make more revenue, work less hours. So I think it's best to just stick around till the top of the hour. If you've got a issue troubleshooting, you need your certificate or whatever, you can copy that email, take a photo with your phone, whatever you need to do. Now there are gonna be a couple polls. So please make sure to answer the poll when it pops up. Okay? So the poll questions will pop up, in between some slides that we have coming up. And just a disclaimer, this is not tax advice, obviously. This is not anything that, is gonna be in IRS code. So just make sure to read this slide and know that everything that we're talking about today has nothing to do with the tax laws. Okay. And I wanna get into someone who you might resemble in your firm. And our clients do get real results, and this works with about every single type of firm owner I've ever worked with. So let me share with you Rachel. And Rachel is a bookkeeping firm owner, and she left the corporate world in search of financial and time freedom, but she struggled with anxiety and burnout running her bookkeeping firm. She was charging low rates. She was barely making ends meet, and she was completely stressed about her divorce she had, her student loans, and taking care of her son, Auggie, who's in that photo. She just wanted more time with him and peace and quiet. So within 6 weeks of working with us here at the Abundant Accountant, she booked a new client at a price she never thought was even possible, and that was a $10,000 a month client. So that netted her an additional $70,000 a year after her expenses. And she now feels more financially stable with less clients and has more time to spend with her son. So you some of you might be like her in your firm, or some of you might be like my client, Chelsea. Now Chelsea was extremely frustrated when we first met. She was completely irritated. I remember the first phone call I had for with her and she was so irritated the whole time, but she wasn't closing any new clients at fees that she really wanted to charge. Even though she had already spent $20,000 on other coaching programs and she didn't get any results. She took the leap of faith, ended up working with us, and within 7 weeks, she was able to completely have a different sales process in her firm. She gained a ton of confidence. She enrolled 2 clients, 2 brand new ones, and she increased the fees to all of her existing clients over the time of working with her. And she even worked with me in the mastermind group for almost a year. And now she is a 100% confident she'll never have to get a job again in corporate, and she feels excited about her bookkeeping firm. And she's transitioned it actually to all CFO advisory now too. So Chelsea really did a 180. It's been awesome to see her grow. So you might be wondering, well, how Michelle did they get all these things in place? And the first thing we have to do is we have to check our sales beliefs. This is the crucial number one thing we must do in our firm. So feel free to have a pen and paper, take some notes for today. That's really what I would recommend because what are your beliefs around sales? Do any of these resonate with you? Do you believe selling is manipulative, sleazy, or pushy? Or maybe you're like, Michelle, I'm not a natural salesperson. I'm a people pleaser. I wanna help everyone that comes to me. I've had my clients for 30 years. I can't change anything. You know, Michelle, I am just lucky to have clients. I can't be picky. I have to take on everyone that comes my way. Or you're like, hey, you know what? I absolutely hate selling. And, you know, actually, I need more leads, you know, I need to do marketing. So all of these things are your sales beliefs. And to be honest, every firm owner I've worked with has probably had 4 or 5 of these things on their list when I first met them. Because you don't wanna be a salesperson, and I don't want you to be a salesperson. But if you wanna be a true entrepreneur, what is the first thing on your p and l? It says revenue. So in order to bring in revenue, we have to learn a skill that we just haven't learned yet and that we can feel good about it too and have the confidence to charge premium fees, to get paid upfront, to make sure we have engagement letters signed, to make sure we don't have accounts receivable. Right? So we love to help people, but we're not salespeople. And guess what? The good news is I don't want you to be a salesperson. So that should be the good news for today. Because all of these limiting sales beliefs, so those are your beliefs about sales, they actually sabotage you and your firm. Okay? So let's go through the truth about what sales is. Selling is an honorable and moral imperative that we have to do in our firm if we wanna help people. If we don't if you don't get paid by someone, then you can't help them. Correct? And selling is a skill and an attitude that anybody can learn. I have worked with the biggest people pleasers, most introverted accountants, tax, and bookkeeping firm owners that have actually turned around and have liked this part of their business where before it used to be like this bad, you know, 4 or 5 letter word. They've also realized that the truth is better marketing does not help you enroll and get more clients. And people buy based on values and feelings, and a scarcity mindset will only sabotage us. And you might actually love the process of selling, the process of actually being able to help people instead of it just be an idea. Okay? So let's continue. Here's some more truths about sales. There are many reasons everybody that people don't engage your firm or don't buy. And when someone turns us down or ghosts us or tells us no, It's not about us. And too many of us hold back our solutions, be it CFO advisory, bookkeeping, you know, tax planning, tax resolution, any advisory big ticket kind of item because we're like, oh, we don't wanna be salesy. We don't wanna be pushy. We don't wanna come across like we're trying to gouge our clients. And if we have a service that we can offer to our clients that will change their lives, like tax planning, for example. If you do a plan, then you can save your client from paying too much to the IRS. That's a good thing. But we need to be