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How about if you invert it. If somebody came to you and asked for a system that can send emails when certain conditions are met in a database and track the resu

by sethev 9y ago

How about if you invert it. If somebody came to you and asked for a system that can send emails when certain conditions are met in a database and track the results, would you assume that to write the program you would have to hang out with sales people? The actual work (in the two weeks to implement it) is development.

bananaboy 9y ago
It's still fundamentally development for the marketing side of a business though, rather than development for the product side. I think the problem that people are struggling with is that they can't see how this information relates to them if they are software developers looking to do consulting work on software. Patrick's article really is from a marketing angle, even though there is a software development component to it. That said, I think people are missing the key takeaway from the article. I think the most important thing in the article is right there in the heading "Clients Pay For Value, Not For Time". This is saying that you should frame your services in terms of a value proposition for the client. That is, how much money will you save them if they hire you to do X. Maybe X is "rewrite the backend to process transactions quicker" which will save them Y hours of compute time and reduce their AWS bill by Z a month.
- mooreds 9y ago
  If you're interested in value based pricing, Jonathan Stark has a pretty decent free ecourse on it: https://expensiveproblem.com/ https://expensiveproblem.com/
  - bananaboy 9y ago
    That's awesome, thanks! The Freshbooks co-founder wrote something similar once too: https://www.freshbooks.com/ebooks/breaking-the-time-barrier https://www.freshbooks.com/ebooks/breaking-the-time-barrier
    - mpfundstein 9y ago
      Let's not forget Alan Weiss, who started this whole 'value based' consulting business. https://www.alanweiss.com/ https://www.alanweiss.com/
      - mooreds 9y ago
        I loved Value Based Fees!
        VirgilShelton 9y ago
        I second that emotion!
JamesBarney 9y ago
The actual work of being a lawyer is writing and talking, but just because you can write and talk doesn't mean you can be a lawyer. Every client I've ever had has asked "how many hours?" And "how much per hour?" If a restaurant wants to increase business by building a patio and they get a bid based with pricing based on increased business and not hours. They're gonna throw it away. Patio11 was in a unique position to know more about how to increase the business's revenue better than the business. This is a very unique position and advice based on that position is not really relevant to the rest of us who aren't experts in internet marketing.
- gk1 9y ago
  > Every client I've ever had has asked "how many hours?" And "how much per hour?" That's when you explain you charge per project or per week instead of per hour, and the fee is based on value, because in the end they won't really care how many hours you spent as long as their problem is solved. (Similarly, if you _fail_ to solve their problem, they're not going to care how many hours you put in.) I get this question from prospects too, and then I explain the above, and then we move on with the conversation. And in my 4+ years of consulting, nobody's asked me _at the end_ of a project how many hours it took. At that point, as I said, it doesn't matter.
  - JamesBarney 9y ago
    What type of consulting do you do? Do you do general custom dev work? Or something more specialized?

by sethev 9y ago

bananaboy 9y ago

It's still fundamentally development for the marketing side of a business though, rather than development for the product side. I think the problem that people are struggling with is that they can't see how this information relates to them if they are software developers looking to do consulting work on software. Patrick's article really is from a marketing angle, even though there is a software development component to it. That said, I think people are missing the key takeaway from the article. I think the most important thing in the article is right there in the heading "Clients Pay For Value, Not For Time". This is saying that you should frame your services in terms of a value proposition for the client. That is, how much money will you save them if they hire you to do X. Maybe X is "rewrite the backend to process transactions quicker" which will save them Y hours of compute time and reduce their AWS bill by Z a month.

mooreds 9y ago
If you're interested in value based pricing, Jonathan Stark has a pretty decent free ecourse on it: https://expensiveproblem.com/ https://expensiveproblem.com/
- bananaboy 9y ago
  That's awesome, thanks! The Freshbooks co-founder wrote something similar once too: https://www.freshbooks.com/ebooks/breaking-the-time-barrier https://www.freshbooks.com/ebooks/breaking-the-time-barrier
  - mpfundstein 9y ago
    Let's not forget Alan Weiss, who started this whole 'value based' consulting business. https://www.alanweiss.com/ https://www.alanweiss.com/
    - mooreds 9y ago
      I loved Value Based Fees!
      - VirgilShelton 9y ago
        I second that emotion!

JamesBarney 9y ago

The actual work of being a lawyer is writing and talking, but just because you can write and talk doesn't mean you can be a lawyer. Every client I've ever had has asked "how many hours?" And "how much per hour?" If a restaurant wants to increase business by building a patio and they get a bid based with pricing based on increased business and not hours. They're gonna throw it away. Patio11 was in a unique position to know more about how to increase the business's revenue better than the business. This is a very unique position and advice based on that position is not really relevant to the rest of us who aren't experts in internet marketing.

gk1 9y ago
> Every client I've ever had has asked "how many hours?" And "how much per hour?" That's when you explain you charge per project or per week instead of per hour, and the fee is based on value, because in the end they won't really care how many hours you spent as long as their problem is solved. (Similarly, if you _fail_ to solve their problem, they're not going to care how many hours you put in.) I get this question from prospects too, and then I explain the above, and then we move on with the conversation. And in my 4+ years of consulting, nobody's asked me _at the end_ of a project how many hours it took. At that point, as I said, it doesn't matter.
- JamesBarney 9y ago
  What type of consulting do you do? Do you do general custom dev work? Or something more specialized?