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2020 will be a game of two halves

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In case you missed my last post: 5 skillsets you still have time to sharpen before the next normal begins. Are you going to come out of this time wishing you had spent time developing or sharpening some skills that would make you a better practitioner for the next time?

On to this week: Today is not a scheduled newsletter day for me. In fact, I’m on sabbatical this week … something I work toward for the 13th week of every quarter. But today is July 1 … the first day of the second half of 2020. And I have a short but important message that couldn’t wait for my next scheduled newsletter.

Football (American and otherwise) is a game of two halves.
2020 will be a game of two halves.
The outcome for either is not known until the second half is played.

For some practitioners, the first half of the year was a great six months.
For other practitioners, not so much.

For the first tranche, keep on keepin’ on!
For the second tranche, if you need a come-from-behind victory, this message is for you.

Market and sell like your life depends on it … because it just might.

If you are playing from behind, first ask yourself if you are selling the right thing for the right times. If prospects, clients, and referral sources don’t need your “core” BVFLS services, what do they need? What can you offer, BVFLS-related, that is in your wheelhouse?

Create that.

Next, you must persuade your audience to buy what you’re selling. You do that by making noise in numerous channels—advertising, social media, speaking (zooming), writing, etc. You’ll reach the people who need your new service as you create awareness about what you now can offer them.

Then relentlessly pursue them until they hire you to do that work.

I’ve talked to practitioners who are reluctant to make that noise because they don’t want to appear desperate. Sometimes, coming from behind in the second half requires desperation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Get desperate.

Stop being a delicate flower. Make a ruckus, as Seth Godin would say. Market and sell like your life depends on it … because maybe it does.

So what

Timid salespeople have skinny kids.
~ Zig Ziglar

Next week

I will present and offer a solution to you.

 

Have a great 4th of July weekend!

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

5 skillsets you still have time to sharpen before the next normal begins

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In case you missed my last post: Death by hourly rate. As we get faster and better at what we do—because of accrued knowledge, acquired experience, and aggregated technology—we are able to accomplish far more … at a higher level … in less time. But increases in our productivity do not equate to equivalent increases in our hourly rates. Because of this, hourly billing almost always leaves someone feeling screwed. If not us, then our clients.

On to this week: It’s happening. The economy is s-l-o-w-l-y coming back to life. We’ve gone from crashing to pivoting to rebounding. How have you spent your shelter-in-place time? Are you going to come out of this wishing you had spent time developing or sharpening some skills that would make you a better small-firm practitioner? Well, you likely still have time before the next normal begins.

As I write this, I find myself in the middle of an eight-week program learning how to create a different kind of newsletter. (More on that in a future newsletter.) I’ve downloaded and read books on Search Engine Optimization and pricing strategies. I joined a coaching group that meets virtually for 90 minutes twice a month (even coaches get coaching).

As I think about the BVFLS professionals I know and work with, here are 5 saw-sharpening ideas you might want to consider.

#1 – Improve your writing

For all that is holy, I beg you to do this.

I can’t tell you how many valuation reports I have reviewed in my report review service. Not all reports are poorly written … not even most … but too many are. And there is no excuse for that when a client is paying $10k-plus for the product.

If you don’t like writing—if you don’t have the inclination to hone your writing—you’ve chosen the wrong profession.

Resource: 30 Days to Better Business Writing by Matthew Stibbe

#2 – Hire a virtual assistant

Of course you can’t do it all.
Why did you ever think you could?

So hire a VA to do all the things you hate doing, don’t want to do, or shouldn’t be doing because they are outside your zone of core competence. And the cost? No cost … the VA will pay for herself with the freed-up time that allows you to generate more revenue.

Resources: To get sh!t done focus on the WHO, not the HOW and If you don’t have an assistant, guess what – YOU are the assistant!

[Also, I just did a 4-part series of posts on this topic in the Practice Development ROUNTDTABLE group, complete with worksheets on how to outsource. Join the Facebook group, read the posts, and get the worksheets!]

#3 – Learn the soft skills of buyer psychology and pricing

There is an oft-forgotten middle step between attracting leads and delivering services. It’s converting prospects into clients!

Too often, I see failures at this juncture because BVFLSers don’t understand what is going through the mind of the buyer or how to price their services. Taking the time to master these soft skills will improve your close rate and give you more opportunities to demonstrate your incredible technical skills.

