It’s Okay to Say No to Clients (Even the Large Ones)

Working with “smaller” clients can often be more rewarding – and profitable – than “big” clients.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

There’s a reason you aren’t actively training clients to allow you to work efficiently. You’re afraid that you’ll lose clients.

I guarantee that you will.

MORE: Control Your Time: Avoid Ambush Meetings and Calls | Get Clients to Bring Tax Docs Early … Yes, EARLYWhy Time Tracking Still Matters | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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Clients have trained you to be inefficient. They’ll resist retraining. Some of them will leave and infect someone else’s practice.

The reason you fear losing clients is that you fear you can’t replace them.

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Stop Sending the Wrong Message to Audit Teams

Audit is becoming further commodified. 

By Alan Anderson
Transforming Audit for the Future

Instant download:
The New Manifesto for Accountants.

The value of what we provide to clients has declined until it has become a commodity. That, in turn, drives our fees down.

The lack of innovation means that our clients can’t tell the difference between the audit we do and one done by the firm down the street. None of them provide relevant information or any value to our clients.

MORE: Three Fundamental Questions to Ask in Audit | How Auditors Can Beat AI | The Big Issues in Audit: Frustration, Inconsistency and TechnologyFive Ways to Increase Audit Efficiency | Early Adopters Gain an Edge in AuditTalent Retention: Five Tips for an Audit AdjustmentSix Benefits of an Internal Audit | The Ten Financial Controls That’ll Make You a Hero | Five Cash Reports You Can’t Live Without | When an Audit Is a Great Thing
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If our clients don’t see the value, then the audit is only being done to meet a regulatory or banking requirement, and in that case, the cheapest option that meets that basic requirement is the one they choose.

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Five Rules for a Marketing Orientation

Smiling businesswoman offering a handshakeWhy the alternatives don’t work anymore.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

Let’s look at the different focuses or orientations that firms can take toward managing and running their practices and see which ones the traditional pricing methods encourage.

MORE: The Damage That Traditional Fee Methods Do | Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development | Ten Keys to Marketing Success
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Any organization, whether an accounting firm or not, usually tends to have one of four focuses. They are either selling-oriented, product-oriented, production-oriented or marketing-oriented.
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The Damage That Traditional Fee Methods Do

A road sign depicting falling dollarsThe Rule of Three and cost-plus overlook some key considerations.

By August J. Aquila
Price It Right: How to Value Accounting Services

The time has come for the accounting professional to rethink the paradigm on which pricing has been based. Let’s discuss the traditional methods of price setting and how they can have a negative impact on a firm.

MORE: Four Ways to Prepare for New Business Development | Ten Keys to Marketing Success
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Somewhere along the line accountants began to believe that an hour of their work had a set value to their clients. As we shall see, this false assumption has led to the current state of affairs and has caused accountants to:
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The Role of Strategy in Pricing

Businessman and tablet with the word "pricing" above.Consider the value conferred to the customer.

By Ed Mendlowitz
77 Ways to Wow!

Pricing strategies need to vary based upon what is being sold.

Products sold range from commodities all the way to highly customized products or services. Factors determining the pricing and value to the customer are the product and its classification, the perception of use and value, the impact of branding in creating the quality, ease of availability or degree of scarcity, how delivered and timing and cost of delivery, volume and frequency of orders, inventory needs and type of customer.

MORE: How to React to Trends | Where Is Your Firm in Its Lifecycle? | Wow Clients with Trend Analysis | Trends Are All Around Us | Six Kinds of Loan Covenants | 26 Ways to Wreck a Financial Projection | How to Prepare Business Plan Financial Projections | What’s More Profitable, Raising or Lowering Prices? | Three Ways to Run a Break-Even Analysis
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Cost is also a factor in the pricing, but it is unrelated to the value to the customer. No business can sustain itself if the pricing does not permit a profit.
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Get Clients to Bring Tax Docs Early … Yes, EARLY

The secret? Humor, sarcasm and shame.

By Frank Stitely
The Relentless CPA

There are easy ways to get clients to do what we need them to do. In our office, we call the process “training” clients. One of our biggest headaches is the late delivery of tax materials. So, we train our clients to bring their tax documents in early.

MORE: You Train Your Clients, Whether You Mean To or Not | Train Your Clients Before They Train You | Why Time Tracking Still Matters | Business Owners Face One of Three Exits | Don’t Let Clients Dictate Tax Workflow | Make Fewer Mistakes, Increase Revenue and Capacity | How Small Firms Can Win the Talent Wars | Easy Ways to Avoid ‘Done But’ Tax Returns | Six Ways to Create a Millennial-Friendly Firm | Do You Know Your Turnaround Time?
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We accomplish this through a series of e-blasts explaining our deadlines. The e-blasts start in December, and we call them “Countdown to Tax Season.” They cover much more than our deadlines for clients to provide business and personal income tax returns documents.

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When it Comes to Pricing it’s About ‘Can’t Afford Not To’

Pricing based on efforts is all wrong.

By W. Michael Hsu

How often do you hear from clients that you’re too expensive or xxx firm can do it cheaper? The lesson in having that conversation is that it can’t be ‘Can you afford it’ it’s: “Can’t afford not to.’

MORE W. MICHAEL HSU: Seven Principles to Work Less and Achieve MoreHow Do Firm Leaders Learn?Why Your Approach to CAS and CFO Services Is Wrong | Your Client Base Is Global |

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The concept of “you can’t afford not to” is a popular one in the world of entrepreneurship and one that CPAs, especially those pricing CAS services, need to learn. It is the idea that sometimes, even if something seems costly, you cannot afford not to do it because the cost of doing nothing or doing it yourself is even greater.

This idea is often applied to outsourcing or hiring, where entrepreneurs may feel they cannot afford to hire someone else or outsource a task. However, the truth is that they cannot afford not to.

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