The "Reimagined" ProAdvisor Program

Warning: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Hector: Welcome to the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast. I am joined by my good friend Alicia Katz Pollock, the original, the one and only Rockstar CEO and founder of Royal White Solutions.

Alicia: And I have the privilege of collaborating with Hector Garcia, CPA, the founder of Right Tool for QuickBooks.

Hector: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, [00:00:30] we're going to talk about the new reimagined ProAdvisor program. Hey, Alicia, how are you?

Alicia: Hey, Hector. I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Hector: Excellent. So this is the first episode we're recording post QuickBooks connect QuickBooks connect being the biggest event of the year for QuickBooks centric accountants. And they made a whole bunch of announcements. And this would be one of them that we're going to cover. And we might have multiple episodes where we discuss multiple dimensions [00:01:00] of what was discussed at QuickBooks connect. So we're going to start by discussing the new reimagined ProAdvisor program in the in the new webinar that happened mid November right after, I think it was right after QuickBooks connect, where the webinar came out. They covered a little bit of of the program. And also there's been tons of chatter in social media. So I want to discuss we want to discuss what the heck is going on here. So the first thing we want to discuss is launch date. So the official launch date [00:01:30] for the reimagined ProAdvisor program was November 20th. That means that when people woke up on November 20th and logged into their ProAdvisor profile, the point system, their status, whether they used to be a lead or gold or whatever may have changed. And that's because they have changed the underlying individual activities that affect what your point system is, and your point system ultimately affects your status. Now we'll [00:02:00] discuss the status and what they mean. And does it even affect you? I'm going to tell you something right off the bat, Alicia. For 99.99% of us, honestly, it doesn't make a difference. And we'll discuss what that difference could be. And in some cases, it could be relevant according to certain feelings of people in social media.

Hector: They especially the sort of the old school, the old guard of proadvisors, the ones that have been carrying this point or this status for years because because they were desktop advanced [00:02:30] or whatever it was, and they feel that they're getting a reduction of points and they're basically gamifying this thing or rewarding some of the new members. And the new activities are more driven towards the new QuickBooks products like QuickBooks online, QuickBooks online, advanced QuickBooks time, QuickBooks, Billpay. Et cetera, et cetera. So we're going to get there. The first thing I want to mention is what Intuit told us in public in the webinar. That was the motivation behind making a change or [00:03:00] reimagining the ProAdvisor program. So that initial motivation was that there are firms involved in the ProAdvisor program, and the ProAdvisor program was focused around the individual proadvisors and not the firm as a whole. So the firm in itself wasn't being rewarded for their sort of collective work of all the individual ProAdvisor members. The second thing that they heard is the ProAdvisor program does not challenge or motivate the [00:03:30] firms themselves. Sort of like there was maybe one advanced ProAdvisor and maybe the firm said, okay, you know what, John is the advanced. We don't even have to worry about it. We can access all the benefits through John or whatever it is. And the last one is that being a ProAdvisor has lost its meaning. I'm not sure if that's extrapolated or if they heard it from one person, or they heard it from many people. That one's a little bit strange. Again, I think dissenting voices.

Alicia: I understand what that one means, because being [00:04:00] a ProAdvisor to technically be a ProAdvisor, all you have to do is open up a free account. And technically that makes you a ProAdvisor. And then taking the basic certification test is a step forward. But it's, you know, that just shows you that you know what buttons to click. It doesn't show you that you know how to really use the software. And so I understand that part of this is to make sure that people who are just like creating [00:04:30] free files, but they're not really acting in a bookkeeping capacity, are no longer held at the same status as the rest of us.

Hector: Yeah, I am a 100% on the same page with you at this challenge I have. If that was the true meaning of that, then they missed the mark, because essentially what we were asking for is to make it harder to become a ProAdvisor make it more, um, just give more barriers of entry, make it more challenging, you know, reduce the amount [00:05:00] of people that come in. Start charging instead of making it free, like the ethos behind that specific statement that you're saying, and I'm with you 100%. I don't think that the solution to that is to gamify this thing and add more varied point system. How does that add any meaning to it?

Alicia: Well, as we as we go through the tiers, it's going to kind of play itself out that we're going to be taking a look at gold. And that in the context of what I just said, gold makes a whole lot of sense. So once [00:05:30] we get there, I'll kind of extrapolate on that one.

