This CPA Doubled Her Prices With This One Simple Tweak

This is Anna. She owns a seven figure real estate tax strategy firm. And in a couple of months she was able to double her prices from an average of around $3,000 for a tax strategy plan to around $6,000, sometimes up to 10,000. And in this video I want to show you exactly what we did to get her there. Now, if you don't know who I am, my name is Peter Vanderwaal. I'm the accountants marketing guy and I help accounting firms break through the seven figure ceiling. I help my client Tony add 42,000amonth in the first 90 days working together. I last year I made $70,000 a month on a brand new offer we launched. My client Brock added $130,000 to his annual recurring revenue. Just one month into working with us, my client Ryan grew his firm from zero to $3 million a year in three years working together. And so what I want to cover in this video is first off the mistake Anna was making originally. Then we're going to cover the pricing strategy that we implemented and then we're going to talk about how to present this pricing to new clients. Because it's not just about the way you price your packages, but it's also about the way you present it to prospective clients. So the mistake that Anna was making, and by the way, most firms make this, so don't feel bad if this is what you're doing. But generally if you have multiple pricing options or multiple different packages or like levels of engagement where people can work with you, you kind of present it as a menu for each prospect. And so you'll have something, maybe it's a proposal or maybe you just walk them through it verbally. But you know, let's say you have package A and that gets you one call with the CPA throughout the year for a tax planning session. You get 48 hour email response and then you kind of DIY the implementation. So you have a couple weeks together, you put the plan together and then they go off and they do it on their own. They set up their entities, they go buy the new property, they do a cost segregation, whatever, right? Package B, you've got three calls with a cpa. So a little bit more support throughout the year. You got still 48 hour email response and then done with you implementation. So as you go do your cost seg and set up your entities, we're actually going to help you out with that stuff to make sure you get across the field, the finish line. And these are two like pretty normal tax strategy packages. We work with a lot of tax planners across the US and this is fairly typical for what we see with these type of firms. Now, the pricing strategy that we implemented was first off, we created a third package, okay? And I like to call this the Starbucks strategy, because this is, this is something that they do a really good job at. So if you go to Starbucks and you order a coffee, they'll ask you what size, right? And there's different options, right? So there's tall, there's grande, and there's venti or small, medium, large. Right, in regular English. And so these might be like a 12 ounce drink, a 16 ounce drink, and a 24 ounce drink. And just for the sake of this example, let's say it's $3 for a tall, it's $5 for a grande, and it's $7 for a venti. Now I think in real life it's more like $25 for a venti. I don't even know. I don't buy coffee at Starbucks because overpriced bs. But here's my point. We have three options. And by the way we price these and the way we size these options, we can actually psychologically manipulate which option most prospects are going to go for. So in this scenario here, most prospects are probably going to go for the grande. Because generally if you give people a small, a medium and a large option, they're going to say, well, the small sounds like it's not enough for what I want. It's not enough coffee. The large seems like probably too much. So I'll just go with the medium. It's just an easy pick to make. What you'll also notice in this scenario though, is that the, the size is not an even distribution or an even jump up or. Right? So the small is a 12 ounce, the medium is a 16 ounce. So it goes up 4 ounces, but then the venti is a 24 ounce, so it goes up 8 ounces. So for those people who definitely don't want the small, then they're really considering do I want a medium or large. And the large looks like a better deal because it's $2 more from a small to a medium to get only four extra ounces of coffee. It's $2 more from a medium to a large to get eight extra ounces of coffee. So. So the big one seems like a good deal in this scenario. Now there's a couple other ways we can manipulate this, right? Let's say we can only offer 20 ounces of coffee in our large. Well, the other way we could incentivize people to go for the large is to make it $6. Right. And so it's a big jump from the small to the medium, but it's a very small jump from the medium to the large. And so in this case, most people are going to either go for the small or the large, if it's an even jump. Or let's say it's actually. Let's say it's the other way. So it's $3 for a small, $4 for medium, and $6 for a large. Well, in this case, it's only a dollar more for a lot more coffee to go from the small to the medium. And so people are going to be psychologically inclined to believe, okay, the medium seems like a pretty good deal. It seems like the right amount of coffee. I'll just go with the medium. Okay. And so if I was doing this for a tax strategy offer, here's what that would look like. Right. So we've got small, medium, large, and you can call the packages whatever you want. I have a lot of thoughts on that, but that's a separate video. So let's say small, medium, large. And it's basically some support, more