Welcome
Here you'll find everything you need to know about the Value Pricing Academy
What you can expect
I'm so pleased to welcome you to become part of a group of like-minded accounting professionals on a journey to building a more profitable accounting firm.
Every month you learn powerful value pricing concepts, marketing to grow your firm, get your questions answered, learn from other people in the group and you get access to ready-to-use resources so you hit the ground running.
Since all meetings take place online there are no travel costs. All you need is a connection to the Internet and computer with speakers.
During your monthly training sessions our goal is to help you build a more profitable accounting business. Remember you will benefit from:
- Marketing Monday: Join Mark Wickersham for 90-minutes of training every month to help you win new clients and grow your firm,
- Foundation Wednesday: Join Mark Wickersham for 90-minutes once a month where he will teach you the critical foundations of value pricing (every session recorded in case you can’t attend live),
- How To Thursday: Each month Mark Wickersham will apply value pricing principles to the main services you offer including brochures and resources to help you get up and running fast,
- You will be mentored for 90-minutes every month (as part of a group) by some of the most extraordinary accounting professionals I have met, including Reza Hooda and Teresa Slack. Each month they will teach you what you need to build a more successful accountancy or bookkeeping business and answer your questions,
- Access to Mark Wickersham’s acclaimed training “How to price bookkeeping” helping you get much higher prices for your bookkeeping service (delivered to you monthly over your first 12 months),
- Training from other guest speakers and additional video training,
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Academy members get a complimentary copy of the Effective Pricing for the duration of your membership.
When you log into the course, look for a post called "How to register your copy of Effective Pricing". Watch the video and read the instructions below. This will explain how to register, how to use the Coupon Code to get your complimentary copy, and tell you where to find further training and support, and
- You will get access to a forum where you can ask questions at any time during the month (see below).
For the purpose of clarity, this is not a one-to-one mentoring programme. I normally charge £5,000 per day for consulting work. Your small investment in this online group mentoring programme does not include direct telephone or email support with me.
Nevertheless, outside of the monthly meetings I very often answer questions posted on the forum.
Two Critical Value Pricing Frameworks
Watch this bonus video to get your journey to value pricing underway.
If you prefer to read, you can download a workbook containing the training from the video - just click the button below.
The bottom line is this
You will be one of my ‘students’ and I want every one of my students to succeed. And I will do whatever it takes to help the group succeed. That’s my commitment to you.
But I only want to work with accountants and bookkeepers who are serious about their success and working with me. And so I ask for the following commitments in return:
- You will commit to attending mentoring sessions every month,
- You will commit to taking action and in particular the actions you promise to do – in the promised timescales – arising from each monthly mentoring session,
- You are open minded to change and new ideas,
- You will openly share your successes with me and other members of the mentoring group, and
- You will pay the monthly fee on time every month (even where you are unable to attend a meeting, since you will still benefit from the recording, training and resources).
Advanced mentoring and training
Once you have been a member of the Value Pricing Academy for 12 months you will unlock advanced training. The live sessions take place once a month on a Tuesday. The advanced group goes even deeper into value pricing topics. You will automatically be upgraded after a year. There is no additional fee... your price stays the same.
The Forum
An important part of the Value Pricing Academy is your access to the Facebook group. This is a place you can:
Ask me, or other members of the group, questions outside of the monthly mentoring sessions.
Share your success stories with the group.
Share any resources you have created with the group.
Get important updates and announcements from me.
Note: This is a Closed group which means anything you post here is only available to people in the group. Your comments and posts do not appear on your own personal pages.
Don't like Facebook? Prefer Slack?
As well as the Facebook group we also have a Slack workspace which we introduced in 2019.
If you want to join either of these click on the appropriate button below.
How the live sessions work
Here I will explain how you join the live sessions, what equipment you will need and how they are structured.
Zoom
We use Zoom for all training sessions. It's really easy to use, there is a Questions Box for asking questions, and the Chat Box enables you to share comments with us and/or the rest of the group.
When you join Zoom you can either use your telephone or VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). I recommend the latter as long as you have speakers attached to your computer.
We always start every meeting prompt so you should aim to join 5 minutes beforehand to check everything is working for you. We usually jump on the meeting a few minutes early to engage with you and answer any initial questions.... so it's definitely worth arriving early.
By default, when you join the meeting you will be placed on mute. So feel free to join extra early and then continue with your work until we start.
Every meeting is 90 minutes. Whilst most of it is content, you can ask any questions you want via the Questions Box.
The training curriculum
I always schedule the current calendar year of meetings in advance so you can get them in your calendar. Please try to attend as many sessions as you can, LIVE. That way you get into the habit of continual improvement and you can ask your questions. However, remember, you never miss anything because each session is audio recorded plus you get all of the resources covered.
Live sessions normally take place at 8am PST, 11am EST, 4pm UK time. In March and October there may be a slight change because clocks change in the US at a different time to the UK.
Click on the link below for the full curriculum of training.
Each month you will receive an email listing the training for the month plus the link to join each session. You receive further emails exactly 15 minutes before we start with the link. Please make sure you are getting those emails and they are not going into your junk folder.
