QB Power Hour Podcast

What do I even CHARGE for this? Moving away from HOURLY billing [7.7.26]

• Dan DeLong

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A prospect asks what you charge, and you freeze. You quote a number that feels about right, then spend the whole engagement watching the clock and quietly hoping the hours work out. The truth is that billing by the hour caps what you earn and punishes you for getting faster and better at your job. The more efficient you get, the less you make. That math is broken.

In this QB Power Hour, we're breaking up with the hourly model and showing you what to do instead. We'll cover:

  • Why hourly quietly puts a ceiling on your income and your time
  • How to move to fixed and value based pricing without guessing
  • Scoping and pricing the messy stuff, like cleanup, when you can't see the bottom yet
  • Setting a confident number and what to say when a client pushes back on it

The goal isn't to charge more for the sake of it. It's to get paid for the value you deliver instead of the minutes you log. Show up with the service you never know how to price. Leave knowing how to quote it without flinching.

QB Power Hour is a free, biweekly webinar series for accountants, ProAdvisors, CPAs, bookkeepers and QuickBooks consultants presented by Dan DeLong and Sharrin Fuller who are very passionate about the industry, QuickBooks and apps that integrate with QuickBooks.

Connect with Sharrin's Clone and Conquer Hub: https://snip.ly/SharrinQBPH 

Get QuickAnswer with Dan's School of Bookkeeping Community: https://snip.ly/QuickAnswers 

Watch or listen to all of the QB Power Hours at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/blog 

Register for upcoming webinars at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/

Intuit Connect Rant

Sharrin Fuller

I'm driving this one. Dan, as he said, gets to be a passenger princess so he doesn't have to do all the work, and- As you've noticed, we are trying to give you guys a lot more content than just QuickBooks.

Dan DeLong

So I mean, this is a- All right this is a topic that I think is very pertinent for for our industry. Uh, you know, what do- Our hourly what do we charge, right? I mean, this whole-

Sharrin Fuller

Yep

Dan DeLong

idea-

Sharrin Fuller

You just jump straight through.

Dan DeLong

Yeah.

Sharrin Fuller

Here's our sponsors. Click those, get some stuff. Um- If I also just

Why Pricing Matters

Sharrin Fuller

created a full course based on what we're talking about in my community with templates, how-tos, instruction, everything if you wanted it. And, of course, Dan, Dan got you on anything Intuit. All right, now let's talk about it.

Dan DeLong

Well, I mean, when I left Intuit- Uh-huh you know, going from an employee making an hourly wage and not really concerned about the nature of the conversations that I'm having with, with people, to me it made no difference. Mm-hmm. You know? And, and, and I didn't get the luxury of saying no to answers- No you know, when somebody calls and- Did any of us? Yeah. So when I left, I was like, "Well, what, what do I charge," right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, going from an hourly type of employee to an entrepreneur or, you know, business owner, at, at that point, that was a huge question for- Mm-hmm for me. What was your findings as you were growing your-

Sharrin Fuller

Sa-

Dan DeLong

your business?

Sharrin Fuller

Same thing. I mean, when I first started, I I'm gonna date myself, but I- found my... Well, my original clients that I had, if anybody's read my book, um, were all from my current op- the operations facility that was going out of business and/or being sold. I took on them. But as I grew, I would go to Craigslist, and I would look up ads for people looking for a bookkeeper, people looking for an office manager part-time, a few hours a week. And I charged, when I first started I think I was 20 bucks an hour, because I didn't know what the hell I was doing, Dan. I really didn't. I mean, I, I knew enough to be worth $20 an hour, which back in 2006 was actually pretty

Starting Hourly Rates

Sharrin Fuller

dang good. Then I went up to 25 when I knew, when I was like, "Okay, I know what I'm doing." But yeah, hourly. Hourly, right? It's, that's what we did because you went in the office, you got in there at this time, you left at this time, I pay you for those three hours. So, yes.

Dan DeLong

Yeah. Absolutely. So I'm curious, and I just put it in the, in the chat there, you know, how did you first decide what to charge your clients? Did you, did you crowdsource, right? Did you, did you go to Craigslist, look what other people were charging? Yep. Or did you- Or what they're asking for did you have a mentor- Research that would, uh- Yeah you know, des- uh, de- Uh, provide guidance as to- Yep as to what to charge? I'm, I'm really curious- uh, what the, what the-

Sharrin Fuller

Carol, for decades? You've gotta be only at least 42. So- Carol started at two years old.

Dan DeLong

Out of the womb she started charging-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah

Dan DeLong

hourly.

Sharrin Fuller

The hourly mom. Yes, but that's what we do, right? And that's what our clients were, especially, I think, prior to, uh, really a lot prior to COVID or prior to being in an office. We were very hourly. And, uh, I got off of hourly, I think, after about eight... I was like, "Nope, we're going, we're going to scope." but I wa- I did that after I realized that I was punishing myself, like what we've said right here. So in the beginning, what took me five hours to do, after four or five years only took me an hour. And I realized I'd go into these offices and get the same... Well, no, I didn't go into offices. I only did offices for probably my first year, and then I was like, "Nope, we're all remote." But I'd, I'd get the work done, and I was like, "This sucks." What took me five hours, I was making 125, I now make $25 for. But the work, the end product is the same. And so that's when I,

Switching to Flat Fees

Sharrin Fuller

I realized, okay, I need to switch all my clients to a monthly flat fee is what I did at the time, and I think that was around 2000 and... I started my first company in 2006. I think by 2011 everybody was a monthly flat fee. And I would say, "Okay, this is what you pay me monthly. This is just how much it is." And that was almost, it was an adjustment. They're like, "But wait." I'm like, "You 'but wait.'" Um, but

Dan DeLong

it allowed me to be efficient. Yeah, 'cause it's a penalty. Like the, what, what you're saying on this slide here is that as you become more- Yep efficient and as we are in this state of affairs where technology is giving, is allowing you to become more efficient in, in doing the, the day-to-day work or the work that you are doing- Mm-hmm it's a penalty. Uh, like your, your, your, it, by, by relying on the time it takes, then, you know, you're ultimately hurting yourself by, by charging-

Sharrin Fuller

Absolutely

Dan DeLong

hourly.

