Stop Trying to Please Everyone (It Won't Work Anyway)

Speaker A: Hey there, firm owners. I'm Ryan Lazanis, and you're listening to the Future Firm Accounting Podcast, the place where you'll get one practical lesson each episode to help you unlock freedom and growth in your firm. Thanks for tuning in today. I want to talk about something that trips up a lot of firm owners who are trying to scale. They think the path to scaling is to become more flexible, to offer more options, more service options, more delivery models, more custom work, more client accommodations. The logic seems sound. If you give clients what they want, they'll be happier and stick around longer. But here's the catch. If your goal is to scale without losing your mind in the process, flexibility is actually your enemy. Let me start with a story from the time when I was shopping for a new car. I went into a couple of showrooms. First, Volvo and Audi. And I have to tell you, walking in as a potential buyer felt exciting at first. But once the salesperson started walking me through the options, the experience went downhill fast. These cars had enormous menus of customization. Paint colors, wheel packages, interior upgrades, tech bundles, sunroofs, seat heating options, performance packages. Each option had sub options. Some were only available with certain models. Others came bundled in ways that didn't quite make sense unless you were deeply into cars. After about 30 minutes, I was completely overwhelmed. I couldn't visualize what I actually wanted. I kept asking clarifying questions. The salesperson kept correcting me about which options applied where. Every time I thought I'd made a decision, I'd realize it conflicted with something else I'd already chosen. The friction was real, the mental load was exhausting, and I left confused. Not a great buying experience, and definitely not one that made me want to come back or recommend the place to someone else. Then I visited the Tesla showroom. It was night and day and in the best possible way for the model I was looking at, I had exactly four choices to make which of the three models, which of five colors, which of two wheel options, and. And which of two interior colors. That's it. Four decisions total. Take it or leave it. There were no sunroof customizations, no heated steering wheel options, and no performance trim packages. Nothing confusing, no hidden dependencies. Just four straightforward choices and you're done. Now here's the interesting part. Tesla could absolutely manufacture more options. They have the capability, but they chose not to because scaling production with unlimited customization is logistically impossible. By severely limiting what customers could customize, they made their production process dramatically more efficient. They could build cars faster, get them out the door sooner and handle way more volume without chaos. This is exactly what I'm talking about. In your firm, you cannot scale if you give your clients too much choice in how the work gets delivered. When I ran Zen Accounting, we set clear boundaries around how we worked. Clients couldn't negotiate the delivery model or the tools we used, or the structure of our services. We dictated those things. And I want to be clear about why. Because it wasn't just a control thing. The real reason was every time a client wanted something different, we had to build a one off process for them. That means documenting it differently, training the team on the exception, remembering the exception every time they work with that client, and essentially maintaining two systems instead of one. We couldn't say to a new hire, here's how we do bookkeeping. We'd have to say, here's how we do bookkeeping. But client A does it this way and client B wants it that way. And client C insists on a different delivery schedule. You can't scale with that. Real expertise needs repetition. But when every client wants something different, your team never builds it. Batching similar work becomes impossible. And automation is out of the question because the process is never the same twice. So we made the decision early. If you want to work with us, you work our way. Not because we were inflexible jerks, but because we wanted to build something that could actually grow without becoming chaotic. And it worked. The firm scaled because every person on the team knew exactly how to approach every engagement. A junior accountant could handle a task the same way a senior would. Because the process was standardized, training was simple, quality was consistent, we could delegate with confidence because we weren't wondering if client X would be treated differently than client Y. That consistency compounds over time. If a prospect wanted something outside our standard offering, the answer was no. And honestly, losing some clients because they wanted flexibility was the best thing that could have happened to our scalability. Today, this principle is even more important for a different reason. Standardization is what makes AI and automation and actually work in your firm. Think about it. An AI tool, a system, a workflow, automation. They all depend on inputs being consistent and predictable. If every client's financial data is set up differently, if your bookkeeping process changes from client to client, if some clients insist on using a different accounting software, or a different communication channel, or a different approval process, then you cannot hand any of that work to an automation tool. Reliably, an AI agent needs standardized inputs to produce reliable outputs. Chaos input equals chaos output. But a standardized workflow is something you can