able to help that person by getting them to see why it's a value to them. And when people have a problem and you have a solution to solve that problem, you also deserve to get paid big rewards for it and charge premium fees. K? So you don't have to sell. You don't have to be a salesperson, and I don't want you to become one. What we're going to do is we're gonna simply provide solutions to people's problems and give them opportunities to make decisions that they feel good about. And that is the end of it. That's what we're gonna do. I want you to remember that. You don't have to sell. You don't have to be pushy. I don't want you to be annoying. I don't want you to be sleazy. I want you just to be you. I want you to be the helper, the person that wants to help, the firm owner that wants to help your clients, but also get paid for it. And that's the difference. So we're gonna launch our 1st poll right now. And why don't you type in the chat box too, what are you hearing out of this conversation so far? What what is an eye opening thing about your sales beliefs that you're hearing so far? Why don't you type that in the chat box after you answer your poll? We're gonna give you about a minute here. Alright. And type in the chat box, what are you getting out of our conversation so far? What are your beliefs around sales now? Did something new pop up for you that maybe you hadn't thought of before? K. Yeah. So remember, when we are getting clients to engage us in their fur in our firms, we are offering a solution to a problem. We're actually not selling anything. We don't have a car to buy. We don't have anything. They have problems. We have a solution to solve that problem. K? Alright. Very good. Good. Anything else you guys are getting out of our conversation so far? Yeah. Alright. Perfect. So I think our poll is complete. Make sure to answer it so you get your CPE credits, and then we're going to continue. Alright. So those limiting sales beliefs sabotage you and your firm. Okay? And we already covered this, so I'm gonna just go back. And here's the poll, which we did. So let's get into our second step. Okay? Which is what we have to know our value. So for those of you that are feeling underpaid or you worry about charging fees to your clients, but you say, well, Michelle, I do such hard work and I do great work. How come my bank account doesn't reflect it? This is the foundational piece. So pay close attention. Okay? Because knowing our value stems from this. Low prices, charging hourly, trying to be out the competitors, or if you're a newer firm owner and you went and looked at 10 people's websites and trying to compete on price is basically undervaluing your knowledge, your expertise, and your experiences. K? Also, in reality, people pay for the results you deliver. So, yes, people have problems, we have solutions, but people actually pay for the result. So if you recall the result of Chelsea and Rachel, the result was $70,000 to her top line revenue. That was the result that she got from working with me or Chelsea. Increased her revenue, paid off all the other coaching programs that she did and got all her clients to CFO advisory services and and increase the fees to current clients. That's a result. So for you, you wanna think about, well, what is the result that I get for my clients? Okay? Number 3, higher fees. So when you charge higher fees to clients, it actually shows you're the expert. It shows that you can confidently know that you are the best tax strategist, the best CFO adviser, the best bookkeeper, the best accountant, the best tax resolution expert, whatever that is, and it communicates the real ROI on your fees without saying anything. And charging for the results you deliver allows you to gain back time and freedom without losing any money. Alright? So, well, Michelle, how do I know my value? Well, we're gonna go through that right now. And I'm gonna share a little story with you. Okay? So if you think about value, like, if you work with a restaurant per se. Right? Restaurants have dry goods. They have inventory on their shelves. They have inventory, in their fridge, freezers. They have a lot of physical inventory. Us, as accounting tax and bookkeeping firm owners, our inventory is in our head right here. So we have to extract, well, what have we done to get to where we're at today? So one of the ways you're gonna do that is list out your strengths, experiences, and accomplishments. You can also compile stories and testimonials from people that you've helped and the results you've gotten them. And if you can add up the results, right, like with Rachel, the results was an increased revenue in her firm of $70,000. Chelsea, I think, was an increase of 10 to $20,000 of reoccurring revenue where she's at now from where she was when we first met. So that's a result. Think about how much time, money, and energy you've spent to get to where you're at today. How many of you maybe are a CPA or an EA, so you got additional designation? You've spent hours and time, money in school, so you have a time investment and you have a financial investment on both sides. And you can share in the chat, like, what are you most proud of professionally? What is your greatest strength that differentiates you from someone else who's here today? Those are all about understanding your value. K? Now here's a little spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to email you a template. So if you wanna put your email inside the chat box, I can email you a Google Sheet with this template, or maybe it's on my next slide with the QR code. Can't recall. But I want you to think about all of your formal education, your degrees, your certification, your CPEs. What about your years in business and all the experiences you've had? Industry research, school of hard knocks. How many of you have made mistakes for clients, learn from your mistakes, and are never gonna make that mistake again? That's a big deal. Personal development. Maybe you listen to my podcast. It's called the Abundant Accountant podcast, and you can earn a CPE credit just for listening to it on earmarked CPE. It's a great place to listen to podcast and get CPE. So you kill 2 birds with 1 stone. So if you don't listen to the Abundant Accountant