Sharrin Fuller

You're punishing yourself for being an expert and being efficient at what you do. The better you get, the more you're punishing yourself, and it's not fair to you. I know we all, when we first start, I get it, it makes sense, and I try to work with people that are... When they first start I'm like, "Nope, don't first start that way," because then what happens is you've gotta train your clients later on, and nobody... Training... New clients are easy once you have the confidence. Training and updating the old clients is the hardest part. Yeah. And of course you have relationships, so they feel, they feel like you owe them. So you can't it's harder. They're like, "But I've been here so we- you were only $10." Like, yes, so you should respect the fact that I did all this for you, and now we gotta get here, right? And, and I think that- Yeah that is the hardest part. So- I- I- when it comes to that selling, right, we have to quit think of it... I, I just taught this last week. Amy, I see Amy's on here. She was on it. I did this in my community last week. But it's, to me, it's a mindset, and it's a confidence thing. When we first start, we don't have a lot of confidence. This is our own company. I just need to pay my bills. I don't even care. At this point, if somebody walks up to me with a $20 bill, I'm probably gonna do it because that $20 pays my something, right? Not these days, but gives you two do- gallons of gas. But that's how we started, is we just had to make money. But then as we get going, we're like, "Uh-oh, now I'm in trouble. Now I'm taking on 25, 30, 40 clients, and all these people are coming at me, and I have to log all this time," and you can't be efficient. So y- you... here's a little bit of, you know, when you're hourly, you're selling your time. When it's fixed, it's deliverable. When it's value, it's an outcome. And somebody mentioned Ron Baker does have his value-based pricing. I, it depending... It, to me, there's no wrong way except for hourly. I hear relationship pricing, fixed pricing, value pricing. Honestly, to me, it's all kind of it's one set and this is what you're gonna get. My last company that I had was very it was scope here. But it's ca- it, all of our, um, clients were cash basis, and they would go in and we'd say, "Here is what we will do. Here is how we weigh it," and everything we did was completely measurable.

Fixed vs Value Outcomes

Sharrin Fuller

"Here is what it costs you." And- Mm-hmm. Yeah they didn't ask us, "How long does it take?" You know? We did track hours internally. But that's so we can make sure that the health of the client was okay and that we weren't going out of scope. It just, you, we did that internally. Not everybody does that. But we, that's how we did it. And I'm telling you- Yeah my, my first company, Dan, was, um, we did, we were fractional controller and CFO services, and we did software as a service. And we had, um, we only had, like, 35 clients, but very high-value clients, like 5 to 8,000 a month. It, my net profit on that was, like, 26% versus my last company that I just sold. The net profit was 46% because we were so efficient and scope based. Mm-hmm. So anyhow- Yeah, and- What do you... You, right now, how do you do it? What have you... I know you don't do accounting anymore,

Dan DeLong

but- Yeah, well, most,, uh, clients or my, the people that I work with are project based, right? So I'm still trying to, you know, find my lane, between hourly and and, and the value. But you know, what I'm, what I'm understanding over, over the course of, you know, having some of these conversations is that- That people will value what they feel and not necessarily the, a, a deliverable, right? Like great- Yeah you're, you're giving me these, uh, the, these financial reports and, and, telling me how to decipher them so that I can make, informed decisions based off of that. But what is that really getting me, right? Like, the, it's, it's giving me confidence. It's giving me peace of mind. It's giving me, whatever that emotional attachment is to, to the outcome. So when when we're talking about, things taking really quickly, like I, I mean, I was immediately thinking about data migrations from, from desktop to online. The, the actual process of doing that is really just a few clicks, right? Mm-hmm. It, it, it doesn't take a whole lot to actually do the m- the migration. It's the what happens afterwards, right? Like, how-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah

Dan DeLong

how well did that come, you know, reading the tea leaves after that. Yes. And that comes from, you know, the experience of doing it- Ex- absolutely over and over and over again, right?

Sharrin Fuller

Yep.

Dan DeLong

S- so, yeah.

Sharrin Fuller

And that's what's important. And then I, I, I feel that our clients shouldn't be punished when we make a mistake, right? And if we're charging hourly, I don't know. I, when we charge hourly, I feel like we would get, you'd get scrutinized more. "Well, what'd you do in that hour? What exactly did you do?" Yeah. And I'm like, "How dare you?" Especially if you're on site with somebody. Uh,

Dan DeLong

yes. Yes. "Well,

Sharrin Fuller

you stopped out, you stepped outside to take a phone call." I'm like, "Give me a break." but when it's deliverable or this is what I'm doing for you, then I can just say, "Did this get done? Here it is. This is what it is." And when we switched out of hourly and switched into that, we stopped having those conversations. And I did see someone ask, just you guys, if if there's anything that you want Dan or I to really... Uh, like, the chat is awesome. Have a chat amongst yourselves. We look at it, we definitely try to look at it, but since it scrolls, if there's something you really want answered d- go to the Q&A and throw the question in and we will, we make sure we hit every one of those. I just don't wanna miss anything. I did see something that says, from Pauline, "How do you include phone, text, and email conversations?" The answer is I don't. I always use Client Hub, and they have to communicate to us in one spot because allowing them to communicate with me everywhere is not scalable. I can't tag it, I can't track it, I can't keep them in scope. It allows me to keep them just in one place and assign tasks. So and then definitely with

Client Comms and Scope

Sharrin Fuller

the, the time estimate, I put together a whole worksheet on that that tells you how to back into what the actual time is, and it's the same model I used for my own company to... 'cause when we, when we re-scoped and tried to decide what are we repackaging. So yeah. A- and then I would love to see what are you guys doing right now? Uh, just throw in chat. H- our, our... I didn't do any questionnaires on this. I probably should have, but I didn't. So Dan's way more thorough in that way. Um- I'd like to see your... How are you guys, how are most of us, you guys doing it? Are some of you still hourly? Fixed value? What do you do? Dan can answer in that one. There's one about the Q at B- Yeah I'll let you answer that. Oh, I... So let's get... I think I've gotten here. So let's really quick talk about how you set. This kind of gets backs into how you get out of hourly. And find your floor, and what your floor is, that's your true cost, your time, your software. What does it actually cost you? And what I usually tell people is set, give yourself a basic hourly rate. I know we're talking about not hourly, but we're accountants and we have to back into things, and we back into things with math. So- Find, find yourself an hourly rate. For our, um, I think for our last client we set it, or our la- my last company, I think we set it 150. That's our basic hourly floor rate, whatever. And then what we would do is we would write out the scope of what everything is, and every single thing we did was measureables. For example,

Finding Your Pricing Floor

Sharrin Fuller

um, if they were, if they were... Most of our clients would pay, don't, nobody come for me, but this was our business model. They paid 5.99 a month. This got them quarterly financials, reconciliation, whatever, one a- um, annual personal tax return and one annual business tax return. And because we're handling the books, it made it very easy. And then our monthly for the books was, um, we did up to three accounts that we reconciled, whatever, and there could be up to 200 transactions. And then on top of that we'd add more for more bank accounts, more for more transactions. But everything was extremely measurable, and we were able to scope that out. And then I was able to back into what that time took, and essentially what it was, is it was three hours a quarter for the accounting or one hour a month. And so when you, you know, we were, I think we backed out 150 a month for tax. So what it came down to is we had a really, we, again, we had a really n- high net profit. So we're making, what, six... We're making 450 a month and it cost was, we essentially, 150, but then you, you know, what we were paying. So-

Dan DeLong

Mm-hmm

Sharrin Fuller

scope is important. Even in value, I still think there's scope. You still gotta... 'Cause if you tell someone, "Hey, I'm gonna do all your AP," well, what does that mean? You have to be able to have that. And then a- anchor to the outcome, right? This is where it's important. Um, what is the outcome? What are they doing? This is what the client needs to know. When our clients come to us, they, they're panicked. They don't like accounting. They don't like what they're... They don't wanna do any of this. So if you anchor to the outcome, "I am gonna solve this for you. You never have to think about it again. I will deliver this on your plate for X." Great. Done. And I always try to s- rem- get, get us in our mindset that, remember, our clients don't know this and it scares them. So any- anyhow, thoughts on that, Dan? How, how you feeling?

