"What does the program cost?" – This is a question being posed by a few of our lovely community members for obvious reasons: we all need to make sure that we can budget for it. So first off, what I will say is,
The program is NOT a cost. It is an investment.
The reason for that is that the definition of investment is when we put money into something, expecting a return greater than the money we put in. Okay? And the program comes with a MONEY-BACK guarantee. If you can't get a return that is equal to or greater than the program fee, then you can simply ask for a refund, because getting a return on investment is a cakewalk.
Now, let's jump into answering that question, and the way that I frame it up is, "what is the program FEE STRUCTURE?"
Just a quick & very special announcement: the doors to The Strategic Bookkeeper Transformation Program will open AUGUST 1! So I want to ask you: Are you ready to move from being busy to thriving? Are you ready to come into a community that will support you and lift you up, to build the business and life of your dreams? Because, I am ready to hold your hand every step of the way and help you go from strength to strength.
And I tell you, there is no better time than right NOW.
To celebrate the launch of the Transformation Program, there are foundation member bonuses. And, I have even priced the program to suit every bookkeeper, topped off with a money-back guarantee! Just join the waitlist, and you'll get all the details. You can also check out the podcast dedicated to this. I want to help you build a thriving practice, delight your clients, and, ultimately, live your dream on your terms. This is exactly what I've done in my practice, and now it's my heart's desire to help you do exactly the same things.
So, over the years as I've developed the program... I thought about myself over 13 years ago when I started this journey: "Jeannie, what would you have needed? What would you have needed at the beginning of your journey?"
I absolutely thought about where I was at in terms of my CASH FLOW.
Do you know that the GFC hit when I began my bookkeeping practice? I had two mortgages and I had a new baby! I wasn't planning on working anytime soon and then interest rates skyrocketed, and I just had to pay the second mortgage with my overdraft. We couldn't sell the second home because it would've been a fire sale. It was the GFC! It was so stressful.
So thinking back to that, I thought,
"I want to make this Transformation Program ACCESSIBLE to every bookkeeper. I want it to be an every-bookkeeper program."
Well, how can I do that in terms of the fee structure?
What could I have feasibly managed myself? What is the return on investment I can get for bookkeepers, and how is that going to look week on week, month on month?
Looking back, if I was going to invest in a program... well, I actually did. I invested a lot of money in a course before, and I did get a return out of some information around pricing. Way back then, that program was a lot more than what I intend to charge out for The Strategic Bookkeeper Transformation Program. I think I paid about $7,000 or $8,000, and I did get value in terms of learning how to raise my prices and the standard operating procedures, but, it was still really, really stressful to have to fork out $8,000 out of the overdraft in order to try and learn what I needed to learn. (There's even no real handholding and implementation support!)
And so I thought, "You know what would've been LESS STRESS and MORE HELPFUL, and would allow me to get a RETURN ON INVESTMENT that paid for it as I went, is if it was something like $99 a week over a period of time."
Personally, I would be happy to pay a fee for something really high VALUE that gave me a return greater than what I paid, but I thought,
if I attach a fee of $5,000 or $6,000 or $10,000 to the program, it's going to exclude so many bookkeepers that will have the money eventually, but don't have the money right now, but they NEED the Program right now.
So here's what I decided:
I decided that I would create a fee structure that was
$99 a week for 52 weeks, which is a lap around the sun.
If you've read my book, I did mention that any transformation really truly does begin with a lap around the sun. Even when you think of a school year or a university year, it's always a year and you learn and you graduate, and then you move on to the next year where you learn more and you graduate more. So, yeah, the program is $99 a week for 52 weeks, a lap around the sun. Now, that is ALL-INCLUSIVE.
Once you opt into the program and you commit to that year, then you are going to get everything. You are going to get all the education, the ASSETS, the implementation, help, the TEAM, and the SUPPORT – absolutely everything will be delivered to you. All the online coursework will come to you, but, I'm also going to guide you through as I turn up every fortnight and do IMPLEMENTATION SESSIONS with you and the other team members.
Now, even though I do turn up on those sessions with you, what I really want is to guide you through which parts that I'd rather you start on.
What I want to do is work with you.
For example, with SUCCESSION, I'm going to help you to really quickly and easily become a certified strategic bookkeeper. Then, we're going to move on to other things, but we're going to circle back and keep working on succession while we work on other things. But, I want you to know now – there is a BONUS that comes with the program, and we can thank one of our lovely bookkeepers in the community for asking a question that inspired me for this bonus content.