support, and the most support. Now, for a lot of you, this large package, whatever you could offer, you know, for the highest level of support, is actually a lot of work. And so you don't necessarily want every single client signing up for that. Right. Because it's more intensive for you. It's you spending more of your time with each individual client. And so operationally, what's probably easiest for most of you is kind of that middle package. So if you're like, Anna, your ideal scenario is, hey, I want most people signing up for this middle package. And. And really they should only be signing up for the small or the large in, like, very specific circumstances. And I've kind of set up the pricing here to reflect that. Right. So we've got $3,000 for the sum support, we've got $6,000 for more support, and we've got $10,000 for the most support. And I might even bump this up to 12. Right. So it doubles each way. But obviously that's an exponential curve in terms of, like, how much more expensive the pricing gets. And so if our tax packages are built this this way, then the majority of people are going to see this medium service, this middle service, as being the best value. And by the way, you can include whatever you want in these. But just know the more you can include in this medium or the more you can make the medium look like it includes, the more inclined people are going to be for this. So let's say on the small side, you get one call with a cpa, two weeks of email access, and let's say videos and tutorials for implementation. Okay? And so instead of helping them personally with implementation, you'll send them some videos showing, here's how to do a cost seg, here's how to set up your entity structure the right way for medium. Let's say it's three calls with a CPA, it's weekly office hours, it's 48 hour email access for the year and done with you implementation. So you're going to actually, you know, help them through creating their entities and all that kind of stuff. If we want to incentivize people to go for medium, we want to make large seem way more expensive with not that much more support. And so we might go monthly calls with a cpa, weekly office hours, and then everything else is basically the same here, right? And so we look at this and the only person who's going to go for this large option, this top package, is the person who really, really, really wants a ton of personalized one on one support from you guys, and in which case you're charging him double. And so you're more than happy to offer that. And so that's really the thing here. If you're going to come up with a small, medium and large, make sure the small is like so little work that it's like no big deal to offer this, right? One call with a CPA access to you via email for just two weeks, like that's, this is so small and so just like minimal work for you guys. The medium is kind of your bread and butter package. And so this one is where we're trying to present the most value possible. And, and then we've just got really good systems on the back end to be able to deliver this very easily and very simply. And then the large is going to take more work from us per additional client, but we're charging so much money that we're happy to do that work. Right. By the way, if you own an accounting firm and you're looking to scale past the seven figure ceiling, my team and I do exactly that. So we will create the exact messaging that you need to make sure you're attracting the highest quality clients that you're looking for. We will script all of your videos, we'll build the landing pages, the automations, the email sequences, we'll build, we'll launch the campaigns for you. And literally all you have to do is just spend two hours with us up front, just dumping your brain on the table and giving us all the information we need to know about your business. And so if that's something you're interested in, if you're looking for growth this year in your accounting firm, then you can click the first link in the description or if you're watching on your tv, there's a QR code you can scan. But to get back into the video, I want to talk now about how to present this pricing to new clients, okay? Because this isn't just about having the pricing packages oriented the right way. And then people are just going to go for whichever one is right for them because if you present it the wrong way, then they're still not going to buy the package we're trying to like, psychologically manipulate them into buying. Right? And so the first assumption I want you to make here is assume everyone you're speaking to is completely cold. In marketing speak, we've got cold traffic and we've got warm traffic, right? So warm traffic is probably what you're used to. This is probably referrals. This is word of mouth. This is people who maybe they heard you on somebody's podcast and they really liked what you had to say. Or if you've got a podcast, they've been listening to your show for a very long time. That's warm traffic. They already know you, they already kind of like you, they already kind of trust you. And so it's not that big a jump to get them from know like and trust to ready to buy. Cold traffic is the opposite, okay? So cold traffic knows little to nothing about you. They don't really have any trust for you. They don't know whether they like you or not yet. Basically strangers. And so if you can assume throughout your entire sales process that everyone you're speaking to is fairly cold, they don't know a lot about you, they don't trust you a lot, they don't have any reason to like or dislike you yet. They then your entire sales process is going to get so much better. Because at this