Dan DeLong

Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I'm, I'm seeing people in the, in, in the chat, and I think, I, I think maybe some, some framing as f- as far as, like, what is it that you, that you're pricing here, right? Because, you know, s- You could, you could be, you know, fractional CFOs type, type of stuff versus, you know, the, the, the monthly bookkeeping and tax, right? So I guess the, the, the process is the same, you know, regardless of, of what service that you're, that you're offering. Um- Yeah but yes you know, Carol had a g- had a great comment that, you know, she didn't understand what to charge until she did it a couple times. Uh- Yep, a- and you don't

Sharrin Fuller

with- That's normal you

Dan DeLong

know, there, there is an educational cost that you're gonna have. "Hey, I'm, I'm gonna need to learn a new tool," or, you know, maybe, you know, try s- try something a little bit differently. That's gonna take time you know, that, that you may wanna bake in bake in with that.

Sharrin Fuller

Absolutely. I, I agree. And but that's, that's all part of doing business, right? We all learn. We live and we learn. And that's why I was saying I also, there's been many a times where I'm working on things, and I'm like, "Oh, I did that completely wrong." And then the client knows you did it wrong, or they call it out, and then they start questioning everything you've done 'cause they're paying you hourly. They're like, "Well, what have you done? Do I need credits back?" And you're like, "Ugh, if I had just told you this, I would've lived, I would've learned." And a- again, it just brings more value, I think, in the long run, and it shows more confidence in your pricing, which is important in our industry.

Dan DeLong

Yeah.

Sharrin Fuller

Like I said, hourly just is really-

Dan DeLong

I, I, I do have a- a pain in the business I do have a question or, or a comment for- Yeah You know, for what you had there, like the, the, the scope part of it, you know? You go back, back. Like, where you, where you're scoping it in there. You know, that is your, your guidance, right? A- and a- Mm-hmm to understand, like, w- when somebody is driving outside of their lane or not, right? Like, they're texting you, and that's not part of your engagement or something like that. Yep.

Sharrin Fuller

Yep.

Dan DeLong

When you, when you have to bring up those conversations, like, "Hey," you know, like, do you, do you take g- good cop, bad cop you know, rou- roundtrip, uh, you know conversation with, with a client? Or, like, that I think is where a lot of people... And, and, um, you know, Devora was asking in the Q&A, like, how do you switch this from- Yeah billing hourly to you know, some kind of subscription- Yeah or, or outcome, uh, and have those conversations, w- the tough conversations that we may or may not want, wanna have, uh

Sharrin Fuller

Do you... Can I... What I've done with mine is I told them we went to fixed because I felt it was fair for my clients. It was fair for everybody. I would tell them I'm an extremely efficient person. I wanna be able to do a lot of things. And by me billing hourly,

Switching Existing Clients

Sharrin Fuller

it's inefficient. Um, and also, I, uh I can't remember. I, I, I have a script that I, I didn't say, but I do have a script of what I used back in the day when I told people, and it worked. And when we switched those ones off of hourly into fixed fee, somebody else said, "I'd be afraid I'm gonna lose them." So here's the thing, is when you get on a fixed fee- You should, th- there might be a little bit of an increase of some sort. At least there'll be an increase because Let me take one more step back. Sorry, I'm, I'm thinking through this in my head. So what I did for my clients of the work that I was doing, right? So I took a full year of those clients. I averaged their, their monthly whatever. I averaged it, and I'm like, "Okay, cool. So this averages out to $800 a month," is what they're paying. A little bit less. And then I took that $800 and I backed into what everything was. That allowed me to get on a, a fixed fee for them, and I'm like, "Look, we just took an average. This is what you're paying anyways. We put them in there." And then I was able to become efficient, do more things. I actually, even from just averaging, it was a good starting point for my current clients to get them into that one amount. Now I'm not having to stop and log time, stop and log time, invoice them. I've actually probably just saved a good hour plus of my own time- Yeah that is now billable. I'm like, "Okay, cool." Busy work. "So I got 150 bucks back," right? Yeah. And then from there it was easy to add to and to adjust moving forward. So that's how I, I did mine. I literally dubbed all of my invoices for the year, did an average at the end, and then build into the scope. That's how I did my past ones. Moving forward, I took that amount. I did market research, c- um, a competitive analysis of my market to see what other people were charging, because sometimes my clients would be like, "Well, I'm gonna go check out so-and-so." I'm like, "Great. Here are three people that I suggest that I really like that I think you should go get quotes from. And some are lower, some are higher, but I want... You know, here you go." But I also made sure that I laid out what they're getting with me. You get this personal relationship. I know you. Um, there's a learning curve with anybody. I'm guaranteeing this. And I think of all my clients, when I first switched them from hourly to fixed, I didn't lose any. None. Not a single one, because it was done correctly. It's not one of those rip the Band-Aid, because these are still our clients. I, um, like to think that when we have access to their books, we know them personally. I... Amy was on... Again, I'm, I may call out Amy just 'cause her name's in front of me. But last week when I was t- teaching this, um, we know these people personally. We see their transactions. We know where their money's going. We know how they're doing. And when you can read somebody's financials, I... To me, it's like how computers look at us with zero, one, one, zero, one, one. When I can read financials of a company and a person, I'm like, "I know you." so we have that kind of bond that's maybe one way, like our bond to them. But just remember that and treat it like that. Like, there... Everybody's... Most people are gonna push back because nobody wants to spend more money, but as long as you know you're worth it and you're ready- Yeah even if you have a little script, you're ready. So the pain in the ass fee, go ahead, Dan, I wanna see you. I, I see that Dan wants- Well, I think we're getting- to answer that live.

Dan DeLong

Well, when we get, when we get to where you're, you're, you're, you're pricing your, your things you, you talk about it- Yeah from the bottom up. So I, I wanna-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah

Dan DeLong

I wanna get to that slide. I wanna address that when you get to that slide. About how you, um- Absolutely how you might, how you might wanna price a, a, a pita.

Sharrin Fuller

We gotcha. We gotcha, Sandra. We're... Those... That's our favorite conversation. Okay. So of course, here's, uh, slides are here. You have the handouts. Take pictures if you want, but these are really just kind of to help you. So you just, again, you don't wanna, you don't wanna quote the mess blind. So it's good to have a diagnostic fee if you can. If you're gonna go in and do someone's cleanup, if you're just gonna look for yourself, typically you're gonna go back to them and go, "I would do this." Well, I feel better about it when I'm like, "Hey, I'm gonna charge you 250 bucks to go in, do a diagnostic," whatever. "I'm gonna give you exactly what needs to be done, and you can then take my quote to 500 people if you want and, and get somebody else to quote- Yeah off of you," right? And then you can create, and Claude can help you with this. You can get all of your, "Here's what I would do," make him put it into a beautiful presentation for you and send it off. Or Anchor. Anchor is great like that.