Resource: Implementing Value Pricing by Ron Baker

#4 – Start an email newsletter

Not a blog … a newsletter. Though there is a way to do both with little/no extra work (and I know that because that is what I do).

If you’re not comfortable writing, there are other avenues. One of my coaching clients has decided a branded YouTube channel is his best way to go.

Remember, having Authority in a practice area or industry niche is your competitive advantage. A newsletter allows you to communicate your unique perspective on the subject matter.

Resources: Newsletter or Blog: which is better for you? and There are 3 kinds of newsletters you can write – which one is best for your audience?

#5 – Create a minimum viable service

Many BVFLSers act like they are one-trick ponies. If there is no need for that one-trick (e.g., a business valuation), there is no need for them.

Except BVFLSers aren’t one-trick ponies.

There are several, separate minimum viable services we could unbundle from the core valuation service. Like quality of earnings analyses, comparisons to relevant industry peer groups, and business sellability scores. We just never had to unbundle these services before and figure out a way to market and sell them.

Resource: Never Waste a Good Crisis: Create Your Minimum Viable Service

So what

Don’t say you don’t have the time to do this.
There probably won’t be another best time to do this.
Until the next crisis.
In which case you will be wishing that you made the time during this crisis!

Hit REPLY and let me know your thoughts!

* * *

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

Death by Hourly Rate

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In case you missed my last post: Do you have a longer-term virtual strategy to compete? Businesses are slowly opening up again. Except not everyone wants or will be able to come back just yet. And if/when they do, it will likely be on different terms than before. Do you have a longer-term virtual strategy to compete in that world?

On to this week: In honor of what my INSIDER guest will be talking about on Friday, I thought hourly pricing was a good subject for this newsletter. (Priming the pump, so to speak.) That guest is Tracy Coenen, a forensic accountant and expert witness who charges fixed fees for her litigation projects. And she’s going to tell us how she does it.

Here’s a simple fact. As we get better and faster at what we do—because of accrued knowledge, acquired experience, and aggregated technology—we are able to accomplish far more … at a higher level … in less time.

But increases in our productivity do not equate to equivalent increases in our hourly rates. Because of this, over time, hourly billing almost always leaves someone feeling screwed. If not us, then our clients.

However, if we create an asset that generates revenue, saves taxes, builds value, quantifies losses, or calculates damages for clients—on the order of magnitude of what I know practitioners like us do—why would they care how long it took us to create that asset? Whether it takes us 15 minutes, 15 hours, or 15 days, clients are paying us for the impact our asset will have on their lives, their businesses, or their worlds.

If we charge by the hour

First, the final tab will be unknown because the hours are not known until the work is done. That normally leads to unpleasant surprises. Like higher than expected bills or larger than expected write-offs. Particularly because we don’t do a great job of keeping clients or partners informed during engagements about our unfavorable hours-in-progress variance.

[Before I went solo, I was a partner in an accounting firm. I remember offsetting a rather large write-off for one project against smaller write-ups for several other projects for almost a year until it was erased because I was too afraid to tell the managing partner.]

Further, when clients pay us by the hour, they tend to obsess over what we’re doing instead of the net-effect we’ll have on them. That often leads to unreasonable expectations and the desire to micro-manage the relationship, which I have experienced.

And through my experience and talks with colleagues, I’ve found the dynamic is influenced greatly by the size and maturity of the businesses that hire us—with the smaller ones often being the most strapped for cash and wanting the greatest proof that every hour is all present and accounted for.

It’s also difficult to scale our personal efforts when we work on an hourly basis. On an individual level, we can only work so many hours before we implode. So, the only way to scale our hourly work is to raise our rates. And often there’s a psychological cap for certain services. Not to mention the even bigger factor of our self-limiting beliefs when it comes to raising rates. You know what I mean.

And if we have plans to grow our practices based on hourly billing, we must balance the problem of finding and compensating top talent and having the demand for hours to bill. We’ll also spend more time tracking and reporting time, so the administrative burden ramps up as even more clients will want detailed proof of work and justification for every hour billed.

If we price by the outcome

None of the above is relevant. We scope out the work, we agree upon a fee upfront, we create and deliver the asset, we get paid the agreed-upon amount.

