The Profitable Accountants Community

🔇 The most profitable service you can provide in your #accounting firm is.... ❌ NOT auditing ❌ NOT consulting But.. ✅ Bookkeeping 🤯 Yup.. But we don't give it the significance it deserves Bookkeeping is not simply just putting numbers into ledgers 🤷 Bookkeeping is actually about creating systems that form the foundation of a business' finance function Without proper bookkeeping and bookkeeping systems there is: ❌ No Advisory ❌ No management accounts ❌ No data from which to make meaningful decisions So don't belittle bookkeeping because without it you can't deliver any advisory And just because there is software out there that makes it easier to process transactions doesn't mean that every business owner becomes a qualified bookkeeper overnight 🤦♂️ Regardless of what the TV ads will have you believe! 🙄 Giving someone access to software doesn't make them an accountant (or bookkeeper) Just like giving someone a pencil doesn't make you an architect 🤷😜 Our job as finance professionals is to better communicate the value of what we do You can start by actually believing what you do is more than just data entry Reframe bookkeeping into what it really is: full finance function management, real time management reporting, your virtual finance office And communicate that the benefit of what the client gets when they have you actually managing their full finance function for them I'd love to hear - have you transitioned to taking on more bookkeeping for clients and seen benefits as a result? Jo Wood, Bev Flanagan, Zoe Whitman FCCA, Karen, Nicola J., #bookkeeping #accountingandaccountants PS: We use a brochure to communicate our Virtual Finance Office offering that goes through the 7 parts of the finance function and the benefit the client gets from each one This helps us obtain fees of up to £60,000 for recurring compliance work 😲 If you’d like to know how we do this click on the link where I share our 3 secrets 👇 https://lnkd.in/eq-Qcf66 Follow 👉 👋 Reza Hooda FCA CTA 😎 for more content like this and ring the 🔔 so you don’t miss a post!

I increased my fees by 62.5% And didn’t lose any clients 🤷 Words of a savvy accountant called Arun Sachdev ACA who joined the The Profitable Accountants Community and took action Being in business is lonely You don’t know what you don’t know But you have a choice: 1. Keep going it alone (and risk wasting time and money) 2. Learn from others that have already trodden the path (saving you time, money and stress) That’s what the The Profitable Accountants Community is all about. Not only do you get access to my learnings growing my practice to £1m and getting it to run without me but also to a community of 148 other practice owners on the same journey. Don’t waste your precious time trying to go it alone (I made that mistake when I started) Come and join the PAC 😎 To find out more, comment ‘join the PAC’ below and i’ll send you the details Reza Hooda FCA CTA

When I buy a service, I only have 1 question: Is the price I’m paying less than the value I’m getting? If it is: I buy. If it’s not: I don’t. I’m not considering: - The cost of labour - The time it takes to deliver - What an acceptable profit margin is Imagine buying a coffee and taking all that into account 😂 And so I price my services based on their perceived value. Before a client of mine begins working with me, they have no way or truly knowing hat the service will be like. The only have a perception of it. And so I increase the value of that perception, by communicating: - Our specialisation in their sector (and so the expertise they tap into) - The look and feel of the website / office - The positioning of our expertise in our blog content - The way the initial meeting with them is handled - The speed and professionalism in handling their initial enquiry Along every touch point on their customer journey, we increase the perceived value of our services. Which meant prospects were saying yes to work with us at higher prices. Whilst effectively delivering the same services.

Coke at the Supermarket = £1.50 Coke at a Starbucks = £3 Coke at a hotel = £5 Coke a a festival = £7 The drink didn’t change. And yet we still pay the increased price. Why? Context. Context is the secret to higher prices. It’s how 2 businesses… Despite delivering the same service… Can charge completely different prices.

