A new way to "train" ChatGPT on your accounting firm

and how to avoid mental masturbation when pricing your services

Author

Marc Howard
August 19, 2023

Lots of exciting action this week including McKinsey possibly competing with mom and pop accounting firms with its new AI tool “Lilli”.

Here’s what else was cooking this week in accounting AI:

  • McKinsey's New AI Assistant “Lilli”: Consultant or Competitor?

  • Your Next Accounting Sales Person May Be An AI

  • Huge ChatGPT update allows ‘custom instructions’

  • AI Meme of the Week

  • AI Tutorial of the Week

Read time: 7 minutes

But first I want to talk about pricing your services.

Because if you don’t nail this then everything else is just mental mastubation.

Its funny how value pricing really just boils down to one concept:

Price is simply the amount of money one is willing to pay you.

Different people will pay different rates.

You charge up to what people are willing to pay.

Some clients will pay 10x to relieve an accounting or tax headache.

Its why tiered pricing works but even that leaves money on the table.

When you advertise your rates you advertise that you are a commodity.

But if you absolutely must display your tiered pricing be sure to use the *Starting At asterisk.

Be the master of upselling--your job is to be a detective and figure out the maximum amount of value a client is willing to pay you for.

This is not price gouging but a deep-dive into what pains clients are willing to pay a premium for.

If you're still charging a one-time fee per tax return you're leaving money on the table almost every time.

Dig deeper.

Asking the right questions will unlock revenue opportunities most accountants simply do not uncover.

At the end of the day clients want to know that they are in good hands, dealing with a professional and that you are the one who will take the pain out of their life.

This is "value pricing" in a nutshell--don't overthink it.

Remember, everything else is just mental mastubation.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

McKinsey's New AI Assistant “Lilli”: Consultant or Competitor? [LINK]

In a Nutshell: Consulting giant McKinsey has developed an AI chatbot named Lilli to supercharge its consultants.

Key Points:

  • Lilli can quickly synthesize info from McKinsey's 100K+ documents to answer questions

  • It provides full citations and sources for its responses

  • Lilli has already cut research time from weeks to hours for 7K+ early users

Why It Matters: This shows how AI can make knowledge workers more efficient. But it also poses a threat to smaller accounting firms without access to advanced AI. They risk falling behind if they don't find ways to incorporate AI assistants.

The Bottom Line: AI assistants like Lilli present opportunities to enhance productivity and provide better service. Even smaller firms can benefit by carefully evaluating available AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude.

Your Next Accounting Sales Person May Be An AI [LINK]

In a Nutshell: AI avatar company HeyGen wants to make a digital version of you. The possibilities are endless with use-cases including sales, webinars and client educational videos.

Key Points:

  • You only need to feed the AI just 2 minutes of your voice for it to produce results like the example above

  • One of the use cases will be sales where an accountant can “hire” it to present to clients

  • It can even reproduce your native accent (or totally remove it)

Why It Matters: Think of all the times you weren’t your “best self” on a Zoom call (yep I’m talking about that last hangover). With your AI avatar you can now present yourself perfectly. Coupled with LLMs like ChatGPT for objection handling it can even ask the questions that make you cringe, like “Sooo, is there anything from keeping you from becoming a client today”?

(See last week’s newsletter for an even scarier example).

Huge ChatGPT update allows ‘custom instructions’ [LINK]

In a Nutshell: OpenAI has released ‘Custom instructions,‘ a huge update to ChatGPT. It gives you more control over responses by setting instructions for the model to remember across all conversations.

Key Points:

  • Allows you to insert two prompts of up to 1500 characters for ChatGPT to remember across conversations

  • Available in Beta for Plus users and ‘coming soon’ to free users

  • To enable, click the three dots under your ChatGPT history → Settings & Beta → Beta Features → Custom Instructions

  • Besides custom instructions, OpenAI has also increased GPT-4’s message cap from 25 to 50 every 3 hours

Why It Matters: Now you don’t need to worry about ChatGPT forgetting what you told it before. Be sure to see my demo video below on how to set this up and a working example. 👇

💡Take Away: Now is the time to get an edge over your competition. Learn how to level-up your firm with AI and ChatGPT with our ChatGPT Playbook for Accountants.

AI Meme of the Week

AI Tutorial of the Week

How to Setup ChatGPT with Custom Instructions

Here is a video I made on how to train ChatGPT for your accounting firm using the new Custom Instructions feature:

From the Community

Jeff closes $126,000 in new accounting business in 3 weeks.

Emanuel leverages AI to win $55,000 in 5 days.

Beth saves 12 hours per week using ChatGPT.

Join our growing community here.

TOGETHER WITH AI AMPLIFIER FOR ACCOUNTANTS

In a Nutshell: Command higher fees while cutting your workload in half with the new AI Amplifier for Accountants course.

Key Points:

  • Unleash the power of AI to turbocharge your firm's growth, boosting productivity within just 15 days.

  • Seamlessly balance work and life by incorporating ChatGPT, reducing your workload and reclaiming precious time for life outside the office.

  • Break free from the traditional accountant mold, and step into the shoes of a forward-thinking, AI-powered leader.

  • Future-proof your firm, building an AI-driven business that's a high-demand asset in the contemporary market.

Why it Matters:

This course will save you time and money so that you can grow and automate your firm in half the time.

👋 That’s a Wrap

That’s it for today folks!

In the meantime, if you want live updates, join over 95,000 other accountants, tax pros and entrepreneurs who follow me across YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

🧞‍♂️ Your wish is my command

Thanks for reading! When you signed up for this newsletter, my promise to you was to act as your personal assistant and help entrepreneurial accountants like you understand what's happening in the world of AI.

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Until next time!

Marc

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