And when we base our work on an agreed-upon outcome, the social dynamic between our clients and us becomes looser. There’s no need to justify what we’re doing every hour. Just make the promised outcome happen in the window we agreed to and everyone is happy.

And if we want to scale, at the personal or firm level, the demand for projects priced to achieve outcomes will likely exceed supply of hours we would need to work/bill at rates that don’t keep up with our rising productivity. This makes growth easier to manage.

So what

Here is the message we need to better communicate to clients:

We are not a cost that creates an expense on their income statements.
Rather, we are an investment that creates an asset on their balance sheets.

In real life

Clients who hire us are, in the end, always looking for a certain outcome. They may not know exactly what it is or why they need it in the beginning (but most times, they do). It’s our job to help them define the outcome and associate a value with it. Focus on the outcome, not the hours.

* * *

So if some/all of this sounds good, join us on Friday, June 8 at 1pm ET to learn exactly how Tracy Coenen prices by the outcome in her fraud/forensic accounting engagements.

Related post

How do you come up with a price?

 

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

Do you have a longer-term virtual strategy to compete?

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In case you missed my last post: Is now the time to be a disruptor or a stabilizer? In either the micro-world of now or the macro-world of tomorrow, the answer is “Yes.” Be a disruptor IN the profession so you can be a stabilizer FOR your clients in order for your practice to REMAIN relevant.

On to this week: Yep. Businesses are slowly opening up again. Except not everyone wants or will be able to come back just yet. And if/when they do, it will likely be on different terms than before. Do you have a longer-term virtual strategy to compete in that world?

Yes, we’ve all been doing Zoom meetings. Frankly, I don’t understand why so many people feel “Zoomed-out” … I quite like them and believe them to be incredible distance shrinkers and time savers. But then, living in the RV for so many years, I’ve had the chance to get used to them.

But it is more than just Zoom meetings that have changed the way we do business. It’s a lot more. If you took stock of where you were at the beginning of 2020, you would realize that—over the years—you built a successful BVFLS practice by creating a certain experience for your audience of leads, prospects, clients, and referral sources.

An experience that is built around getting the work, doing the work, and delivering the work—all in person.

Fast forward a few months. Whether you are currently busy, working off the pipeline of engagements you had before the pandemic hit, or are genuinely struggling to get more work … have social distancing and Zoom marginalized and devalued your client experience?

And if so, could the client experience ultimately disintegrate into a price war for your services?

What will it mean if in the “next normal” you don’t get to meet, in person, the audience of people you normally encounter in the getting-doing-delivering work cycle?

So what

Here’s one factoid I’ve learned from following Robin Sharma’s work: research shows that it takes approximately 66 days to install a new habit. This time frame encompasses the point of starting something to the point of “automaticity” … when it becomes easier to do the new habit than not do it.

As I write this, most of us have already been sheltering in place for that amount of time. The things we thought we would never do (or have to do) are now ingrained as habits (some of which you may be happy to give up when it becomes possible).

But when we progress to the next normal, some of your audience—a critical mass, perhaps—is going to look back on in-person events and wonder, “Why did we do it this way?”

This is how movements begin.

And I am looking ahead to see how some of those movements may, and likely will, affect what we do and how we do it.

And how we need to increase our “virtuality” to deal with it.

In real life

Check out this LinkedIn profile. A thought leader I follow closely is stating right in the headline that his services can be “delivered globally via remote technologies.”

And then there’s this … hitting a little closer to home. This firm is touting its ability to perform a virtual valuation of a (seemingly) significantly large real estate portfolio.

In the next normal, have you thought about how you will deliver your client experience in a potentially extended virtual environment?

So that you can re-create the client experience in any virtuality and “future-proof” your practice in any economy?

* * *

So that is this post’s practice development message.
Hopefully, it’s been helpful and you can put it to good use.
How can I help you move in the direction of future-proofing your practice?
I have one idea …

* * *

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.

Is now the time to be a disruptor or a stabilizer?

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In case you missed my last post: Specialization – The paradox of limiting yourself. The paradox is that the more specific you are, the easier for your audience to find you … the more efficiently you can sell to that audience … the more effectively you can deliver your services … and the more likely you can charge a premium for those services.

