October 12, 2017

“How do I value price typos?”

Usually when someone finds it impossible to imagine how they could ever make the switch from hourly billing to value pricing, it’s because of the sort of working relationship they are used to having with their clients.

Value pricing is not a great fit for situations that call for lots of on-demand support or maintenance work. The values are too low, the timelines are too short, and the work could probably be done just as easily be done by someone else.

If a client contacts you with a request like:

“Hey, can you fix the typos on the About page?”

...they’re not going to be receptive to you kicking off a Why Conversation with questions like:

“Why not just leave them for a while and see what happens?”

“Why not convert your static site over to a CMS so you can fix typos yourself?”

“Why not handle this internally? Or outsource it to India?

When the task (or even list of tasks) is very small and relatively low impact, nobody is going to want to spend the time and energy it would take to engage in an exploration of the value to the business.

It’d be like a plumber asking why you want your toilet unclogged.

If this is the kind of work you typically engage in and you’re not happy billing yourself out by the hour, it might be time to rethink how you could apply your skills in ways that are of more value to clients (existing or new).

Yours,

—J

P.S. Do you have questions about how to increase your value to clients? I’m hosting a live Q&A session today at 1pm ET.

It’s free and open to the public, so feel free to share with your friends:

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/2nkoi529

(BTW - if you miss the live session, you can view the recording afterwards at the same URL)