The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

128 | [STRATEGY] Pricing & Scaling Mindset for Growth with Accala Kessler

December 13, 2023 Serena Shoup, CPA Episode 128
The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast
128 | [STRATEGY] Pricing & Scaling Mindset for Growth with Accala Kessler
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Listen in like a fly on the wall for a strategy session with one of my Accelerator students. We dive into:

  • Calculating client profitability
  • How to think about pricing to achieve your goals
  • Ideas for increasing value

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Connect with Accala:

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/accala-kessler-43bb746/

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my time is super valuable to me, right? And so it's like the energetic exchange of time. I have my hourly rate in that profitability analysis. I don't charge anyone hourly, but if I were, what it's worth for me to work on, like my time to me is worth. a couple hundred dollars an hour. So when I put that into the profitability analysis and I'm spending lots of time on a client, we lose money technically. I mean, maybe not technically, but if I were to pay myself, what I feel my time is worth, that's the number that I want you to plug into that profitability analysis is what you feel your time is worth. And if you're not actually charging that on an hourly basis, there's a disconnect, right? Welcome to the ambitious bookkeeper podcast. I am your host Serena Shoup and today I have another strategy session on air with Accala Kessler. She's actually a student of mine. Welcome Kayla, Accala. Oh, I knew I was going to mess that up. No, it's totally fine. So yeah, my name's Accala Kessler. My company is Rockhopper Accounting. Like I, like we were just sharing before we hit record. I have had my business for just under eight years. January will be eight years. The whole thing started as a side hustle and then built into a job. And then I said, I'm going to turn it into a business. And of course that's when baby showed up So I've been holding steady. I've been in a holding pattern for three years, which is a victory of its own. But now it's time, like baby's about to go to preschool and now it's time. I'm actually operating under a personal goal to triple my business in the next three and a half years. Just hit a big revenue milestone. Super excited about that. But one of the things I've been dealing with is, my pricing is mostly just hourly because I haven't figured out pricing packages, right? And one of the things that I can see is, how do I calculate margin by customer? What goes into that? you know, like, one of the things that we were just specifically saying is like, I know what I pay the other people on my team. So I know what I charge the customer, I know what I pay them. I can even calculate overhead and divide by customer or by The customer's percentage of overall revenue. How do I charge for myself? Right. I pay myself a salary each year, but that's just enough to make sure I'm in compliance with being an S Corp owner. That's not what my legit marketable price would be out to the market. So, a little bit of looking around, I saw that for an accounting firm, you know, a good margin to target would be 18 21%, so let's just call it 20 percent and be simple. That's the margin I'd like to have. And that's the profit margin after you've paid yourself and calculated your own. Yeah. Pay in there. Yeah. And probably I'm closer to 12 at the moment. I've been putting some other expenses through my S Corp. I took those out because they're not necessarily long term. They're not core to the operating of the business. You know they are legit business expenses, but I just, you know, you buy a course or I did a big, thing that I don't necessarily know will repeat every year. Right? So, that's one topic. I'm not real clear if you want me, I mean, like I was joking before we started the recording, I could have several of these. There are, there are issues. But that's one piece of the overall thing, which is It's time to grow. I would assert I need to add five to 10 clients next year. so I'm all in the systems and the onboarding and the automation. I'm just now after eight years getting a website. I rebranded my company this year. I have next to zero social media. Like my entire business has grown by word of mouth, which is exciting. Yeah. But to go out more public facing, there needs to be. a little more structure, a little more who I am. And that's, that's where I'm like, one thing I did hear you say about pricing so far cause caveat to all the listeners is I haven't completed the pricing module. I signed up like three days ago. I love your idea of there being a base price. Like this is just what it takes to get up in the morning and deal with your account. Yes. You know, you're not really just your account that's said wrong your entire enterprise, because one of the things that I'm really committed to is. I want my clients to win, and I know one of the things is I need to provide a lot of communication. So