Josh Zweig is a the founder of LiveCA, an online accounting firm in Canada. His goal is to serve his customers from anywhere in the world with only a backpack.
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Learning to Value Price
- What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?
- Pricing is a skill that gets better as you practice.
- How did you first get exposed to value pricing?
- He was seeking a better way to price and found a mentor to expose him to value pricing.
- What is the difference between billing and pricing?
- Pricing is proactive, something you do before you buy something.
- Billing is retroactive, something you do after the work has been performed.
- Who is one of your mentors in value pricing?
- Jason Blumer, Thriveal Network
- What isThriveal Network?
- Network for accountants who want to do things differently (not status quo)
- What were the first 2-3 things you learned atThriveal?
- Always offer options
- Present from the highest to lowest option
- Price outside of your comfort zone (be confident)
- Did you struggle with pricing with confidence?
- You build confidence through experience
- Honor the customer by presenting the highest option first
Implementing Value Pricing
- What is an online accountant?
- They are accessible online (anytime, anywhere)
- How have you implemented value pricing in your business?
- Have a structured process for onboarding a new customer: Lead call, technical call, pricing call
- Why is it impossible to value price without a structured process?
- The process has to focus on what the customer values
- Without a structured process you cannot get better at discovering value
- What metrics are you use to track your onboarding process?
- Outline of their business, technology and pricing
- Personality of the customer
- How have your metrics improved over time?
- Need to have an idea of costs (capacity) so you do not under price
- What is the next step after the pricing call?
- Send a written proposal for the option chosen
- What are some of your experiences with underpricing or overpricing?
- Challenge of doubling the price for an existing customer (discuss value with customer)
Innovation through Value Pricing
- What are some innovations you have created in your business?
- We help our customers create real-time metrics and have more valuable conversations
- We look for ways to add value that the customer does not know he needs
- How do you create options when pricing a customer?
- Our CPAs collaborate to reprice each customer each year
- How has value pricing impacted your firm financially?
- We have grown from 2 people to 10 people in one year
- We get referrals immediately after the discovery process
- What is a story where you created outstanding value for a customer?
- A customer (charity) said they should pay more to LiveCA
About Josh Zweig
- Started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers
- LiveCA provides accounting services to Canadian businesses
- Home base is Tel Aviv but he takes “workations”
- Twitter: @LiveCA
- Facebook: MyLiveCA
I hope you receive this as constructive comments. The interviewer said “I love…” so many times that it quickly became trite. The only reason I am trying to listen to this to the end is because Ron Baker pointed out your article.
I have walked away from LOTS of work over the price. I am really happy to lose certain work over the price; I have developed a 6th sense about what client is going to be higher-effort and/or higher-maintenance and I need to get paid extra for certain aggravation issues.
BTW – when a CPA is getting paid adequately the dynamic of the relationship shifts and the client frequently has an epiphany about the relationship.
Another thing – I get squirmy when I hear CPAs use words like “Coach”, “innovative” (and others) about themselves. It is just too much over-used cliche.
Good luck
Bill – Glad to hear Ron is recommending the show. Thanks for stopping by.