Hector: Okay. So before we jump into the reimagined part, let's talk about the core of it, because I think it's important to know a little bit of the history for context, to me and Alicia, make sure you add something. And I have here notes written down specifically to me what the ProAdvisor program was. In its essence, it was a free QuickBooks Online Accountant account for your own personal firm, which has been upgraded to advanced in the past year or [00:06:00] so, which is a $200 a month value. That's huge. Also, you can add on to that for free payroll for your firm. Don't know if there's a limit of how many employees you can add, but I know you can add payroll for your firm. And you can also add free QuickBooks time, formerly known as Tsheets, also to your firm. So that entire piece. Quickbooks Online Advanced QuickBooks Online Payroll QuickBooks Online Time was part of the program of being, quote, part of the ProAdvisor program, which didn't [00:06:30] require you to be certified. And I know that at the very beginning of this, probably going back 6 or 7 years ago, they said, hey, you have to add a client or two within the next six months or year, otherwise the account will basically be shut down or the benefits will go away. That has never been enforced that I know. So I don't know if somebody dropped the ball or maybe it's just too much work, or maybe it's just better to have as many free proadvisors as possible. You know, maybe some. Maybe it's just a numbers game. You know, the more free the [00:07:00] accountant accounts are out there, the more statistically a new client will be added. I don't have that that data. Right. So that's in itself the most important thing. The second thing is go ahead.

Alicia: Yeah. I mean, the idea with that is that if they give you a free file, then you get to know it without any risk so that you can get to use it. You get practice with it, you get to know the experiences. I think what they were worried about is that some people would find it as a loophole to get advanced [00:07:30] without cost. But I didn't say that out loud. You didn't hear me.

Hector: I'm sure there's enough people exploiting that loophole as we speak now. The second benefit was getting the certification, which included in itself some sort of training, like it's not the same thing as watching one of Alicia's courses or one of my videos. This is just like, read off the screen. Here's a mini video. Here's a multiple choice exam. Example. Here's a PDF with some, you know, quick reference guide. [00:08:00] And through that process, you do learn how to use a little bit or at least the fundamentals of QuickBooks online or the core functionality. Once you become core, you can get a second one called QuickBooks Online Advanced Certification. Not to be confused with QuickBooks Online Advanced the product, but you can get the advanced certification. And there's a huge difference between the core and the advanced. Like almost like I think it was like 5% or less than 10% of people actually achieve [00:08:30] the advanced. So there's there's actually a lot of meaning behind being an advanced certified. And prior to this re-imagination of this program being advanced pretty much got you over over the over the hump for most of the platinum and elite. So a lot of people that just became advanced, certified and kind of didn't, you know, play the points game, you know, they felt good that they got something in exchange of the hard work of becoming advanced. And they recently added, in the past year, a QuickBooks Online Payroll certification as well. [00:09:00] So that entire thing is available under the free program, under the online QuickBooks online program or the ProAdvisor program. There's also non certification training. There's training on on marketing. There's training on advisory. There's training on basic bookkeeping fundamentals. All this stuff for free. Then if you do get certified at least core, then you get listed and defined the ProAdvisor website, which basically adds your name to a Intuit domain name, which makes it official that you're certified.

Hector: So [00:09:30] it makes it so much easier to sell yourself, or have at least the first bump of credibility if you're first getting if you're just getting started, and if you do get certified, you had a little bit better support, like the sort of premium support. And there used to be like a super duper premium support only for the elite, for the highest, most advanced certified people. That entire thing that I mentioned, it's available and free. Okay. Which is pretty amazing when you think about it. And it's been available in free for maybe eight years [00:10:00] or so now. Parallel to that there. There has always been a paid version of the ProAdvisor program, which was the core of the ProAdvisor program prior to QuickBooks online really being pushed, which I think it was like 2 or $300 like more than ten years ago, and now it's up to $800, and the paid version gave you access to QuickBooks desktop. So you get QuickBooks Desktop Accountant Edition and then QuickBooks desktop mac edition every year as you renew the ProAdvisor program, you also [00:10:30] get the new year of the software. That's $800 a year. And then there's also one for $1,300 a year that actually gives you enterprise as well. Prior to this whole thing, you used to be able to get point of sale combined with the I believe it was the enterprise package, but point of sale has been killed. Quickbooks desktop point of sale has been killed completely and essentially those were the tiers. Anything to add on that? Alicia?