there's still like this one foot in, one foot out, where a lot of it's in my head, and it needs to get out and be standardized and be like, here's my main packages. And of course, there's always room for a one off, whatever, like one of my clients, I'm a virtual controller for them. That's not really duplicatable or scalable right now. It's very unique and I love it because it's always a different challenge every month. You know, something else that we're going to do or implement, but that's not the part that's going to have my business grow next year. that's one thing I want to pause here and kind of dive into that because I think a lot of people, I know there are other accounting companies that have created a scalable CFO model, but that requires them. recruiting a certain level of talent where a lot of us that have these smaller firms, we're not in really a position to recruit that type of talent and create that scalable model in that service level until you get to a certain point. So I think it's really wise that you've recognized that that controller service is not going to be the thing that gets you to that next level in scaling your business. And that's a realization that I had too. So this, the clients that I do CFO controller type stuff on, I haven't, I haven't delegated that part of the engagement because that's the part that really isn't scalable. What the way we are scaling our business is bringing in those quote unquote lower level clients, which they're still getting a higher level of service than lots of, yes. You know what I mean? But we've kind of pinpointed the sweet spot for how do we get, you know, more clients at a certain level of service that doesn't involve me. So that's where we're targeting our marketing. And one thing I just got out of what you just said is that my client that I was telling you about, it's basically, if I was to think about it, never thought of it this way. It's like I've got a W2 and I also have this bookkeeping business that needs to grow because if you take them out, I might as well be in year one of my business. So there's this whole sector that's got to grow. So that this client, I don't want to lose them. I actually love working with them. But I need the revenue to even out. They can't be 80 percent of revenue. They need to be 30 percent of revenue. Correct. So if you came from like an audit background or corporate background, one of the things that auditors ask is that revenue mix, like of your revenue, how much of it comes from one client? Because that's a huge risk, right? And so this is where we're trying to spread the risk, grow the part of the business that doesn't require you to be hands on. And so that brings me to one of the other questions that you had. I think it was before we hit record. Like, how do you rely? and trust the bookkeeping when it's not done by you. So then you're, then we're talking about building systems that create that trust, but also it's in your hiring process. It's all intertwined in being able to trust that. Yeah. And I don't experience like, Oh, you could never trust another person. I am fully willing to hire someone who actually has more years experience than me, right? Maybe they don't want to run a business, but they're been doing accounting for 20 years or something. It's, it's more trusting my systems and trusting that I know how to accurately spot check something, not like just this general mistrust of no one can do it as well as me. Right. Which I think is a good distinction to make. Absolutely. You know, because we do get, we do come across bookkeepers and accountants or any, any business owner, honestly, where they always, they feel like, well, this was, I built this business based on my skill. And how am I going to trust somebody to do it like me? No one is ever going to do it exactly like you. So you have to be okay with that. If you want to scale a business, bookkeeping is really, in order to truly scale it, yes, there's some things, technology that you can implement to help you along the way. But the fact of the matter is you're going to have to get bodies in, so you're going to have to figure out how to trust other people. And that's where creating the systems and the processes that have the double check and the quality assurance and hiring the right people, it's all kind of intertwined. So with that, one of the questions I have regarding Kind of diving into the pricing, issue or roadblock that you're facing. Yeah. number one, do you serve a certain type of client or a niche? Yes. Okay. service based professionals usually with multiple companies. I have a few startup, almost DIY level clients that I'm just sort of on, I'm on call for, you know, they call me up when they need an hour of, here's my list of questions, right? I want to morph that more into a quarterly check in of DIY because there are legitimately people that just started and outsourcing their bookkeeping. They're not even ready for QuickBooks. They should just be on a spreadsheet, you know, for their CPA. But that doesn't mean they don't need guidance, right? But then if you deal with them, I've got landlord real estate