How to Handle the “Quick Question” from Clients

Hey 👋 - Brandon here.

Happy Saturday to 1,520 growth-minded accountants.

Here’s one growth tip for you and your firm.

Today’s issue takes less than 5 minutes to read.

During tax season, we tend to see a lot of “quick question” requests from clients.

Today, I’m going to show you how we handle it.

Quick questions are the worst for two reasons: (1) they are rarely “quick” and; (2) when clients frame their request as “quick” they generally mean they expect the response to be free.

We don’t provide free work. Period.

Unfortunately, many firms will handle the quick question for free “just this one time” without realizing it negatively impacts their ability to staff their team. Missing revenue dollars stack up over time and can result in substantial capital that could have been used to recruit top tier talent.

Here’s how to stop answering quick questions for free:

Step 1: Create a fixed price support package

We have 12-month “ongoing advisory” packages that include email support, phone calls, tax resolution support, and a few additional features.

This allows clients to buy ongoing access to our team.

Expectations are set upfront because they scope is clearly defined. This gives clients a great understanding as to how to leverage us throughout the year and enables our team to proactively advise our clients.

Step 2: Increase your hourly rates to a level that makes you uncomfortable

We want our hourly rates to be high enough that it discourages most clients from leveraging us on an hourly basis.

This isn’t to say we want to discourage clients from working with us.

But serving clients hourly is extremely inefficient. You cannot predict requests and you can’t adequately staff teams because the ongoing scope is relatively unknown. I price these admin drags and risks in and the result is a much higher hourly rate.

Step 3: When a client has a “quick question” give them options on how you can help

This is where the magic happens.

The reason we give in to client requests for “quick questions” is because we don’t have the proper tools at our disposal. Instead, we cave and “just get it done” because it’s easier than asking the client for money.

But clients love options.

The next time you get a quick question, simply reply saying you’d love to help and here are the options on how you can: [Ongoing Advisory] or [High Hourly Rate].

If they pick Ongoing Advisory, congrats you just landed a nice sale and increased CLV.

If they pick hourly, you won’t feel too bad about it because your rates are now set at a premium level.

Works like a charm.

That's all for this Saturday. See you next week.

Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you.

→ Work with me 1:1 to grow your firm (now accepting waitlist coaching applications)

See you again next week.

Cheers,

Brandon

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