Alicia: No, [00:11:00] you're doing great.

Hector: Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. All right. So now that we know the history and we know where we are now, we know that there's a motivation, you know, that something related to firms and users. There's no connection between that. The concept of ProAdvisor losing its meaning or being too easy. Let's talk about the new reimagined program. I do want to mention one thing. One of my one of my profiles. And this is kind of kind of strange. And I would like to get to the bottom of this. And I was discussing with [00:11:30] Alicia prior to the prior to the podcast, and this was certainly a point of contention between us because we were like 100% on the same page, exactly what this meant. But I have a login that has multiple firms attached to it. I'm actually affiliated with three different firms. I have my own personal firm, and I have two other firms that I have partners with, and I'm one of the partners in those firms. And what's interesting is under the same exact login, which is my profile, I have different point system based [00:12:00] on which firm I am logged into. So this is one of the firms I'm logged into. And I'm this is this is audio only. But there's a you know, we're also publishing parts of this in YouTube. But the point I want to make here is that when when I log in and I select a firm and then I go into on the left hand side, I go into ProAdvisor benefits. It tells me what my points are. So like in one firm I have 6350 points. It says right there you used to be elite, but you're going to lose that [00:12:30] because you need to have 7000 points to be elite.

Hector: Now you're going to be somewhere between gold and platinum. And it says that the official date, I guess, the cutoff date in which you would lose your old status, it's now February 17th, 2024. Why that date? I don't know, I mean, that's I don't know what the significance of that date is. So that's that's under my same one QuickBooks online login and under one specific firm. Now I'm going to switch over to a different firm. Again I am one of the owners [00:13:00] of the firm. I'm also a team member of the firm, if you want to see it from that perspective. And when I log in to the firm, it says I have 7525 points. So under that firm, I'm elite. Under the other firm, I'm not elite. So the big question here is and neither Alicia and I have the answer is like, what is my official you know, what is going to be February 17th when this cuts off? Let's say there's no new accounts being created. What is my official status? Is it my status on the firm A or my status on the firm B is [00:13:30] it the highest one? Is it the lowest one, or is it, like Alicia said, the one that you want to be affiliated to? Which again, it just makes all sorts of confusion because in some of them I'm just a team member, and in some of them I'm actually the firm owner. But there's more than one in which I'm the firm owner, so it's not that clear.

Alicia: I have a feeling that you're kind of going into the weeds on this, because I would imagine that when you're taking your certification tests, you've got one profile where you're doing all of your testing, that's where your ProAdvisor listing [00:14:00] is. And so, yeah, many of us have lots of different files that were attached to or different team members in, and each one might have a different points, but I know that I only consider one of those my actual profile for my ProAdvisor participation, and that's the one that I'm really focusing on.

Hector: Yeah, no, I agree with you. I just wish there was a place where I could go, hey, which is my official like which is my firm, which is my which is the one that which is the central one. Right. Because at this point I kind of lost track. I don't know which my firm [00:14:30] is.

Alicia: That's up to you to put a sticky note on your computer saying, this is me.

Hector: Right. I'll do that. So the other thing about the elite, because at the end of the day, what what we're getting some, some social media complaints and pushback on is people that used to be a lead that are no longer a lead to be a lead. It's actually not that easy. Okay. I'm going to go into the firm of the future website that actually has the breakdown, and we'll go over like, you know, how how [00:15:00] you earn those points. And again, for the audio only format, we'll try to, you know, be as explicit as possible in this case, but essentially to be a gold member, which is the single most important thing, because the gold member is the difference between being certified and not being certified, and it's also the premium support. My understanding is the most premium support that you used to be able to get was only available for the elite members, and [00:15:30] now my understanding is premium support. It's actually available to everyone that is at least gold, right? And it to be gold. At the very least you have to pass the QuickBooks online ProAdvisor exam. The core, correct?

Alicia: Yeah. And the for me, of all of the benefits, that was the only one that mattered was the fact that I had that direct phone line. And so the people who were premium who are by points are going [00:16:00] down to gold. You don't lose that benefit. You still have it. And in fact. That is going to expand it out to more proadvisors, which I think is a good idea in a way. To me, it's them expanding out who can have this group of people who actually have the answers to your questions instead of going through regular support? So I think this is a good change.

