Advanced Pricing Methods®
Modernize your revenue model. Focus on worth, not time.
Advanced Pricing Methods® (APM®) are practical and highly effective techniques for CPAs and consultants to price their projects before they perform the work. CPAs and consultants who participate in a 1.5-day APM Essential Skills Workshop hit the ground running, ready to implement what they learn.
Improve your customer experience considerably when you provide certainty in price and clarity in scope. Imagine using a process that consistently ensures you exceed expectations and avoid springing unwanted billing surprises on your customers.
Advanced Pricing Methods® leverage multiple revenue models including:
- fixed price
- multiple fixed prices (tiered options)
- subscription pricing
- unit-based prices
- pay-per-use pricing
- worth-based pricing (sometimes called value pricing or value billing)
- variable or phased pricing
As a seller using APM®, you explore your buyer’s desired outcomes before proposing your solutions. Once you and your buyer both have a strong sense of WHY the work is going to be done, and the IMPACT the work will have, together, you can explore the worth and establish an understanding of an acceptable price.
This happens through a richer, more robust discovery process than CPAs typically use today. You’ll use the collaborative APM® approach to be more creative about what services to propose, and then present the services in a very customer-centric way to highlight worth to your buyer. Lastly, you’ll learn how to tether your price tag to outcomes and results, not your service list, tasks, or time.
When you use APM®, your buyers purchase with confidence.
You provide certainty in price for an agreed result and clear scope of work. This comforting knowledge and the discovery process itself strengthens your relationship and deepens clients’ trust in you. Plus your team feels good knowing the parameters of your involvement and that you’ve established clarity about what is NOT included.
Benefits of using Advanced Pricing Methods® fall into categories of:
- better customer experience (CX),
- collaboration to reduce silos and propose more than compliance,
- improves margins through better scoping & project management framework,
- increased confidence in the firm’s (seller’s) worth,
- developing pricing skills, and formalizing pricing processes.
Click here or to zoom image for a more complete summary of how firms get better through using Advanced Pricing Methods®.
How Do Firms Get Started?
Preparation
Some firms institutionalize Advanced Pricing Methods® across their firm. Other pilot the program with two or more industry groups. No two firms approach their revenue-model change exactly the same way. Each firms has their own reasons for implementing and different goals. Each firm starts from it’s unique current position and leverages specific strengths of their culture to be successful.
For the best results with APM® adoption—whether they run a pilot program or full-fledged implementation—firms begin with some initial consultations. Through these consults, firms set themselves up for success by building buy-in within leadership, exploring alternative roll-out approaches, and establishing expectations about results and timelines.
Education
Learning takes place in one or more Advanced Pricing Methods® Essential Skills Workshops that cover foundational concepts and incorporate several group activities to apply concepts hands-on. Firms typically host private sessions for their teams.
CPA-firm Associations or other industry organizations sometimes host full APM Workshops or half-day versions of the workshop for their members.
Follow-on courses are available when firm’s wish for a deeper dive, but most find the Essential Skills Workshop fully meets their needs for their first several years of using Advanced Pricing Methods®.
Contact us to find out about any upcoming public or association-sponsored workshops.
Momentum
Once your team learns “how” to price upfront using APM®, there are several ways to maximize the high energy and appetite for change that participants have when they complete the APM® Workshop.
Some ways to keep momentum going:
- Group and 1-on-1 coaching
- Private service-tiering sessions for your team members
- Operational consultations to help you support adoption & “know what you don’t know”
- KPI consulting to modernize your performance metrics
This looks “different” for each firm we tailor to your needs.
Is your firm ready to harness the power of Advanced Pricing Methods®?