Keeping your Xerocon fresh fade fresh
Let’s look back and remind ourselves of Xerocon insights you can turn into action
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If you slipped back to business as usual this week, all you picked up from the conference was post-xerocon blues and a suitcase full of swag. Don’t let that be the case!
By now, your manicure has probably chipped and your fresh fade will have faded. So let’s take a moment to reminisce and remind ourselves of insights you can turn into action.
It’s our highlights reel – we’re allowed to be biased.
Masterclass with Norman Leng
Xerocon week began on Tuesday when we let Norman loose on a bespoke group Ignition customers. He deep-dived into our app and integrations with Xero and XPM.
The masterclass turned out to be the perfect platform for guests to bounce off one another and share common insight into the day to day reality of running a practice. It was encouraging to see fellow accountants and bookkeepers educate one another about the tools of the trade.
Keep an eye out for a masterclass near you.
Another record breaking #Precon
On Tuesday evening, we had the pleasure of hosting over 900 guests across two venues at our world-famous #Precon Party. It’s pretty special to soak in the buzz over a few (free) drinks.
The reason we host #Precon each year is to give our customers and connections the chance to kick off Xerocon on a high note. It’s our way of giving back to the Xero community and sharing in the fun with the support of Xero and our sponsors.
This year, we were joined by BGL, AdvanceTrack Outsourcing, SuiteFiles, Float, ApprovalMax and XU Magazine.
Amanda Newton, Head of Community at Xero, opened the event for us.
Precon KPIs
Do you think we met target?
- 1200 registrations (sell out)
- 900+ attendees
- 2 venues
- 7 sponsors
- 10 Ignition reps
Top three bevys
- 80% of beers drunk were Great Northern
- 30% of wine drunk was Sauvignon Blanc
- The most popular drink goes to Morgan’s Bay bubbles (45% of all drinks consumed)
Well done team! You can check out the photo gallery here. And our wrap video below.
Human insights
Wednesday started with rockstar and CEO Steve Vamos taking to the stage to open the conference and share the heart behind the event – human insights.
Xero’s mission is to keep things simple, seamless and smart for accountants, bookies and their SMB clients.
If you’re working with SMBs, you have the opportunity to contribute to their success.
With cash-flow being the number one cause of failure for small businesses, it’s easy to see why you (with technology as a conduit) can play a part by providing better data and human insight to your SMB clients.
This message meant a lot to us. If you’re helping clients run better businesses with Xero, it makes sense that you’re running your best business too. At Ignition, we help you (accountants and bookies) improve cash-flow and eliminate debtors in your practice. And we’re always up for a chat if you want to know how!
I recommend reading Steve’s article on human insights for a glimpse into the Xero message.
Single Sign On with Xero and Ignition
In case you missed it on stage, we were announced as one of the first Xero app partners to allow you to sign in using your Xero credentials. Pretty cool, huh?!
Xero announced their newest release, ‘Sign in with Xero’, as a way to remove the pains of credentials management and provide a seamless on-boarding flow for their integration partners.
If you’re already using Ignition, Single Sign On means switching between your core practice apps is now seamless. Just another way Xero and Ignition are improving your efficiency and streamlining your experience.
You can try out ‘Sign in with Xero’ the next time you sign in to Ignition.
Patrick Frigo on pricing advisory
Pat Frigo took to the (very green) breakout stage to talk pricing advisory in a simple and relatable way.
His five tips on effectively pricing advisory
- Fixed fee - value based
- Build your MVP and work from there
- Know what you do and what you don’t
- Include all advice in your fees
- Test and learn
“We shouldn’t be thinking about how much money we can suck from our clients, we should be thinking about how much value we can provide to them.” – Pat Frigo
He showed how real Xero firms are offering advisory to their clients and the apps they’re using to do it.
Of particular mention was Diana Siddall of AccountsConnect whose app stack includes Ignition, Spotlight and ServiceM8 for her tradie clients. She’s been able to niche in the trade sector by building out her advisory services and app stack off the back of Xero HQ.
Diana uses Ignition to help shape client conversations from the very beginning.
Kaye Harding on ‘Making the power move from an app to a stack’
Kaye Harding, GM Partner Experience, discussed app advisory to help you know how to offer app advice to your clients.
With over 800 apps in the Xero ecosystem, Kaye focussed on demystifying choice, reducing noise and honing in on apps that work for you and your clients.
Kaye explained the App Advisory Playbook, which has been designed by Xero to help you package up and offer app advisory to your clients in a simple way. She mentioned Ignition to set up your proposals, billing and payment collection for app advisory services.
It was clear that value-add pricing is ideal as a monthly recurring fee where you bundle in additional business advisory services beyond compliance work.
We worked with Kaye ahead of Xerocon to find that accountants and bookkeepers who moved to value-based monthly fee pricing saw a 2.1x and 1.5x increase in lifetime value of the client respectively. You may also be interested to know that PI customers using reporting apps featured heavily in the higher revenue examples.
It turns out you’ll also benefit from including apps in your initial set up. Accountants using Ignition have seen a 150% increase in upfront fees – a no brainer!
If you think Ignition would be a valuable tool in your clients’ businesses you can talk to us about our partner program.
Deeper connections
During Xerocon, our founders Guy Pearson and Dane Thomas, hosted a boardroom session with a group of Ignition super users. It was a time for feedback, a glimpse into the future of the platform, and to explain how we’re planning to deliver even more genuine value to our customers.
Ethan Cooney, Head of Partnerships (APAC), ran a session in the Mini Theatre to demonstrate the magic of Ignition. The room lit up when he showed off the three-way sync between Ignition, Xero and XPM. As well as how you can automatically raise and reconcile invoices and deploy jobs in XPM when your client accepts your proposal in Ignition.
What we love most about Xerocon is connecting with people. As always, we had the honour of talking to hundreds of you when you visited our booth.
If you’d like to keep the conversation going, or you just want some free swag – we’d love to chat. I’ve heard swag is the cure for post-xerocon blues.
Twitter @ignitionapp | ignitionapp.com