Paid Diagnostics and No Shows

Sharrin Fuller

Um- Mm-hmm but when they have that diagnostic, they're like, "This is exactly what needs to be done. Here is my proposal on what I would do it," but this is your diagnostic that you own anyway. But this allows you to... You're not not being paid for your work. Mm-hmm. Somebody's gonna do this somewhere, and they're also respecting you as an expert, that you're going in to be like, "I'm not getting in your books and digging through your books and then telling you what needs to be done for you to go quote me out elsewhere," right? Right. And I think that's something that a lot about a lot of us... Look, Carol did, Oh, that was a big one. The dia- so you guys, just so you know, when I'm referring to a lot of this stuff, I'm referring to my previous company, which, as I mentioned, was very cash-basis, very simple. So when I'm talking these low numbers, I don't want everybody to be like, "She undercharged." These clients were, like I said, an hour a month accounting stuff. So 250 for us was actually pretty good for that, but-

Dan DeLong

I mean, I mean, what, what you're talking about- Quote accordingly with a, with a, with a diagnostic, right? Like anything that- Mm-hmm is upfront conversation, you know, is- Yep is a, is a gray area, right? Like, you know- Yeah offering free consultations is the same thing, right? Like I had one yesterday- Yeah that wanted to meet for 15 minutes, and put something on my calendar, and 10 minutes in, no-show. And, It was an interruption to my day and my workflows- Yeah of, of doing that. Yeah. You know, so of course the thought came to me as like, "Well, I should probably charge for free consultations and apply that, you know, towards, you know- Yeah an ongoing thing where- Yeah you know, they get some skin in the game," because it was all just flippant. "Oh, something came up." A- and like, well, if you're not gonna value my time in- enough to- Show up for a meeting that's, doesn't cost you anything, then- Yeah you know, that tells me the future of our, of our working relationship too

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I've had somebody throw time on my calendar twice and no-show twice. I wrote back and go, "Hey, just so you know, you've no-showed me twice." I would love to help you. It sounds like you need help, but from here forward, I'm gonna have to charge you a deposit of $500 for our next call, and then we can put it towards whatever, because I just, the, y- you've cost me time that other people- Yeah could have been on my calendar. And it is, it is really rude. And I know he knew about it, 'cause I sent... The reminders go out, right? Mm-hmm. So it's just, don't be rude like that. But yeah- Yeah I mean, we have to be, as accountants, I think we all, we are captains save the world. There we go. We wanna help. I mean, any of us that you talk to and we sit down, we just wanna help our clients. We're like, "Oh, I just, there's this one old guy, and he..." I hear this all the time. "He's so old, and I just feel bad for him." I get it, but what about you? Like you know, I mean, we all have, I call it, we all have our one charity case. We all have our one, we're like, "We will, I will never stop doing things for this person," 'cause they love. But try to just give yourself the one. Mm-hmm. The rest of them- you're in their books.

Dan DeLong

You, you can't

Sharrin Fuller

save the world. You know they got money. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, "I know what you've got. Don't lie to me, buddy. I know what you're spending money on." Like, if you can't give it to me, the person that sees it, then, you don't respect what I do, and I deserve better. And again, it's just like a, it's definitely a mindset. Uh, we, in our mind, I think it's that imposter syndrome that there's 108 people on here that do what I do. Somebody else is gonna get it. It's not true. I mean, all of, of all of us on here, none of us likely have ever battled over the same client or- Right you know, send out proposals, ever. There's death and taxes, man. Our- our industry is going nowhere. I don't care what AI says. We talked about this last week. I don't care what it says. We're going, we're going nowhere. I mean, unless the IRS goes under, but they wouldn't do that. They need our money. So-

Dan DeLong

Right

Sharrin Fuller

yes. That was a big ran- you know, that's a total Sharrin derail rant. So yeah. D- definitely always do a paid diagnostic. It shifts the, it sets the bar right at the beginning that you don't work for free. Yeah. And- Right I know what I'm doing, and I am the

Dan DeLong

expert. And you're gonna give them something, right? Yeah, yeah. They're, they're, they're gonna get something for that if they decide not to, you know, move it forward. Yeah. And then, and then you, you feel whole, right? That- Yeah you know, you didn't give give away the, the farm for free. Um, but- Absolutely But then you can apply that towards your, towards your scope.

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. And you, and honestly, I think nothing makes me feel better than when I give somebody a beautiful diagnostic and it's all pretty. Like, I'm like, "Look how pretty this is. There's no way they can't hire me. It's so pretty." And then they'll go shop around and hire somebody for $100 less. They'll usually end up back. Uh, but honestly- Yeah, and, and now- if it goes somewhere for $100 less- and now we're

Dan DeLong

seeing- please well, I can hire somebody on Fiverr. I can-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, you

Dan DeLong

should uh, I can have c- I can talk to Claude about this or, you know- Yeah now, now I think that that's gonna be the common answer is like, "Why can't I, why can't AI do this for me?"

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, it can. Go for it. Yeah. Absolutely go for it, but when it messes you up and when it doesn't have the correct answer, because AI's only what you feed into it, and it will make up things, you go ahead and give me a call back, and my fix-it fee is three times the cost of what I would've normally charged you. Like, just so you know. Oh, Jessica, we will get you... I will- Maybe, there we go, Dan. That's a clone and conquer thing. I'm gonna add, um- Isn't it? That is a clone and conquer. How about I'm gonna build a course in my community for how to do a proper diagnostic. I will, I'll get that going. I owe, I owe a lot of content this week. Amy's waiting for content on me. I owe a lot of checklists, but I'm... I love that stuff. So also, the best thing to do is phase the work. Uh, when you go to someone, you're like, "Hey, here's all of this," k- keep in mind, we're, we're all smart, right? We're all, we're all freaking geniuses. I mean, hello. Hello. Um, so in our head, this is easy. So I always like to keep somebody on my team that doesn't speak account-ese, accounting-ese. Like, they don't get it. To me, I think that makes sense, because you have somebody who doesn't know what, what you're saying, and can help the clients. Like, they can dig in. They're like, "I don't get this." So when you're dealing with your clients and you're putting this in, just remember they don't speak your language. So it's good to go phase o- so if you give them everything, they're like, "Okay, cool, so you can do that in a week, right?" And you're like, "Ah, no." So it's good to give phases, and I always underpromise, overdeliver. This will take 30 to 60 days. Hey, I got it to you in 30. I'm awesome. This will take this. I got it to you in this. But I usually only do that in cleanup. I don't do that in my

Phasing Work and Guardrails

Sharrin Fuller

monthly and my fixed fee. If I tell you you're gonna get your close, again, this is where you set yourself as an expert, you get paid correctly. When I say you're gonna get your financials on the 20th, if I get their financials done on the 10th and they don't pay me for the 10th, I actually put it into Client Hub and I schedule it to send to them, to push to them on the 20th, like, at 12:01 AM on the 20th. It's done. It's off of my to-do list, and they got it on their thing. So that's another thing. Phase your work, and it also makes it easier swallow in the phase for the client to be able to go, "Look, I'm charging five grand for this, but it's 1250, 1250, you know, 2500." And that's easier for them than, you know, five grand up front, for some of them, so. Dan, I'm pausing for interjection

Dan DeLong

Oh. Sorry, I was answering, uh... I was, I was, uh, plugging you in the, in the chat, so- Oh, you

Sharrin Fuller

were

Dan DeLong

So

Sharrin Fuller

so- Aimee, I have a response from a client of the day. I was actually gonna cut and paste and send it to you so you know I'm not full of crap. I've been promising Aimee my client hub access, and they're like, "I promise Shanna we almost have it. I just don't want her to think I'm lying to her." But yeah, my client hub's pretty beautiful. I promise, it really is. I'll make David send you a message to prove it. Go ahead. Sorry, Dan.