moment in time, if you haven't made this transition yet, you probably can't even sell to cold traffic at all, right? If somebody were to click an ad and this is the first exposure to your brand, right? If somebody clicks an ad on Facebook, it's a 30 second ad, they go and they book a call with you, there's no shot you're going to close that deal, unless you know how to speak to someone who knows little to nothing about your credibility, they know little to nothing about the results you've created. They know little to nothing about how your service works. Now, if you're not already getting a lot of cold traffic, that might not be a big deal. But the other benefit of this is actually that your warm traffic is going to convert a lot better, too. So let's say you take four sales calls from referrals, and one of them generally just statistically, right? One out of every four signs up and becomes a client. Well, you might find that if you're speaking to them as if they're cold, then you're going to get one out of every three to sign up and become a client. And by the way, if you just take a few sales calls a week, that's probably the difference between like four and five clients a month or five and six clients a month. Like, this is an extra client every single month, most likely. And so to present this pricing to a cold audience, we need to create a gap, right? That's the very first thing we need to do. This is classic sales, but we need to create a gap. And what the gap is is we understand here's where they are today and here's where they want to be in the future. And this can't just be like, surface level. Like, Oh, I paid $50,000 in taxes last year and I'd like to not have to do that again, right? Like, that's a very basic surface level gap. But I actually want to know, like, what are their softer, more emotional pain points? What is not paying a tax bill every year allow them to do? Are they looking to invest into their next property? Are they looking to scale their business more quickly? Are they looking to run their business more profitably so they can buy back more of their time? Are they just looking for, like, financial and time freedom? Are they trying to become the richest person in the world? Like, there's so many different reasons somebody could want to save money on taxes. And if all you understand is that they want to save money on taxes, then the service becomes very transactional. And obviously we don't want to be transactional. Like, we want to be a trusted advisor to them because that means they value our service more, right? And so creating the gap here just means fully understanding their situation, demonstrating to them that you fully understand their situation, by the way. Okay, so think about those things you say on a sales call that might make the prospect go, oh, yeah, that. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Oh, yeah, I never even thought about it that way. Like, those are those catchphrases that you need to keep using and keep using and keep using every single time. And if it doesn't elicit that reaction, then I want you to test different ways of communicating it. So, for example, one of the things we shifted for Anna was she liked to use the analog of a doctor, right? So a lot of her clients, they have a cpa, but they're very generalist cpa. They don't know real estate very well. And so they make a lot of mistakes on a client's tax situation, right? And so Anna would say, oh, well, you know, you don't go to a generalist doctor for heart surgery, right? Like you go to a heart specialist. And so you shouldn't be going to a generalist CPA for, you know, your real estate tax strategy. You should be coming to a real estate specific cpa, somebody who invests in real estate themselves. Now, that's not a bad analogy by any means, but it wasn't getting that reaction from her prospect in the way that we wanted it to. And so one of the things we tested and this actually ended up working really well. So a lot of her clients, they're real estate investors, right? And so the analogy we shifted to and this actually ended up working really well was she would say, oh, well, you're not using the same realtor that you first used, like when you bought your first home way back in the day, right? You've got a realtor now who specializes in investing who you can go to. They're like a trusted advisor where you get your advice from them. And your CPA needs to be the same thing, right? Like there's the starter CPAs that just get you started and get the job done early on, but when you're more advanced in this wealth building journey, you've just outgrown them, and that's okay. And so this language of outgrowing their cpa, really, really powerful for Anna's specific ideal customer and the specific value that she can bring to the table for them. And so that was really helpful in just creating the gap. Now the next thing you got to do is identify mentally in your head, which service do I think this person needs? Okay? And again, 99% of the time, it's going to be that middle package. If you've decided to orient your packages this way, like we. Like we explain, right? And so that medium service, that middle package, the grande coffee, we're identifying the service that they need. And then we're pitching only that service. Okay. And so every element of the service, we're going to relate it back to the gap. Right. So those three calls with a cpa, well, their CPA isn't spending any face time with them one on one at all, ever, except for maybe like during tax season to ask them some very specific tax questions to file their return. And so you said you feel like your CPA doesn't really care, they're not really taking care