SURVEYS & RESEARCH

Boost Your Value, Boost Your Fees

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person handing a folder to another person

Can you leave behind a cheat sheet? A toy? It’s not silly if it works.

By Sandi Leyva
The Complete Guide to Marketing for Tax & Accounting Firm

Want to charge more for your services? One way is to offer clients more value. Your fees and your value to the client should go hand in hand.

MORE: Three Ways to Make It Easier for Prospects to Say Yes | Make Your Next Busy Season Easier Now | Three Ways to Follow Up with Prospects | How Mindset Affects Your Marketing | Twelve Ways Your Business Card Can Hurt You | Got FOMO When It Comes to AI and ChatGPT? You Should: Here’s What You’re Missing | How to Weather Any Economic Storm | Ten Ways to Have More Energy This Tax Season | Seven Steps to Keeping Your Clients Forever | Give to Receive, and Eight More Ways to Boost Sales | Five Things That Clients Don’t Know about Accountants
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Here are nine ideas to increase your value to your clients:

1. Offer a Guarantee

You might feel like offering a guarantee is taking on a lot more risk than you’d like to, but this is a myth. When you offer a guarantee, you help to lower the perceived risk your client feels they might have when deciding to do business with you. This greatly increases the number of clients who will take that chance, even if they don’t know you very well yet. The surprising truth is that very few people will take the time to ask for a refund, making the increased sales far more valuable than the few returns you’ll need to process, if any.
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Ask Not What AI Can Do for You, Ask What You Can Do for AI

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Four actions to take now.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The potentials and requirements of artificial intelligence are still a massive unknown. So far, we’re getting only a distant whiff of what’s to come.

Yes, AI is already serving us with doing research, composing letters, filling in blanks and taking best guesses. But turning it into a multifunctional workhorse is still a workhorse in progress.

MORE: Allison Schlegelmilch: Leadership Lessons from Firm Mergers | CAS Can Play a Critical Role in Clients’ Vendor Selection | Artificial Intelligence: It’s a Matter of Time | AI Will Steal Your Job. And That’s a Good Thing | Allan Koltin: How Small Firms Can Thrive Against PE-Powered Competitors | The Power of Community in Accounting | Desperate CFOs are Outsourcing Accounting Functions | Tax and Accounting Jobs and Salaries Show Strength | Olympics of Outsourcing and Offshoring for Accountants | New Study: Strong and Steady Growth for Accountant Jobs and Salaries
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While the ubertechies are working on that, the rest of us should be figuring out how we have to change to accommodate AI, to avoid its pitfalls and make best use of its potential.
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Is Pricing a Marketing Function?

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Ten steps to designing your pricing strategy.

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

Yes, pricing is indeed a fundamental marketing function. It plays a crucial role in determining the value of a product or service in the eyes of customers and has a direct impact on a company’s profitability and market positioning. Pricing decisions are typically made based on various factors such as production costs, competition, target market, positioning strategy and customer perceptions of value.

MORE: Develop Your Personal Marketing Plan in Ten Steps | Five Ways to Make Partners Fall in Love with Marketing | Losing Can Help You Win More | Eight Areas to Cover for Personal Goals | Service Quality: The Key to Client Retention | How Life Cycle Changes Your Marketing | Clients Buy Solutions, Not Features | Make Sure You Know What You Will Get from Your Marketing | Three Pillars Support a Successful Accounting Firm | Clients Have Six Reasons for Needing You | Six Ways to Market Your Technology Consulting Practice | Sixteen Marketing Activities to Try
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Here are a few reasons why pricing is considered a marketing function:
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CAS Can Play a Critical Role in Clients’ Vendor Selection

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The needed skills are already part of the accountant’s skill set; they just need to be applied outside of the finance function. 

By Donny C. Shimamoto, CPA, CITP, CGMA
Center for Accounting Transformation

Historically, vendor selection has been primarily driven by operations or IT teams. However, recent research by the Chief Executive Group for the CFO Leadership Council shows that Finance Teams play a critical role in vendor selection. Forward-thinking CAS teams should take a cue from these Finance Teams and broaden their service offerings to help clients be more successful. 

MORE Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA | MORE CAS | MORE CFO Services

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How Finance Teams Support Vendor Selection 

As shown in Figure 1 below, more than 7 of 10 Finance Teams are involved in the final selection of vendors and products. Many people often see Finance’s involvement as just the final stamp of approval, but the research clearly shows that Finance Teams are involved throughout the purchasing process. 

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Four Reasons Accountants Struggle with Selling

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Businessman with head in hands

Reframe your thinking.

By Martin Bissett
Business Development on a Budget

Let’s take a look at the last 20-plus years of my experience and my research as to where new clients come from in an accounting practice. I don’t think there are going to be too many shocks here.

MORE: Think of It as Service, not Selling | Eight Questions for Personal Preparation | How to Prepare for Partnership | Stop Waiting for Business to Come to You | Are You Projecting Confidence? | Do You Deliver on Your Website’s Promises? | Showing Leadership through Customer Service | Firm Not Thriving? Five Fixes | The Real Math Behind the Sales Pipeline | Five Questions for Grading Prospects | Be Clear About Your ROI Proposition | Don’t Let Recurring Fees Kill Your Practice | Two Steps Toward Mastering Selling | Nine Checkpoints Before Every Prospect Meeting
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What I’ve found is that 82 percent of all new clients in a given year who come into an accounting firm come in from a referral source. This may be a bank or a lawyer or some other source, perhaps an existing client, who has recommended that a particular business meet with your firm and come on board as a client.
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