Most CPAs Price Their Services Wrong (Do This Instead)

What I'm about to show you is very boring, but it can grow your accounting firm extremely fast. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Peter Vanderwaal and I'm the marketing guy behind a CPA firm that went from zero to $3 million a year in just three years. And today I own and operate Social Club Studios, where we help accounting firms break through the seven figure ceiling all over the US and so what we're going to be covering here, number one, the real constraint of your firm right now. Number two, we're going to talk about how to package your service to sell to complete strangers. And number three, how to build a marketing plan once this offer is ready. So I just want to be real with like, this is the real constraint of your business right now is that you're not actually offering what people want. Now, on a surface level, yes, you're giving them the thing they want, right? Tax, savings or financial advice or bookkeeping. Like you're keeping their books in order. But there's a few key things that you're missing. So you'll probably recognize this graphic from Alex Hormozi's book, $100 million offers. I think it's on one of these shelves behind me somewhere. But great book. And what he talks about is something called the value equation. And there's four parts to this value equation. And so on the top, you've got dream outcome and perceived likelihood of achieve. And on the bottom, you've got time delay and effort and sacrifice. And so what he says is you want to increase the dream outcome. In other words, you want to give them the absolute best case scenario. You want to increase the perceived likelihood of achievement. So that's their level of confidence that they'll actually be able to get this dream outcome that you're selling them. You want to decrease the amount of time it takes to get there, and you want to decrease the amount of effort and sacrifice that the customer has to put in. Now, you may or may not have actually analyzed your offer and your service based on the this model before. You may or may not have put your service through this value equation to see where you're at. But where a lot of accounting firms go wrong is they try to market their services online through content or through paid ads or through some form of outreach. And they don't get any traction because we're at the lowest point of person to person trust. In the last 50 years. There's a general social survey that came out and Google did this kind of like meta analysis on it, where they came to this conclusion. And so if you market your service on the Internet at all, then you are by default perceived as an online Internet scammer. That's the baseline. That's where you're starting from. And so we need to do everything in our power to prove otherwise. And so how do you sell your service to complete strangers? So this is, I call it the Four Horsemen of value. You need to make the prospect believe you know exactly what they want. There's a 100% chance that they will get exactly what they want. They'll get what they want quickly, and they won't have to put out any effort of their own to in order to get what they want. Okay, so again, this is Alex Hormozy's value equation. And I'm going to walk through each one and how this applies to your accounting firm and how you can break through that trust ceiling that we need to get through in order to get strangers to want to buy our services. So, number one, we need to prove that we can get them their dream outcome. Right? And so for this, it's very simple. You need a video sales letter. Okay? This should be the first thing someone gets to see when they see your ads, your content, et cetera. And they just want to learn more. Right? And it should answer their first very basic questions. Okay, Questions like, is this service for me? How can this service solve my problem? Does this person even know what they're talking about? Have they done this before? And the very important thing here is you need to understand that your prospect doesn't actually want tax savings. And they don't want organized books and records. They don't want XYZ financial strategy that you're going to help them put in place. They want the result of those things. And so if you can focus on the result and what happens when they get the result and the how much better their life is going to be at that point in time, then you actually don't have to talk hardly at all about the methods you're going to use to get them there. Right? Imagine I'm selling a vacation to Hawaii. Am I going to talk about what they're actually going to do in Hawaii, or am I going to talk about the plane flight over there? To be honest, the plane flight to Hawaii kind of sucks, but once you get there, it was all worth it. And so when you're painting the picture of that dream outcome, you need to focus entirely on the vacation itself. In other words, what they're going to get after you've done your service for them and hardly focus at all, put zero time into what it's actually going to look like to get them there, because that can come later in the conversation. All right? Secondly, we need to increase the perceived likelihood of achievement. So we need to make them feel more confident that we're going to be able to actually deliver this result for them. So we just sold them on this dream outcome. We just showed them we understand exactly what they want. But how do we prove that we're the ones who can actually get them there? And this is where, in my