Hector: Correct. You want to raise the standards for having access to the best support. Because as I agree with you, Alicia, [00:16:30] when I got into the ProAdvisor program back in 2008, and the reason I was paying the $300 a year or whatever, which was long, are the days of paying 300 bucks only for this type of stuff. Um. To me what was valuable. Hey, I'm just getting started. I'm not that good at QuickBooks. At least from a, you know, consulting level. If I get stuck, I can tell my client, don't worry, I have premium support. We can, you know, we can take care of this right now. That used to be like the most valuable thing to me. Now, as a more mature consultant, you [00:17:00] know, all the things are important to me, like being hurt and and fixing things that are broken. That sort of thing to me is much more important than than the other stuff. But somewhere in between, you know, the premium support and where I am now, what mattered to me quite a bit is having access to more certifications, having access to being able to publicly prove to the world that I know this stuff. Having those badges that I can put on my website, in my business card, and being rewarded [00:17:30] on the listing of the ProAdvisor site because I have a higher level of certification, like that's somewhere in the middle. That meant the most to me. And in this reimagined program, they haven't addressed whether or not that's going to change at all, which I'm going to guess that if it hasn't been addressed, period, and no one has complained about that, it's not part of, you know, the themes, you know, behind why they're doing this. I'm guessing that the ProAdvisor listing, let's say algorithms per se, [00:18:00] those are not changing. I'm just going to make that guess because like, nowhere in the in the firm of the future website that's listed now.

Alicia: They actually in the forums have been reassuring people that your ProAdvisor listing is not based on your status. So if you were premium or you were elite and your tier now says gold, you're not being demoted. You're getting a different badge. It's mostly just cosmetic [00:18:30] that it's not going to affect your firm of the firm of the future listing. It's not going to affect your your support tier. So it's, you know, a lot of the upset that people have had about being demoted is really not too big of a factor. I mean, personally, I wish that instead of changing the the points and moving them down the tiers, that they had just added an additional tier at the top so that people don't [00:19:00] have that emotional baggage of feeling like they've been demoted, but they really haven't been. I mean, you're changing the terminology from elite to gold, but you're also giving whole new opportunities as well along the way.

Hector: Exactly. And if you actually look at my profile, okay, my profile doesn't say whether I'm gold or elite, actually, I got demoted from elite to gold. So so that's a different issue altogether. But I used to be elite, not [00:19:30] gold, but nowhere in my profile it says whether I'm gold or elite. So that's more of an internal relationship between you and Intuit type of thing. And they do give you a badge. So maybe you can use that badge externally. But in the Find the ProAdvisor website as of November 20th, which is the day that that this thing was reimagined, the only badges you see have to do with your certification level, not your status level. And one of the comments I've read in the Facebook group is, oh, [00:20:00] they're ignoring your desktop certification. They're ignoring your enterprise certification. Well, that's not what it shows on the ProAdvisor listing. My desktop advanced certification is still showing their My Enterprise certification is still showing there. Maybe it doesn't count towards the points okay, fine. It doesn't count towards the points. But but it's not being unrecognized. So I want to make sure that people are not reading this wrong.

Alicia: Yeah, I think that's important because actually, now the way that you get most [00:20:30] of your points is all of your different certifications, all of the different. Products that your clients are using. And there's one of the big misconceptions that I would actually like to clear up is that you are getting points for now, not just that they're connected to QuickBooks online, but now you're getting points if they're getting payments, if you're getting points, if they are using the new QuickBooks bill pay. [00:21:00] And so you don't have to sell the products, it's not how many people you have on your preferred pricing or anything like that. If one of your clients just puts you in as an accountant user, whatever they've got going on, you just got credit for. And that's one of the reasons why I personally was able to maintain my elite status. I've got over 11,000 points, but that's because what I do is training and troubleshooting. So people attach [00:21:30] me to their files, and then when I'm done with our sessions, I say, well, you can either leave me there so that I can. When you have questions later on, you can just call me or you can take me off, because as far as I'm concerned, our relationship is is finished after this session and a lot of people just leave me on. And so I've got this ridiculous amount of points, simply because I have ever worked with clients who have been on these products. So the flip side of that is for smaller boutique firms that [00:22:00] only have a few high value clients. They're not going to see as many points, but there are so many new ways of getting points with the new, with the payroll certification, with the and the the new products that they're rolling out.

