Practice Success Podcast

Michelle Weinstein Unlocks the Secrets to Sales Confidence for Accountants

• Canopy • Season 2 • Episode 6

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In this episode of “Canopy Practice Success,”Michelle Weinstein, founder of The Abundant Accountant, shares her insights on how accounting, tax, and bookkeeping firm owners can break free from the grind of feeling undervalued and underpaid.

She discusses how shifting to a mindset of abundance and confidently charging what they’re worth can lead to a more successful and fulfilling practice. Michelle emphasizes the importance of detaching from the emotional side of selling to focus on building stronger client relationships.

KC Brothers:

Welcome back to another episode of Canopy Practice Success. I am Kasey Brothers, the host of the podcast, one of the hosts, and I'm here with Michelle today. Michelle, will you give us a quick introduction of you and your business and Your passions as it pertains to accountants.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah. So my name's Michelle Weinstein. I'm the founder of the Abundant Accountant, where my mission is to really truly end the grind where we as firm owners, not me personally, but my clients feel frustrated and stressed, really having no control. over how your firm's going, your pricing, your discounting, you're trying to get everybody and anybody in your firm and how you can put an end to that and know exactly what to charge, know your worth, even when you think clients can't afford you. And also if you have current clients, how you can confidently increase your fees to your current clients without the Fear of them all leaving you. And so here at the abundant accountant, I have discovered what it takes to build a successful accounting tax or bookkeeping practice full of clients who are totally willing to pay you a lot more than you're charging now and pay you what you're worth. So you don't feel undervalued and underappreciated anymore. And how you can really detach from the emotional side of the sales process.

KC Brothers:

That one,

Michelle Weinstein:

you know, like if you get rejected or a client tells, you know, or you send off a proposal and you get ghosted and you never hear from them, how do you have a paradigm shift that massively propels you forward? And that's really what we do here at the abundant accountant. It's, um, a community where. Firm owners do get amazing results. They grow their top line revenues. They're doubling and tripling their fees and making the sales process the nucleus of the firm versus thinking that it's the work that you're doing for the clients. Cause without sales, you don't have any clients. So if I had

KC Brothers:

a clap track, I would play it right there, right? It's not, and it's not a bad thing. for a company in general to be sales driven. Um, right. I mean, that's what makes, what brings the money in, what keeps the business alive and it's, you can have the passion for accounting for the work and, and be lacking that. And. Miss it and fail and wonder why. And it's like, it's not a reflection on you as an accountant is the thing.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah.

KC Brothers:

Um, but it's like, man, I feel like on so many episodes, I've talked about entrepreneurs in general and how entrepreneurs just are not always well equipped to understand all of the business things that they're also going to have to do in addition to the skillset that they have.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah. And I like to tell firm owners all the time, like. And entrepreneurs in general, like you signed up for a 24 seven sales career. I know you didn't think you did, but if you didn't want that, you would just, you know, be in a nine to five job. You wouldn't start your own business. You wouldn't be required to do any sales. You wouldn't be required to do marketing and get the leads. And then the sales piece is converting the leads and turning that into top line revenue. If, if you don't want to be responsible for that, then it's better off just to, you know, be in a job or have to be partner in a firm because the people bringing in the work, that's a sales related activity. Even though I think most people just don't like the word sales. They think it's a bad four letter word, you know, S A L E and it has multiple definitions, but it's the most important part of having a successful practice and having abundance in your life.

KC Brothers:

Yeah.

Michelle Weinstein:

Um, where you don't have to feel constantly stressed or frustrated and you can have full control over who you work with, but really also. Knowing how much you can really charge each client, even when you think they can't afford it. And all of that is sales.

KC Brothers:

Oh man. I, so I'm a daughter of an entrepreneur and I can't tell you how much I even talked to her about things like this. Like she's not in accounting at all, but she struggles with so many of the same concepts. She's really good. She's got the, like, she talks about her business all the time. Right. So in terms of you saying like you're in a sales position 24 seven, that is not where my mother struggles at all. And I think in that regard, if you do struggle with that, like, It can be a natural thing. Just,

Michelle Weinstein:

yeah.