podcast, I highly recommend that you subscribe to it or just go straight over to earmarked CP because you might as well get 2 for 1. These are all ways that you can really understand your value and your worth. Okay? So very important. Now let me go through one line on the example, and then if you get my template, then you'll be able to pop this in. And your homework tonight is to really figure this out because you need to calculate how much inventory you have on your shelf. Just like any of you that work with a business that has inventory, you they do inventory checks every month. Well, how come as firm owners, we don't do inventory checks every month? We don't say, well, what did I do for my career? What did I do for my experience this month? We don't. We skip that. So this example, they got the EA. They spent about 208 hours studying, and the financial investment was about 1500. Okay? Now you could take that one level further and say, well, when I was getting my EA, my time at that time, if you had to place a dollar value on an hour of your time, I'm not saying charge hourly, you definitely don't wanna do that. But if you had the time of 208 hours, and let's just say your hourly rate was $100 at that moment in time when you were studying for your EA, you could say 208 hours times a $100 is whatever. Right? So that would be an additional investment financially to your inventory. Got it? And you can always send an email to me through the abundant accountant website if you're confused on this. I love to help people with this. This exercise is the foundation if you feel like you're undercharging and if you feel like you're scared to actually charge your clients because this is the foundational piece. Okay? Now, again, knowing your value, your clients and potential clients have a massive problem, and it will not get solved by itself. And they want and need you to pay to solve their problems. So remember, you are the expert and they need you, and there is no other way around. And your expertise and your knowledge is the most valuable asset that you have. So imagine that this is actually on your balance sheet. What if that were the case in real life? Right? So if that were the case, why would you waste your time being, for example, a bill collector on someone who is not paying you on time. You have accounts receivable. People owe you money and you keep working for free, and you think in the future, they're gonna pay you. That's a problem. And remember too, and we'll get more into this today, sending proposals and quotes and chasing low paying clients is your number one time waster in your firm right now. If you send proposals or you send quotes and wonder why you get ghosted and people never come back to you, it's because you're selling a price and you're not actually selling value. Right? So I wanna talk to you about Jeff because you guys one of you might be like Jeff. Right? He had a firm or I should say he has a firm, but he quit his corporate job. And he was doing his firm on the side. And when I first met him, he said, Michelle, I'm so scared. I have no experience in sales. I don't even knew I don't even know where to start. And he felt like he wasn't a natural salesperson, which I would say 99.9% of anyone I work with who owns an accounting tax or bookkeeping firm feels the exact same way. And he did not have confidence in a sales process, so he had a workflow process for his bookkeeping, but he did not have a sales workflow process. And he thought he just needed more leads and to do marketing, but he realized that they were not converting. You know? You can't. You have better odds going to Las Vegas and playing the slot machine or something like that if you think you need more leads in marketing. Because when you have a sales process, it's more about, like, going to Vegas and playing poker and understanding the game and knowing what's behind your cards and having a strategic tactical approach, a very simple step by step system. So you can either learn poker or you can just waste a bunch of money and on the slot machines. So, anyway, Jeff took, the leap of faith and worked with us, and he increased his reoccurring revenue to a $100,000 annually in his firm, and that was in an 8 week period. Okay? It happened quick for him. But he was so systematic in his approach, and he just followed everything I shared with him, and he just executed. And, you know, he doesn't even take on one time tax clients anymore. He likes to do a tax return with the accounting or bookkeeping. So he made that new rule on his farm, and it really paid off for him. So just know that each of you are highly qualified, and you are worth whatever price you choose before you do any work. K? So we don't wanna work for free. We wanna understand what is our value, what is our price, and we wanna get paid before we do any work. So the other step that's really important before I go into how we're gonna do that is choosing our clients wisely. And you might be wondering, well, why, Michelle? You know? And I said earlier on the slide, we can't work with everybody and anybody. So would an oral surgeon take on a client that just need teeth cleaned? Well, probably not. Right? Would a brain surgeon see a patient that just had a head cold? Absolutely not. The brain surgeon's gonna focus on people like with tumors or something of more complexity. They have a higher knowledge base. So you shouldn't take on any client that doesn't really match what is your ideal client, what is the vision for your firm, if you aren't willing to really invest, you know, in your expertise. So we wanna set clear boundaries, and this is how we're gonna identify, well, who is our ideal client? Because we have to have some sort of idea before we go into it because we wanna speak about if you remember what I shared earlier, we are solving problems or we're we're solving problems for our clients. Right? So we have a solution to a problem. Well, I understand accounting tax and bookkeeping firm owners problems. Right? Just giving you an example. And that's the ideal client that I work with. But who is the ideal client that you work with? So, like, my ideal client maybe is ready to take action now. Great. That's one for me too. Right? I like to work with