157 Altitudes of Involvement for CPAs with Jonathan Stark

Business Strategy for CPA's

This week we welcome back Jonathan Stark, a former software developer who is on a mission to rid the world of hourly billing. He is the author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts, the host of Ditching Hourly, and writes a daily newsletter on pricing for independent professionals.

Often CPAs don't know how to price for expertise and strategy, and they just lump the advice into the delivery. But the advice and the expertise and the planning is so much more valuable than the delivery, then the setup and implementation.

In this episode, Jonathan talks about altitudes of involvement, where listeners will get an appreciation of how to separate out the advice and the strategy from the delivery and price it accordingly.

Highlights:

— “Strategy is not a plan. A plan comes out of a strategy. Once you have a strategy to achieve the objective, now you can start planning.”

— “If you're perceived as an execution person, you are not the kind of person that people are going to go to for a blueprint. It's much easier for people to pigeonhole you as a builder and not a strategic thinker.”

— “If you are used to saying I'm a CPA, and you want to shift up an altitude, you need to stop saying that.”

— “Courage is much more important than confidence. Courage is knowing the risks, but doing it anyway, or feeling the fear and doing it anyway.”

— “The first step: find your top five clients and go out and ask them if they want to have a meeting to talk about the direction of their business and the strategy to get them there.”

Connect with Jonathan:

Website: https://jonathanstark.com/

Episode mentions:

106 Better Pricing Strategies for Accountants: Stop Billing by the Hour

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/106

111 Better Pricing Methodologies For CPA Firms

https://www.smartstrategyforcpas.com/111

A More Useful Definition Of Strategy

https://jonathanstark.com/daily/20200809-0152-a-more-useful-definition-of-strategy-

Book mention:

Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-Difference-Matters/dp/0307886239

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