opinion, the best thing you can possibly have is just an infinite number of case studies and testimonials. Okay, so if you're starting out, this is going to be difficult because obviously you don't have a ton of clients under your belt, but you can make it feel like you have a lot more by doing video interviews, even just a recorded zoom call, asking your customers about the results that they've gotten from working with you, asking them about the experience and what they're doing in their business now that they've gotten this result, this tax savings, or the clear books and records, or this financial strategy. And if you can get five or 10 of those, it's gonna feel like you have an insane number of case studies and testimonials versus five or ten Google reviews. Doesn't really do much for me right now. If your firm has a ton of clients that you've delivered results for, I'd actually rather you lean more into the volume approach. So, yeah, get those five or ten video testimonials. But then really focus on how can I get like hundreds and even thousands of five star reviews on Google or on trustpilot or whatever review site you use. And then what I would do is I would screenshot every one of those reviews. I would put it on your main sales page with the VSL and. And then just after the VSL and the call to action, just endless scroll of case studies and testimonials. Like you could just scroll for hours and hours and hours and the page would keep going. It just creates this overwhelming sense that you're good at what you do. And this is very, very important when we're trying to build trust with complete strangers on the Internet. Now, the flip side of this perceived likelihood of achievement is actually the amount of risk that comes with saying yes to this service. So they sign up, they say yes. I think this is the service I want. Let's work together. What's the worst case scenario that could happen. And if the worst case scenario is they invest a ton of money and a ton of time into this and it doesn't work and they don't get any of that money or time back, then that really sucks. Right. And so that's a very high level of risk. So if we can decrease that level of risk through some sort of guarantee, then that's very helpful. Or even some sort of intro offer where they can just like dip their toes in their water. Instead of $10,000 for year long tax strategy, maybe it's $2,000 for a 1 time tax strategy review. This gives them the chance to test the waters and like see if your service is actually what they're looking for. And it's very easy for you by a money back guarantee on those because it's way less of a hit for you to offer, you know, 30 day money back guarantee on a $2,000 thing than it is on like a $10,000 thing. Right. You just need to be able to ascend them on the back end into the full service. Okay, number three, time delay. How fast can you get them the result? And the key here, especially in the accounting world is like perception is everything. Let's say you're a tax strategy offer, right? Well, if I sign up with you in June, then I technically don't get the result like the end result of working together until I mean, December 31st or probably like realistically tax season when I go to actually file my returns and my tax bill is way lower than last year. Right. But there's ways to create a perception of quick wins or milestones very early on. And so the question I would ask for a tax offer, for example, would be how quickly can we get them from that sales call where they sign up and say yes to working with you to that first strategy call with a cpa, like can we do that in a matter of a couple of days? Because that's going to make them feel really good about this investment they just made. If instead their first like week or two weeks or first month is just you like hounding them for all these different documents, they're not going to feel very good about this decision they just made. That's not positively reinforcing the decision. And so there's a higher likelihood that they're going to try to go back on it or try to ask for a refund or you know, try to get out of this some way or another. And there's certainly a higher likelihood that they're not going to sign up for the next service or they're not going to stick around long term. And then the fourth thing here is we need to decrease the amount of effort and sacrifice they have to put in. So Alex Hormozi's got a really great way of thinking about this. He always asks what sucks about this service. Right. I think he uses the example of the iPhone. Like, the iPhone is a smartphone with everything that sucks removed from it. And that's why it's such a great product. It's not because it's this revolutionary new thing that's so different from every smartphone. It's because they've taken away everything that would suck about a smartphone. And so you need to think, what are the hidden costs that somebody would incur when they sign up and they say yes to working with me? So let's say you're a CFO and you guarantee that you're going to be a net positive investment by day 90 of working together, right? So meaning if you charge 5k a month, then you're going to be able to cut 5k a month worth of expenses within that first three months. Well, if I'm a prospect looking at this, I might be thinking, oh, like maybe those $5,000 of expenses are actually important or necessary or like helping my quality of life here. And so that might be a hidden expense with a tax offer. There's all these documents I gotta round up and