{"id":56116,"date":"2018-09-22t01:07:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-22t05:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/48e130086c.nxcli.net\/?p=56116"},"modified":"2024-08-14t09:30:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14t13:30:24","slug":"what-the-value-pricers-get-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.g005e.com\/2018\/09\/22\/what-the-value-pricers-get-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"what the value-pricers get wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"
and 5 ways to fix it.<\/strong><\/p>\n by frank stitely<\/em><\/p>\n beeeeeep.\u00a0 briiinnnnggg.\u00a0 boooooop.\u00a0 you reach over to turn off the alarm.<\/p>\n but it\u2019s not your alarm, and it\u2019s not 6 a.m. yet.\u00a0 it\u2019s the coffee maker.\u00a0 or is it the dishwasher?\u00a0 or the washing machine?\u00a0 it turns out to be a text message.\u00a0 you glance down at your smartphone, and you see 14 app notifications, 27 e-mails, and three texts.\u00a0 your smartwatch yells at you for not meeting your \u201cfitness\u201d goal yesterday.<\/p>\n by 6 a.m., half of humanity competes for your attention.\u00a0 every computer programmer on the planet believes his notifications rock your world.\u00a0 when everything beeps, do any of the beeps really matter?\u00a0 the rock group, chicago, wrote, \u201cdoes anybody really know what time it is?\u201d\u00a0 yes, it\u2019s time for another notification.<\/p>\n we don\u2019t suffer alone.\u00a0 our clients share our pain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n the value pricing people tell us that we aren\u2019t selling time.\u00a0 but we are.\u00a0 we aren\u2019t selling our time.\u00a0 we are selling our clients\u2019 time \u2013 back to them.\u00a0 21st-century clients want perfect compliance, fast service, and a competitive price \u2013 as a start.\u00a0 most importantly, they want us to save them time.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n do you change the oil in your car?\u00a0 of course not.\u00a0 are you smart enough to figure out how?\u00a0 certainly.\u00a0 when i google\u2019d \u201chow do i change my oil?\u201d i got thousands of links.\u00a0 i\u2019m still not motivated.\u00a0 i\u2019d rather watch sports or sleep or watchdog videos on facebook.<\/p>\n your best clients are smart enough to use turbotax.\u00a0 they\u2019re millionaires after all.\u00a0 they\u2019ve got smart down pat.\u00a0 they could manage their own investments and do their own accounting.\u00a0 but they don\u2019t.\u00a0 why?\u00a0 for the same reason, you don\u2019t change your oil \u2013 time.\u00a0 they have higher value things to do.\u00a0 you don\u2019t get to be a millionaire by making bad time management decisions.<\/p>\n what does this mean for us?\u00a0 \u00a0clients want fewer meetings and telephone calls.\u00a0 that doesn\u2019t mean they want less communication.\u00a0 our best clients want more \u2013 just not meetings and phone calls.\u00a0 does that mean more e-mails?\u00a0 no.\u00a0 our clients’ inboxes overflow with all of the same irs scam e-mails we get.<\/p>\n they want secure communications where they feel safe discussing their financial situations.\u00a0 they want to communicate when they want.\u00a0 when do your programmer clients respond to your tax return questions?\u00a0 3 a.m. – \u00a0after eight energy drinks and a delicious pizza delivered by former accountants, who believed portals were a passing fad.<\/p>\n so you\u2019ve got the e-communications thing down pat.\u00a0 your client asks whether she should lease or buy that lamborghini for the business.\u00a0 you respond with a 4,000-word treatise starting out with the legislative history of code section 162.\u00a0 wrong.\u00a0 21st-century clients have the attention span of gnats, thanks in large part to facebook and twitter.<\/p>\n you have two paragraphs to engage your client.\u00a0 anything beyond that might as well be typed in an invisible font.\u00a0 you could put the winning number to the lottery in paragraph five and rest assured your clients won\u2019t win.<\/p>\n one of our client e-blasts started out, \u201cif you get a notice from the irs\u2026\u201d. we then proceeded to explain that they should send us the notices.\u00a0 here are some of the responses we got.<\/p>\n \u201cwhy didn\u2019t you tell me i got a notice from the irs?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cplease send me a copy of the notice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cdid you mess up my tax return?\u00a0 you owe me for any penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cif\u201d is a problematic word for clients.\u00a0 \u201cif\u201d requires work on their part deciphering a logic tree.\u00a0 that requires time and brain processing cycles better spent watching mr. angry cat videos on facebook.<\/p>\n that doesn\u2019t mean clients don\u2019t want you to tell them about the new tax law.\u00a0 it just means that you must take as little of their time as possible.\u00a0 think along these lines.<\/p>\n \u201cnew tax law good.\u201d or\u00a0\u201cnew tax law bad.\u201d<\/p>\n we need the aicpa to create a set of emojis for tax returns, or maybe an all emoji audit opinion.<\/p>\n clients pay us to distill our knowledge into packets of recommendations they can implement quickly.