GROWTH & PROFIT ACADEMY

Imagine if, every time a new client signed the proposal, a set of clean pyjamas was automatically sent to a child in emergency care?

Don't just raise your prices across the board It might seem like a great idea initially. Raise all of your clients fees by 30% and THEN you'll be making a profit. Right? This would be the case, if all of your clients were the same. But fact is, they aren't. When you're repricing clients, they should be split into three distinct sections: Profitable clients Clients who you break even with. Clients who are losing you money. If you increased your prices by 30% across the board, you will just annoy the first group, who were profitable anyway. You should start to see a profit on the second group. But chances are you'll still be losing money on the third. Splitting them into these three sections, means you can meet them with three different approaches. Free Download: How successful Accountancy Firms have the Fee Review conversation with their clients Where should I start? We should start with the repricing of the third group, those who are losing you money. Their fees need to be raised si

Discover the margins that remain largely invisible but decision by decision, they get squeezed, taking you closer to the edge.

Igot a very emotional phone call from a business owner this week. She was totally overwhelmed with everything that's going on, couldn't see a way through. Her revenue had taken a 40% hit and she was about to make a series of decisions based on this bleak perspective and from a position of fear. She was at rock bottom, a level 0, and within 24 hours I was able to take her to a level 10 and thinking very differently. It's this approach that I want to share with you here. This is her... and this was her meeting with her team today which was VERY different to what she thought she WAS going to say to them. The Practical Positivity Approach The approach I used is something I'm calling 'practical positivity' to help her see her situation through a different lens and to start looking upward. I wanted to help her to cut through the drama

Even if you’re one of the few firms which has figured out how to correctly charge your clients in the first place, the complexity of the services you provide and the constantly changing nature of your client’s businesses, means that the scope of work can quickly become out of alignment with what they’re paying you. So unless you have a system which flexes throughout the year which is driven by your team , you’ll end up over-servicing and undercharge your clients. This then leads to a lot of accountancy firms not making enough money to be able to deliver the level of service your clients are happy to pay for and one of two things tend to happen: - You over-service and undercharge your clients (nightmare for you.) - You attempt to hit them with an ‘ambush invoice’ at the end of the year... IF..... you can figure out what they actually owe you (nightmare for you AND them.) Neither work. All you want is to be paid for the hard work you do right? There are several ways firms attempt to solve this, but over the yea

So, you've just increased your prices, you've now had a few client meetings, and perhaps they've not gone as well as you'd hoped. The client's not jumping for joy, they're saying you're too expensive, or you're charging more than my previous accountant or they didn't expect to be paying that much and perhaps you've not had them signing your proposals instantly or even at all. And so when that starts to happen what the logical thing to do is, to think well, I've increased my prices, now people aren't accepting the price, therefore I've got my price wrong, so let's bring the price back down. The problem is that perhaps your price is now where it needs to be, but it's other aspects of the equation that's causing that client not to sign up. So, it's unfair just to consider price, when you need to consider the full equation at work here. So, what I'm going to do is take you through each aspect of the equation. I'm going to give you some questions to challenge each of those aspects to make sure that they're as rob

Pricing Tax Returns is a real challenge. If you have a fix fee, those clients who have more complicated affairs are getting it cheaper.And those who have simpler affairs are being overpriced and may eventually leave. So you’re left with clients who you’re doing too much work for. Meades & Co. discovered a far better method for pricing Tax Returns that allows their firm to deliver the most value and have the greatest impact with his clients. In this podcast you’ll discover how they do it, the results they’ve been able to achieve and the potential pitfalls you can encounter if you don’t price this way.

‘Person first, client second’ is one the core principle we have at My Accountancy Place, which enables us to serve our clients to a much higher level, give them far more value and which has contributed towards growing our monthly recurring revenue by 50% in the last nine months alone. Not only that, when you fully embrace this philosophy, it enables you to… Improve retention rates Develop lifelong relationships with your clients Sign clients up quicker Have them buying more of your most valuable services Have more fun It’s a very subtle shift in thinking and seemingly backwards in some respects and therefore very few accountancy firms around the world ever make it.

There’s a phenomenon that has lead accountants and bookkeepers to thinking that they should give their clients 3 options to choose from, when selling to them. This approach causes many problems and can’t work effectively for one good reason. The reason I really wanted to share this with you is that I believe there is so much bad advice out there about what accountants should or shouldn’t be doing. And a lot of it is not grounded in fact. In our accountancy firm, we have PROVEN that offering clients 3 options doesn’t work because it delays the sales process and undermines your authority. That’s why this method I’m sharing with you has been so effective. Why should you let your clients decide what they need? After all, YOU are the expert. You wouldn’t want your doctor or surgeon to allow you to pick a card, any card, about what treatment you need would you? You would expect them to TELL you what you need, based on the consultation they’ve given you. Make sense? So check out this consultative sales approach I’m

There’s a downward spiral that accountants can easily fall into, that zaps all of their energy and time. This spiral then prevents them from investing their time and energy into the clients that they’d love to be able to serve to a higher level BUT….. the reason that they’re unable to break free from this spiral is the very fact that they are an accountant. “Accountant thinking” is great when finding problems within a set of accounts, but not necessarily when it comes to making risky decisions. So I’ve come up with a risk free method of breaking free from this spiral that can having a huge impact on your revenue and save huge amounts of time, energy and frustration. PS Sorry about the interruption at the end. Kids eh!!!