Dan DeLong

But yeah, I mean, this, this is definitely, you know, putting your s- getting something up front and putting up the guardrails and then and then delivering on that, I think is the, the best way to proceed, especially when there's things that you don't know. You, like, you don't know what you don't know. Like, they know more about their business than you do but you're gonna find out. And- Yep and having that encapsulated in, in your engagements so that you can protect your valuable time, because that's the only thing- Mm-hmm that we don't have more of, that we can't create. Yeah. We can, we can craft things that will be more efficient and, and be more useful of our time and, you know, where it just takes five minutes today that used to take an hour yesterday. But that, getting to that point is, is something that you need to, you know, build into your, your, your engagements.

Sharrin Fuller

Yep, I, I agree. Same, uh, like the cap, the unknown. That's why whenever I do things, everything, every single thing that we did was, is based on it's measurable. It is measurable, because that's how we get scope creep. That's why people are like, "Well, it says this," and you're like, "Yeah, but it says this, this, this." it just, it really allowed us... And then you, again, you gotta... C- current clients is the hard part. Old dog, new tricks, right?

Dan DeLong

Yeah.

Sharrin Fuller

I always... So when new vendors come into the accounting space and they try to sell to the ac- to accountants, I'm always like, "Can I teach you how to sell to accountants?" We are the worst. We hate change. We will not change unless there's evidence, right? So same with our clients. They're gonna be the same way. So it's easy to do the new ones, but you have to change it moving... You have to just set that frame of mind and then, and then move it forward. And just, you really have to make everything de- measurable, absolutely measurable So this is where it comes into a confident quote. For those of you that have that confidence of um, I don't know how to charge, what you never say is, "I'll give you a discount." So I never discounted my services. Why? My services are my services. They're my time. You don't get a coupon code for that. I did all of this. I learned this. There's no coupon code. There's two ways to do it. One, the first thing, which I am releasing in my community, Amy, I know we were talking about this, is my, So when we onboard or when we

Stop Discounting Yourself

Sharrin Fuller

onboard a client, there's a set of stuff we do regardless, right? We do it no matter what. We just have to. If we're good accountants, it's what we do. So what I did is I actually took those deliverables, those tasks internally, tasks internally, and I put them into an actual onboarding scope of work for my clients. So my clients can see, here is what we do. Here is absolutely everything, and it looks super impressive, but it's true, and I put a dollar amount to that. I put $500 to that. Now, that is what I use to, "If you sign in the next seven days, I will discount this 500 because I have, I have clients starting th- in two weeks, but I don't have anyone starting here, so I can get moving. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to charge you for it." So we did that, and they could see everything, and that's what I discounted. Now, the best way to do it when it comes

Discount the Onboarding Fee

Sharrin Fuller

to your actual services is this way. Here's your three different levels. Here's basic, here's what you should be, and here's the, the, you know, the Mercedes of it. So when people are like, "Oh, I can't afford that," you never say, "Let me discount it for you." Say, "What can we remove from the scope to get it to your price range?" Yeah. But always have your baseline. Don't remove... Never remove the things. Like when my- we'd have clients who are like, "Oh yeah, we've got these things on the balance sheet, but we don't... I don't want to pay you. Don't touch them." I'm like, "I'm not touching your books." The minute you hand me your books and I hand you financials, I'm responsible for everything, and I can't carve out in your financials, "Not responsible for this." You just can't do that. So it's, I'm, it's on your... Either we journal it off and it's gone, which isn't necessarily right, but if I'm gonna be handling the books, it's there. Um, so this is how I've always done it, offered it in the three levels,

Three Tier Pricing Packages

Sharrin Fuller

and I never, ever, ever... Our lowest was at 599, then I think it went 7 and then 1099, then there were additionals. Yeah. Nobody was on for less than 599, ever.

Dan DeLong

Right. So, so this is, this is a great example of what I wanted to talk about with the PITA client, right? So- Uh-huh um, this, this came up in one of the, one of Hector's reframes where they started complaining about the things that clients do that annoyed them, right? And, uh, you know, where they're texting or, you know, they're not following the,, the prescribed, you know- guardrails and, and, and guidelines that you've established in your engagements. And so, you know, he just, he s- he said, "Well, what would it cost someone so that wouldn't av- annoy you?" Right? Like, when- Yeah at what point would that be okay, right? And, and she w- Yeah he w- he's, she was resisting, you know, having that, having that conversation as far as, like, putting a number to it. He's like, "What would it be," right? And it's, she would be, she threw out

Premium Level Reframe

Dan DeLong

some, you know, really high number, you know, $15,000, right? Or, or- Wow you know, something like that. And, and he's like, "Okay, you have now just identified your premium level service," right?

Sharrin Fuller

Yep.

Dan DeLong

And then all you have to do- Yep to figure out the rest of them is just peel back things that wouldn't be part of that premium level. And that way- Yep you can set up, you know, three or four or however many levels there are, and when they start to creep into the premium level, it's really just, well, it sounds like you're, uh, this type of thing is, is something that you're, you're, you're looking to do on, on ongoing. Why don't you go into your client portal and just change it to the premium level? And we'll- Yeah you know- Yep we'll continue to... And then they're, then they self-police themselves. Oh, no, no, no, that's not... Well, okay then, for that you wanna go through email or whatever, you know- Yep the communication path is. So rather than, rather than working from the bottom up, you know, y- in this case it's, it's more of a top-down where-

Sharrin Fuller

Yes

Dan DeLong

these are the services, all of the services and things that I would be willing to do, and here's how I would be able to, willing to do them, and you affix a fee to that, and then you just-

Sharrin Fuller

Yes

Dan DeLong

easily remove the things where, where what you're saying is, "Hey, what am I not doing?"

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah.

Dan DeLong

For this dollar?"

