March 7, 2019

Threading the needle redux

Sent by Jonathan Stark on March 9th, 2019

Longtime list member Maciej “Magic” Sarna wrote in with an additional perspective on yesterday’s message, which was about “threading the needle” the hard way when you bill for your time (shared with permission):

Hi Jonathan. Second angle on the story: What do you do so fast you don’t even realise? Things that the client would never do herself but for you are so obvious that you don’t even consider mentioning them. Like research, like strategy that you don’t bill for - you just know it must be done. Those might be the most valuable parts of your work. And you could bill the most for them. –Magic

Yes, this is 100% correct!

It’s not uncommon for folks to give away their most valuable work because it’s fun or easy or they see it as a necessary precondition to doing “the real work” of implementation.

Research, discovery, recommendations, strategy, planning, and other pre-implementation engagements can be priced independently and very profitably.

Thanks for sharing MS 😎👍

Yours,

—J