EP529: Anne Napolitano - Stop Undercharging: How To Price & Sell Advisory Services

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Anne Napolitano started her firm a decade ago as a solopreneur with an accounting degree, a background as a controller for Hermès of Paris, and a stint as a personal chef. Today she runs a 10-person firm with a specialty niche in food and beverage — and she has learned, often the hard way, how to charge what her work is actually worth. This episode is a practical, honest conversation about building advisory services into a bookkeeping firm, pricing with confidence, and communicating value so clients never have to wonder what you do for them.

Chapters

• [00:00] Anne's Background and Firm Journey
• [05:03] Early Mistakes and Hard Lessons
• [09:07] Building Advisory Into the Practice
• [12:24] Tools, Confidence, and Clean Data
• [14:33] Selling Advisory to Skeptical Clients
• [18:20] Segmenting Clients for Higher-Tier Work
• [20:42] Packaging and Proposals That Work
• [23:34] Pricing Courage and Recovering from Undercharging
• [28:19] Communicating Value Before Clients Leave
• [30:29] Pivotal Moments and What She'd Do Differently

From Bookkeeping to Advisory: It Takes Time to Grow Into It

Anne didn't launch as a full advisory firm on day one — the advisory side evolved as her confidence and team grew. She credits closing the books fast (her target is the 10th–15th of each month) as the foundation that makes advisory possible. "The faster we can get the bookkeeping done, that allows us 2 weeks at the end of the month to meet with clients and to do the advisory type of work that we really enjoy." Without clean, timely data, there's nothing to advise on.

Selling Advisory When Clients Don't Know They Need It

Many clients assume advisory is bundled into their basic bookkeeping fee. Anne's approach is to start with bookkeeping, build trust, and then show — not tell — what advisory can do. She uses dashboards, charts, and graphs in prospect calls, sometimes pulling analysis directly from a prospect's QuickBooks file before they've even signed. "We have found that that has been a game changer." Visual tools lower the barrier for clients who tune out a P&L but respond immediately to a trend line.

Segmenting Clients for Higher-Tier Services

Not every client is ready for advisory, and Anne stopped pretending otherwise. She segments roughly the top 15–30% of her client base into higher-tier engagements based on revenue size, reporting complexity, or multi-entity structures — not just headcount. Clients who don't start there often grow into it. "Some of the other clients move themselves into advisory over time. Either they grow or become more complex, or we've shown them what we can do for them — and by then we have a relationship, so they trust us."

The Pricing Trap: Being a Recovering Underpricer

Anne is direct about the pricing mistakes she's still working through. She uses value pricing (no hourly billing), offers three-tier proposal packages, and spells out scope precisely to avoid scope creep and client assumptions. But the real obstacle is internal. "I'm a recovering underpricer. You need to be willing and able for them to walk away. Because if they're not going to pay your price, it's not a good client for you." She also anchors pricing against the cost of a full-time hire — converting monthly fees to an annual figure so clients can compare apples to apples.

Communicating Value Before Clients Drift Away

Losing clients not because of bad work, but because clients didn't understand what was being done for them, was one of Anne's hardest lessons. Her fix: overcommunicate. Her team now sends monthly summaries through their client portal covering what was done, errors caught, fraud signals flagged, and money saved. "We don't always communicate to a client, and we found that that was a big mistake." She describes it as an iceberg — clients see the surface, but the firm's job is to make the work below the waterline visible.

Links Mentioned

• Anne Napolitano on LinkedIn
• Anne Napolitano on Instagram: search Anne Napolitano
• The Balance Sheet — Anne's monthly newsletter (contact her via social media to subscribe)
• The Successful Bookkeeper Summit — this year's theme: Owning Your Authority
• PureBookkeeping.com — episode sponsor
• Woodard conferences and education (mentioned as a resource for advisory skill-building)

About the Guest

Anne Napolitano is the founder of Anne Napolitano Consulting, a modern accounting and advisory firm she has grown over 10 years from a solo practice to a 10-person team. With over 30 years in accounting — including a role as U.S. controller for Hermès of Paris — Anne specializes in bookkeeping and CFO-level advisory services for food and beverage businesses, nonprofits, and general small business clients. She is based in the United States and is active on LinkedIn and Instagram.