Do you ever get one of those e-mails that says you have the chance to win X if you do Y? For instance, fill out this survey and you’ll win a gift card for $100 to Amazon, or share this post for your chance to win a trip to your dream destination. I sometimes wonder how true some of those messages are.
Well, I can say I know that when Intuit (the makers of QuickBooks) sends an e-mail like that, there are truly winners. Not too long ago, I saw an e-mail from Intuit with a questionnaire asking for information about our business. I do seem to remember it said something about having the chance to win coaching with an expert, but wasn’t sure all it entailed (I thought I was going to participate in a webinar on the topic of value pricing). All I knew was that it wouldn’t be too hard to fill in answers to questions about my business and some of the challenges I’m facing.
Imagine my surprise when I received a call from an Intuit employee asking if I remembered filling out the survey and that out of the over 450 submitted, I was selected with 4 others as grand prize winners. She said I’d hear more about it from the organization that would do the actual coaching, but she wanted me to be aware that my journey would be filmed so that others in the industry could learn from me and the other winners as we progressed through the program.
So you might be wondering about the prize, right? Ron Baker is a CPA who now owns a think-tank teaching professionals throughout the world how to have better businesses. He is going to coach the 5 of us for 6 months to become the Firms of the Future! He will help us transition our business model to value pricing (I’ve started this process over the years, but it’s sometimes still difficult to implement).
In my mind, value pricing is the fee to provide specific services at a flat rate. For instance, I charge a flat monthly fee for some of my clients which includes bookkeeping, sales tax returns, and 1099 filing. Payroll is a flat rate based on how many checks are run per month. The hard part is determining pricing if someone has a fluctuation in their business throughout the year, or how to price services when some clients are just starting not need a lot of work done, and those who have been established for a long time with much more work to complete.
When I’m finished with this program, I’ll have a better process in place for determining those values which will make my invoicing much easier. As we continue to grow, the time it takes to invoice clients continues to rise as well. I’m sure my staff will also be happy when we don’t have to take so much time creating those documents at month’s end.
When the coaching is over, we’ll all fly to Napa, CA to meet in person, and discuss how we implemented his ideas and the results we achieved.
And as I mentioned, our journey will be documented on video. I’ve already had the videographer to my business to film some footage about me, my staff, and we even visited a customer location. The remaining videos will be done through Skype where I’ll answer questions about what I’ve learned, and how I’m applying it in my business. I’ll share more on my Facebook page as I continue this journey. If you’d like to follow along, please like my page at https://www.facebook.com/AffordableBookkeepingAndPayroll/.
For more information on the Firm of the Future program, see https://www.firmofthefuture.com/