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. And you just have to set a floor. Like, I am not gonna work on any... Like I said, you have to set your boundaries more than anything, and don't back, don't, don't let anybody back into those. Be like, I mean, and I, I use Anchor. Again, I love Anchor. I- they don't pay me, just so everybody... I, I don't get paid. I, I don't even, when the, the, that referral fee, I have them give the money back to the, the client because I, and I d- I don't wanna be known as biased, but I do love their product. You're a promoter- And that's what I love in there is- of

Dan DeLong

their product,

Sharrin Fuller

right? I, I- Like,

Dan DeLong

you,

Sharrin Fuller

you wouldn't- We partner. They love me, I love them. Yeah. Um, but I don't get money. I'm not, I don't want to be paid from any of my, any of my people. Not there's anything wrong with referral fees, I just like to make it clear. Anyhow, but that's how I have everything set up in there is I'm like, "This is my baseline. This is my bottom line. We don't go lower than this. I'm sorry. This is, if you need lower than this, I'm doing less than my job. I'm doing less than my, my my due diligence. I'm doing less than what I, I..." My insurance would be pissed at me if somebody came back and said, "She gave me this and put her company

Set Boundaries and Liability

Sharrin Fuller

name on it," but they're wrong, right? And I know that. So we do have a, a, a level of liability that we have to be careful for. So while we are chasing the almighty dollar because we need to pay our bills, don't put yourself in a position to get a client that, number one, doesn't respect you and your expertise. Number two, doesn't value, which I guess is, i- is not gonna, that doesn't think that you're worth the money. So let them go to Fiverr. Let them- Yeah get screwed there. Yeah. I mean, there, there's that- But don't you

Dan DeLong

do it there's that philosophy

Sharrin Fuller

of

Dan DeLong

like-

Sharrin Fuller

There you go, Gene. I like it

Dan DeLong

hey, if you, if, if tomorrow you just doubled your prices and half of your clients walked, you would still be making the same amount of money with half the work.

Sharrin Fuller

Yes. That's what we did in, um, in 2020- four when I

Dan DeLong

merged

Sharrin Fuller

my two

Dan DeLong

companies together And probably, probably less than half the work. Uh, probably less- Way less because the, the people that are, that don't value the work that you do are probably taking most of your time, and energy, and effort.

Sharrin Fuller

Yes. We, we raised ours by... So we used to keep our QuickBooks and our payroll in our monthly subscript- our monthly fixed fee, because I'm like, "Y- well, you have to use QuickBooks, and we're doing your payroll journal entry," so I put it in. But as the, the things kept rising, I would have to raise my clients by, like, $5. I'm like, "This is stupid." So we went to all of our clients and I said, "I am handing you back your subscriptions. You're- no matter who you go to, you're gonna have to pay for them. I'm not gonna be responsible for them." But I left their pricing of their package the same. So they were 599 plus the, I paid the 45 and whatever. I

Raise Prices and Unbundle Apps

Sharrin Fuller

essentially got a $75, 75 to $150 increase per client. And then to them, when they get those transactions on their bank account, I'm still 599, but then they thought the Quick... It was an easier pill to swallow. Yeah. Gave us, I think, a $70,000 increase in revenue over the year. Not... That's just reve- that's just the money, right, that we were covering. But not only that, the time it took to not have to reconcile all of the statements because, you know, if they... Back before, this was back when Intuit didn't let you split out the bill, so everything went to the accountant, so I'd have to... You know, we'd have to reconcile. So we got so much time back, and it was a great way to, to do that. So yes, I love that. Now, this is, I think, where a lot of accountants have the problem, right? We are, we know our product really well. We know what we're worth, but we're not always the best salespeople. Some of you are gonna disagree. Um, my friend James Donovan, he does accounting leads now. I love him. He's great. He... If you ever need good leads, that guy is, is awesome. He, he says he loves what he does, and he'll get tons of leads in, but then the problem he'll have is the, the company will be like, "We just aren't closing any leads." So they just can't close. Either they're not... They, there's no follow-up, so they don't have a CRM, or they're just not good with this ask piece, which his company does that well. Again, I don't get paid, I just think James is re- I think he's the best in our, in our area or in our field for that. So this is, it's a game, right? If you ever... I, I'm sure there are books out there that teach you this, but say the number and then just wait. Hey, it's 1,500 a month. And then it's a game. He who speaks first loses. Lawyers will tell you that, right? Right.

Close Deals with Confidence

Sharrin Fuller

And then sometimes it's best, and we have Claude and AI for this now, so give yourself a script. Go in and be like, "Hey, Claude, I'm having problems with this. Can you give me, like, they say this, I should say this?" And then just get to know it and have it in front of you. You could say it how you want to say it, but just having it in front of you is... makes it a lot easier, especially because we're on Zoom. You can have it... Like, right now I have me and Dan are tiny in front of me- Mm-hmm but I've got my whole what's on my slides here, my slide. So you can have that. Nobody knows. It's the beauty of, of Zoom these days. But definitely own it. Own that price, man. You, you've earned it. You priced it, you earned it.

Dan DeLong

Yeah. And, and just what we were saying before, like, uh, uh, there's this woman on TikTok who, who, who handles, like, toxic work en- work environments, and she, she's ta- the scenario is she's, she's going in for an interview, and she's overqualified for the in- for the, the, the job that she's applying for, and they want- Sorry, I

Sharrin Fuller

couldn't find the mute.

Dan DeLong

Bless you. Uh- Thank you but she is, um... You know, they want to pay her less than what her expected salary is. And so sh- she's like, "Okay, which one of my qualifications do I not bring to the table?" You know? And, and just having that tough conversation during that negotiation period where- Yeah she could say, "Well, you want to pay me X amount of dollars for X plus Y amount of work." Right? So taking stuff off the table and, and doing less work to fit the value of what it is- Yeah that you're, you're, you're charging for is the cl- the crux of our conversations that we're-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah

Dan DeLong

we're gonna be having, you know, now moving forward.

Sharrin Fuller

Yep. Nope, I absolutely agree. And, you know, I, you guys, I'm not even gonna lie, I still have a hard time with this. I don't have an accounting firm anymore, I have my advisory, and I know how it feels that when you're like, "Hey, this is my price," that next word out of their mouth is possible rejection. And I've been in sales for a long time, and I, I used to sell vacuums and timeshare. I can sell anybody's product. I could sell Dan's product day and night. My own, I'm really terrible at selling, believe it or not. I am a terrible salesperson of my own product because I don't want that rejection. When they say no, they're saying no to me personally. Yeah. And that's how I'm

Dan DeLong

taking it. Well, and the energy and effort that you put into crafting-

Sharrin Fuller

Yes

Dan DeLong

that offer, and they say- Yes and their first thing, and, and any- if there's anything- That's too much but yes right out of the gate-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah

Dan DeLong

then it's a, it's a personal thing.

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. It's hard because it's yours. It's everything that you do. And I d- the reason I'm telling you this is because I know I come on all strong and confident. I'm being joking, but maybe I do.

Imposter Syndrome and Niche

Sharrin Fuller

But I struggle with this still to this day. Like, I, not even joking, I watch things, I... because I struggle with it, that imposter syndrome, that rejection. None of us like it. And whenever somebody tells you no or it's too much, you rethink everything. But don't. Just don't. Own it, and just know that maybe you need to maybe not adjust your pricing, maybe you need to adjust your niche or your or your client level. Like, I, I... My specialty is working with people that do startup solopreneurs that do not make a million dollars a year, not even... And, like, some of my people are not even at 300K, and there's nothing wrong with that. But a lot of people that do what I do, Dan, and you know in this space are like, "Oh, we work with people that are from 5 to 10 billion." I'm like, "What? How do you help the little guys get to-

Dan DeLong

Yeah

Sharrin Fuller

how do the little guys, how do the solopreneurs get to- Yeah 300, 500, 1 million if nobody's gonna help them?" But that also means that I'm working with people that- Have a lower... They, they can't afford as much, but that just means I adjust down. It doesn't mean I'm not as good as what I, at what I do. Just means I adjust down what I can't, what I offer for them so I can be affordable to them. And to me, it's worth it. Like- Yeah we all have our places. But if I wanna make... I could offer my same services to higher level, but I don't want to. Those aren't the, I don't- Yeah I don't have passion for the ones making 5 million. I have passion for the ones that wanna make 250 a year.

