TWO CHOICES
Most law firms are used to thinking about two price points for Estate Planning -
simple and complex
single and couples
online vs in person.
This type of approach comes with a number of assumptions, including the assumption that a desire for a simple Will equals a desire for a simple Power of Attorney. That may be true for some clients, but is it true for all? Your price communicates something, you are telling the client that these are their two choices. Would your clients be interested in another choice if you gave them another choice?
PRICE POINTS ARE MARKETING
Your price is a form of communication. It says who this product is for, but it also says what they should choose between. Human beings love to do some research and by research they often mean comparison. What are you giving them to compare here? These two options are quite far apart, and are probably a result of marketing focused on the issues with simple Wills. If a client has ruled themselves out of needing a discretionary trust, or a life estate, are you ruling them out of anything comprehensive?
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t like simple Wills either. But are you allowing the fact that you don’t like simple Wills to drive your decisions around pricing and processes? At the end of the day the client instructs, if they are given other options and they instruct that they want the simple document well, that is their choice. Perhaps one way to help them with their choice is to remember that your packages are a form of communication.
THERE IS A MIDDLE PATH
What if instead of it being all simple, or all complex, you proposed a middle ground, a middle option? If your price is a form of communication, then communicate another option. Communicate a step in between a bare, appoint an Executor and an Attorney approach, and the full blown package.
You can still talk in your marketing about why you don’t like simple Wills, but you will do it without having to bring the client all the way up to a package that includes advising on corporate entities and mutual contract wills.
Obviously you don’t have to pick the steps to include or exclude that I have picked above. The point is, what if you had a very simple option, an everything option, and then a middle option that was more focused on aged care?
Differentiate yourself
The main advantage, as I see it, to this third price point is that your marketing can take a different focus. A lot of work has been done talking to potential clients about why they want to do more than name their beneficiaries, and that is excellent. I said above that I agree, I don’t like simple Wills either, they aren’t good for clients. But do you need to spend your marketing time and energy on that topic? Has everyone else kind of done that for you?
What if you talked instead about why the client should do more than name an Attorney and a Guardian? What if you spoke to the weekly articles on aged care and retirement villages and delays in accessing care? What if you proposed a better way to plan? What if focusing on this actually highlighted two options for your client?
You can also include more than a bare basics Will in this middle package, but the point is to have something that is specifically for the client whose response to an explanation of gift and loan back options in a Will is “I don’t need that”.
ONLINE TRAINING
Three tiered pricing can be a really effective strategy for focusing your client’s attention where you want it. I have prepared an online course that focuses on why you would use it in Estate Planning, and how you would use it. We step through the reasons that we want to center the second half of retirement as part of the Estate Plan, and how we are using our three tiered pricing to not only centre that, but to also be really clear with our clients from the beginning. There is written content to work through, but if you prefer there is also a video recording.
Set of precedents
I am also working on a set of precedents dealing with a three tiered pricing system, including costs disclosure and easy to use checklists. If you want to find out more about those as they are developed, and get a discounted offer when they are ready, then you could join the waiting list.