I get to meet so many accountants who’s goal is to provide the most value they can to their clients, but the one question they always ask me is…..how can we make life easier and get paid more for the hard work that we do? So I’ve put together my 7 Step Battleplan that solves this problem once and for all. It will help you to get rid of the time wasters, charge more for your services, deliver greater value to your clients and make life a lot easier. It’s very logical to implement, it takes just 7 days before you start seeing results and within just 3 months, your firm could be dramatically different. Are you ready to change your firm?!?!!?!?!?….. Well here we go. Summary Of The 7 Step Battleplan STEP 1 | Unify Your Pricing If you’re not reliant on a 100% consistent, unified pricing system for your firm, then you are reliant upon people. You therefore don’t have a business, you have a collection of freelance accountants all making their own decisions about what to charge who. This causes the majority of your pa

There are 7 fundamental mistakes that accountancy firms makes when they attempt to systemise, that lead to them being exposed to the 3 vulnerabilities. These mistakes are… They systemise like a firefighter They don’t use automation They have too many cracks in the systems The process was broken in the first place (this is the killer) You were never told the true goal They take on the wrong technology Your staff were never brought along the journey

There are 3 major vulnerabilities that accountancy firms around the world expose themselves to. And these 3 vulnerabilities cause nearly every problem within your firm and are the reason why you feel overwhelmed and overworked. In this podcast I outline what those 3 vulnerabilities are, the real problems they create and how to avoid exposing your firm and yourself to them in the first place.

I met with a firm of accountants who had a real issue with regards their pricing. They had several proposals out and none of the prospects were signing them, and they didn’t feel confident that those prospects were ever going to sign those proposals either. And when I asked them how they’d arrived at the pricing that they had sent out, they said they’d be mentored by a very prominent person who very highly regarded with regards to pricing for the accounting industry. They said they’d been taught to sell their premium-level service, their highest-end package to that client, and then if the client  isn’t happy with it and they don’t want to go ahead with it, take things out of it. Because nobody likes anything being taken away, and they won’t want that to happen, and so they’re more likely to sign up for your high-end package. The problem is… that’s not what I advocate with the accountants that I work with around the world, OR what we do in the firm in which I’m a Director of. I believe in being totally transpa

There are five levels of accountancy firms. Most accountants are aware of the first three levels, but not a lot of them have been told about the highest two levels that you can actually take your accountancy firm to. What I want to do, is talk you through each of the five levels, explain what the characteristics are of each of them, how you transition from one to the next and what the ultimate two levels of an accountancy firm are. Now I’ve been working with leading accountancy firms around the world for quite some time now, helping them to systemize and automate their business and so I’ve got to see lots of different accountants, got to really understand them from the inside out and understand what the challenges are, where they think they are, and actually showing them where they can get to and where they really need to get to, moving forward.

There’s a real subtle transition you can make with regards to your marketing, it’s like a 2mm adjustment you can make with it, its not going to cost you a penny and it will massively increase the engagement you have with your audience and also get them to take the action you want them to take much faster!

Sometimes, the only way you’re going to find the resources that you need to achieve all you can, is by removing all other options. It’s about only having a Plan A with no fall back. Sometimes, this is the only way for you to achieve your goals. We call this burning the boats. Here’s the story of “Burning The Boats”, how I’ve used this principle in my life and how you can use it in yours.

“I didn’t feel like I got much done today” is a common phrase that business owners in particular say at the end of the day. EVEN THOUGH you planned out your time. EVEN THOUGH you worked on the right things. So why DIDN’T you get much done? Let me tell you a story!!! I can explain exactly why you felt that why and why in fact you didn’t get as much done as you would have hoped, and……. it’s not your fault. Well not really. And what we do is that we look for the big time and energy thieves to blame. We look for the things which steal hours from us or even days. But the problem is far more subtler than that and totally understandable as to why you didn’t see it happen. So let me help you to combat this problem once and for all.

It is so costly in terms of both time and money to get a new customer to walk through your door in the first place. It is then imperative that you maximise their lifetime value. And when you know how, it’s relatively straightforward too. This is a story of how I visited a high end cafe recently who got this horribly wrong. Now you might think it’s a challenge to maximise your customer’s lifetime value, but the reality is, it’s never been easier. If you’re armed with the strategy and you understand the steps you need to take, you can nail it. Technology can automate the system and the cost of this technology makes it within reach of small businesses…..even cafes.

Business is easy until you start employing people. This is because people are awesome and people are awesome and they will always be your greatest frustration. These are ten steps to better hiring which I learnt from Dave Ramsey. SUMMARY Make it hard for people to be employed by you and set up hoops and hurdles for them to get through and over. Employ thoroughbreds, not donkeys and understand that they do not mix and won’t enjoy each other’s company. Conduct a minimum of 4 interviews per person and the first interview could be just 5 minutes. Conduct spousal interviews where you get to see them with their partner in a relaxed setting. Don’t motivate staff. Employ motivated people. Don’t allow any gossip within the workplace. You don’t want any drama. Release (fire) people with love and allow them to go and find their true vocation. Firing people is THE most important step. Encourage referrals from staff & provide an incentive which everyone gets to see being paid out Have the candidate reflect on their livin