accounting tax and bookkeeping from owners that are sick and tired of being underpaid and underpriced and being up against deadlines every year, and they are sick of it and they wanna make a change right now. Those are people who I work with. So what is it for you? I don't think you wanna work with tire kickers and people just saying, oh, well, I am thinking about looking and changing my firm, but I'm not really sure. Like, you gotta be ready and sure. Right? So that might be one for each of you that you wanna take on. Maybe you wanna work with businesses who have more than 200,000 of annual revenue. Or I've also had people that do tax planning that say I wanna work with business owners that have a minimum of 300,000 of AGI. Or maybe if you're doing resolution work, you're saying, I wanna work with businesses that owe more than $50,000 to the IRS. You get to choose. Right? Like here, me at the abundant accountant, we work with 2 types of firm owners that I shared with you. Right? Someone like Jeff who's in a corporate job has a firm on the side, but they really wanna quit their corporate job. I also work with firm owners that have been around for 20, 30 years, and you are terrified to increase your fees, but you are also sick of looking at your bank account, looking how low it is and saying, am I ever gonna retire? And you're looking for a way to increase the value of your firm and exit. And then I also work with some people who are just brand new. You know, you're like, I wanna do it the right way. I don't wanna have all these problems. I don't wanna get ghosted on meetings with clients. I don't wanna get negotiated on price. Right? I'm listing out all these problems that probably many of you have. You need to think about what are the problems that your ideal clients have. You might also wanna be like Jeff where he's only working with clients in ongoing way. So he's working with bookkeeping tax clients, but they have to do both services with him. He's not just gonna do, you know, a basic return anymore for an individual or business. He's saying, I'm only gonna work with the businesses plus do the return. And you might wanna get industry specific, and the reason why is because you'll be able to understand the pains of your clients better. Like, I understand the frustration that you all deal with on a daily basis. People getting paperwork too late, documents late, not paying attention to your bills and invoices coming, and they don't pay you. And now you have AR. Or maybe you have depression, anxiety, and some mental health. Or maybe you've put your physical health on the back burner and you're so stressed all the time because you're working 10, 16, 18 hour days. Do you see how I understand the problems of this industry? You want to achieve the same for you and your ideal client. Could you work with other people in an industry? Sure. You could. I don't, but you could. And I know many firm owners that maybe work with 2 different industries. So that's number 1. Number 2 is if you want to charge premium fees, right, that's what we're talking about today, and increase the prices to our current clients, or if you're a newer bookkeeping firm owner or accounting firm owner and you wanna really get out the gate the right way, we have to create a different client experience. Great clients want and need a completely different experience. So if you're an ideal if your ideal bookkeeping or tax client, let's just say, is a $1,000,000 business, you can't continue to do what you've been doing with your clients that have been a $100,000 business. Those 2 are so different that they're gonna expect a different experience. By the way, your technical expertise and good service doesn't cut it. It's not enough. And if you're just winging it with every client, like you're just showing up to meetings, you're making up your fees and prices on the fly, you don't have your engagement letters ready, you don't have invoices ready, you haven't looked at their books and you're just scrambling all the time, you're gonna keep getting the same results that you've been getting over and over again. And that's kind of like the definition of insanity. Right? When we keep doing the same thing year after year and we don't make a change, I want you to have the freedom firm. I want you to be able to have the freedom and the life that you want where you can go home every day early, you can take weekends off, you don't have to work 7 days a week, 40, 70 hour weeks. Like, it is possible. And just know that having an abundance mindset and being willing to say no to new and current clients that are in a fit for you is very freeing when you can get to that place. So how do you have a different experience? One of the first things you can do is communicate changes in your firm. Now here are a few examples of how you can create some changes in your firm. And it's imperative to communicate these changes to existing clients for sure and also brand new clients in the future. So we have to update our firm services to include communications to any qualified client being current or a brand new client. So we can advise them and and let them know about our advisory and accounting services. You can advise and let people know that there might be fee increases. A big, big one is that if you want people to upload documents to your portal, let's say, by March 1st every single year, you can impose a late fee that if they don't do it, that you're gonna make sure that they're paying a late fee before you start any work. Whatever the changes in your firm, you get to choose. I'm just saying, get communicating. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes that most firm owners do is that we wait till the last minute. We're not making the communication changes in advance. So sending out a price increase notice or a change a notice of change letter every year is imperative. And I always recommend send out the same letter, like, 3 times. Okay? People don't read things the first time. So if you send it 1 month, send it 2 to 3 weeks later, and then again 2 to 3 weeks later for anyone that did not open it if you're doing it via email. But maybe also sending a paper version is a good idea too if that's what you choose. But for any virtual firms, it's a 100% possible to send this within your, you know, tax softwares, your accounting, whatever you're using for your CRM or just a basic email. Now, I wanna share with you because Lisa I can remember this conversation. When we met, on her p and l, she had $30,000 of discounts that she would actually physically input as an expense because she discounted her clients. And she had lost her job during COVID and was struggling. Does she go back to corporate or does she go all in on her bookkeeping firm? And, she decided to go all in on her bookkeeping firm, but like I said, on her p and l, it said $30,000 of discounts. She also, like Chelsea, had tried other coaches, other programs out there to change all this stuff, but only people provided tips. They actually didn't help her get to the next level. And what I call that is having transformational results. She didn't have the accountability. She didn't have her handheld when it was scary to make price increase changes, and she just didn't get to where she needed to go. She took that leap of faith, ended up working with me. She learned how to identify her ideal client. This was kinda one of the first steps after understanding her value because we needed to say who belonged here and who did not belong here. It's kinda like in the NBA. Right? You have your starting team, but then you have bench players, and then people are making trades all the time. We have to think about our client roster as our little NBA team. Who do we want as our starting clients? Who do we want on the bench, and who do we need to trade and get out of here? So after working with us, Lissa was able to identify her ideal client. She also sent a price increase letter out to the few clients that she had. She increased her monthly reoccurring revenue by $10,000 a month, and she was on track to do a $125,000 a year of revenue right when we first met. She had zero reoccurring revenue, by the way. Everything Lissa was doing was just like one time cleanups or, you know, just regular one time projects. Nothing was billed on a monthly basis on the 1st of the month where she got paid in advance of doing any work. This is powerful, and this is possible for you too. So I'd love to open it up for a poll, and then we will continue. So we're gonna let you have about a minute to answer this poll. Make sure to answer it because this is how we can track for your CPEs. And then, also, while we're doing that, just a reminder if you wanna put your email but let me actually find the link. So just make sure to put in the poll. And, again, if you wanna put your email address in the chat box, I will make sure to send you the downloadable template for the value and worth exercise. You still got a little bit more time for the poll. Alright. And then, for those of you that are done with the poll, why don't you type in the chat box, what have you gotten out of this part of the talk? So really understanding who is your ideal client, why don't you type that in the chat box? Oops. And then we will continue. Knowing your worth. Yes. Knowing our worth is a knowing our worth is a big piece to this puzzle for sure. Alright. So we're gonna go over the steps and how to have a system to package and price our services the right way. Okay? Because I think this is a very important piece to the puzzle. And, you know, it's just really important that we get our steps in order and, really make really get a dent in this. Okay? So let's go through the different steps, and you're gonna wanna make sure you have your pen and paper so you can take some notes as always. And we're gonna talk about the old way that maybe you've done things up until today. So the old way is that we get as many clients as possible. Right? Who here has done that? Or maybe you don't know what to charge and you wing it with every client. You just show up to the meetings and make up a price as you go. Or maybe you're like, Lisa, you give discounts, you negotiate, you justify your fees, and you're like, oh, well, maybe they'll pay me more in the future. Or you send out proposals and quotes and wait for a response and wonder why you got ghosted. How come they bay they bailed on you? You never heard from them. Maybe you do free work and hope to get paid premium fees, you know, in the future once you've proven yourself, and then you're like, oh, well, they've been getting a good deal for a couple years now. They're never gonna pay me more. Or you waste time chasing clients down for payments. You're spending hours, your admins doing your AR collectibles. Like, it's just a mess. You're not collecting interest. You're not collecting penalties, fees on that, and you continue to work. You continue to work even though people owe you a bunch of money. And you ignore your AR, and you cross your fingers and hope that clients will eventually pay. So that's kind of the old way maybe you've done some things. Now not having a system in place and doing things the old way is costing you a ton of time, money, stress, and clients. K? But we need a step by step sales system in our firm where we can implement a sales system that allows us to engage with our ideal clients. It allows us to get paid upfront every single time, which also gives them the confidence in the client, basically, that you know that you can get results that no one else can get. And without a simple sales system in place, you will end up overworked, underpaid, and burnt out. Does anyone right now feel overworked, underpaid, and burnt out in your own firm? Type yes in the chat box if that's you. When you have a sales system and a process in place, all you have to do is just repeat the steps. It's so easy. You don't have to reinvent the wheel with every client. It's just easy breezy. Okay? And these steps will allow you to communicate your value and expertise so clients are willing to pay you more. They are willing to pay a premium. K? And here's the right right way to do it. Number 1, we're gonna prepare and gather information before you even meet with a client. Number 2, you're gonna think of some strategic questions to ask before you even meet with a client. Number 3, you're going to share and present what you found in the meeting with the client. Number 4, you're gonna make an offer to work with them. And number 