Dan DeLong

Right. Where they're gonna send the hell with

Sharrin Fuller

you. You're like me, Dan. You're like the little guy, right?

Dan DeLong

Yeah. Yeah. I want, I want those- The underdogs. I want the, yeah, an underdog without the, uh, without the little pill to turn into the superhero.

Sharrin Fuller

The... Oh, there you go. I forgot about that. Yes. No, absolutely. So, I mean, it, this is, uh, I was gonna do this little pushback scenario, but we won't. I feel like, um, you and I have a, a pretty... We're talking about it enough, so I won't, I won't make us do that.

Dan DeLong

Yeah. So this- I, I do like this because this, this speaks to what, what people have been asking, "Well, like, how do I- Yes how do I implement these things?"

Sharrin Fuller

Yes. So I, my, my philosophy in life has always been low-hanging fruit first. Knock out the low-hanging fruit 'cause it gets us in the... A lot of people go, "Do the harder stuff." No. You guys, we all know me by now. I'm ADHD. I live in procrastination. I work better under pressure. Like, "You've got five minutes to get this done." I work way better that way, and I know that. It's just something I've understood. So low-hanging fruit gets me easy, gets me into it, gets me going, gets me happy. So this one, new clients first. I set up my brand new scope. From this day forward, this is what I'm gonna charge to all these new people, and I've set those boundaries. I've put that line in the sand. I've set the ground. And then I go back and I'm like, "Okay, now let's look through my client list. Who's coming up on renewal? Okay, these guys are gonna be the easy ones. Let's..." They're renewing. A renewal date's great. And if you don't have a renewal date, this is something that Anchor is great at. Well

Low Hanging Fruit Rollout Plan

Sharrin Fuller

it auto, there's auto-renew, and they also have a price increase, which I love. Like, you could do a percentage or a dollar amount price increase annually. If you don't do renewals, you probably should. Um, my... Because then this is something else I teach, and your contract should be annually. This is a whole other thing. But for to add value to your company, if your contracts are annual, it doesn't mean you have to hold people to an annual contract. It just means they are annual. So I, the renewal ones are the easiest 'cause every, usually at renewal people are expecting some sort of price increase, and it's easiest to go, "Hey, it's a renewal. We're moving you to fixed fee." and if you don't have a renewal, then do that. And

Dan DeLong

you normally put a percentage with that, with

Sharrin Fuller

that increase? I always did a 3%. Okay. I didn't do a huge, because if... I am the type, for example, and I know I mention my community a lot, but that's why I'm here. Mm-hmm. Whatever you join my community at is what you'll pay forever unless you upgrade. So when my rates go up

Annual Renewals and 3 Percent

Sharrin Fuller

in January, my people that are in there now, as long as they don't leave, they'll always pay that, that dollar amount, and I think that's fair. So I like to do that with my clients too. 3% is normal cost of living increase, and I'll give them the slow upgrade. And if they add more services, I put it to what they're But whatever they are currently paying, I only do a 3%. And I've had 0% churn on that 3% increase, and everybody felt it was, it was more than enough- Fair and sufficient. And keep in mind, these guys are, they're already within scope. They're not going out of scope. So I'm not doing any more work, I'm just getting a little bit of a raise which then I can pass on to my team. Um, and it wasn't too much. 5% I thought hit harder. A few people didn't like that. 3% was good. And Amy, when they, when they sign... Yes, so Anchor does that for me. When they sign, it tells them that they'll have an annual increase, and it also gives them a 30-day notice that your, your, um, contract is increasing by 3%. Or, "Here, here's your current rate and here's your new one." So it does it for me, which has been great. So, and, and that's the thing, like Dan was saying. So when we increased all 85 of our clients, two churned. But the offset when I had... You know, we're accountants. We have spreadsheets. I had a whole spreadsheet. Here's what they pay now, here's what they would pay. Here's the delta. Here's who I left. Like, here's who left. And I was still far in advance. Losing two clients, actually, I gained, I think, like, another 15,000 a month, and I gained all that time from those two clients that I lost, so it wasn't really that big of a thing. And if they're gonna churn over $50, $75, either their business is not that good, they didn't value what you did, or may- you might, maybe that was one of those clients that... Some clients, you have to shake them, right? You can't even shake them to let them understand what you're doing. And you just, you can't hold yourself accountable for that. Like, y- not everybody's gonna listen, right?

Dan DeLong

Exactly. Um, and, and, and not everybody's gonna value what you value.

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. Yeah. Ab- absolutely, and they're not. And that's where it's just holding to, Amy, I will, I'll, Amy, I'll hit you up in the community on the Anchor increase, and I'll do a little, I'll do a, um, video for you, just so you know. Um, y- yeah, you, that's where you just, you have to say, "This is what I'm worth. This is who I am. This is, this is what it is." And I, I think for me, anything sales and people are spending money, what they want the ROI. We're not handing them a tangible item. Like, I go, in my passport holder's Coach. I paid $100 for this. To me, there's value in that. Why? It's got the damn Coach logo on it and it's glittery. I like it. But I also could've went on Amazon and got one of these for five bucks, right? The value is, is I, I find value in this. The other one, it does what it was, but I want this. And, and, and that's how you have to think of your product. This is the value. This is what I want. Not everybody's gonna want what you have. They're gonna want this. And there's nothing wrong with that, but just hold close that you are Coach. Be Coach, or Louis Vuitton, whatever you see yourself as. Um, unless you wanna be $5 Amazon. There's also nothing wrong with that. I don't want anybody to think- Right wrong with that as long as you are pricing correctly to where you're

Value Framing Like Luxury Brands

Sharrin Fuller

getting your value. That's all, right? So I don't want anybody to think I don't want anybody to think that I'm I've... You'll never hear me get up and go, "Don't take a client under $2,000 a month." You will never hear me say that 'cause I don't believe it. So Anchor, Gene, is a Anchor is an invoicing system. They do proposals, invoicing, auto invoicing. It's amazing. It's like if you know what Ignition is, I think it, their thing is use Anchor. But look up Anchor Invoicing, and you should be able to pull it up. They're, they're awesome.

Dan DeLong

And the proposal platform allows you to put your put your templates and, and manage the, the billing, right? So, like, if you set up those different, different levels, uh, it allows them to go in and choose the right, right one or pick and choose, right? Like,

Sharrin Fuller

when

Dan DeLong

you're sending the- Let me actually,

Sharrin Fuller

let me drop you guys my link because I think you get... Oh, I'm so sorry, Dan. That's okay. I'm getting, I'm trying to get better at not interrupting. Sorry. Go. Oh, sorry.