So the bonus – when you join the program, you'll be getting a bonus hourly to outcome BILLING COURSE. That is a standalone course conservatively valued at $1,000, and you're going to get that full hourly to outcome billing. Let's say you just wanted to start by moving your clients from hourly billing to outcome billing – you can choose your own adventure and start right there. When you join the program, you're going to get access to that immediately, and then you'll be able to jump in and implement that right away.
In the program, I'm going to give you all my productised services and guide you through productising your own services. You literally get all my templates and how to implement them into Ignition software! If you're not using Ignition, then you'll just do it manually or however you're doing it, but we do recommend Ignition, of course. You'll also have the private Facebook group which is for members of the program exclusively, and where I and the whole of HQ will support you with everything you need to do. We are all going to be learning from each other, in order to IMPLEMENT the education and all the assets that you are getting there.
One of the other reasons I structured it at $99 a week is, I thought, if I structure it at $99 a week... let's say you implement hourly to outcome billing immediately, then, you're going to be able to increase your revenue, gross profit, and net PROFIT right away! Suddenly, that's going to give you the ADDITIONAL INCOME to be paying the fee for the program, and that is return on investment. I want you to be able to get an incremental return on investment week on week, month on month, so that it funded the program. So hopefully, you can see
this is all driven by me as a bookkeeper really reflecting on what I would have NEEDED, and then delivering you the same thing – because you are a bookkeeper just like me.
There will be an option to pay for the year in advance, but I feel like I don't even need to go into that. Now, in terms of how you get a return on investment – I've already explained an example through the hourly to outcome billing. There is just a million ways that you can get a return on investment from the program greater than the fee, but I'm going to explain to you what I think is the simplest way to explain return on investment: If you find just one new client through the help I give you, that could conceivably pay for the whole program.
Because, it is easy to concede that a new client would be spending that amount per year with you to cover the program fee. However, let's say it's a real low value client. If you also upgrade one existing client into succession services, so that's advisory built by a bookkeeper for a bookkeeper, then one upgrade and one new client would pay for the entire program. I could go into more math, like, if you upgrade two clients, if you find two clients... but, I'm talking about the return on investment, which is why I offer you a full MONEY-BACK guarantee.
If you can't get a return on the program fee after 12 months of working with me greater than your investment, you can absolutely ask me for a REFUND. Like I say, getting a return on investment is so easy. It can happen in the very early stages – just from getting your PRICING right, from PRODUCTISING your services, when you bring on new clients...
I have this thing in my head about that, like, when you find a new client, you really know what to do with them. But when I give you all the productised services and everything else, all the businessy stuff, and you understand how to SIMPLIFY your bookkeeping practice and how to serve your prospective clients as you bring them on as clients, and how to offer them up productised services... what you're going to find is that you are charging out for packages that are much MORE than you can ever have imagined that you would've charged out before. Here's the other amazing thing – it's not all about that, right?
You'll always hear me say it's quite linear, a lot like put your oxygen mask on first before putting baby's on. That is, you need to focus on building your thriving, profitable, cashed up business before you can actually help and delight any clients.
So, the fact that your charge out rates will technically (behind the scenes, in your calculator) go up, you will be really surprised at how more DELIGHTED your clients are. There is a magic that will happen in that. I'm going to teach you how to run a platinum practice with
delighted clients that stay on board, retained long-term, without price as a priority.
In that way, I'm going to ask you to actually look at where you are when you first joined The Strategic Bookkeeper Transformation Program, and then look at the progress you make – because it's so easy to focus on what we're not doing and what we're not getting, rather than celebrating the results.
Now, the next thing I want to talk about is FOUNDATION MEMBER BONUSES.
I've packed so much into the program that bonuses are something that's really important to me, because it's giving you even more value than everything I've packed in. The minute you sign up, you're going to get access to – as I mentioned earlier – the hourly to outcome billing bonus. The next bonus is the PLATINUM level of membership.
To discuss that a bit more, let's first talk about another member question which is, "what is Better in Business?"
I have a platform called Better in Business, and there's actually two parts to that. When you go to the website, you'll probably primarily see the podcast, which is a WELCOME LINE in a product ladder. A welcome line is truly about welcoming our market and our prospective clients to get value from something we serve up, in order to self-assess their need to use us. And if you listen to any of the podcast episodes, you're going to hear me pitching Strategic Bookkeeping to build DEMAND and DESIRE for that.
I built Better in Business in 2022 with a long-term goal of having a DIRECTORY once I roll out The Strategic Bookkeeper Transformation Program – so that when people worldwide are listening to the podcast, they can go to that directory and they can find a list of certified strategic bookkeepers who can help them with what they recognise and realise is pillar one for the success of any business, which is up-to-date, accurate bookkeeping, and then all the other stuff that surrounds that. The other part to it is an academy, one which I'll discuss a bit more by the end.