investors, right? Either whether they're directly managing or they've got it through a property management. So anyone doing active real estate is something I'm growing into. I've got a few. And then other than that, it's not really widget driven. It's, primarily service based and I seem to collect serial entrepreneurs. Okay. are you trying to get to a point where you have package pricing and you're not billing hourly? Yes. Okay. And I have some flat rate billing because maybe they were with me long enough that I can give a good estimate of your 10 hours a month, your two hours a month, like that, it's not compensating for any extras I'd want to add in. I did not calculate any of that based on, I just did it by the seat of my pants. What was I willing to have come out of my mouth? Right? Eight years ago, it was something like 30 an hour. Now it's much more, you know? Yeah. And maybe I'm too low. But I think one of the things that's so interesting with pricing is I've got to imagine this applies to a lot of us out there. We're alone in our homes, typically working virtual companies, right? I don't know how I stacked up. How do you do a market survey? How do I know if I'm in the middle of the pack or the top of the pack? Or am I really doing something that isn't being offered that much? Because I'm completely unwilling to just be, here's your books. Good luck with your tax return. No, one of my things we talk about is we want to help you win. So business owner, where are you trying to take your business? Do you even know how to read your financials? Because if you don't know where you are, how are you going to get where you're going? So, like some of that. It's not just, here's your numbers, good luck. Right? That's a value add. I don't know how many people are doing that. I don't know how common that is. Right? I would, instead of trying to figure out if you are stacking up against other bookkeepers and whatever, because truly you are probably offering a service that a lot of bookkeepers aren't, but what I want you to focus on is does it feel like an even exchange of your energy for the money that you're receiving? That's excellent. Yes. Because for some people it can be an exchange at 30 an hour because they are happy delivering that level of service for that amount of money. But other people might be charging 400 an hour at the end of the day for that type of service. So what I want you to try to, and this is where building in your base prices, that base price is going to be, this is what would make this type of engagement and even exchange the energy for the money that I'm receiving. That's excellent. That's really, really good. Because that leads more towards the direction of a fair exchange, right? Of value. And then if one month they have 20 questions and then they don't need anything from me for two months, you know what I mean? It's like, there's no nickel and dime. There's no, Oh, that's a change order. Oh, that's an addition. Oh, that's a ha ha ha. Like let's just make an agreement and take care of each other. Yes. fairly. Yeah. so one of the specific questions that I have about pricing is, like I said, how do you typically coach your owners to calculate their hours into the, the mix of their packages? Because like I said, you know, what I pay myself in official salary as the S Corp owner is not the number that should be used for calculating. value of my time. Right. a couple of different aspects. So one of them is to try to figure out, like, if I were, I mean, you are charging hourly, so maybe this is a gut check for you. Like, are you charging something that isn't even exchange for your energy? And also kind of taking into account, like, maybe just for examples sake. Maybe what your wage comes out to as your S Corp salary, maybe it actually comes out to, like, on paper, 50 an hour. And then we also have the profit margin that we're trying to achieve after that, right? So if it's, say you want to hit 15 or what are you at right now? You said around 12. So maybe you're trying to get that to 12 percent margin. Yeah. So if you're trying to get that to a 15 percent margin and say you are, and this is like, this is hard to do like in my brain without a spreadsheet and a visual, but I'm going to try my best. And this is maybe how you just try to work your pricing. or your profitability analysis. A way to think about it still really helps. You know, everyone's numbers are going to be a little bit different, but like, yeah. So, because I kept trying to start from how many hours and build up that way. And I think I've been coming at it from complete wrong direction. We need to reverse engineer it as to what we're trying to achieve. So one of the things, I don't know if you've, Heard me say this in BBA yet, but if you haven't yet, you will begin with the end in mind. So it applies to literally everything. It applies to each individual engagement. So This one engagement with a client as you're doing your profitability analysis, this becomes your baseline, like what's going to make this an even exchange at the end of the day after I've paid my team paid for the software, all the