If you do not get the email, check the Facebook group first. If the link is not there, email Sarah on [email protected].
Our guarantee to you
I want to make sure every month is valuable for you. And even if you miss a live session, you still get to access the audio recording of each session.
If at the end of any month you feel there was no value in the live session, the recording and other training available, you can ask for that month’s payment back and leave the group.
It is entirely your judgment as to whether it is valuable and you do not need to give a reason. Simply email my partner, Sarah Cross, to request your refund.
This guarantee applies to the current month and you cannot ask for a refund of earlier months, so in effect if you don’t get value in any month you have 30 days to ask for your money back. If you don’t and you continue with the mentoring it is presumed you got value out of that earlier month.
Frequently Asked Questions
These are the most common questions I receive:
After 12 months I am eligible to join the Advanced group - is there an additional investment for this?
No. Once you have been part of the Value Pricing Academy for 12 months you unlock access to the Advanced group which takes place at 11am EST on a Tuesday. There is no additional cost to you.
Can I join the advanced group early?
Yes, but you will need to pay an early access fee. This typically equates to the remaining term of your first 12 months. Just email Sarah on [email protected] for details.
Can other members of my team or business partners join the Value Pricing Academy?
Yes, but your investment in the live mentoring sessions is per person. So if you want someone else to be a permanent part of a group they will need to invest in the programme. If you have a team member ‘peering over your shoulder’ during a mentoring session and watching/listening I won’t tell you off! However, please note additional people must not use your log in details to access the session as that may take up a paying customer's place.
If I will miss a mentoring meeting can I send a substitute?
Although your investment is for me to mentor an individual, I also want to be as flexible as possible and so I am happy for you to send a substitute.
Where do I access the brochures and other resources?
Each month I usually cover a resource as part of the mentoring and that resource is either emailed out shortly after the session in our follow up email or is made available for download in here in the site, together with the recording.
What if I want to access one or more "How to price" trainings and brochures that have not been covered yet?
Each brochure I have created has taken several days to create. They are highly valuable which is why I sometimes sell them separately. The great news is, you often get them free when they are covered as part of the mentoring sessions.
However, I do not give out the brochures in advance. This is why; I was once asked by someone who had just joined the mentoring programme for a collection of brochures we would cover in the future. Being a nice person, I emailed them all across. A few days later that person then cancelled the mentoring after they received all the content for the next few months. Clearly that's not fair. However, I understand that you might not want to wait. So this is how we make it fair. If you want a brochure early (before we've covered that topic in the mentoring) then you can pay an admin fee of $294 (£245 plus VAT) to buy the resource.
Do I have to pay Steven Baldwin at Noir to have my brochures printed?
Absolutely not. Whilst I recommend the use of professional looking brochures they are not essential. In fact, one of my most successful students got great results for nearly a year using her own Word versions (she does now have a full suite of brochures). And even if you do decide to turn them into a professionally designed PDF brochure, you don't have to spend money getting them printed (although I would). And you do not have to use Noir, you can use your own designer. I simply recommend Steven because (a) he is a very good designer, and (b) he has amazingly low prices for the firms I work with. Whilst you do not need to spend any money on creating professional looking brochures, it is a worthwhile investment, just like investing money in a website, logo, letterheads and all your other marketing spend. By the way, I do not earn any form of commission.
What if my monthly payment fails?
I don't do debtors (accounts receivable). If a payment fails I assume you want to leave the group and so you will be processed as a leaver. If you have a problem and know your payment will fail contact Sarah as soon as possible to let her know and to ensure you keep your place in the group. Remember, if you leave the Value Pricing Academy and want to re-join, you will re-join at the currently prevailing price (likely to be more than you are currently paying).
What happens to the resources I have accessed if I decide to leave the group?
If you decide that you need to stop participating in the training programme, you will lose access to the training platform and invitations to future live training. Any resources that you have accumulated (and downloaded) up to that point are yours to keep.
The Value Pricing Academy is a little bit like Netflix.
With Netflix you pay a small monthly subscription and you get access to a huge amount of content (more than you can consume in a month). In the Value Pricing Academy at any time there are many hours of high-level training plus resources (probably more than you can work through in a month because we want to provide significant value).
Just like Netflix, the content changes. We archive old sessions and every month new recordings become available. At any point in time you will have access to many hours of new training. Archived sessions are no longer available (although they do come around once again each year).
And just like Netflix, if you decide to cancel your subscription, you no longer have access to the content.
To get the best out of the Value Pricing Academy we recommend you do two things. First, make every effort to attend at least one live training session every month. Second, block out a few hours each month in your calendar and commit to learning and developing. The key to success is little and often... continual improvement.
Who do I contact if I have a question?
If your question is about pricing I recommend you post it onto the Facebook group (or Slack workspace) where you are likely to get answers from the rest of the group as well as me. But if your question is about administrative issues (e.g. you want to send a substitute) please email Sarah Cross at [email protected]. Sarah is my partner in life and business.