of you. Well, guess what, we're going to have three one on one calls throughout the year to make sure that you're on track to hit your goals. Not only that, but we've also got weekly office hours where I'm on zoom for an hour and a half every Friday. And if you've got questions or if you've got stuff you're trying to figure out, hop on, I'll just answer your questions, whatever. I'm yours for 90 minutes. And so you can see how this relates back to that pain point of, oh, I feel like my CPA doesn't really care. It's very transactional. They're not really taking care of me in that way. Another common pain point people have with their CPA is they're hard to get in touch with. Right? They take two weeks to respond to a simple email. So we actually guarantee we'll respond to your email within 48 hours year round, so none of your questions go unanswered. Another pain point they might mention is that their CPA didn't really help them with any tax strategies. They just kind of filed the forms and like, you know, see you next year. And so you might say, hey, not only are we going to identify the strategies that work for you and that are going to help you save money on taxes this year, but we're also going to work with you directly to make sure you get across the finish line on these. So our calls throughout the year, our weekly office hours, the email access, it's not just so we can like answer your questions and give you information. It's actually so we can make sure you're making progress towards getting these strategies implemented, getting across the finish line and getting that big sexy tax refund next April. And so when you've pitched the service, obviously you're going to do all the sales things where, you know, you ask for the sale and the only time you're going to fall to the lower package is if they can't stomach the price and they're really, truly just not going to buy. Right. They either literally don't have the money or they simply just don't see the value somehow. And so that's where, you know, somebody could be like, oh, you know, honestly, like I've never even paid more than $1,000 for tax in any given year. So 6,000, it seems like a lot and I don't really have the money for that right now. Again, if it's literally just a money thing, then you can always just fall back on this small package. That's what it's there for, right? So we can still get them for $3,000 by the way. We might end up getting them for 6k later when they realize they need our help with implementation and, and they need longer term access to us. But we fall back on this smaller package so that we can say, hey, you know, that's totally okay. You know, we've actually got this service for where we do kind of a one time review. You get a couple of weeks of email access and then we've got videos and tutorials showing all of the strategies and like how to take action on them. Would that be something you're interested in? And so you still get somebody in the door, you're much more likely to upsell and ascend them into a larger service or recurring ongoing service this way than if you just say, hey, no problem, that's fine, you know, come back when you're ready to pay the price. Like we can't do that. We're just letting them go off and they're going to end up buying from somebody else. And so we've created a gap in their minds, made it as big as humanly possible. We've identified mentally, internally which service they need, so we're not overwhelming them with options and we're pitching just that one service. Okay. And the only time, again, the only time we're going to fall back to the next package, lower, the lower package, the small, or if we're pitching the large. You know, the only time we're going to fall back to the medium is if they can't stomach the price. Okay, now this is going to do a lot for you to just avoid confusion, right? We're not giving them multiple different options to choose from, multiple different ways to work with us trying to decide which package they really need. We just want to make the decision simple. I don't know about you, but like last time I bought a new laptop, like There was like 100 different options and I'm a MacBook guy, right? I knew I was going to get a MacBook Pro. I knew I was going to get a 16 inch, but there's different processors, different amounts of hard drive space, different ram. And I'm trying to decide, like, okay, what do I actually need? Do I need to spend the extra $400 on the extra RAM, or can I go with the cheaper option? That's all going to delay the decision. It's going to make them have a more difficult time saying yes to working with you. This keeps it extremely simple. There are only two options here. It's do you want to work with us to save money on your taxes, yes or no. That's literally it. And that's what we want the decision to be. If the answer is no at this level of engagement, then we can think of this like a decision tree, right? So if the answer is no at this level of engagement, then it's do you want to work with us at this lower level? Yes or no. And so this isn't to say, like, you should only ever have one individual service, and if. If people can't pay that price, then they should kick rocks. But that is to say, when you first initially pitch them, you need to pick one service out of everything that you offer. We call it your core offer. And this needs to be the thing you pitch every single time. Because our goal is to get 90% of our clients in this service. We want the highest concentration in this service because this makes it operationally easier for us as a company to scale. Hey, if you liked this video, you'll definitely like this one. Check it out and I'll see you over there.