Business Strategy for CPA's

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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There is endless conversation about technology, software, and automation disrupting the accounting space. 

Do you feel like your systems are pretty much automated, where you can just show up and mouse click one button, and it spits out all the reports and dashboards you need for your hundreds of clients?

If that sounds like the dream, but you’re a ways off, stay with us, because today I am talking with Ryan Lazanis, founder of FUTURE FIRM, and we are talking about what to do right when it comes to tech and automation.

Ryan founded Zen Accounting that he grew to the point of being acquired in just 5 short years, thanks to the tech-oriented, scalable model he put in place. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

– “The overemphasis on using technology and automation is not what's really going to move the needle the most.” 

– “The big reason why people want to use more technology and more automation is because they just want to make their life easier.”

– “Once we can have standard processes for everything that we do in the firm, that's when we can really reap the rewards of technology and automation.”

– “I would recommend a person in your firm when you're ready to really leverage automation. Especially those modern firms that probably know about all those latest tools, they need a person to help put it all together.”

– “Why not have all the routine tasks automated so that you can get freed up to do more of what's valuable to your clients?”

Connect with  Ryan Lazanis:

Website: https://futurefirm.co/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlazanis/

Podcast mentions:

Future Firm Accounting Podcast: My 6 Favorite Accounting Communities to Learn From

Software mentions:

Zapier - https://zapier.com/

Karbon - https://karbonhq.com/

Teamwork - https://www.teamwork.com/

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

1. Text Expander - Available on Android and Mac - I use it on my iPhone but for short things I just use the built in keyboard shortcuts, especially for all the forms that need filling in. Other options: aText and Gorgias, which is a Chrome extension
2. Video Speed Controller - Speed up, slowdown, skip ahead, and rewind, all with keyboard shortcuts.
3. Screen Resizer - stop being a masterful mouser, and use a Screen Resizer to make your screens snap to specific guidelines. Try MaxSnap, Divvy, SizeUp
4. Email Tracker - Streak or Hunter
5. Screen Recorder  -  Loom - For screen recording or any window, tab, or screen. Send the URL of your video with a URL.

Want some help in your CPA firm, but not sure where to start?

Schedule a free discovery call with me:

https://calendly.com/geraldinecarter/15min

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Subscription pricing is all the rage right now. 

Most CPAs are stuck when it comes to pricing - some have moved to flat-rate or subscription pricing, but many - if not most - still bill by the hour.

What they often struggle to understand is the full depth of the value they offer to their clients, and because they don’t fully understand value, they are leaving Everest Sized Mountains of Money on the table, which means they have to work a lot harder to compensate for the missed opportunity. 

Here today to talk with me about this problem is my guest, Ron Baker.

Ron Baker is the author of numerous books including Implementing value pricing, and Mind over Matter, why intellectual capital is the chief source of wealth, he has received countless awards for his contributions to the accounting profession, and he is the founder of the VeraSage Institute, a think tank dedicated to teaching value pricing. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

The subscription business model puts the client relationship at the center of the business and Customer Lifetime Value at the center of the dashboard. 

Innovation is baked into the model. 

You’re taking responsibility for creating a result, not delivering tasks.

The subscription model forces you to articulate and communicate and market and position and have a strategy built around that end purpose.

if you're interested in building wealth beyond the transactional math of the moment, then you've got to consider subscription.

Connect with Ron:

Website: https://www.verasage.com/

Episode mentions:

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/081

Other pricing episodes:

Jonathan Stark:

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/111

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/106

Mark Stiving:

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/125

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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There’s an industry-wide gravitational force toward regular hour-long meetings. 

Somewhere along the way it was decided that hourly meetings held weekly, monthly or quarterly are the way to deliver services.

It may be true that regular meetings are the best way to deliver services, but what’s the best way to deliver RESULTS?

Here today to talk with me about this question is Ben Manly, owner of Knapsack Creative. 

Knapsack creative is known for delivering gorgeous, effective websites, in ONE DAY. 