2014: working > 60 hours a week in my accountancy firm. 2024: working < 3 hours a week in my firm. Here’s how I got there 👇 1. Moved from pricing by the hour to pricing the value This created cash flow and profit that then allowed me to invest in… 2. Hiring experienced accountants By getting in experienced accountants (rather than juniors or apprentices) I was able to pass on client responsibility much faster. My role then shifted to.. 3. Building sales, pricing and marketing systems Once client management was being handled by my team my focus was then building the key systems that would truly make my firm run without me. These are the ultimate three: ⚙️ Pricing system - so anyone in my team can price new work, renewals and extra work orders. ⚙️ Sales system - so my client managers can have sales conversations like I would and be able to confidently convert prospects to clients having the price conversation LIVE. ⚙️ Marketing system - so ideal client enquiries get booked into my client manager diaries on auto pilot without them (or me) having to do ‘business development’ and attending painful networking meetings. In 2014 I never thought this was possible. In 2024 now YOU know it is 😉💪

One of my Mastermind member’s biggest client was worth £20,000 a year. Now his top customer pays £300,000 a year 🤯 How? By focusing on 1 thing - pricing. He (like a lot of Firm Owners) was uncomfortable talking about money. (Which is ironic since we’re accountants 🤣). Because he didn’t have the tools and knowledge to navigate the conversation with clients. Together we focused on: How to show the value being added to clients Using a pricing system to capture a share of the value being delivered Presentation skills to come across as more confident in the initial meeting And by focusing on his sales skills, he’s seen a huge uptick in profit. (Bear in mind, this is without changing anything about his service). Pricing and sales are the ‘secret’ that too many Firm Owners aren’t focused on. The fastest way to grow your Firm is to increase the amount you’re charging. P.S. I share all my pricing strategies in my book. Click ‘visit my website’ at the top of this post to get a copy (it’s free, just pay shipping and handling).

🗣️ BREAKING NEWS: Amazon, Uber & Domino's are competing for YOUR business!! Yes YOURS! 🤯 Here's what's happening.. YOUR customers are engaging with these businesses on a regular basis These companies are focused on making the customer experience exceptional 🤩 That's why they're so blooming successful and we can't help but throw our money at them 🤑 The experience we get from these companies impacts how we view other businesses 👉 If we can get our Amazon order delivered next day (or even in 2 hours 🤯) why does my #accountant take a week to get back to me? 🤔 👉 If Dominos can tell me exactly where my pizza 🍕 is at each stage of its journey, why do I never hear from my accountant about what's happening with my accounts? 🤔 👉 If Uber can give me options and tell me exactly what i'll be paying, why do I get a surprise bill from my accountant and have no choice in the matter? 🤔 Like it or not, we're competing with these customer centric giants 👊 And we therefore need to up our game 🆙 And make customer experience the heart of what we do ❤️ Focus on building stronger relationships 🤝 Where we're truly seen as trusted advisors because our clients call us when they have a problem We don't put them off by charging for every phone call or email 🤙 Because what differentiates you from your competition is not how good you are at preparing a set of accounts but how good you are at creating awesome client experiences 🙌 As Maya Angelou said: "People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them FEEL" How are you making your clients feel? What awesome experiences have you had with any other company that made you rave and remember them? Do share 👇

If you’re just doing once a year accounts, you’ll suffer the same fate as the 🦖 🦕 😱 OK maybe that’s a little bit harsh 🤪 But what will happen is that the year end accounts and tax returns will soon fall out at the back end of the software 🤷♀️ That means you’ll get the online accountants driving down prices even more… Meaning that if that’s ALL you are doing you are going to come under some serious price pressure… Because there’s not much value in reporting on history 🤷 And clients can’t differentiate a set of accounts prepared by one accountant from another 🤔 🤜 If client’s didn’t have to do year end accounts because the tax authorities and Companies Registrar tell them to, they simply wouldn’t do them 🤦♂️ Why? 💡 Because there’s no inherent value in them 👉 It doesn’t help them run their business 👉 It looks back instead of forward 🔙 What business owners need to know is where they are NOW (not 9 months ago) and where they are headed…⏩ The value lies in having access to real time data 📈 And then using that to forecast ahead ⏩ 💡 So you can give business owner’s access to data that is actually useful in helping them make more informed decisions 💡 That’s where our value lies… And with the software we have at our disposal these days like @xero, @qbo and @syft this is now possible for us to do Not reporting on history.. Leave that to Sir David Attenborough 😄 Have you transitioned away from the once a year model? How do you work with clients and what examples do you have of helping a client using real time and forecast info? 👇 And what’s your preferred software for making this happen? 👇 Follow Reza Hooda FCA CTA for more like this and hit the 🔔 so you don’t miss a post! #accountingandaccountants

