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Show Summary
Ed Kless joins Mike Michalowicz, Chris Curran, and Ron Saharyan to discuss how to improve the growth of your business beyond the use technology. Welcome to Episode 14 of the Grow My Accounting Practice Podcast!Our Guest
![EJK](https://www.profitfirstprofessionals.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/EJK.jpg)
Show Quotes
“Disruptive threats come inherently not from new technology but from new business models “- Andy Grove A business model will change mostly because of changes in language. “All transformation is linguistic; if we want to change our culture we need to change our conversation.” – Werner Erhard Client vs. Customer In literal terms, the word “client” is derivative of a roman word cliens which means “to lean”. Back then these people were the one’s who roman lawyers had to defend. Contrast that with the word “customer” originating from the word custom meaning it was a regular cadence. If you start using the word customer, even internally, your outlook on your “client” base will transition from having to fix them once a year to looking forward engaging with them. Training vs. Education Horses and dogs are trained; human beings are educated (aside from potty training). To train someone is to pump information into them. To educate is to draw out information from someone. The information is already there, they just need guidance to find it. Re-word your product training services to product education. If you compare the phrase “Let’s round up the staff for a meeting” vs. “Let’s round up the team for a meeting”, do you hear the different affect each word has? Different words conjure up different images in peoples minds. When you use different words you feel different. When you feel different, you act different. We don’t want to pay a fee, we want to pay a price. Don’t be so exact with your pricing – to do so cheapens your quality. Don’t charge $29 or $34.95, charge $30 or $35. A few words to avoid: -Discount. Talk about a preferred price or promotional price. -Service. Professionals don’t sell services, they sell results, knowledge, judgement, and access. These are much better words to describe the end product of what a Professional offers. -Efficiency – the better term that professionals work in is effectiveness. If you have brain cancer do you want your surgeon to be efficient or effective? The Psychology of the sale: Better Discovery Questions Many people are discussing making the change from hourly to value, but not just in pricing; everything you do in your firm should be demonstrating your value and the benefits of working with you. What questions should we be asking our customers that raise our value? When you have a discovery question, you don’t want to get too granular. You want to talk to the business owner and find out how their business performed last year. Did they achieve their goals? Did the business make enough money? Did the business owner make enough money? As you’re learning about the past you want to also transition into what they want to achieve in the future. Based upon their answer you may want to dig a little deeper… do they want to increase their profitability? Their efficiencies? Customers? Product services? Retention? Market share? This opens the conversation. Next you want to find out what they want to reduce. It’s not always just cost; it could be time, effort, turnover, complaints, conflicts, risks. Then you need to find out if they have what they need in order to achieve these goals. Do they have the right systems, processes, and strategies in place? By having these higher level conversations you will be able to understand where the customer is coming from while adding more value to the overall positioning of you and your firm. GMAP Now Task It’s all in the linguistics. Stop calling yourself an Accountant or a Bookkeeper. Why? Because those terms fall into the pre-defined generic definition of what the customer knows or thinks an Accountant or Bookkeeper is. They will then only look at you to see if you are a cheaper alternative. Come up with a unique, distinct term that automatically breaks you out of the generic label. One of our terms at Profit First Professionals is a Profit Advisor. Now they can’t put you in a generic box with your competition! They will naturally react and want to learn more about what you do. Then you tell them that you have special skills and tools to drive profitability in there business, and that you are an excellent Accountant/Bookkeeper, but you should expect that from any Accountant/Bookkeeper.Show Links
Follow Ed on his blog at www.edkless.com or on Twitter @edkless.Corporate Partners
Nextiva – VOIP phone providers for small businesses. Fundera – Single source online funding for entrepreneurs. Also offers an adviser program for CPAs, bookkeepers and business coaches. TSheets – The #1 customer rated time tracking solution! Fundbox – the simplest and fastest way to fix your cash flow by advancing payments for your outstanding invoices.Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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