In this episode, Ben Towne interviews Loren Fogelman, founder of Business Success Solution, a performance consultancy helping accounting and professional service firms price on value and scale with sanity. Drawing on her background as a sports psychologist turned business coach, Loren walks firm owners through the core shift from time-based fees to value pricing — and explains why up to 57% of firm owners are undercharging. She introduces actionable frameworks like the good-better-best pricing model and tiered service packages, and offers guidance on tackling scope creep, raising fees with confidence, and retaining clients through the process. The conversation also covers the mindset parallels between athletes and firm owners, including the role of courage, failure, and outside coaching in achieving sustainable growth.
Chapter 1: Welcome to Max Value
Ben Towne opens the Max Value Podcast by introducing guest Loren Fogelman, founder of Business Success Solution. The teaser clips set the episode’s core themes: the epidemic of scope creep, the courage required to raise prices, the outdated nature of hourly billing, and the direct link between pricing model and client quality. Loren is framed as a specialist helping professional firms price on value and scale with sanity.
Chapter 2: The Origin Story
Loren describes her non-linear career path from sports psychologist to business coach to firm consultant. She found deep parallels between growth-minded firm owners and athletes — both challenge their limits, lean into failure, and benefit from knowing their numbers. Coming from a family of CPAs, she recognized that firm owners were unsung heroes who consistently undervalued their own expertise, which led her to specialize in pricing and client enrollment for professional firms.
Chapter 3: Work Less, Earn More?
Loren reveals that up to 57% of firm owners undercharge, largely because they were conditioned as employees to price their time. She argues that the hourly rate is an outdated, 100-year-old pricing model that cannot adapt to today’s technology-driven, expertise-leveraged firms. The solution is value pricing, which can generate two to three times more revenue, combined with a strategic review of service offerings to eliminate unprofitable or misaligned work and focus on client outcomes rather than tasks.
Chapter 4: Fixed vs. Value Pricing
Loren draws a clear distinction between fixed fees — which are still time-based at their core — and true value pricing. The key difference lies in the order of variables: traditional pricing starts with your time and operational cost, while value pricing starts with what is a priority to the client and how they benefit. She recommends transitioning from à la carte services to structured packages as a first step, which creates fee transparency, limits scope creep, and begins separating fees from time.
Chapter 5: From Undervaluing to Pricing Courage
Loren introduces the good-better-best pricing framework for firm owners who are undercharging and not yet ready to fully package their services. The model works by multiplying the original fixed fee by 1.5x (good), 2x (better), and 3x (best), enrolling three clients at each tier before moving up. She emphasizes that courage comes first and confidence follows — and that each tier trains the firm owner to have better value-focused conversations with prospective clients.
Chapter 6: Stopping Scope Creep Without Losing Clients
Scope creep is described as epidemic, especially in smaller, client-centered firms. Loren argues it stems from not knowing how to create boundaries in a client-centered way — not from generosity. She recommends awareness as the first step, followed by a system (such as service packages) to prevent recurrence. For existing clients, she advises a guided conversation that acknowledges their growth, frames the change positively, and presents package options — turning a potentially awkward fee discussion into a client-centered upgrade conversation.
Chapter 7: Raising Fees and Attracting Better Clients
Loren reframes fee increases as a recalibration rather than a risk. Firm owners who raise rates by a minimum of 20 to 30% — not the typical 5 to 8% — typically retain 82 to 100% of their clients, with the lowest-value clients (who push back, don’t follow through, and demand exceptions) being the most likely to leave. She notes that sometimes the highest-paying client is actually a low-value client, and that losing them creates capacity for better-fit clients at higher margins.
Chapter 8: How to Know What Your Pricing Is Worth
Loren shares the real-world case of Carmen, a tax preparer who hadn’t raised rates in 18 years. In 60 to 90 days, they packaged her services, sent a structured email blast to all clients, and achieved a 60% average fee increase while retaining 90% of clients — and moved everyone to prepaid billing, transforming her cash flow. The key elements were: identifying best-fit clients, communicating change in a client-centered way, presenting packages clearly, and handling objections without reverting to overhead justifications.
Chapter 9: From Athlete to Professional: A Mindset That Translates
Loren identifies four athlete mindsets that translate directly to firm owners: challenging limiting beliefs, knowing your numbers (with 30% above current performance as the optimal target), learning from failure rather than retreating from it, and seeking outside coaching. She notes that while athletes embrace coaching from an early age, business owners often resist asking for help — which slows their progress. Thought diversity and outside perspective, she argues, are consistently undervalued in business.
Chapter 10: Do You Still Track Time with Value Pricing?
Loren recommends that firm owners moving to value pricing do not need to track their own time, as long as they are building strong profit margins into their packages. For staff, time sheets can serve as an internal management tool — identifying strengths, training gaps, and misaligned task assignments — but should not be used to justify client invoices. She suggests shifting internal metrics toward client profitability analysis, revenue per team member, and service-line profitability, which provide more actionable business intelligence than billable hours.
Chapter 11: Get to Know You
Loren shares that she takes a full sabbatical month every December to travel — a practice she also builds into client packages. Her most unexpected travel highlight was China, which she recommends only with a guide. Currently, rather than reading books, she is focused on research to develop a new training program helping firm owners transition fully into an advisory capacity. She can be reached at businesssuccesssolution.com or via a discovery call at businesssuccesssolution.com/letstalk.