On to this week: This post was prompted by a LI update from a colleague. Paraphrasing, it asked: Where are all the disruptors? Good question! But a reply from another colleague said: Maybe we need more stabilizers right now. Good point! So which is it?!

Here is the original LI post:
Not long ago, many people described themselves as disruptors. But recently I have not seen that term. What changed? [Thanks, SK!]

And the parry:
It seems to me we need stabilizers more than disruptors right now. Different challenge—different tool. I just finished reading Great by Choice by Jim Collins. It’s interesting the 10X companies studied weren’t more innovative. More than anything, they were disciplined. That’s a trait that holds up well in good times and bad. [Hat tip to JH!]

Here’s what I’m thinking: disrupt to stabilize (in order to stay relevant).

The micro-world of right now

A lot of people are on the sidelines … their reasoning for being there doesn’t matter. But what if we don’t want to be sideliners … what can we do right now?

Well, it’s a great opportunity for you to be a DISRUPTOR IN the profession by being a STABILIZER FOR your clients and referral sources.

“How?” you ask.

In the last newsletter, I said with a Minimum Viable Service. Something that if a client or referral source called you and said, “I need help solving X problem,” you’d say, “Of course I can do that.” Even though it’s not listed as something you do on your website or LI profile. Because you never thought to list it … until now.

As the country begins to open up leads, prospects, clients, and referral sources will remember those practitioners who said they were working from home and that their firms were operational.

But what they will remember more is if you were able to help them get through the crisis. And maybe it wasn’t your “emergency” valuation they needed (or could afford). Maybe it was your minimum viable service that kept them operational.

Short-term perspective: disrupt to stabilize (in order to stay relevant).

[Note: Amy and I have been watching a Boston College American history professor on Facebook Live. In one episode, she pointed out that every US president since Ronald Regan has dealt with some type of epidemic: Aids/HIV, SARS, H1N1, Ebola, Covid-19.]

The macro-world of tomorrow

Looking back on my career of doing “traditional” valuation work since 1995, I believe we’ve had the luxury of being complacent for a long time.

Looking forward, I believe we need to shift from business-as-usual to reinvention mode. (Not all that different from traditional CPAs’ quest to remain relevant.)

Many pundits (political and otherwise) all seem to agree that this crisis will change the way we do things … and that it will be a different world. So how will we do … what we do … in a different world?

Last week, I watched a Tim Ferriss-recommended interview with billionaire Chamath Palihapitiya. The theme of the interview is how/where Chamath is investing as a result of Covid-19 (incredibly interesting perspectives).

Toward the end of the interview Chamath says that Starbucks didn’t put local coffee shops out of business—it was their refusal to change. And that Uber has not put taxi drivers out of business—it was the industry’s refusal to change.

Of course, other examples come to mind, like streaming services and their impact on the music, television, and movie industries. They all saw the disruption coming but refused to change.

That got me to thinking. Companies like BizEquity won’t put us out of business.
It will be our refusal to change.

Our perspective needs to shift—FROM how do we hold on to what we have TO what will we be.

Long-term perspective: disrupt to stabilize (in order to stay relevant).

* * *

So that is this post’s practice development message.
Hopefully, you can put it to good use.
How can I help you move in the direction of disrupt to stabilize?
We need to double down on leveling up.
Maybe by getting started here.

* * *

Next INSIDER webinar
Join me Friday, May 8 at 1pm ET on Practice Development INSIDER for my interview with Neil Beaton. Regardless of the size firm you’re in, there’s bound to be a nugget or two that will boost your practice development efforts.

* * *

Don’t be good. Be great.

 

 

 

PS – Whenever you are ready, here are 4 ways I can help you build/grow your BVFLS practice:

1. Join Practice Development ROUNDTABLE
It’s a new Facebook community for BVFLS professionals who are collaborating on how to turn the practices they have into the practices they want.

2. Download this Find Your Niche infographic
The riches are in the niches, as they say. But what’s missing is a process that can help you identify your niche. This infographic is the missing process.

3. Take a free Practice Self-Assessment
I have 10 quick questions, and your answers will help you get a sense of how well your practice is working for you.

4. Work with me privately
If you’ve hit a time and income ceiling and want to level up, email me and tell me a little about your practice and what you’d like to work on together. Then we’ll talk.