So going back to the platinum level of membership – it is going to be a COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE for you, okay? Because long term, there's going to be four levels of membership that you can have as a strategic bookkeeper. That is bronze, silver, gold, and foundation members. If you come into the program during the foundation member period, you are going to get a platinum level of directory listing and certification, because I'm going to certify you as a certified strategic bookkeeper – a SELLING PROPOSITION that members of the tribe are going to be able to display in all of their marketing collateral, which we do all with you and for you, and help you implement it all.
As a foundation member, you are going to have the opportunity to maintain a platinum level of certification and a platinum listing in our directory – our Strategic Bookkeeper Directory. Literally, at the moment, I am working on a partnership with an amazing global software company (whose name I can't announce yet) in order to collaborate with them to put our podcast in front of their massive global audience. That would be across all the countries, like Australia, America, the UK, Canada, all over the place, so that we funnel their audience into our Better in Business Podcast, which creates demand and desire for your services. Again, competitive advantage and LEAD GENERATION.
As I always say, the world never stops spinning, and so we never stop evolving and changing with the economic and tech landscape. The way that I evolve the Better in Business Podcast to serve you over time will continue.
And then, there's the Better in Business Academy.
Years and years and years ago, I was taught to run workshops around things, so you have the beautiful up-to-date accurate numbers, and then I was taught to run some really cool workshops around basic plan on a page, and lots of stuff for business and that thing. But, what I realised is that this one-to-one stuff could be delivered much smarter, much more strategically in a one-to-many model, which is when you put it into COURSEWORK.
So, I went about taking those workshops that I was learning to deliver one-on-one, and putting them into online coursework. This meant that where I might only be able to reserve an hour and a half to spend with someone on a one-to-one workshop, I could give them much more value in the online course because there was no restraint around time. Let's say the online course was three hours – they were getting a lot more time with me for potentially even a smaller fee because that online course becomes INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, and one that doesn't actually have any cost of sales attached to it!
So basically, that is the Better in Business Academy – and you become an AFFILIATE that's just given to you outright as part of the program.
Say for example, you are creating your productised services and I'm able to give you the Business Fundamentals Course, which is just five 20-minute audio clips that you can BUNDLE IN to your bookkeeping packages. From there, you are able to say to your clients, "Here is your Strategic Bookkeeping package, and included in here is going to be a business fundamentals course that's going to help you do better in business immediately. I've structured it such that it's only 20-minute audios over five audios, and the feedback from our clients is they literally start making money and saving time as soon as they've done the series."
Suddenly, you've stacked the VALUE of your bookkeeping package.
You've connected to why the client is doing business with you in the first place,
which is not really for the bookkeeping. (That's a grudge purchase and a necessity).
Now, all of this is explained in the book, so please make sure that you have read it, or that you have listened to the audiobook. Through the Better in Business platform, I am going to give you lots of stuff at no cost to bundle in with your productised services, and to use simply as value add, competitive advantage, welcome lines and more. Then, we're going to have other courses that you can actually sell, and we're going to give you super high commissions (like 50%), as I have this deep desire to help bookkeepers globally, and especially women like me, to actually make more money and attain financial independence.
I absolutely created the academy to serve my clients, and I was thinking, "Gosh, this would be something really great for other bookkeepers to do." Then I realised, it's not that easy but I've already done it, so I could just give it to other bookkeepers to benefit from. So, that's what I've done there – I can help you increase your PROFITS and your IMPACT, which helps you to build a thriving practice, delight your clients, and live your dream on your terms.
Now, there are other bits and pieces that will come along as surprises for foundation members, but those are the main ones that I want to tell you today.
So going back to the to the program fee – it is absolutely an investment, and a risk-free investment at that, okay? Because it comes with a money-back guarantee. To rinse and repeat, I've structured it at $99 a week with a 12-month commitment that will allow you, as a bookkeeper, to be much more likely to budget for it and be able to get a return on investment week on week, month on month, that pays for the program as you go. The program is absolutely going to work for you whether you don't have much time or whether you have lots of time, because as a busy mama, I am structuring the content and the support in order to help you kick goals, and get massive impact from little things along the way.
And that's about it. Feedback is warmly welcome! Feel free to email me and ask me any questions you have about the program, or just drop some comments, questions, suggestions. I would love nothing more than to help you become a strategic bookkeeper by becoming a member of my tribe.
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