overhead, what would I want to get out of an engagement like this? What would make it worth it? And that's your Profit in addition to what you're paying yourself and your salary. So when, when we're thinking in terms of like an LLC, it's a little more simple because it's like, whatever the profit is, that's what, we can pay ourselves. But you're an S corp, so. You're already paying yourself a wage, so you're just going to add those two things together, your wage and your profit. And, um, you know what I mean? On each engagement. and then do that with a couple of your engagements and see, like, that end number, what I'm paying myself plus my profit, is this what I want to be getting out of this engagement? And if not, This is where we have to start thinking creatively. Do we want to just raise the price on the client or do we want to maybe offload a client because they're just an energy suck as it is and no amount of money is going to make it worth it? Or what can I provide this client that's going to feel like a lot of value for them, but it's not going to be much extra work for me, or maybe it's going to be extra work for someone else on my team, not necessarily me. That's ideal if we need to add something to the engagement to make it more valuable for the client. So, for example, one of the things that we do for all of our clients depending on the level, our very base package only gets this quarterly, but all our other clients get it monthly. And it's a loom video. And it's a very easy, quick thing for someone, anyone on the team to do. I don't have to be the one to do it because we have a script and a process to follow it, but it's a five minute video and there's a lot of clients that really love getting that visual representation of their numbers. And then we also, because I'm a huge fan of doing things in, I guess you would call it like an accessible way where we're giving the same information in multiple ways so that no matter who's reading it can hopefully understand it. So the same information that's in the Loom video is going to basically be bullet pointed in the email. There's a lot of CEOs that they don't want to watch a Loom video. They don't want to listen to something. They don't want to get on a meeting, but they need a snapshot of their numbers. So we bullet point. Revenue. Gross margin, operating expenses, net profit, compared to prior period or prior year, whatever's gonna make it most meaningful for the client. That way they can see, okay, we're on track. And then if, if this is a client that we're doing a budget for also, we'll compare it to the forecast. But Doing things like that, it seems like super simple, right, for us. But a CEO is going to be so grateful that they get in They know every month they're going to get an email in their inbox with all of that information. And if they want to dig into it, they can reach out. But I would love that information delivered to my inbox. Wouldn't you? Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. Yeah. So it's interesting. Our brains went in the same place. You were starting to talk about, like Evaluating I can actually see my margins might not even be 12. I don't think I, I don't know, because look, here's the thing, given that I have not fully switched to pricing packages and I've increased my hourly. And then I hired someone to do several of the tasks. So that increased my margin, right? Because every hour that that client got from my company wasn't just me, but my hourly rate is still what I charge. And I didn't add that in. So. What I can see is there are some clients that for sure we're going to do the package and I'll do an announcement. And some of them might structure differently, like they might get quarterly touch and they really are going to be okay with that. Like I can just see the rhythm of their business. Right. But then what I started thinking right before you started going down the thing is they might be at a really excellent price point. And the margin increase is I have to peel off more. I have to give away more of the work because that's where the leverage comes in. Yeah, exactly. And this is what happens when I've gone through and done profitability analysis on my clients is even the lower paying clients are a higher profit margin because I'm not touching those. And my time is super valuable to me, right? And so it's like the energetic exchange of time. I have my hourly rate in that profitability analysis. I don't charge anyone hourly, but if I were, what it's worth for me to work on, like my time to me is worth. a couple hundred dollars an hour. So when I put that into the profitability analysis and I'm spending lots of time on a client, we lose money technically. I mean, maybe not technically, but if I were to pay myself, what I feel my time is worth, that's the number that I want you to plug into that profitability analysis is what you feel your time is worth. And if you're not actually charging that on an hourly basis, there's a disconnect, right? Yeah, we said earlier that my current profit margin is 12 and if I was to really look at what we're talking here about this energy exchange and that