Hector: Right. The QuickBooks ledger, that one also gives you points. Not that many points, but it gives you points. So that's a good point that that a for lack of a better term. That's a good point, Alicia, that the points are for your clients [00:22:30] adding you not for you selling it. Right. So people are on social media, they're saying, oh, now QuickBooks wants to to sell more stuff. No, that's not what they're doing. You know, having a client with payroll, having a client with payments, having a client with bill pay, that's proxy for experience. I mean, like, it's very it's very difficult for Intuit to like give you a point system based on your experience. Some people have been using for QuickBooks for 20 years and they're complete Neanderthals. Okay. And some people have been using QuickBooks for [00:23:00] three years and they're like super advanced and super great. So your your years of quote experience and dedication and loyalty, it's irrelevant to like a proxy for like how good you are at it. And what Intuit is saying at this point is saying, hey, if you got clients with these products, you are probably better at it. You have more exposure to.

Alicia: It, right? Like, think about somebody with payroll. There are a lot of people who like third party solutions, you know, gusto, ADP, all of those. And [00:23:30] you might not like QuickBooks Online Payroll. And so you've been putting them out there, but now you're not earning points. So if you do put them on payroll you are earning points. Now on the one hand I'm going to I can hear some of you arguing. Yeah but that's selling products well. But it's also showing experience and expertise in that product. And that's why you're getting the points.

Hector: Exactly. Now let's talk about some of the quote marketing [00:24:00] benefits okay. And again if you're a seasoned firm and you already have, you know, tons of clients and you have a great website and you have great social media, maybe you don't care too much about that, but this one is probably going to be mostly geared brand new consultants, brand new QuickBooks Proadvisors. And in a previous episode, we talked about how to become a QuickBooks expert, and we talked about or an expert in QuickBooks. Sorry for saying QuickBooks expert. Don't shoot me into it. So to become an expert in QuickBooks and being part of the ProAdvisor [00:24:30] program was was the biggest thing. Now some of the marketing benefits, quote unquote, that they're adding is, well, there's going to be new new badges. And again, badges existed for a very long time, you know, whether you have a badge or not, that's not necessarily marketing. But if the badge is, it's it's pretty okay. As a badge. I'm going to open up one of the badges for the people that are watching this thing in YouTube. But if the badge is pretty, pretty or prettier, or you have an excuse [00:25:00] to, to to to to share it in social media, that can give you exposure that it's marketing.

Hector: Right. So the new ProAdvisor badges have little stars under it. Right. So one star, two star, three star or four star and maybe the stars mean something, right? So like you got to think about like how you spin it, how you frame it. If you are going to be three star or four star, that's going to look, that's going to look pretty good. And for some customers, just one star just means a star, right? You're a star. You know, like so again, [00:25:30] some people are reading way too much into this. But there's new badges. They're prettier, they're well designed and they contain your status and they contain the stars. And those badges are not in the ProAdvisor website. They're badges that you would elect to have them in your in your website, in your branding. And if you actually when you download the kit, it actually gives you a whole bunch of guide like branding guidelines in terms of like how you can use the badges, um, [00:26:00] you know, where you can put them on the website and make sure the badges are not bigger than your logo. There's also they're teaching a whole bunch of new badges, which I'm really excited about.

Alicia: These.

Hector: Yeah, me too. But they're not, they're not I haven't seen like exactly how this is going to work, but they have a new badge called a counselor badge. I'm not sure what that means. You know, maybe you're part of the council, right? You're part of the accountants council or the partners council or the, you know, whatever council. There's a new trainer badge, which I assume is [00:26:30] linked to whether you're part of the trainer writer network. Yes, Alicia and I are both part of or we're part of. I'm not sure what our status there is, because I haven't done a lot of stuff for them lately. And there's a new thing called a knowledge base badge, which it's probably for specialized sort of micro things, micro certifications you can do inside your ProAdvisor profile. They teach that one called reporting and one called banking. So I assume that if you take a special sort of mini course on those things, you get that badge. What are your thoughts about that? Alicia.