KC Brothers:

And it, and it doesn't have to be to your point. Like maybe we try and debunk this four letter word of sale. It's not you pushing anything on anyone. It's you giving them knowledge to then make a decision they either need to make or don't make, you

Michelle Weinstein:

know? Well, and I think taking it one step further, they're going to make a decision that they feel good about. So you're ultimately just the guide. Yeah. And when you can become really good at. sales. It's really just about identifying someone's challenge or problem and really being able to be a good doctor. If you think of the best surgeons in the world, they're the best salespeople. You're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for surgeries that most time you need. But the way they have the conversation with you is they're asking you a lot of open ended questions. Yeah. And that's how you can not get paralyzed about the sales call. I think so many firm owners I've worked with and I talked to, they get paralyzed about the thought of the upcoming sales call or worried you're going to get like freeze up and then the prospects take control. But you know, there's a system to it and you can have full control and you can also Be in the driver's seat without being pushy, without being a nag and, and without having to convince somebody, you know, I hear a lot of clients. Well, Michelle, how do I convince them? I'm like, well, that's what exactly what you don't do. You don't want to convince anyone. And, you know, it's, I think the unfortunate part is that there's so many firm owners that just don't have a plan, you know, your mind goes blank. You let prospects steer the conversation instead of you guiding it. So if you don't have a plan and you don't, you know, you shoot from the hip and you go to a sales meeting without a plan, then yeah, you probably sound like you're convincing or you don't feel confident. And then how do you guide that client into you're the best firm owner for them? You don't.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. I mean, maybe just as you're talking, so I, in my role, I, Enable our sales organization a lot. And I talked to them a lot about consulting and solution selling and man, if you need to get yourself up and out of that, um, the negative connotations with the four letter word, think about it as a consulting call. You are an expert that has these skills that said individual or organization wants to tap into, or at least assess if they need and see if you're a right fit. Just consult. These open ended questions are so important.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah, and I think when you say the word consult, one other thing you want to make sure that we don't do in a sales meeting is Sometimes when you say, well, I'm consulting, you're actually solving someone's problem. So if you're doing free work, you're giving away answers for free tip. That's not the consulting that you're talking about. We want to be really sure that we, we demonstrate our knowledge by asking really good questions. Without actually giving away an answer or answering a specific question because they haven't paid you yet.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. In this regard, I'm so glad you called that out. Maybe, and maybe I actually call it consultative sale selling. So I still use the word sales.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yes. Um,

KC Brothers:

but, um, it's, it's information gathering and it's interesting because I do feel like from what I hear from our sales reps that. Accountants can have a hard time when they try to do that to them. It's like, no, I just want to tell you what I just show me what you have. Just show me what you have. It's like, no, I want to hear your pains. I want to understand what your firm situation is. And so it's funny that you're saying that they have a hard time doing this because it also seems that maybe some people have a hard time being on the receiving end of it as well. I think

Michelle Weinstein:

it's hard to be on the receiving end and to ask these questions because I would say Most accounting tax and bookkeeping firm owners that I've worked with You know Not only do they crumble when the thought of a sales call comes around and we worry that we're going to go blank Or that we're going to come across pushy the problem is that Sometimes you show up to these meetings or the sales call and you're, you have imposter syndrome, right? Like you're not really good enough yet, or maybe you're just starting or you don't have a niche. So how could you be the best person for them? Or like you're pretending to be the expert. So I think it even goes one step further where you have to have that certainty before you ever meet with a client, you know, otherwise. Why put yourself through that? You have to first know that you're capable of doing the books, the taxes, the planning, the fractional CFO work, the accounting, whatever it is that you're doing for the client and that you're amazing at what you do, because if you don't have that certainty, um, Casey, what I've teach and preach all the time is people by clarity, certainty, and confidence. If you don't come across any of those. People will not want to engage you in your firm. You have to be confident in the work that you do. And you have to be certain that you are the best person for them.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. And to that point, you kind of mentioned this already. Um, and not to say that this is a must, but I highly recommend this. And I've, I'm assuming you do too, cause you dropped the word, but having, A niche and knowing a target, right? Instead of casting a net wide, this might be a bad metaphor and PETA might come after me. And I don't know PETA approved version, uh, like shooting fish in the barrel. Right? Like, you know, who you're going after. And, and in that sense too, when you've made those. Um, characteristics known to yourself. I think that helps your confidence show up more regardless of how confident you might be in general.

