Can Pricing Be Done in Writing? How to Handle Value Conversations Without Calls

When you have the value conversation with a client or prospective client, can you have that in a written process? For example, sending a proposal, a pricing proposal through the mail? We'll look at that in this particular video. And I got a question from a member of the value pricing academy called Alison, and she has a really interesting issue. She said this. She said, I'm not sure if it's a pricing question or not. I'm finding it challenging to have real time conversations, virtual or in real life, with many of my initial clients due to their neurodiversity, they prefer written communication over voice calls, even on Zoom. They rarely turn on their cameras, which I'm fine with since most of my communication is written. The challenge comes during the pricing discussions. I've been successful when I relied on body language to gauge what resonated with clients. When I tried handling price via email, the client became upset and chose another bookkeeper, which I understand. I'd love tips on how to handle pricing conversations effectively without face to face interaction. And I was curious about this neurodiversity. And Alison came back to me to explain that she had her niche is the pet industry. And I didn't know this. I've learned this, but a lot of people who work in the pet industry struggle with human beings. They prefer animals and therefore they prefer written communication. So how do we deal with a situation where the client would prefer written communication? And certainly if we do have neurodivergent clients, they tend to thrive with written structures. And so we should create written systems. And one of the things that I created in my accounting firm way back in 2000, 2001, is I had discovered value pricing. I discovered it in 1999 and I started pricing or using value pricing with brand new clients. But I had over 200 existing clients. And I soon realized after a year that I had to deal with repricing my existing clients. The trouble is I had over 200 of them and I didn't have the resource the time to go and have a meeting with 200 clients to have a pricing conversation. So what I did is I created a process which I now teach, and it's a written form of pricing communication. I call it the contract renewal letter. It's a process of communicating and writing that got me amazing results and I've been teaching it for 25 years now. And other accounting firms that use it tell me they get extraordinary results with much higher prices and very few clients leaving. Now that's fine, a written form of communication for the value conversation, but certainly live Calls are the best. Having a face to face meeting or meeting on Zoom is the best. And as Alison said, you can gauge body language, which is really important and really useful. Also, when we are live face to face, we can deal with price objections there and then in real time and use that to reinforce the value until the client says yes. So the challenge though here is these are neurodivergent clients. So what happens if we have a situation where we simply they don't want to have a face to face meeting or zoom meeting. Or it might be a situation like me back in 2000. You simply have got too many clients and not enough time to have that pricing conversation. So written is fine. We can certainly have a written form of communication. We can create pricing proposals. We can create what I call contract renewal letters, and we can send them via email. If we get the structure right and the communication right, and we build up the value in the right way, they can still be effective. But here's another thought. What about video? We could use video as part of our pricing process. So this might be the process for somebody like Alison with neurodivergent clients. Start with a questionnaire, because what we should be doing in our value conversation is asking questions. We want to uncover what is the real issue here? What are the real challenges? And normally that would be a face to face meeting or a zoom meeting to uncover the value. If we are doing it in a written form with written systems, then we could do that via a questionnaire to ask discovery questions, to learn more. And what we could also do is create a series of short videos. I would suggest short little videos of one to two minutes. We can use a tool like Loom. I love Loom and I know there are now many, many other similar systems where you can do a quick video and when you hit the sort button, it gives you a link that you can then send to a client, either in an email or as part of a written system. So we create a written questionnaire with discovery questions. And if we need to create some clarity as to why we're asking those questions or how to answer those questions, do a short little video using a tool like Loom, putting the link in there so our client can go through the questionnaire, watch videos when they need to, and then you can come up with the pricing proposal. You can then create your proposal or contract renewal letter, and that can be in writing. But what we can also do is we can again insert videos, because video is a great way to communicate value. It's better than writing because when you communicate in video, you can usually convey more information in a video than you can in written form. It's also quicker to film a video than to try and describe what you're saying. And it's also from the other party's point of view. They get to see you because they're buying you. At the end of the day, they are your client. They obviously love you for some reason. And so let's present our value in video rather than writing. Because they want to see you, they like you, they want to see your personality. When you communicate the value on a video, then you can do that with passion, with energy, and you can really build up the value of what you do much more in a video than in writing. Also with a video, I guess I think you'll find more clients will sit and watch. If it's a short video, a one or two minute clip, then they can watch it all. They might put it on 1.5 times speed or double speed. I do that. I love watching Loom videos. I put them on fast speed because the brain can take in the information up to double the speed just as effectively. Whereas if we only have the written format, sometimes people skim read or they might miss out paragraphs. So we can convey our values much more effectively using video clips. And it also means that what we can do with a video using a tool like Loom. One of the things I love about Loom is you can choose whether it's just you to camera or just your screen or a bit of both. And I would do a bit of both. I'd have you as a picture in picture, but then you can show people visually things like your different options, your different packages. You can, in the video you can have words on the screen reinforcing what you're saying in terms of the key value. And then what you can do, particularly if you do have neurodivergent clients, people that prefer written. What you can do is reassure. In your videos or your written proposal, you can reassure them by saying something like this. Take your time reviewing these options. If anything is unclear, reply by email and I'll send a short video to explain. So if the client then has a question, there's something not sure about in your video, in your communication, you tell him to send you an email back. And then rather than responding by email, this is a great opportunity to do a short video to answer their specific issue and send it back. It's quicker for you to do that than to write something. And it's also, I think, more personal for people to receive a video from you than something in writing. Thank you for watching that video. If you found that valuable, if there's something you found useful there, could you do me a favor? Could you first of all please just hit the thumbs up button to say you like it. But could you also put in the comments below what was the most valuable thing that you got out of that video and what's been your experience with that? If you could share that, it would be great feedback for me. And if the more people who like the video then I will go away and create more videos like this. Also, this video that you just watched is an example of the sorts of videos that we put in the Value Pricing Academy on our school platform. And if you want to be part of that Value Pricing Academy, you can join for free and we'll put the link below. You can join for free and be part of a community of accounting professionals looking to improve their pricing on this Value Pricing journey and a place where you can ask me and my team questions. So once again, thank you so much for watching and I hope to see you inside the Value Pricing Academy. Bye for now.