5, you're going to collect payment in the first meeting. And if you follow these 5 steps, we're gonna go a little bit in more in-depth in each of them, you will have a highly profitable firm full of clients you love. You will not be burnt out anymore. You will have joy and excitement for your firm again. You will not be underpaid. You will actually have a bunch of money in your bank account and be like, oh my gosh. I can plan a vacation. I can put away for retirement. I can actually max out my 401 k this year. Maybe I wanna create a pension. Maybe I actually wanna sell my firm at the end for a really high multiple and I'm creating all this value. You're not gonna be stressed anymore either. I promise. I've seen it too many times for clients that have come a 180 circle. Okay. So prepare and gather information. This is that first bubble. This is one of the most important steps to filling your firm with the right clients who happily pay you upfront. What I mean by prepare and gather information, and I'm gonna use this example for this whole 5 steps. We're gonna talk about a bookkeeping cleanup project. Okay? If you are having to do a cleanup, you are going to get access to their book so you can review and diagnose it just like a doctor would. If you were going to a neurosurgeon because your head hurt and you got the referral to the surgeon, they're gonna look at an MRI. They're gonna look at maybe a CT scan. They're gonna look at X rays maybe. I don't know what they're gonna look at. But in our world, access to their books is like seeing an MRI, CT scan, or X-ray. K? Remember, you are solving a major problem, and they are going to make a huge decision by working with you. We need to spend at least 1 per 1 hour preparing, looking at the book, seeing what's wrong. What did the last person do inaccurately? What mistakes are you seeing? We're not gonna tell them them. We're just gonna notate them and make a list. We need to know what's going on underneath the surface to get to the root cause of why their books are such a mess and why you think they need a cleanup. K? And we need to understand the scope of the service that you will provide. Same goes for if you have to amend a tax return. You need to maybe get the last 2 or 3 year taxes. You need to look at the returns and see what mistakes are there. If you're not doing this before every single prospect meeting, you are wasting a ton of time. K? And before we meet with a client, we need to be very familiar with the client's problems so that we can create the best solution. So solution for the first example would be a cleanup project. A solution for the tax example would be amending returns, maybe doing a tax plan to save them the least or the most amount of money so they pay the least amount to the IRS and be able to anticipate what their potential questions and concerns might be. Okay? So that's important number 1. Also, we have to make sure that we have all this relevant information because then we can price accordingly before we even meet with this prospect. And then we're gonna price on the value of what we're gonna provide. So what's the end result? Maybe you're gonna save them 50 to a $100 in taxes. Maybe you're gonna save them $2 a month and double expenses that you found because their books were such a mess. I'm not sure. You get to understand what is the severity of the problem, and the solution is the cleanup project, but the result is the end result that happens once that work is done. Got it? So once we understand what's going on beneath the surface, you can figure out exactly what to charge before the meeting. Yep. Before the meeting. If you're coming up with a price during a meeting, you're doing it a 100% inaccurately and completely wrong. So you need to have the confidence to charge premium fees because you know the root cause of the problem, and then you will have a 100% confidence in solving it. But it stems from getting all of this stuff upfront before you meet with clients. Remember, tax returns, financial statements, access to books, etcetera, are our version of X rays, MRIs, and CT scans, and you can use that analogy. K? You can steal it and use it with your clients. Now number 2, that's that second bubble. You have to ask the right questions so the clients understand that you get their real situation. Asking strategic questions to guide the client to yes so you don't have to feel salesy, pushy, or anything like that. And also open ended questions is key. Strategic open ended questions help build authority and position yourself as the as the expert. You don't have to say that, you know, you're a CPA and EA, you got a master's in tax, all these other things. We need to remove accountees from our language. We just wanna be able to ask really good questions because that's actually what establishes your expertise. And no one else, by the way, is asking these questions. People just wanna feel heard and understood. The only way to have someone feel heard and understood is to ask them really good questions. We don't need to brag about all of our credentials and all of our work that we've done. That's fine and dandy, and we need to remove any accountees from our vocabulary. People like me, like regular people, we don't understand that. But we do understand paying less to IRS, getting IRS off our back, getting books correct, all that. K? That we do understand. Now the 3rd bubble is share and present your findings. When you're in the meeting with a client, we wanna share high level findings. Nothing technical. K? People don't care about the details as long as you're confident you're gonna get them the result and you can solve it. People buy confidence and certainty. Remember that. And focus on the results and painting the picture of this scenario, what it will look like once they're working with you and how maybe what's gone on for too long has been inaccurate. And make things peep make things really easy for people to understand, like I just said. Remove the techie jargon from the conversation. And one of the ways that you can show certainty is say, you know, Susie, I'm a 100% confident that I can get your books cleaned up and you can save about $2,000 a month that you've been double paying on expenses, and you'll be able to file