Growing an accountancy practice is hard 😞 Because they don’t teach you how to win new clients when you do your accountancy training So you end up taking anyone and everyone when you start out because it’s just you and you’re working from home But then you recruit one, two more people and move into an office 🏢 Now you have fixed overheads to pay and less for yourself Relying on referrals isn’t enough So you try harder to get new clients You join the networking groups, start paying agencies, experiment with telemarketing and paid ads But the ROI just isn’t there Life becomes stressful You’re taking home less than what you did when you were employed You end up working longer hours doing the work and servicing clients because you can’t afford to employ another person Which means you don’t have time to do the marketing you need to grow your practice with profitable clients I know this because I too was there 😞 My transformation started when I sought help And started to learn about marketing from some of the best minds on the planet Then applied to it to my business and followed this process: Got clear on the WHO Lead with value Priced based upon value That transformed my results and led to us hitting nearly £1m revenue with just 7 people You can do this too Follow the process 🙌 Want help with this? Comment ‘marketing system’ and i’ll send you my exact blueprint you can copy.

I was at the Louis Vuitton store in Paris recently 🇫🇷 There was a queue of around 45 minutes to get in 🥱🤦🏼♂️ But once in you have access to your very own customer service person - we had Jean-Phillipe 👨🎨😄 They stay with you as long as you are in the shop and need them Showing you bag after bag 💼 without any pushiness or hard sell Needless to say each item in LV was keenly priced 💰 But that didn’t detract the punters in there 🤷♂️ I didn’t see anyone walk out without buying something Despite the hefty price tags 🏷 Which defies the basics of economics that we’re taught at school 🤨 The concept of price elasticity of demand 📈 Where if the price goes up then demand falls 📉 In this case, it’s quite the opposite They put their prices up and up and still there is high demand 🤔 In fact more demand because customers know if they don’t buy then prices are only going to go one way 😉 You’ll never see a sale in shops like Louis Vuitton Because they know their worth 😏 And they know their clientele Why is it that customers pay obscene prices for such things? 🙄🙈 One reason is due to the ‘prestige phenomenon’ 👉 Which says that: expensive = quality We automatically associate “quality” with things that are “expensive” The same works the other way too… 👉 Have you ever been browsing Amazon for something like a phone case and been put off buying one because it was too cheap? 😉 👉 And then gone for a higher priced one because you feel that it will be better quality - just because of the price… That’s why it pays to be expensive 😎 When you’re too cheap you don’t get valued Not to mention you can’t deliver the kind of customer service that places like Louis Vuitton do 👉 What would you rather? - a queue of people waiting to work with you and giving those that work with you the best possible service - OR - being too cheap and having too many clients meaning you are overwhelmed and can’t deliver the service you really want? 🤔 You know what to do… Follow Monsieur Vuitton’s model 😉 Or just follow Monsieur Reza Hooda FCA CTA and ring the 🔔 for more pricing tips 😊 If your #accounting firm was a retail brand which one would it be? 😁 And have you made a judgment on the value of something purely based on its price tag 🏷️? 👇👇 Follow Reza Hooda FCA CTA for more like this and hit the 🛎 so you don’t miss a post! #accountingandaccountants #pricing PS: want to access the rest of that talk I delivered all around how to win more clients at higher prices - EVEN in a recession? Comment ‘masterclass recording’ and i’ll send it across 👌