kind of thing and, yeah, that, that's not what my profit margin is. Yeah. So it's going to be more profitable for you to actually, like you said, delegate more. This conversation could not be coming at a better time. Like it's just the sweet spot of, like I said, rebranded, about to get the website up. One, I was even just debating, do I want to show prices, not show prices, but I'm just like, this is what it is. If I show prices, you're called to work with us. You know what I mean? Because I'm not the only good bookkeeper on the planet. Sometimes it's just a sense of feel or who you bump into. And does that feel like the right person for you to work with? You know, I get that, you know, finally. So mindset shifts all the time. I love also the part about, your business can only grow as big as you are. Like I'm the cap on this business. So I'm a bit overwhelmed by all of it, but at least I have hit the first step called an awareness that I'm actually in my team's way. there's things that got to get out of my brain. What my, goal basically, I think I learned this from Alyssa actually, Workflow Queen. Just start videoing everything you do all day long. All of it. Yeah. Because it's funny when you first have a team, you think, well, what could they do? Or someone says, what are the steps? You're like, you don't know. You just, I just do it. And if you start to like almost be watching yourself do it, then you start to realize, Oh, there actually is a flow. There actually is a steps. I actually do. Someone asked me the other day, just in a chit chat thing at a conference I was at. So how do you do puzzles? Like, do you like puzzles? I'm like, yeah, I do them on my phone. I love puzzles, but how do you do it? And I said, well, I always do the edges and then I look for big colors and then this and that, and then you fill in the random. She goes, yeah, I don't do puzzles that way. And she said, however, she does them. And that is like a perfect example of, of course I have a system. I just. No one ever asked that random question, so I didn't even know I had that system. So, this is very interesting because, it may or may not end up with a price increase, but the price increase would have to, for it to be fair in my mind, it would have to have an equal value match, right? I like the way you're talking about, some of it's just a gut check for, is this balanced? This is for you as an individual, not let's not compare to what other people are charging because their level of service might be different and their, their energetic exchange is different. They might be more than happy to be giving away a lot for, for not much in exchange because they're fulfilled. Right. I love what you're saying, because I'm not working in some big corporate office with, you know, 20 of my fellow just graduated accountants, where you sort of, it's not a school setting, you don't know, oh, they got the A and they got the B, like, you don't know. And that's not the point. And you're like, yeah, you're just literally saying that's not the point. And for me, the driver needs to be Like, can I look myself in the mirror? Like, I have to sleep with myself. Like, am I clear that I'm providing? What warrants this price tag and the right clients are going to be like, absolutely. Cause there is an element of the intangible. There is an element of, let's just start with communication. How about a bookkeeper that actually generates communication with you instead of you having to go find them? I hear that complaint a lot. A lot of people, I understand it. We get overwhelmed. Yeah. I hear that complaint a lot too. And we consider these things so simple. And so it's like, well, that's not really a value add. Why would I charge extra for that type of situation? But I always try to put myself in the shoes of the business owner and like I hire other contractors and other service providers and, and, and everything. And I'm constantly thinking like, okay, well that kind of fell short of my expectations. What can I do inside of my business so that my clients don't ever feel like that? So let me ask you one other question that ties right into this topic. When you were very first at Scratch trying to build a package, right? And I know from your site, your lowest package is up to 200k in revenue, right? Were you already in business for a while when you sort of started, you saw a pattern, if they have this revenue, they typically average to this many hours? Well, what do you do if you don't have that data? You just Guess and adjust as you go. Pretty much. Because each industry is different. And also it depends on the type of business owners you're having conversations with. A lot of pushback I get is, my clients are cheap and like, I'm attracting these clients that don't want to pay. And I've had that situation too. And then I started adjusting the type of people I was having conversations with that I wanted to work with. Right. So it's all like, if you're If you're going to these places and having conversations with potential clients who might be cheap all the time, well, where are those people and where can you make adjustments of who