Michelle Weinstein:

It's so true. I mean, you have, I always say, You know, really narrow down as much as you can get your messaging, right? Get your communication, right? Understand how to sell to that unique person because selling to anyone else that comes your way, that is a good fit, maybe in a different industry, but you still want to work with them will be so much easier. Like for me, I only work and teach sales and the art of enrollment and how to confidently communicate your value. To accounting tax bookkeeping firm owners, you know, tax attorneys, fractional CFO. And that's it. I've had lawyers contact me. I've had pretty much every industry person, you know, can you do this for us? And I'm like, no, I only work with this niche. And so when people come to me. Saying, and this happened literally just last week. Oh, Michelle, I'm talking, you know, to five other sales companies, trainers, and coaches. And I said, great, what's their track record working with accounting tax and bookkeeping firm owners that, you know, might offer tax planning advisory, fractional CFO type work. And they're like, oh, well, they're just general. And I said, great. So you can go learn from a generalist or someone like me who literally can sell tax plans and monthly bookkeeping myself alongside a CPA or an EA or, you know, I know the ins and outs of your firm. I know everything that you're challenged with. And I can sell everything. So with confidence and certainty, which comes across, that person can make a decision. And then I get to say, well, do I even want to work with someone who's even entertaining coaching and sales from someone who's just a generalist that works with all sorts of big companies? No, I probably, that's not probably a good client for me. So you're able to really niche, even smaller when you get really clear on who do you want to work with and who do you not want to work with. And to be honest with that person, I wish them nothing but the best. I said, I hope you, you find what you're looking for. It doesn't even sound like you know what you want.

KC Brothers:

Well, and to play on your business name, even it's, you don't have a scarcity mindset. You have an abundant mindset, which is game changing.

Michelle Weinstein:

Correct. Yeah. And, and the abundant accountant was there for a reason. You know, I really wanted to not only have abundance for myself, but for all of you who most people that I meet and work with come from a place of scarcity. Scarcity looks like I need to work with everyone that comes through my firm. I need to take on anybody and everybody. I can't

KC Brothers:

fire anyone.

Michelle Weinstein:

I can't fire any clients. I should be lucky, Michelle. I even have clients. I, I can't, I can't lower, I can't increase my prices. I'm here to help people. I'm here to really help them. I actually need to discount my fees. You know what? I'm going to work with someone and do some free work and discount it. And then maybe in the future, they'll pay me more. And honestly, that's just a formula for a disaster because that's how I'm able to help. So many firms turn it around. And really all it is is shifting our mindset and having a little bit of success on every milestone. And then that's how we take control back of our firm. That's how we have conversations with ease and confidence, and that's how we can stop second guessing our pricing. Because a lot of times you're like. Coming in saying, okay, I know I want to do bookkeeping at 900 a month for this client. And then you're like, Oh no, I'll do it for two 50 because I really need the client and I really need to pay my bills and I have a staff to pay. So I better just do that. So that's really what we do here because we stop the trading time for dollars, you know, and that's how we start growing a firm on our terms. Yeah. Versus on your client's terms or on the terms of when's your next bills need to get paid or when's your next payroll or any of those because that's just getting by. That's not abundance.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. Okay. So a couple questions for you. Um. Maybe I should ask one at a time. Um, who is this best suited for? The, there are two versions of that. So that's where my two questions come in size, right? Is this, is this something that anybody and everybody, no matter the size of their firm should be thinking about and, you know, no matter,