I wanted to have Ben on to talk about how to make the shift from the old-school way of doing things, to a new way of designing something to provide an outstanding product, and excellent service, so that you might look at your own services through a different lens, and perhaps find ways to deliver more value more easily. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

– When I realized just how fast it was to design something live, that’s when the lightbulb went off that I could try to build websites this same way. 

– It turned out that the smaller projects were more valuable than the larger ones, so at some point it became clear it was time to just go all in on the small ones. And that made all the difference. 

– Initially I thought there was no way you could build a great website in just a day, and no one would pay for that. But then I realized just how much value you can add in a short amount of time, if you systematize things. 

Connect with Ben:

Website: https://www.knapsackcreative.com/

Episode mentions:

Mike Michalowicz on Get Different:

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/156

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Want to find out how to get CPE for this episode?

Get on my Daily Email List for up-to-date information on all the courses I offer that qualify for CPE.  Subscribe at SheThinksBigCoaching.com

VALUE-PRICING

Value pricing is best for discreet projects with a beginning, middle and end, whose value is greater than $100K to the client, and therefore priced starting at $10K. 

If less than the above, consider simply flat-rating the service. 

MENU PRICING

Menu pricing is well-suited for shifting to Advisory Services. You can offer bronze, silver, and gold level options, with varying price-spreads. See Pricing Curves, below. 

FLAT RATE AND FIXED FEE

Perfect for services and deliverables to do all the time, so you have a handle on approximate scope. Assess how long a certain service takes on average, then double that amount of time and place your fee there. Get used to the feel of divorcing time and money, and you will most certainly get faster at what you do. 

SEGMENTED

If there is wide variation in services you offer and the types of clients you offer them for, then group your clients and those services into segments. Then price each different segment as needed. 

ADVISORY RETAINER

Not your old-school lawyer-style retainer, advisory retainer is well-suited once a value-priced project is complete. Unforeseen challenges and questions are likely to pop up, and having access to your smarts can be immensely valuable. Good for a predetermined but finite amount of time. 

CONTINGENCY

Proceed with caution, as the risk with contingency is perverse incentives. However, when done properly, both parties can benefit from the low risk on the buyer's side at the time of purchase, with the reward for the seller at the time of success. 

PRICING CURVES:

Might as Well pricing drives the buyer to the most expensive option, because with the curve at 1x, 1.5x, and 1.75x, the buyer “Might as Well” buy the most expensive option. 

Goldilocks pricing drives the buyer to the middle option, because the curve of 1x, 2.2x, and 5x drives the buyer to the middle option, because just like Goldilocks, it’s “just right, in the middle.”

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

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These questions often comes up: “How to I raise my rates?” and “How much should I charge?” and “How do I price this service?”

The answer appears to be quite simple: Apply logic. Logic says raise your rates. Therefore, raise your rates. 

The problem is, that’s not how it works. And we know that’s not how it works, because we see countless logical CPAs continue to underprice their services. 

If in fact it were as simple as Apply Logic > Logic says Raise Your Rates if it’s true that CPAs are logical people, (they are), then we would see CPAs having no problem raising their rates. 

The reason we see so many CPAs underpriced is because…. Only applying logic isn’t how it works. 

Today I outline how it actually works to raise your raise in real reality, having helped dozens of CPAs actually raise their rates.

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Intangibles have value. And value is the precursor to price. 

If you’re not great at measuring so called intangibles, you won’t appreciate their value, and if you don’t appreciate their value, you’ll underprice, and when you underprice, you’re going to leave a lot of money on the table.

Then you’re going to have to work really hard to compensate for not understanding how to measure, value, and price intangibles. 