submit and send in to the accountant. So that's a hidden cost. That's something that's gonna suck about me signing up and saying yes to this. And so this is something you need to be aware of and you need to be actively thinking about how I can make this process easier, how I can make this process smoother, and most importantly, how I can communicate how smooth and easy and beneficial this process is for the client. And so what all of this means is it may not actually be possible to sell your core service immediately to a complete stranger. Right? So let's say you're running ads on Facebook and you've got just a simple book, a call funnel. You're booking calls with people. What we've seen with a lot of our clients is it's actually very difficult to sell them on like a 12 or an $18,000 annual tax planning package, or like a 3 to $5,000 a month CFO service right from the get go. Right? Because realistically, they saw your ad, they clicked the page and they watched the video, and then they booked a call, and now they've been talking to you for the last 20 or 30 minutes. That's a big ask for that little of an amount of time put together. And no matter how good your offer is, that expense is always going to be a high barrier to overcome. And so what we've seen work really well for a few of our firms is selling an intro offer. Okay, so I'm going to run a couple scenarios by you to kind of illustrate how this works. So scenario number one. Let's say you're a tax planner, do tax strategy services, and you normally charge $12,000 a year for tax strategy, and the Average client saves $30,000 through this service, right? So you have that initial meeting or the initial couple of meetings where you kind of get their tax strategy in order, you figure out what they need to do throughout the year, and then throughout the rest of the next 12 months you're going to help them implement those steps. Right? So set up payroll, do a cost seg on their rental property, they're buying a short term rental, they're trying to convert a retirement account from their old company to their new company, all these things. So an intro offer for that might be, hey, I'm going to charge you $3,000. We're just going to put together a one time tax plan that you can take and DIY, you can do it yourself. Now here's the thing with this. Obviously you don't want to be just like selling your time for money and that's kind of what this ends up being. But the play here where you're really making the money on this is actually by using this as a way to convert more of those sales calls. So for example, you might close 10% of people on this $12,000 a year tax strategy plan. Again, this is cold traffic we're talking about. So if you're used to selling to referrals like this is probably going to sound like a crazy number to you. Only 1 out of 10 people signing up and saying yes, but this is cold traffic. These people don't know you that well. But what if we could sell a $3,000 intro offer where 25% of people sign up and say yes to that, and then half of those end up actually ascending into your yearly tax planning service. Because here's the thing, you present a tax plan to somebody, there's a lot of complexity that goes into that. There's a lot of like moving pieces and like stuff they have to actually go out and do. And so it's really actually pretty eas to position this as like, hey, here's $30,000 of potential tax savings that you can get. But it's only going to happen if you do X, Y and z. Now x, Y and Z are a little bit difficult, but like we've done it with hundreds of clients over the past few years. We do this all the time. If you want to sign up for our annual service, we can actually hold your hand throughout all this and make sure you actually get across the finish line and get that $30,000 worth of tax savings. So let's say you're taking 16 calls a month, right? So 16 divided by four because one in four people are saying yes and they're signing up for this one time tax plan at 3,000 DOL. So that's four people times 3,000. So you're making $12,000 in new sales from this tax planning service, this one time tax plan. Now let's say half of those people, so two of them are actually going to sign up for your yearly service at $12,000. And let's say you credit them the three, right? So two times 9,000, so that means $18,000 plus that initial 12,000. So you're making $30,000 in new sales. Now let's flip it around, right? Let's say you're taking those same 16 calls per month and only one out of 10 people are saying yes and signing up. So that's 1.6. Let's be generous and say two, right? So two times 12,000, you're making $24,000 in new sales. So by using this intro offer, which you could very easily systemize, you're making 20% more money day one. And by the way, as you scale, 20% more in new sales is a big deal, especially because with this tax firm, let's say some of these one time tax plans who don't sign up, they might actually come back to you when it comes time to actually file their taxes. And then they didn't put all the pieces in place so they don't get that $30,000 in tax savings that you were able to dangle in front of them. And so now six or 12 months later, they are signing up for that service. At the end of the day, this game is kind of just trying to get buyers in the door so that they can sign up for something. You can prove your value, build trust, and get them to sign up for something else later on. Now scenario number two. What would we do for a bookkeeping firm? So let's say you do 7, 99amonth