Michelle Weinstein:

I mean, I've worked with, um, firm owners that are a one man show. In the beginning, you know, before you can afford to hire. I mean, what's beautiful about top line revenue is the more revenue you have coming in the door, the more help you can hire. The better you can pay your top staff, the more bonuses you can pay out, um, at holiday time. Like there's so many benefits when you learn the art of enrollment and selling and being able to do it in a way that feels good. We're not being pushy. You're not a nag and you can do that. And then there's also firms that have four or five partners that all need to get on the same page when it comes to enrolling and getting the engagement letters signed and getting the clients to pay up front, because I've worked with firms with 100, 000 to 1. 2 million in AR. And if you have accounts receivable, you have a sales problem. So, uh, That solves that problem too, because you know, if you, if you have AR and you're grinding away 12 to 16 hour days and you're working weekends just to keep up, you have a sales problem. So this is really for any size firm. It's just the bigger the firm and the more heads that are involved, the more everyone has to get trained on that. Where if you're a team of, you know, five or six people and two people are meeting all the clients and doing the selling, then those two people need to be on the same page.

KC Brothers:

Yeah, that's fascinating that you say that if you have an AR you have a sales problem. I thought about it as if you have AR you have an operations problem.

Michelle Weinstein:

Oh no, that's a sales problem.

KC Brothers:

Yeah.

Michelle Weinstein:

So if you have accounts receivable, basically you've now become a bank. You should, you give people loans at 0 percent interest and you're now a bill collector and whoever is doing the billing and the invoicing, you're paying out of your own pocket. So it's like a loss to your profitability. Um, yeah, it's a total waste of time.

KC Brothers:

It really is. It is a huge time suck. And where I thought it was an operations problem was like, okay, well just collect it up front. And maybe that it ties into sales in that regard of like, you're communicating, you have the tools to pull the payments, process the payments, whether that's recurring or whatever it may be. Might be a one time

Michelle Weinstein:

engagement, might be recurring, but all of that has to be brought up front. But a lot of people. He's the avoid trying to collect the money up front. And they're like, Oh, I'll just send you a proposal and you can review it. And then you hear crickets and you get ghosted and you never hear from the other person because. You decided to take the reactive or the passive approach instead of taking the proactive approach, which is, Hey, Casey, let's work together. I'm 100 percent confident. I can help you. I've got the engagement letter. Let's review it. We're going to do your ACH for your first payment, or you can pay on a credit card. And by the way, you know, everything's due on the 30th of the month for the next month's, um, work. So if you don't have that conversation with somebody right there in the first meeting. You are now taking the passive approach and crossing your fingers, hoping that maybe they're going to hit the sign button and pay the invoice. But every firm I've worked with, that's not really a good recipe for success. Um, and you can't handle the objection. So most of us don't want to be rejected and we don't want to hear, Oh, that why are you so expensive or why you're so much more than the other firm down the street. Or how come, um, you know, I, you're charging me this, this year where in the past, it's only been X, all of that are objections that you have to learn to overcome. And when you can overcome them with confidence right there in the first meeting, then set

KC Brothers:

yourself up to avoid them, right? Because when you send

Michelle Weinstein:

a proposal or send off a quote, you are setting yourself up to avoid the objection. Which if you don't hear from the client, they are saying they need to think about it, talk to their business partner, talk to their husband or wife. You're too expensive. Why are you charging me so much? And all of that is because you're not implementing an effortless sales system in your firm.