Alicia: That's [00:27:00] exactly what they are. The community badges are for participation. In intuits different organizations. So like the Accountants Council. But you have to like be accepted into that. It's an, I think a two year term and the trainers for the trainer writer network. So they're going to give those badges to people that have met some sort of standard. That isn't clear yet, but I think it's an inclusion. And then the two for reporting and banking are going to be based on training modules that are going [00:27:30] to be coming out in the training center. So if you take the banking module, then you'll get the banking badge. And if you take the reporting training then you'll get the reporting badge. And I think those two in particular are really important. I'm really, really glad that they went with this route because there's so much changing with reports and being able to know how to create those custom reports and use the new report builder earns you a badge. That's awesome. And then we all know that banking is either [00:28:00] your best friend or your worst nightmare if you know how to use it. So making sure that more people go through the training, that's an awesome incentive to be able to have that badge on your profile. So I'm I really like that idea.

Hector: Yeah. Reports and banking. Not a coincidence. The most popular classes at QuickBooks connect. Not a coincidence. The classes that Alicia and I are the ones that usually teach it at QuickBooks connect. Not a coincidence. The most popular classes that are in my in my classes [00:28:30] in CPA Academy, and probably the most popular classes in Alicia's Royal Weiss system.

Alicia: So like my banking class, I have a 2.5 hour class about just about everything that you could possibly know about banking, and it's my favorite class to teach.

Hector: Sure, it's the one where you find the most efficiency per se as a bookkeeper, as an accountant. The other marketing stuff that they added is they added this new thing called QuickBooks ecosystem email templates. I assume it's, you know, templates on explaining, [00:29:00] you know, changes to the product or how to sell more products. I mean, there is going to be some sales component. So how to sell bill pay or how to sell payroll, that sort of thing. I haven't seen those templates yet, but that's been announced also. They're going to have a whole new slew of client engagement email templates for gold members. So things like, you know, deadline emails or client introduction emails and, and that sort of thing to be in the ProAdvisor directory. I think we talked about that. You have to be a gold [00:29:30] plus, you have to be a gold plus. And they haven't announced platinum, which is in between gold and and and elite. What new benefits are for platinum. But they added this new thing in elite called firm growth consultation. So schedule time with a growth consultant. I'm going to say this publicly, okay. If the growth consultant is a person that is just going to teach you how to sell more QuickBooks products, that's not beneficial to me. Okay. Like the growth consultant needs to actually talk about [00:30:00] the holistic growth of you as a professional of your firm. It can't just be how to sell more QuickBooks products. So. We'll see. Do you know anything about this growth consultant thing?

Alicia: No. It's something that they haven't really announced yet. But I love the idea that we can actually meet with somebody at Intuit to see where we're at and see where we're going. I mean, maybe it's like our. Oh, what are what do they call those guys, our sales managers? [00:30:30]

Hector: Yeah, we have sales managers now, but.

Alicia: That's a product release, not firm growth based. But one of the things that I've noticed, and this is kind of external to this whole conversation and you and I can talk about this one for a whole other hour, is I really see a shift in how Intuit is trying to position the Proadvisors to really bring them and raise them up and make bring them more into advisory, make them partners for tax firms. Different opportunities there. And I really think that some of this [00:31:00] kind of lends to elevating what it is that we provide our clients.

Hector: It certainly feels like that based on the messaging and QuickBooks connect and everything else. 2024 will be an interesting year to see how how that actually unfolds. Now, the last thing that they mentioned here was special benefits and promotions. So a little bit vague, but for for Silver Plus. And silver Plus means everybody that signs up to the program for free. It's there's going to be this new thing called accountant approved third party apps, which is basically [00:31:30] apps that get vetted, you know, through like an accountant, council, accountant, panel type of thing. And then these are basically apps that accountants have gone through and go, yep, this app doesn't break your QuickBooks. So, so, so there will be basically a listing of the accountant approved apps. And I don't know exactly what the criteria of that is. I've been involved in the last couple of years in like accountant advisory to app companies, but I haven't really seen like a rating system or a quality control system. [00:32:00] So I don't know exactly how that works. But essentially we're going to see more apps with a little badge that says accountant approved or accountant revised or something like that.

Hector: And the next one, which I think is pretty interesting, is a special events and discounts, sweeps, contests, incentives, special events, unique event experiences, event discounts. Hey, look, if I'm an elite member and I get a free ticket to QuickBooks connect, that's worth. That's worth its weight in gold. Actually, when I was thinking, Alicia, you were talking about having 11,000 points [00:32:30] or whatever I'm thinking about, like your your credit card points or your frequent flier points, it would be nice to like, redeem those points for like, QuickBooks merch. You know, like it would be it would be so easy for Intuit to do this, because if I buy a QuickBooks hat or a QuickBooks shirt or a QuickBooks book bag, I'm literally a freaking billboard, right? I'm I will be I'm adding more marketing by wearing the merch, and they give it to you for free anyway at the conference. And so it would be nice for you to feel [00:33:00] that these points have have like market value, have like exchange value.