for bookkeeping. Now my intro offer for this wouldn't actually be a one time thing, but I would say, hey, sign up. It's $7.99 a month. You can cancel anytime if it's not what you were looking for. And so within that first 30 days, you just have to make sure that you're delivering more than $799 a month worth of value. For example, my client Brock does bookkeeping for moving companies and he's got these industry specific reports that his moving company clients are able to use that give them visibility into their financial metrics in a way that they actually understand because it's industry specific. Right. He knows the actual metrics that help a moving company grow their operations and he's able to pull those from their finances. And so within that first month working with Brock, you get those industry specific reports and you go, wow, there's so much waste here that I could cut. There's things I could be so much more efficient in. This was an amazing investment. Again, this is all about decreasing the risk of saying yes and signing up to work with you because we're selling to cold traffic, right? And guess what? If we can optimize for selling to cold traffic, then it's going to be so much easier to sell to a warmer audience as you build your brand and as you build your reputation. And so let's talk about the marketing plan based on this. Right? So by the way, first link in the description below, you can get a personalized version of what I'm about to go through based on your specific business model and your specific stage of business. So go ahead and check that out. But I just want to use this scenario here. Right? So we're going to say you're a tax strategy firm. Your core offer is annual tax strategy at $12,000 a year. And so your intro offer then is a $3,000 one time tax plan. And then you upsell them into that annual support, just like we just talked about. Right? And so step number one here is just ICP analysis, right? That's ideal client profile analysis. And so I want you to, I want to ask the questions of who do you serve, what do they value? And what's the conversation already going on in their head? So this first question you can probably answer pretty quickly, right? This is just the basic information about the client that we would need to know to be able to kind of like picture them in our head, right? So you know, I work with real estate investors or I work with moving company owners, right? But with these second and third questions, we're diving in a Little bit deeper to stuff that most marketers don't even think about, right? So question number two here is, what do they value? 99% of your competition is stopping before they get to this question. They're asking, who is this person? How old are they? Where do they live? You know, what income level do they have? But by asking the question of what do they value, you're gonna get the exact perfect hook to grab their attention online. Because everybody else is talking to the surface level stuff, right? Saving money on taxes, taking home 10% more profit. Just stuff that doesn't create an emotional response in anybody, right? But what does this person value? Are they trying to make more money so they can give their family financial freedom? Are they trying to make more money so they can be the richest person in the world? Do they love their business and they want to work 247 because that's what they love, or do they want kind of time, freedom and to be able to, like, step back one day? These are important questions that most people aren't actually asking. And then question number three here is, what's the conversation already going on inside their head? And this is incredibly important. And I want you to imagine you're at a party, right? So you're at a party, and there's a group of people over here talking, and you want to go join them. And so you go join them, and you just step into the circle and you just start talking. You start introducing yourself. You ask them what they do for a living. This would generally be considered rude. And these people probably wouldn't like you very much. They'd all kind of, like, individually break off, and then they'd go start a new. A new circle over here without you. But if you stand a couple feet away, you kind of listen in to what they're talking about. You kind of edge your way into the circle, and then you join the existing conversation. You're going to get an opportunity to introduce yourself and ask them about themselves and. And try to, like, make friends with them. And you're not going to be considered rude by just, like, jumping right in and trying to, like, interrupt what they're already doing. And that's effectively what we're talking about here, right? So instead of just assuming that what they're thinking about inside their head is, I want to save $50,000 in taxes, maybe they're thinking something a little bit more nuanced. Maybe they kind of feel like they've outgrown their cpa, and that's like, kind of the main conversation going on inside their head. Maybe they're trying to figure out if they've got a good CPA or not so much of a good CPA because they don't even know what else is out there. Right. By the way, these are both marketing angles that we've used for tax firm clients of ours. And so once you've kind of identified your icp, right, your ideal client, you know what the conversation already happening inside their head is, then you need to talk about the marketing system. And I recommend this VSL funnel system for basically anybody starting out online. And