26. Your Pricing Isn't What's Holding Your Sales Back

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Hey there. My name is Michael King. Welcome to the Connected accountant, where every single week I meet you right here. And I share some of the tips, the tricks, and the best practices that I've learned over the last six and a half years of building my own fractional CFO firm. You know, I just got off a call with a firm owner that's one of my coaching clients, and she was in a complete tizzy. She's like, mike, for the first time since I started my business, three consecutive sales calls, I've completely tanked, right? Three sales calls that I haven't closed the deal. And she's like, I think what it is, we're in this recession thing right now, and I think I gotta look at dropping my prices. And I was like, well, hold on. Hold on a second. Tell me a little bit more. Like, what's going on on these calls? And she says, you know, it's the same process that I've always used. I kind of use your framework, right? Where I get on the call and I'm talking about them and their needs and their goals and their why, and then I transition and I talk about, you know, why I'm in business and some of my values and beliefs, and then we get into the services and, you know, all the things. But when I get to the point where I talk about pricing and next steps, she's like, I can just feel the energy getting sucked out of the call. She's like, I can just feel it. I see it on their face, right? She's like, the energy just drops and. And nothing that I do gets them back in. And once that happens, she's like, no matter what I try, I can't close it, right? They're completely gone. I think it's pricing, right? Recession, gotta look at drop in pricing. And I said, no, this isn't a pricing issue. What this is, is a risk issue. And she's like, what do you mean? And I said, well, think about it. Yeah, we are kind of in this economic uncertain time right now. Whether it's a recession or whether it's not. The truth is there's uncertainty there. And so when we get into periods of uncertainty, people become a lot more cautious about what they put their money in, who they're spending money on, right? And then you come along, they don't really know you. You're selling this fractional CFO service. And most businesses have never had a fractional cfo. So the value proposition is kind of an unknown. And so it's kind of understandable that you know, with all those factors considered, that they would be a little bit cautious about moving forward. And so they have this perceived risk, and you've got to overcome that risk. And hands down, the best way to do that is by offering a money back guarantee. And she's like, what? Money back guarantee? What in the world are you talking about? And I said, well, it's exactly what it sounds like. You know, you tell them Whether it's month one or month 100 in the relationship, if at the end of that month they don't feel like you delivered multiple times more value than what they paid, you'll give them their money back. And she's like, that's crazy. Who does that? And I was like, people that are closing deals right now, that's who does that. And I said, just think about it for a minute, right? There's all the uncertainty that we just talked about, all those different things that are going on. You've got to find a way to mitigate that, right? And so what I found is the best way to do that is you put skin in the game, too. Because here's the reality. If you're not willing to bet on yourself, if you're not willing to say, look, if I don't deliver, then why should they trust you to do that, right? And by giving them that money back guarantee, what you're saying is, I believe in myself, I believe in my team. I believe in the value that we'll deliver to your business. So. So much so that if we don't deliver, that I'll give you your money back. I'm so not worried about it that I'm willing to give you your money back. And I'll tell you, I've been for three and a half years now, I've been offering that money back guarantee in my firm, and it's been a game changer. Anytime I'm starting to feel that resistance, at the end of the call, bam, I hit them with the money back guarantee. And that signal of me being that confident in our services and in the value we bring, it pushes them over, like, every single time. And she said, well, that's great, but won't people take advantage of that? Like, won't people come in, you know, siphon all of this value off of me and then ask for the money back? And I'm like, no, actually, three and a half years, I've never had anybody take advantage of that. Now what's important to remember is you've got to do a good job on the sales call, weeding out the, the leeches, right? The kind of people that would do that. I was like, but we don't even really get those on sales calls. It's one of those stories that we tell ourselves that people are going to take advantage of and they just don't. And I said, and even if one or two people over the next couple years take advantage of it, I said, you, you're going to get so much more business because you're putting your name and your money behind the promises that you're making. It'll, you know, 1,000 fold pay for itself even if somebody does take advantage of it. And what I also told her was there's another advantage to doing this that a lot of people don't think about. When you as the firm owner know that the money's on the line, that if you don't show up, what that does is that keeps you like really hungry, really engaged, really committed to delivering on those promises that you made during the sales call. Because when you know that you're going to have to give the money back if you don't do a good job, it makes you hungry to really deliver with excellence on the scope of work that you promised on the sales call. And so I'm like, for me it's a no brainer to offer a money back guarantee because it will push so many more prospective clients over the edge. It gives them that vote of confidence that they need in this time of uncertainty right now. And it also keeps me and my team hungry to show up every single month and do an amazing job. That 30 day money back guarantee is a game changer. So if you're watching this, if you're listening to this and you're starting to get a little bit of pushback on your sales calls, I want to encourage you don't take the easy route and lower your prices. Because I'll tell you what is the recession or the economic uncertainty continues and continues and continues. What you're gonna find is that you just keep lowering and lowering and lowering your prices until you get to a point that it's not sustainable for you anymore. You've gotta look for something different. And I think the first place to do that is by considering that 30 day money back guarantee. Listen, I don't know if you knew this or not, but every single week I have a newsletter that goes out. It's called the 5 Minute Fractional CFO and we've got like 230 subscribers right now that get the newsletter. And, and every Friday I deliver one actionable tip to help you start, scale, or optimize your advisory services. And the cool part about it is I write it so that you can read it in five minutes or less. So if you'd like to get a little bit more of the knowledge and the insights that I have from scaling my Firm, go to TheConnectedAccountant.com blog and subscribe for free. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing you back right here next week. I'm hoping my office is done by the time that we we film again next week, but I look forward to seeing you next week right here. See you then. My.