Alicia: I actually just bought one of their ugly sweaters for my Christmas sweaters, and now I have a QuickBooks sweater. I'm really curious to see how this is going to play out and what these tiers are going to be like if I start getting additional swag, if I start getting invited to different things, if I get a discounted ticket to QVC, those are all great incentives for for upping my points. Now, something that we didn't talk [00:33:30] about that I want to actually cycle back around to is now that gold is kind of the gold standard, how do you get to gold and the minimum number of points that you need. So gold is 500 points. And the basic way that you can hit your gold status is your certification test. Even if you don't have a single client, if you take the basic certification, the advanced certification and the payroll certification boom your gold so and so, [00:34:00] you're golden. And I kind of think that one of Intuit's incentives for this was getting more people through the advanced certification test because like only like I don't know what the most recent statistic is, but they used to say that it was only 5% of proadvisors. But there's a big difference between the two tests, and people didn't really have any incentive to sit for the advanced certification because like, you know, the clients don't care. But if I'm hiring, they have to have [00:34:30] advanced certification because the basic certification is, you know, what button to click to start an invoice. The advanced certification is you accidentally charge sales tax when you weren't supposed to. How do you fix it? And that really shows that expertise. And so I think the more people we can get advanced certified to get people up the points, I think that's a huge win for all of us, because then you really know your stuff.

Hector: Yeah. So, Alicia, you know what? I'm going to end this podcast. By saying I was wrong. I [00:35:00] was wrong to think that this point system was just a gamification. But what you just said, it's 100% true. I didn't didn't click to me until you said that if you are a brand new person that signs into QuickBooks online ProAdvisor and you only get the course certification, that's 100 points. That doesn't get you to 500 points, right? And if you only get your QuickBooks online certification and your advanced certification, that's 300 points. So [00:35:30] it's not that easy anymore to be listed in the ProAdvisor profile. So the big question is, and I guess we'll update you on this on a future episode, is when are they going to kick off all these other proadvisors that don't have 500 points off their listing, right? And then only leave the ones that have at least all the certifications and at least some clients to quote, give the ProAdvisor program some meaning. So I was wrong to think that that that their [00:36:00] approach to this was, was wasn't going to give it meaning. But you're 100% right if you can't be listed until you get 500 and you have to have at least a couple of clients, you have to have at least the advanced certification to get there fairly quickly. That's going to give the program meaning. So ending a good note.

Alicia: And you don't necessarily have to get the advanced certification if you have the core certification. But you start helping people, you start bringing in new clients. You start attaching yourself to files. Then that's showing that you have that [00:36:30] expertise to bring yourself up. So I think at the bottom level, I think it's brilliant. The only mistake that I think that they made was not adding additional tiers of renaming people who are now going from elite, quote unquote. It's just text to gold. But the benefits that you keep are all the same. The only benefit that I saw that you really might miss is the access to the training materials for your clients. [00:37:00] And I don't even know how many people use those. But if those were something that you use, you've got this 90 day window until mid-February to go ahead and download all of those and keep using them. But other than that, I didn't really see any deal breaker changes. I think DocuSign your percentage off goes down, but MailChimp 75% for everybody is fantastic and I'm a big MailChimp fan. I love the fact that the MailChimp hang on.

Hector: Yeah, 75% [00:37:30] off first year new accounts. Okay.

Alicia: So let's be clear about that 85%. But 95% has its cost in my my monthly cost, I pay like 150 bucks a month for MailChimp.

Hector: I pay like $400 a month for MailChimp. And I would love to get 75% off. And I don't qualify because it's not a new account and it's not the first.

Alicia: But for the people who do, oh my god, sign up for MailChimp. The fact that you can actually look at all the customers who spent this dollar amount with you, send them an email, [00:38:00] all the clients who did this service with you, send them an email. It's brilliant.

Hector: Absolutely. Well that's awesome, Alicia. Maybe we'll have a future episode clarifying the things that were up in the air. Maybe we'll bring somebody from into it to come back and tell us the things that they fixed because of this podcast. We'll see. Until then, I'll see you in the next one. All right.

Alicia: I'll see you in the next one.