How to communicate your value (so that your clients understand the value you can provide)

pricing value Jun 18, 2020

A common issue I see amongst accountants I work with is that we struggle to communicate the value of what we do for our clients.

And therefore we struggle to get a fair price for all the value that we generate.

We're great at doing the work, we're not great at communicating the value that brings to our clients. And what I've learned is that although value is subjective, it obviously differs from one person to the next.

For most people, value can be grouped within one of four umbrellas. And these umbrellas are:

Make more money
Have more time
Less pain and
More pleasure

So if we can communicate, reframe the value of what we are doing under each of these four value umbrellas, then that will go some way towards communicating the value of what we are doing to our clients.

So for example, if you're doing the bookkeeping and VAT returns for a client, then communicate how that service of yours is bringing value to the client under these four umbrellas. So by taking care of managing the books, you are saving the business owner time, by taking care of the books, you are ensuring that the financials are up to date. And therefore you are making them more money.

Because the client can see at a glance what they are owed from anyone at any point in time helps with their cash flow helps them to collect outstanding debts by taking care of their books, you are ensuring that it's going to be done correctly, it's going to be done on time. And therefore the client is not going to get any penalties or interest for non-compliance and therefore you're saving the money again, and you are taking away the pain of doing that and liaising with the tax authorities.

And lastly, you could be even bringing them pleasure, it could fall under that because at the end of the day when the financials are in good order, then that's going to help the client get to their long term objectives as you work with them towards their goals.

So I hope that's given you a flavour of how to better communicate the great value that you bring to your clients in an easy to understand way. I hope that's been useful.