Dan DeLong

Um, but it allows you to you know, when you're sending the proposal, they can choose what service offering based off of the package that you've that you've given them. So that way allows you to put those

Anchor vs Ignition Breakdown

Dan DeLong

things on co- not co-, cruise control. That's the word I was looking for.

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, definitely. Hold on. Yes. I'm trying to get

Dan DeLong

my- And, and Kim yes, it is similar- Copy to Ignition, right? So if you're using Ignition, you can use, you can do these similar things in, in Anchor

Sharrin Fuller

I just dropped, um, I just dropped my link in there because if you use my different link, you get 50 bucks. So yeah, the one thing I do like about Anchor is that they don't have user fees. So you can add your entire team, and there's no... You pay per. So it's $5 per payment collected. So no matter how many proposals you send out, whatever, it's per payment, and then you can push the credit card. Did you say that already, Dan, and I'm just repeating exactly what you just said 'cause I wasn't listening? I

Dan DeLong

did not. I did not. Okay, good. You're, you're, you're adding more color to, uh, my black and white, uh, treatise. Okay.

Sharrin Fuller

I, I was on... It's definitely... They're apples and... Uh, you, it's just UI, UX, um, what you want. Ignition is different. Anchor, I think, I, I just, I preferred it. I was on Ignition, but when I switched to Anchor, I think I saved $600 a month on processing fees, 'cause I wanted my whole team on there, 'cause I wanted my CPAs to be able to go in and send out proposals. But I didn't wanna pay $150 for them to be on there. All right, let's, um, let's answer... We have just a couple minutes left. Let's answer some questions. So boundaries around friends and relatives as clients. So here's the thing. We all wanna give our friends and relatives deals. Our friends and relatives should wanna support us and pay more. So I, I usually would give them, like, I would set a percentage. I'm still that person that, that does that. I would set a percentage and go, "Here you go. Here's what it is." But I would never personally do it. I'd hand it off to someone on my team. And that's totally up to you if you wanna do that. Honestly- I find it's, sometimes I find it's best to not work with my friends and relatives because they expect way more from you. When something goes wrong, they're mad at you. Sometimes it's better to be like, hey, like find somebody that you could trade with. Not trade, but be like, "Hey, you send me all your friends and family, I'm gonna send you my friends and family- Yeah 'cause we shouldn't work on it, and let's agree on a, a price or whatever." Find somebody who's like your same realm, and be like, "I'm not gonna do it, but I negotiated this with my friend and she handles all my friends and family."

Dan DeLong

Right.

Sharrin Fuller

And that to me, that's the

Dan DeLong

best way. Like this person is sharing without the blood relative.

Friends and Family Boundaries

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah. Because then if they don't do it right, you know they're your clients, so the last thing you wanna do is go to a barbecue on 4th of July and they're talking to you about their taxes. You're all, "Shut up, I don't care." Like my friends that, uh, my firm used to do stuff, they'd hit me up, "Sharrin, the CPA, I haven't heard from the CPA." I'm like, "I'm not the CPA and I don't own the firm anymore." But nothing, because they know how to get ahold of you and I'm very strict about with my clients the boundaries of how they can communicate with us. But friends and family ha- they know where I live, they have my texts, and I'm like, "Get... I, I don't care. I, I, I don't care." You almost should charge your friends and family more, because I think they're, they hold you to a higher, higher level- Exactly of work.

Dan DeLong

Yeah, they, they expect more but deliver, you know, but w- w- but want to pay less because-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah,

Dan DeLong

yeah they, they, they know, they know where your skeletons are.

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, absolutely. Sheila real quick said, um, in the middle of the company is getting sales leads to understand. Okay, yeah. So, uh, the good thing, like what James does, is he just sends... You don't have to have them do the sales. They actually just send the leads. They set it up to where you just get leads. It's a whole SEO thing, and the leads just come to you directly so that you don't have anybody middle. You don't have to. Or you can train them, depends on what you want. But they just get the leads to you. And I agree with you because what I find is I'm working with a lot of business owners, is the owners wanna keep the sales, and I don't blame them because they know their service, they know their product, and they're like, "I wanna push everything off of me except for the sales." And I actually agree with that. I think it makes the most sense- Mm-hmm and it keeps, it also lets them speak to the client from the beginning, keep a finger on the pulse of what's going on in their company. I think it's a smart place for the, the business owner to be if it's something they enjoy doing. You don't have to. Right. You can stay in your spreadsheets if it's what you enjoy.

Dan DeLong

Exactly. Yeah, so, um-

Sharrin Fuller

All right, Dan. Look at us- Great- closing on time

Dan DeLong

great discussion. I think we had, uh, we had some lively engagement in the chat, in the, the Q&A, so thank you for putting this together. Um, you- Of course you are, um, you know, in your Clone Conquer Hub, this is something where you're gonna learn more of, uh, if-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, absolutely

Dan DeLong

if you join, join in, uh, with Sharrin's community. Um, I

Sharrin Fuller

did- I think it just released, actually, this, the billing- Yeah one. Like, one with templates and everything, and how to back into things. I've got... Like I said, I'm not traveling for the next six weeks, Dan. So I am gonna be... All I'm doing is content. I'm so excited. We're gonna- Thank you all we're

Dan DeLong

gonna hear more of Sharrin instead of-

Sharrin Fuller

Uh-oh

Dan DeLong

seeing more of Sharrin, of where is Sharrin today. Yeah. It's gonna be, what is Sharrin working on?

Sharrin Fuller

There you go. And how can it help me? And, Dan, I'm e- I'm excited for our next one, which is, again, we're going into Client Hub versus Method CRM.

Dan DeLong

Yeah

Sharrin Fuller

I'm excited about our next one, 'cause you know me, I'm a, I'm a Client Hub girl.

Dan DeLong

Yeah. We're, we're gonna get into kind of the nuts and bolts of a practice

Wrap Up and Next Session

Dan DeLong

management software- Mm-hmm um, and, not necessarily pitting one against the other because you know, as we were talking about Anchor versus Ignition, right? It's really just wor- what works for you. They, they are gonna do similar things and They're going to have their strengths and, and weaknesses, and it's really just determining what works best for you today. Um- Yeah maybe it's both. You know, it, it- Yeah certainly could be, it could be both. There is a case that could be made- Yeah For both. Uh, but we're going to have Yousif who is, I like to call him the Dan DeLong of Method. He w- he used to work at Method, and he now has his own practice customizing Method to do what, what it is that you need it to do, and Sharrin, of course, being a power user of Client Hub is going to-

Sharrin Fuller

Mm-hmm

Dan DeLong

p- pick up the, the, the Client Hub mantle, and I'll just be- Absolutely

Sharrin Fuller

referee. Oh, it's me versus him, huh?

Dan DeLong

Well, no. I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll talk these things through. We'll have a discussion about them. They're not pitting one against the other, but it's really just understanding where-

Sharrin Fuller

Yeah, the

Dan DeLong

difference one has a strength and one, uh, might have a, might have a weakness, Love it before, you know, diving into that deep end of the pool. So we will see you in, uh, in a couple weeks and, uh, look forward to seeing you then. And as always, have a great week ahead and, um, we'll, we'll see you next time on the Power Hour.

Sharrin Fuller

Bye, guys