KC Brothers:

Yeah. And, and when you don't do that, then Objection handling further down the journey is harder. It's so much harder to explain those same reasons when the status quo was different. So why just start, start off with you're on the right foot. Um, I'd be curious to know too, what, what do you recommend to then for, um, price changes? Do you have a, Hey, in 1 percent increase every year. I don't know. No,

Michelle Weinstein:

no, no, no. Um, that's a whole nother podcast, Kasey, because you're talking about it. Yeah,

KC Brothers:

I know. We've barely even touched pricing strategy.

Michelle Weinstein:

I know. No, what I recommend is that you send out a communication via email, snail mail, whatever that is. And most of the time, I mean, when, when firm owners first start working with me, I do recommend we go two to 300 percent more than whatever it was before. But depending on the firm, you know, if they've got 750, 1040 clients and 150 business entities, and then some are monthly accounting and bookkeeping, we address all of the different segments differently. But there is no 1 percent increase. I can tell you that there are significant increases because most people I want, I work with, don't want to work with so much volume. They rather have higher quality clients and less of the Pitta clients. And we want to get rid of some clients. So we're also saying, okay, well, what percent of your volume do you want to shed? And then from there we're figuring out the pricing and then from there the letter is written and reviewed by me And then it's sent and i've never had anyone say michelle My price I put too high every time from every client i've ever worked with it's Michelle, I should have went a little bit higher. I'm like, yeah, I know. It's okay. It was terrifying to do so next year. We have another opportunity. Well, and that's really, you know, there's a certain skill set and steps that you need in order to command premium fee. Yes. Yes. So, and that's ultimately how you achieve work life balance. That's how you get your life back and your freedom back and have that time freedom that I think everyone is looking for and searching for, but it all stems in the prices and how you communicate that to

KC Brothers:

Yeah. And then the more you do that, the more you work with the same people, same types of people, same genre, same problems, the more of an expert you become, the more of a right you have to do a price raise every year or two or however new. Oh my gosh, we need to do another episode just on pricing strategy. I would love to. Let's do that. I feel like I hear so much about it. I mean, I was, um, I, I joined Canopy and then a month or two later went to Scaling New Heights and the first session I sat in was with Ron Baker. Yep. And, um, it was interesting because I'd come from tech where of course I'm familiar with the subscription based pricing. Yep. And here he is talking about these things. I didn't know he'd been talking about it for years and is It's still beating that drum and it's still hard for people to adjust and not really building there's so much. The transcription model

Michelle Weinstein:

that he's talking about is like a medical concierge doctor business. Yeah. And that's one option. You don't have to go Exactly. Convert all of your clients to that option. But You know, there's people that want that option that are also willing to pay for it. So again, it's figuring out how are you not going to negotiate on price? How are you not going to devalue your worth in ways that make it, you know, feel simple, easy, and effortless and automatic. And sometimes the subscription pricing model is a good one. And sometimes maybe it's not, but it's about. How do you work the hours you want to work while having plenty of time for your family And your free time because you can't it all comes down to your sales process

KC Brothers:

Ah, yes, you, you're speaking my language, something I feel passionate about in my own life and another reason why I'm like, we got to get this out there because I know accountants talk about it. I know they're running themselves thin and, oh, I hope, I hope this lands well and helps some people out and then maybe we need to do another episode just on pricing.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah, we can. And if you want to. Explore too. Like if you're an accounting tax or bookkeeping firm owner and you're listening and you wanna put an end to a lot of these problems, yes. We talked about today, you can schedule a one-on-one call with me and my team over@theabundantcall.com, and basically what we'll do is we'll show you how do you close more clients and end the second guessing. How do you stop procrastinating? And also how do you fill your firm up with ideal clients? So we will have a conversation about that on our call. So you can book that again at theabundantcall. com.

KC Brothers:

I mean, listen to you. You're a wonderful saleswoman. You just, you just reiterated all the points that we've just made for the past 20 minutes with your simple invitation right there. I love it. Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle Weinstein:

Yeah, no, this was lovely. Thank you so much for having me and I look forward to our next one.