Captain’s log, stardate 20170930

Exhilaration or fear?

Sent by Jonathan Stark on September 30th, 2017

When someone first starts to understand my schtick about ditching hourly, they tend to have one of two kinds of reactions:

Exhilaration or fear.

More often than not, the type of reaction depends on the listener’s business context:

Solo operators are usually exhilarated by the idea of ditching hourly billing because suddenly, an entire class of seemingly intractable business challenges evaporates.
Firm owners who have employees that are billed out on an hourly basis usually have a strong fear reaction to ditching hourly billing. They perceive it as a loss of control that would threaten their livelihood. This fear is expressed with questions like:
- “How will I know if a project is profitable?”
- “How will I know which employees are slacking off?”
- “How will I know which clients I should keep and which to let go?”

I have answers to all the questions a firm owner asks, but that’s not the point of today’s message.

Instead, I’d like to ask for your feedback.

What was your reaction to the idea of ditching hourly billing? Anger? Fear? Exhilaration? Curiosity? Confusion? Something else?

(For context, please share a bit about how your business is structured.)

Yours,

—J