\u00a0 in many cases, they\u2019ll pay us for the implementation.\u00a0 they\u2019ll pay our wealth management gurus to buy index funds that they could buy for next to nothing with a phone call.\u00a0 they\u2019ll pay us to reconcile their checking accounts.\u00a0 if they pay people to walk their dogs to avoid exercise, they\u2019ll pay us to calculate how many exemptions they should be claiming for their paychecks.<\/p>\n the challenge for 21st<\/sup> century cpa\u2019s is finding how many ways we can save clients time.\u00a0 21st-century client communications demand five considerations:<\/p>\n first, stop thinking meetings and telephone calls are preferred methods to communicate.<\/strong>\u00a0 meetings require both you and the client to be in the same place at the same time.\u00a0 that\u2019s doubly inconvenient for both of you.\u00a0 telephone calls require that both parties be available at the same time. that\u2019s merely inconvenient.<\/p>\n there are places and times for both meetings and telephone calls, but they shouldn\u2019t be your default methods of communication.\u00a0 most annual tax return meetings aren\u2019t worth the cost to you nor do they greatly benefit your client.\u00a0 here\u2019s how you know that.\u00a0 if you feel your erudite recommendations are that valuable, move meetings to discuss them out of tax season, and charge for them.\u00a0 if you can\u2019t bill for them, they aren\u2019t as valuable as you believe.<\/p>\n second, communicate securely.\u00a0<\/strong> one e-mail disadvantage is that it\u2019s not secure.\u00a0 yes, this is an overblown concern, but clients don\u2019t think it is.\u00a0 however, the biggest disadvantage to e-mail is the overwhelming volume.\u00a0 this isn\u2019t just your problem.\u00a0 your best clients may face this even more than you.\u00a0 how many times has outlook frustrated your quest to find that message from last week?\u00a0 use practice management software that lets you communicate with clients in the software behind a firewall.\u00a0 finding that message from last week or two years ago is a cinch.<\/p>\n third, clients communicate when they choose to communicate<\/strong> \u2013 mostly while you\u2019re on vacation.\u00a0 use practice management solutions that let them communicate on their schedules, and let you respond on your schedule.<\/p>\n fourth, keep messages short and understandable.\u00a0<\/strong> using \u201cif\u201d is an iffy practice.\u00a0 keep all communications short.\u00a0 then make them shorter.\u00a0 if you blog on the new tax law, break the new law into client digestible pieces.\u00a0 i covered the new section 199a over three posts.<\/p>\n for blog posts, anything beyond about a page is wasted.\u00a0 don\u2019t agree?\u00a0 how many times have you scrolled past a facebook post, because reading it looked like work?\u00a0 you get two short paragraphs to make recommendations in e-mail messages.<\/p>\n eliminate technical terms and acronyms.\u00a0 they only serve to make you look smart, not communicate essential information.\u00a0 if your writing style tends towards, \u201cthe greater of the lesser of\u2026\u201d, nobody reads what you\u2019re writing.<\/p>\n my favorite articles include phrases like, \u201ccertain taxpayers are eligible\u2026\u201d. which taxpayers are eligible?\u00a0 tell me.\u00a0 you\u2019re writing the damn article.\u00a0 if you write this way, ball up your right fist, and punch yourself. \u00a0don\u2019t even get me started on \u201cadjusted basis.\u201d<\/p>\n do you abbreviate \u201calternative minimum tax\u201d as amt?\u00a0 not even your spouse knows what \u201camt\u201d means unless you are married to a cpa.\u00a0 in that case, you have plenty of other issues to address.<\/p>\n finally, make recommendations.<\/strong>\u00a0 in our office, we ask, \u201cwhere\u2019s the weenie?\u201d\u00a0 if you have no recommendations, you\u2019re not ready to communicate.\u00a0 twenty years ago, i had the following conversation with a client.<\/p>\n me: i offered a brilliant analysis detailing the pros and cons of a possible business transaction.\u00a0 i told my client that the choice boiled down to whether she valued savings today or more savings down the road.<\/p>\n her:\u00a0 \u201cwhat is best?\u201d<\/p>\n me:\u00a0 i repeated my stunningly brilliant business analysis, and again ended with a choice for her to make.<\/p>\n her: \u201cbut what is best?\u201d<\/p>\n i wasted 587 breaths explaining the choice and not offering a recommendation.\u00a0 today, i would send a message as follows:<\/p>\n me: \u201cchoice a j.\u00a0 choice b l.\u201d<\/p>\n not offering recommendations wastes everyone\u2019s time.<\/p>\n you\u2019ll make more money, and be happier when you understand that the 21st<\/sup>-century cpa sells time back to clients.\u00a0 not all heroes wear capes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by frank stitely<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1362,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2741,1905,2274,3120],"tags":[4278,3958,4281,4283],"class_list":["post-56116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-checklist","category-clients-and-service","category-pricing","category-pro-member-exclusive","tag-billing-rate","tag-cpa-billing-rates","tag-fee-structure","tag-pricing-rates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nand 5 ways to fix it.<\/strong><\/p>\n