3 sections today:

1. Why CPAs can get stuck here
2. Debunk intangibility
3. Steps to get you closer to measuring, valuing, and pricing the intangible

SECTION 1

CPAs especially get so caught in this question, moreso than in some other professions, because of a few factors:

1. Few thought-leaders in the industry know the answer. Many leaders in the industry do not appear to have cracked this nut. So there are few people to get the answer from. 
2. Industry standard. You get your license, you wonder how to price, you look around, other CPAs are billing by the hour so you think ok, this is how it’s done
3. We can all agree on the length of an hour, so it appears to shorten pricing conversations, and there are so many other things to get to in business, so, rather than grapple with this difficult questions that who knows if it even has an answer, how about getting some work done. … so the question gets left unanswered.
4. Because CPAs deal primarily in dollars and numbers, they haven’t been required in quite the same way to learn the value of subjective things. (By contrast, a professional commissioned artist is required to grapple with subjective value of art. But if you’re in the business of art, you’re likely to have a better appreciation and acceptance of the concept OF the subjective nature of intangibles, and their value.)
5. And, GAAP accounting doesn’t help. The idea that only financial transactions get accounted for, and therefore only things financial in nature appear on the Balance Sheet, doesn’t help a person appreciate the value of assets that are intangible. 

Next up what we need to do is debunk 3 intangible myths. 

1. That they’re intangible. Some of the things you think are intangible, are actually quite tangible. 

Where people get stuck is the idea that it has to be a physical object to be measurable. More things are tangible than you might have realized if you go inside your body and ask if you can perceive it with your senses.

1. Things you cannot see as a material, or physical thing, cannot be measured.

• We tend to use time, weight, length, dollars, to measure things. But just because you can’t use one of these common tools doesn’t mean you can’t measure it.  
• You can measure by comparison. A lot of a thing, or a little of a thing, crap ton of work to do, increase your peace of mind. 
• You can measure by rough percentages. Like cutting client fires in half, increase employee engagement by 40%
• They are relative, they are measurements, and they could be useful.

Scales and tape measures aren’t the only way to measure things.

1. You have to measure directly. 

If I want to measure stress, one way is to draw a vial of blood and test for cortisol. But if a person reaches for the video game console to destress, then we can measure how much time they spend playing games to destress. 

Once you start doing this, you may find that you use indirect measures more often than direct ones

1. Needs to be exact

It doesn’t need to be exact to be useful. 

As long as it’s precise enough to be useful, you’re allowed to use it.

The actual steps to get you closer to measuring, valuing, and pricing the intangible

Learn to listen for the intangibles that are important to your buyer.

“Save me from snapping a box of #2 pencils in half because I never would have figured this out.” That’s frustration. Tune your ears to these things.

Find out what they use to measure that intangible - how often they play video games or golf to destress or unplug,  to how many games of golf they play a week if business is running smooth - Find out what their indirect measures are. 

And ask what that would be worth to them to have those things. 

And you can get at the value of improving their condition through the backdoor, with a question like, 

“Let’s just say, hypothetically, we WERE able to create that outcome. Would that be worth a million bucks? Or $500K or $250? Or Just $10,000?

They’ll GIVE you a range. 

Now you have an answer of what the intangible thing, is worth to them.

And WHAT they tell YOU, is how you price intangibles. 

Perhaps that’s Myth #5 that needs debunking, is the very nature of the question is flawed, when framed as “How do I price intangibles.”

How can I understand, appreciate, and translate into a dollar figure what intangibles are worth to my buyer?

YOU don’t determine the price of intangibles, your buyers do. 

Want some help in your CPA firm, but not sure where to start?

Schedule a free discovery call with me:

https://calendly.com/geraldinecarter/15min

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Today I speak with Catherine Ozment, CPA, who I asked to return after last week’s episode. 

Last week on the podcast I have Catherine Ozment, CPA. She and I have been working together for just shy of a year, and she’s making huge strides in pivoting her business. If you haven’t heard it, it’s 141, go back and listen to that first if you want this conversation to make more sense in context. But if you’re driving or running and might not be able to, the quick and dirty is that

toward the end of the episode, after talking about technical stuff, money, strategy, and all things logic, she basically says: “At the end of the day, the most important thing is to believe it’s possible.”

And it made me think, “If simply believing it’s possible, is the most important thing, then listeners need to have an episode on that.”

And I could not agree more, that the head space your thoughts occupy is the SINGLE BIGGEST DRIVER of your progress. 

So that you can hear perspective from Catherine, I asked her to have another conversation, which we tacked on to the end of one of our regular meetings. 

