Are you paying enough?
We all know the old adage: If you pay peanuts you'll get monkeys.
Now that may be extreme when it comes to acountants but there are plenty who 'dumb down' their services so as to get clients who don't want to pay very much. The accountant may, for example, be trying to build up his/her practice so that it can be sold to someone else. The sale price will be a multiple of fees - the more fees the better. Even if each new client isn't paying very much, if there are lots of such clients it all helps.
Other accountants will agree to do the work you want for a very low price and then get one of their staff to do the work for you. You might have thought the accountant seemed impressive but in the event you never see them again, only the staff member.
The philosopher John Ruskin had the following thoughts on prices and values at the start of the 20th century. They remain as true today as they were then when it comes to deciding how much to pay for something:
"It is unwise to pay too much, but it is unwise to pay too little.
When you pay too much, you loose a little money; that is all.
When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything. Because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing you bought it to do.
The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run and if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better."
posted by Mark Lee @ 5:35 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I totally agree, my practice has set its standard fees at a level that some may consider high, but as I always explain higher fee levels results in needing fewer clients which results in a far higher than the average level of client care.
And you know, it works, we have time to spend with the clients and working for them on their businesses, everyone wins!
I am a tax practitioner who passes out work to other practitioners. One of these put me under extreme pressure recently to put his hourly rate up from £100 to £120. I reluctantly agreed, and passed him some urgent work on this basis. A week later, I asked him if he had done the work. He said 'no'; he now wanted £200 an hour!
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