I want to walk you through this and show you how this works here. So this system is by intent incredibly simple here. And so it all starts with an opt in where we're just grabbing their name, email, phone number, right? We're getting their contact info because we want to be able to stay in front of them long term. And if they don't buy right away. So the reason they're going to give us this information is because we're dangling this free training in front of them. So remember how we identified the conversation already going on inside their head. Well, this free training is catered specifically towards that. Alright? So if that conversation is I think I've outgrown my cpa, then maybe the free training is something like how to know if you've outgrown your cpa. And so they sign up to watch this free training. And now the call to action at the end of the free training is to book a call to work with me and my team. And so if they're ready to make that step, then they're going to fill out an application with a little bit of more info about their business or their investments or whatever would be applicable to the type of client you're trying to get. And what we like to do is qualify or disqualify them based on some of this information that they're putting in. Right? If you're a tax strategist, you don't want to be working with people who make like 50 grand a year. You can't really do much for them. You want to be working with people who make 200, 300, 400k a year, maybe a million bucks a year, maybe more. And so we want to qualify them or disqualify them based on their income in that case. And this ensures that only qualified prospects are actually able to get on and book a call with you. And so that's the next step here. Now the vast majority of people who sign up for this free training are not going to go ahead and book that call. In fact, they might not even watch the entire free training. They might get distracted. Two minutes in they get a text from their wife or their kid starts crying in the other room, or, you know, they reach the place they were going in their Uber and they get out, whatever. And so because we grabbed their contact info, we can retarget them on our email list now. So we're gonna have a 30 day email sequence where they're gonna get an email from us every single day. And that's going to just get you showing up in their inbox. It's gonna give you a chance to kind of show off in front of them, right? We kind of walk them through some of this content in the free training and then we can also just hammer them with case studies, testimonials, social proof, just building your authority so they have that higher level of confidence that you know what you're doing. And so this is the basic funnel. And the cool thing is that over time you're going to build this email list bigger and bigger and bigger. And so you're going to have those leads who convert today, right? Just watch the free training and immediately fill out an application. You're going to have leads who book tomorrow or in the next month from that 30 day email sequence. And you should be emailing your list a couple times a week, maybe two, maybe three times a week. And that's going to be an opportunity for people who take months or even years to make buying decisions to be able to still stay in touch with you and still be reminded about your brand and reminded about what you do and reminded of how you can help them. And so it's kind of this snowball effect where it gets more and more and more efficient over time. Now here's the thing. Once you set up this funnel, before you ever launch, before you ever run an ad to it, before you ever post a piece of content or send an outreach message trying to get somebody in here, you need to set up your data and your tracking. And so what I mean by this is basically just your Facebook pixel, right? If you don't know what a Facebook pixel is, it's basically just a piece of code that you put onto your website and on all your funnel pages and it can track different actions people take. So it can see when people view your pages, it can see opt ins when they like fill out a form on your website and it can see like booked calls, like when people schedule a call to speak to you. And I do not care if you're running ads right away. Or if you're thinking, I don't ever want to run ads, connect your pixel. Because if you ever possibly maybe want to sort of start running ads later down the road, this is going to give you a huge head start because it's tracking people who take actions with you, whether they opt into your funnel or whether they book a call with you or whatever. Whatever actions we want to track. And it's showing Facebook who those people are. Right. So Facebook has its tentacles into all these other apps and all your browser info and everything. And so it knows who's taking action, and it can associate that with their Facebook profile. And so if you ever start running ads in the future, Facebook now has this huge pool of data of these are the type of people who tend to take action and tend to interact with this company. And so I'm going to use that in order to inform where I send their ads out and who I put their ads in front of. Okay. This is incredibly important stuff. I know it sounds complicated, but the long and short of it is you just need to install your Facebook Pixel. Plenty of YouTube videos on it. Maybe I'll do a YouTube video for it sometime. But this is incredibly important if you ever possibly want to start running ads later down the road.