you're having conversations with too? because yes, there's always going to be people who don't want to pay what you need or want to be paid. I was more thinking about like, just to put together a rough, like here's a draft of a package and thinking to myself on average, is that three hours of our work of actual bookkeeping work? And then of course we have to add margin and extras and the energy exchange piece to it. it's a really excellent point though, like don't always question your package. It could be what, communities and networks are you. Yeah. Trafficking in. Yeah. Yeah. And what, what can the business owner actually, actually afford? And, and that's how I started to kind of figure it out is when you think about, and this also has to do with like having a little bit of knowledge already about how businesses work, right? I'm assuming this when bookkeepers come to me that they already have some sort of financial acumen. And so it's not like I'm teaching somebody about margins for the very first time or like income statements, like. Hopefully you kind of already know some of these things before you start a bookkeeping business. So just kind of gut check, like, okay, say, just kind of shot in the dark, like what feels good on like an account that I may be spending two hours a month on? Would it be 200? It might be 200 for somebody. It might be 350, whatever that number is. Okay. There's your baseline that you're working from, right? Okay. So What about if I'm working, 10 hours a month on a client, what would, if my hourly rate is 100 an hour, we want that to be like 1, 000 a month, right? Just, just very simplistic. And so it's like, well, who can afford 1, 000 a month? What level of business could actually afford 1, 000 a month? Because we don't want to be eating 50 percent of their margins. That's not realistic. So that's kind of how I came up with those revenue ranges of like doing a gut check. Like, could somebody actually afford this? I don't want it. This is not a coaching situation where someone is going to hire a coach, even if they can't afford it, because that coach is going to get them to the next level. There's a little bit of that. Right? Especially if you're talking like CFO level service, but realistically for the bookkeeping, they actually need to be able to afford it. Right. And they don't want to switch all around. And the thing is, is I had not thought about coming at it from what works. If I think about my avatar, if I think about my client, what works because They're gonna, they don't care how many hours it takes me to get it done. Right. They need to be able to afford it. They want access to me when they have a question. They, they don't, I don't want any of my clients to ever be afraid to pick up the phone and talk to me, you know, so that's got to be built in, but I have never come at it from who am I out to attract. And here's an, I was also just starting to think about, I told you that I attract, I seem to attract a lot of serial entrepreneurs. One of my latest people that I just spoke to, I think you've got eight entities and they're all interrelated. And that's not something I would put on the website, but just thinking through, how do you bill for all of that? is it only ever by entity or is it by relationship? Yeah, that's a good question. So I have one client that has two entities and there is a lot of intercompany stuff. They're two separate entities. It's not like a holding company with multiple entities. It's two very separate entities, but there's a lot of like this company filtering stuff to cover over on this company. So the intercompany stuff is a lot of work, but. I still charge per entity, but I, the way that I came up with the pricing was looking at it holistically, like the relationship between the two entities and the owner. And then I just split it in half and then we physically bill each company separately so that I don't have to do an intercompany situation on that, but, or an allocation. So you could do things multiple ways like that. But yeah, also evaluating how much work it's going to be handling the intercompany stuff. Because I could get this, like if someone, I like that you, you gave me that feedback, because I could see like, you know, maybe my base prices. 500 a month. But then I get this person with the eight entities. Well, some of those entities, there's no way if they were a standalone entity would never be my client because they're not big enough. it's a holding company or it's a, it has five transactions a month kind of thing. But when you take the whole thing, so I like what you're saying, like they might only be 200, right. But then add up all the pieces and yeah. And I guess there's always a spot for the people with the more complicated stuff. There's always custom pricing. Absolutely. And that's the other thing too. Sometimes we get stuck in like, well, if I roll this out, I need to roll it out to everybody. No, actually you can just roll it out going forward. You can keep everybody where they're at currently, if that's what feels right and slowly make changes to your legacy clients. And, but as you're, and this is how I changed. my pricing over time too is I didn't go back and reprice everybody where they were at because some people, my margins were really high. Some of them were low. It kind of all evened out overall in my company. I was still hitting the margin I want. That's another thing. Um, and the energetic exchange of each client was on point. So I was happy where things were at. But going forward, all the new clients I brought on, I implemented the new packages and pricing, if that makes sense. So. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just thinking of a way to be like, here's our packages and then some little link below that says, and. If you're an out of the box kind of person, click here, we'll talk, you know, or something clever that just like, but you know, again, it goes back to what we're saying a lot of us are going to go to the site and be like, I just started my business. That's exactly what I need. Thank you. Can I have that please? And it's, it's not going to be more complicated than that. And they're going to get great service and be happy about it. You know? So I think, in some kind of way, that's cool to think about all the things that could come up, but, how often do those come up? Yeah, and how many more people could get served if I dealt sort of be too minded about it kind of thing. Mm hmm. You, I, I did not know where this conversation was going, Serena. This is, no, these are like really cool ways, blind spots I had, things I was not, You know, if pricing is a rock, I was only looking at the top of it, not the sides, not underneath, not like the whole thing. Yeah, and it's something too that I, I try to reiterate a lot in the program and anytime I talk about pricing, honestly, is like, you're not, it's a wild guess. You're not going to get it right. Allow yourself, give yourself permission to change it every time you bring on a new client. Like, change the way you're looking at it, adjust the price, say something a little bit higher, get a little uncomfortable. Practice saying the price for the love of God. Practice before you let that out of your mouth. Otherwise, you're going to say something way smaller than what you actually need or want because we're not physically comfortable saying. a price so high, even when we know the client is going to require that level of work and require that pricing, it's still uncomfortable to say unless you've practiced it. Yes. I'm just nodding in agreement. Yes. I have had to practice a few of those things myself. Yeah. I mean, I remember when I just first started saying I'm a business owner, like I felt I had to grow into it. Yeah. Sometimes I still get like that in certain situations. I'm like, Ooh, I have a bookie big business. Yes. You're not, you're not spreading any confidence to the person you're talking to. If you, this is something I just took away from an event that I was at just like the tone of your voice exudes. the level of confidence that you have. So if you're not confident in yourself, in talking about your business and what you can provide the client, they're not going to be confident in you and they're probably not going to sign with you. Yes. Okay. So in that same kind of vein. All right. So I say I'm a business owner and I have no evidence. I just like, this is it. I'm gonna have a business, right? And then the first thing that shows up is everything, not that, everything not working. And then the, my brain wants to go to, well, I obviously I suck at it. So I'm clearly I'm not, no, only a business owner would be seeing these problems. These weren't problems when I was only working by myself. Yeah. So it's like the declaration brings In contrast, everything. So it's like, I have a ton of things that have to be upgraded and whatnot, but if I had never declared it, it wouldn't have happened. So if we never say it and never practice it, then where's the confidence coming from? Yeah. Wow. Thank you so much for your vulnerability as well. I really appreciate it. And I think our listeners are really going to like this one. So. I'm glad because pricing has been discussed before. So I'm glad that we, our conversation went in so many directions. It was, I so appreciate your time. Thanks for the invite. Thank you. If someone wants to connect with you, is there any way, anywhere that you would like them to connect with you? Or if you're like, no, I don't want, I don't want. It's not fleshed out yet, but I am on Instagram at rock copper accounting also on LinkedIn. And, akala at rockhopperaccounting. com. And it's A C C A L A at rockhopperaccounting. com. Lovely. Thank you so much for, for your vulnerability and coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. My pleasure.

Introducing Accala
The Challenges
Identifying What is Scaleable
Questions for Accala (Niching)
Issues with Pricing when You Work From Home
How to Coach Owners to Calcuclate Their Hours for Package Value
Adding Value to Engagements
Don't Underestimate Simple Value Add
When You Start from Scratch
How to find the Ideal Client for Your Pricing
Pricing For Custom Clients
Conclusion

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