your returns on time because it seems like you haven't filed returns in the last 2 or 3 years. So you're gonna have penalties and interest on that, and moving forward, you won't. So all that money will be in your bank account so you can sleep peacefully at night. I just made that up as an example, but that's how you could say that. Now we also wanna make the offer, which is the 4th bubble. Right? Most people skip this, which is crazy. Most people say, I will send you an in I will send you a quote or I will send you a proposal to review. If you continue to take the passive approach versus a more proactive approach, you will continue to have no money in your bank account, which ultimately means you're not helping people. If you are helping a lot of people, you should have a very full bank account. K? So if you've done the first one and 2 1st, 2nd, and third step properly, we've already pretty much led them to yes, and now we just have to invite them in to work with us. So it could say, Susie, let's get started on this cleanup project so you don't have to pay these penalties in the next couple weeks. I've got the engagement letter here for us to review, and I have the invoice. Let's review it, and we can get your payment so we can get started. That's how you say, we wanna make an offer, and we wanna collect the payment upfront. So, Susie, which credit card or form of payment will work best for you? We can do a Visa, AmEx, or would you like ACH. Which works best for you? Okay? Not taking a passive approach. We're taking a proactive approach. So we can ask, Susie, do you have any questions? Is there anything that maybe that we missed? When you have a step by step sales system in place so you can price and present your services the right way, you will get paid upfront every time. You're not gonna have any pushback. And if you do, you can learn how to handle objections and a bunch of other stuff later. But at least you know what's going on. You're not being left in the dark. You're not being ghosted. How many of you are sick and tired of wondering and looking at your proposals and seeing, oh, did they sign it? I wonder how come they haven't gotten back to me. I have no idea what kind of work I can expect this year. I feel like that person wanna work with me, and they said they were gonna sign it, and then they just disappeared. Or even worse, how many of you have started work, and they said they were gonna sign something they never did and they never paid you? Has that ever happened to anybody before? Put in the chat box. So you can eliminate 90% of the time wasting strategies you've been doing and replace it with this simple step by step system, 5 steps. K? Now we have another poll, so I'd love to have this minute to allow you to answer the poll questions. Alright. Polls are coming in. Looking good. Alright. Why don't you type in the chat box who is ready to implement these steps so you're no longer ghosted, you have money in the bank, You don't have to wonder if people are gonna sign your proposals or quotes. Right? You're ready to implement these. Awesome, you guys. Great. I love it. Alright. Let's wrap up this poll and get back to things. I think it's been a minute. Yeah. We're ready. Good. Let's put the old way in the let's bury it in the past. Okay? Now for some of you, you're gonna implement what I shared with you today. No problem. But some of you might wanna invest in men in mentoring. Okay? I think this is one of the most important steps as well in building and growing your firm in order if you wanna retire early, sell or whatever. And I've shared a lot of information with you that is a proven method, and I am here to help you as a coach to execute these strategies if you want. I have helped over 321 tax accounting and bookkeeping firm owners quickly grow their revenue, eliminate AR, implement all the steps we talked about, and do it without stress or burnout and actually enjoy their career and their firm again. I have term firms completely around, so you can actually have relaxed success and go on vacations that you only dreamt of before. And what I find is sometimes leveraging a coach keeps you accountable and drive success. Right? So my team and I have set aside time in the next 48 hours to speak to you personally about how you can apply these ideas in your firm today. So if you'd like to explore that, you can go to the abundant call dot com and, book your time with us and make all these changes right now. Okay? So, again, it's the abundant I'm gonna put this here for you too. Abundantcall.com and book the first time you see. If you do book a spot, there is a short application that I would like for you to fill out right away. If you don't fill it out, then we cancel the call, but it is part of our steps. Right? When we're talking about our ideal client, we want clients that follow directions. So just fill out the short application at the abundant call dot com. And I wanna go over what do we talk about on this call. So our goal is to give you massive clarity. We're gonna talk about where is your firm right now and how fed up are you, and then where do you wanna go and how can you get there quickly with the least amount of mistakes and pitfalls along the way. We're also gonna talk more about your dream clients. Who are those clients that will happily pay you 2 to 300% more than whatever you're getting today? And what are those exact prices you should be charging so you have a full bank account so you have that freedom? What's that magic number that will bring in the revenue? And what is the exact formula that you should follow to constantly enroll those clients in premium fees, get paid upfront, and reduce your workload? So we're gonna go over those 5 things we talked about today, but customize them to you and your firm because each of you are different. So this is what the calendar booking page looks like. Again, if you want total transformation and you want all this to change, it can be done in the next 8 weeks. Just make sure to go to the abundant call.com, and we would love to speak to some of you. And now I would like to go into q and a. So let's see what our first question is of the day. Alright. So we don't even know how to write up a decent proposal. So sometimes if you don't