Buckle up, because we’re talking at 75 miles an hour for  Part 2 with Catherine Ozment.

Highlights

“If I had believed then, that the sky is the limit, I would probably be 3x farther along.” 

“Seeing that the value really does exist, and that I really could deliver what I was telling them I could deliver, is going to increase my business by exponential amounts.”

“This industry has a gaping hole, and creating a service with the numbers, benchmarks, and budgets in a way that’s uniquely designed for my farming clients – is incredibly valuable and is a complete game changer for them.” 

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Connect with Catherine:

Website: http://www.catherineozment.com/

Episode mentions:

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/142

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Many of you know how difficult and time consuming it can be to run a tax factory:

It’s all too easy to get buried under a mountain of tax, underprice services, and be in what feels like a near steady state of chaos. 

The desire is often to work 25 hours a week and take home compensation that’s respectable, and representative of all the work you have put in to attain the knowledge that can be so valuable, and to stop grinding it out.

My guest today is Catherine Ozment. 

Catherine Is a CPA in south Texas, who called last year, wanting to get off the hamster wheel and get intentional about creating a thriving practice that is designed and built to sell at a high multiple. We’ve been working together on that vision. For just shy of a year.We’re talking about what has changed and what she’s learned along the way, so that you can have a window into what shifting your accounting practice is actually like. 

Highlights

“I’m finally making a transition from running a tax factory to having a niche, building relationships with the right clients, and providing real value.”

“I was ready to stop putting numbers in boxes and really help my clients do a lot better financially: budget, plan for growth, be CFO.”

“I have 7 grandbabies. I didn’t want to be working 60-80 hours a week anymore. But I needed somebody else to help me make things change.” 

“The hardest part about niching is that the clients in your roster are real people whose lives you are a part of. But we found a way to keep those clients and still be profitable, so I feel like I have the best of both worlds.”

“At first it was hard to quote these prices that were so much higher than I was used to, but then, once I saw that I was able to save them 6 digits year after year, I really started to appreciate the value I brought to the table. At that made pricing a lot easier.”

“The biggest thing has been the mindset shift: getting out of minutiae and putting myself in the CEO chair.”

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Connect with Catherine:

Website: http://www.catherineozment.com/

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

Today we’re playing BS CPA LINGO BINGO. 

Lingo in the accounting space that makes some of us kind of crazy. 

There are five terms that are especially problematic for CPAs and accountants that slow business growth. 

In this First Edition of BS CPA LINGO BINGO, I’ll call out for 

B! Advisory Services; I! Future-Proof; N! Trusted Advisor; G! Wait for it…; O! The 3% Rule of Thumb. 

B! Advisory Services; 

• The buyer asks, “Is there service without advice?”
• Buyers want the whole experience, not just the service

I! Future-Proof; 

• Anything -proof connotes something you don’t want, or are trying to protect yourself from
• The future will be here tomorrow, like it or not
• You’re best off embracing the future with wide-open arms

N! Trusted Advisor; 

• It makes no sense - why take advice from someone you don’t trust?
• It’s like Honest Banking - it’s not convincing
• Trust is built and generated, not granted

G! Big Firm Capability, Small Firm Personality:

• It’s not believable
• Why differentiate on personality when you can differentiate on wealth generation

O! The 3% Rule of Thumb:

• Collective business decision with no business strategy behind it
• Caps your income at 3% of your clients’ revenue - why would you do that to yourself?

Want to get your accounting practice to the next level?

Focus on creating value, selling outcomes, and pricing those outcomes. You’ll set yourself apart as a CPA who provides great service. 

Want some help in your CPA firm, but not sure where to start?

Schedule a free discovery call with me:

https://calendly.com/geraldinecarter/15min

Want to find out what options you might have for working together?

More about 1:1 coaching, roadmaps, and DIY courses here:

https://shethinksbigcoaching.com/coaching-options

Announcing the *NEW* Client Success Stories podcast: 

https://business-strategy-for-cpas-success-stories.transistor.fm/

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