actually automate you can hand it to an AI tool and know it will handle it the same way every single time, without variation and without surprises. So when you limit client choice, you're not just making your firm easier to manage. Today, you're creating the conditions of where AI tools and automated systems can actually do useful work for you. Tomorrow, you're future proofing your firm for a time when automation becomes even more central to how accounting firms operate. The way to do this is through a productized service approach. Instead of saying we can do whatever you need, you define specific packages. The gold package, the silver package, the bronze package. Each one includes a defined set of services, uses your standard tools, runs on your standard timeline, and follows your standard process. Within those packages, you're the one who decides what's included and what isn't. You're not trying to be everything to everyone. A client might choose which package fits their needs. That's fine. But they're not negotiating the contents of the package itself or asking for a custom mix of services. And they're not requesting exceptions to your process. They're either a fit for one of your offerings or they're not. This requires you to know what your sweet spot actually is. What types of clients do you serve best? What services can you deliver repeatably and predictably? What's your standard tech stack, and what's your standard timeline for delivery? Once you answer those questions, you build your packages around them. You're not building packages and then hoping clients fit into them. You're building packages that reflect what you actually do well and what your team enjoys delivering. The benefit isn't just internal efficiency, although there's plenty of that. It's also a better client experience. When you have complete control over your process because you've limited the variables, your work becomes more consistent. It becomes higher quality. Clients get better results because you've perfected a specific approach rather than constantly improvising. And paradoxically, limiting choice often makes clients happier, not less happy, because they know exactly what they're getting. Here's something that might surprise you. When a client knows what to expect, they're more satisfied with the outcome, even if the outcome is less customized than they originally imagined. That's because clarity reduces friction. They don't have to negotiate. They don't have to make dozens of decisions. They don't have to wonder if they're getting the same level of service as another client. They know what they're paying for, and they get exactly that, reliably. A lot of firm owners feel guilty about this and think Good customer service means maximum flexibility. The opposite is true. Good customer service when you're trying to scale, means offering a crystal clear product that you can deliver reliably every single time. That means saying no sometimes and setting boundaries so you're not drowning in exceptions, special requests, and custom work that doesn't scale, scale or get better with time. If you don't yet have a productized service offer in place, this is the time to start. Map out your gold, Silver bronze packages with specifics about what's included and what's not, along with your standard tools, standard process, and standard timeline. Then stick to it. When prospects ask for something outside those packages, you have a simple answer. That's not how we work. That answer, more than anything else, is what's going to let you actually scale. Now a lot of firm owners worry that this approach will cost them business or upset clients. The reality is different. The clients who self select out are often the ones who drain you anyway. These are the clients who constantly demand services outside your scope, who don't respect boundaries on your time, who treat your team poorly, or who simply aren't profitable enough to justify the work. Those clients will go find a firm willing to accommodate them and that's fine. Their departure makes room for better fit clients, the ones who respect how you work and actually appreciate consistency. The clients who stay know exactly what they're getting, there are no surprises, and the engagement is smoother from start to finish because everyone's on the same page about how things work. The firms that have managed to scale without burning out are the ones that got serious about this. They said no to flexibility, yes to standardization, and built systems around that constraint instead of fighting it. And if you want help thinking through how to build these packages, how to position them, and how to manage the transition from custom work to productized services, that's exactly what we work through together. Inside Future Firm Accelerate It's M my online coaching membership where I work directly with firm owners on how to build packages that actually work for your business. You'll get access to online trainings on productized service design, you'll get coaching on your specific situation, and you'll be part of a community of hundreds of other modern firm owners all working through these same challenges. There's an entire forum thread where members share their Gold Silver bronze packages and get feedback on them. So if you're just starting out, you can see exactly how others have structured theirs and adapt from there. So if you want more help fast tracking this and everything else that goes into building a modern scalable firm. Head on over to www.comfeedback futurefirmaccelerate.com for more details. So that's all for today. Hope you found today's episode helpful, and I'll catch you in the next one. Take care.