know how to write up a decent proposal, it's because we don't even know what we wanna offer. So first, we have to understand what what is the client's problem, and then what is that solution for them? Once you have a clear decision on that, writing the proposal or what I call an engagement letter is very simple. There's also tools out there like Ignition or Anchor and other services that will help you create that, but the biggest thing is that you wanna create it upfront. Okay? So just make sure about that. Also, for those of you that, you know, are having a hard time getting paid upfront, it's really important to use something. It doesn't matter what you use. I know, like, there's everything and anything that any firm owner has ever used can have a payment upfront feature. It's just you have to use the button. And most of them are pay in advance or take payment on behalf of client. So you wanna make sure you have that. Okay? Good. Any other questions for today? Please type them in the chat box. Also, while we're waiting for some questions, there are some more free training and resources, okay, that you can go to. Oh, we have a q and a over here. Okay. Alright. We got a question. Oh, we got a bunch of questions. Alright. So is there an ideal place to find clients? Again, I'm gonna talk about that question more of the form of marketing where we don't wanna even look for clients until we've implemented this. So that would be more of a marketing webinar and we're not gonna talk about today. But at first, I would say know who your ideal client is, know the pain points, and know how you can solve them. Okay? What are some of the mistakes to avoid when raising fees? I would say some of the biggest mistakes I've seen is really about not discounting, not going down below your value. So once you've figured out your value and remember, if you want my value worksheet, please type that in the chat box your email so we can send it to you. But some of the biggest mistakes to avoid when raising fees is discounting, negotiating, letting people pay you later after you've started work. You have to put a stop to all of that. That's really crucial for that. And then I I mean, there's so many questions you guys. This is awesome. For those of you that feel like you have to work with everyone to be successful, what do you do? You have to really think about the ideal client piece that we spoke about earlier. I can't stress that enough. Like, I get asked by law firms and different attorneys and financial planners if I can teach this to them, and I say no all the time. So the more you start to see yourself saying no, the more you will start to see your revenue increase. I know it's crazy to say, but you can't work with everyone to be successful. The choosier the choosier you are and the picky you are, the more your revenue will grow. K? It's really amazing to see when that happens. Okay. Can you talk more about determining the right questions to ask? Yeah. So in the version of, let's say, that QuickBooks cleanup project, like with Susie. Right? With Susie, you could say, you know, what has been the most frustrating part of filing a return late because your books are messed up? That would be a great question to ask. It's open ended. You're getting the frustrating part out because you want them remember, clients will feel valued when they're heard and seen and understood. So you wanna ask open ended questions. That would be one. You could also say, you know, Susie, with having your books messed up, how has it been running a business in the dark? You don't even know what's going on because you don't even know your numbers. How has that been for you? You could ask a question like that. So those are a couple of examples, and I would recommend that you have at least 10 open ended questions ready to go while you're doing your 1 hour of preparation. Okay? So, again, for those of you that wanna talk about some of your questions 1 on 1, we discussed it on our call. So you can book your spot at theabundantcall.com, and we can get into more 1 on 1 questions. So make sure to grab your spot if you see 1. Okay. There's so many more questions. This is awesome. How do I know if I'm charging too little, and are there any negative impacts of this? I, and are there any negative impacts of underpricing my services? So I think this is a really great question because here are some ways you know you're charging too little. Do you resent your clients? Do you look at your bank account and say, wow, I work so hard and I have so little to show for it. Do you think, how am I ever gonna retire? I feel like a workhorse. I'm working 12, 14, 18 hour days, but I have nothing to show for it. When you feel like you're just working for free, that is when you know you are charging too little. And the negative impacts of that actually go into your work. It's a domino effect into doing lower quality work, being frustrated, and resenting your clients. So, you know, for you guys, just make sure to head on over to the abundant call dot com. Myself and my team would love to talk to you. There's 3 of us on the team that will do the calls and, you know, it's just great to have a blueprint that you can know exactly what are those gaps in your firm for you and how can you fix them. And then we can talk about how we can work together if that's something you even wanna do, but it's not mandatory. We just wanna make sure that you have the opportunity to see for yourself in a mirror what isn't working so you can make these changes now. Because I know that as an industry and as a collective, we can make the change. If you increase your fees, you get paid upfront, you don't have AR, that means someone else isn't gonna say to their next firm owner, oh, I'm gonna go find someone cheaper. I think we're all sick of hearing it, and it all starts from change right here, right now for you. If you make these changes we talked about in your firm, everyone here can increase their revenue and get paid what they're worth. We can all together charge what we want, and that's what you guys deserve. So I just wanna say thank you so much for being here with me today. It's been an honor, and, I look forward to speaking to some of you soon. So thank you so much. Bye, guys. Thank you.