Ditching Hourly

Business coach Geraldine Carter joined me to brainstorm how her CPA clients could price three different phases of a forensic accounting engagement. Even if you're not a CPA, I think you'll find the approaches we came up with applicable to your service business.

Here's a link to an interactive transcript:

READ TRANSCRIPT

(It was machine generated, so it's not perfect)

----

Before you go!

The next time someone asks you for your hourly rate, I want you to stop what you're doing and head on over to valuepricingbootcamp.com to sign up for my free value pricing email course.

Hope to see you there!

Connect with Wayne on LinkedIn

----

Before you go!

The next time someone asks you for your hourly rate, I want you to stop what you're doing and head on over to valuepricingbootcamp.com to sign up for my free value pricing email course.

Hope to see you there!

In the world of vintage watches, provenance is a critical component of the value of a given watch.

What is provenance?

Here's a good description from Timepiece Chronicle:

So... provenance is kinda like the backstory of a watch.

For example:

A 1930s era 14k gold Longines tonneau-shaped wrist watch sells for about $1000.

A 1930s era 14k gold Longines tonneau-shaped wrist watch owned by Albert Einstein sold for $596,000.

Almost 600 times more money for the same watch!

But is it really same watch? Sure, the materials and construction and design are all the same. But one is a direct physical connection to one of the greatest scientific minds who ever lived, and the other... well, it tells the time (and probably pretty badly, at that).

Here's the thing...

The value of a product or service often comes from intangible things like provenance or status or brand or morale or peace of mind.

This is not irrational buying behavior. You prove it every time you buy a Coke or shop at Target or splurge on a pair of Nikes and tell yourself that "this one is worth more because of $reasons".

Value is not an inherent property of a thing. It's a perception in the mind of the buyer.

The question is, what does your ideal buyer value?

Yours,

—J

Enjoy this episode? Here are more things you might like:

Hourly Billing Is Nuts—Essays On The Insanity Of Trading Time For Money
Learn more »

The Freelancer’s Roadmap—Learn The Tools, Tactics, And Systems You Need To Transform Yourself From Commodity Freelancer To In-Demand Consultant
Learn more »

Learn Your Lines—What To Say When Clients Put You On The Spot
Learn more »

Pigeonhole Yourself—Transform Your Marketing From Soggy To Solid With These Real-World Examples
Learn more »

----

Before you go!

The next time someone asks you for your hourly rate, I want you to stop what you're doing and head on over to valuepricingbootcamp.com to sign up for my free value pricing email course.

Hope to see you there!

Long time reader and friend-of-the-list Scott Gould sent in this great question about starting a podcast (shared with permission):

Sure, it would be nice if lots of people listened to your podcast, but if you start out with a one-on-one interview show format (which is my recommended starting format for new podcasters), it doesn’t really matter of anyone listens.

Wait, what?

You shouldn’t care if anyone listens to your podcast?

Yep, that’s right. Having listeners is just one of the benefits of hosting a podcast, and IMHO it’s not the most important one. Here are three other benefits that I think are more important:

1) Building relationships

Hosting a podcast means you always have something to invite people to (especially, luminaries in your field). If I reached out to Seth Godin and asked, “Hey, you wanna to jump on the phone for an hour so I can pick your brain?” he would surely say no. But if I asked instead, “Hey, would you like to come on our podcast and talk about that thing you care about?” he might agree.

When I dreamed up the idea for TBOA, it was specifically for the purpose of having something to invite my favorite thought leaders to. It’s nice that the audience is growing, but all I care about is getting to talk to really smart people for an hour.

2) Researching your market

This is similar to the previous benefit, but instead of inviting rockstars to come on your show, you invite people from your target market and essentially have a free consulting call with them. This is a great way to get to know the hopes, dreams, worries, and fears of your ideal buyers without the pressure of trying to close a deal. As a side effect, improving your podcast interview skills will improve your sales interview skills.

BONUS: If you are currently doing execution work (e.g., coding, copywriting, illustration, video production, audio editing, voice overs, etc) and want to transition into consulting, coaching, or other types of pure advisory engagements, inviting ideal buyers onto your show is low-risk way to road test your capabilities, and to combat impostor syndrome.

3) Rapid content creation

Hosting an interview show is a great way to create a huge amount of quality content very quickly. An hour long chat with a guest will result in about 10,000 words of content. Could you write that many words in an hour? Heck no. For very little money, you can have your episodes transcribed and then read through to pull out rough drafts for shorter written articles that you could publish as blog posts, email messages, or social media posts.

I could keep going, but hopefully you get the point. There are plenty of benefits to starting a podcast even if nobody listens!

Yours,

—J

Subscribe to Jonathan’s daily list

----

Before you go!

The next time someone asks you for your hourly rate, I want you to stop what you're doing and head on over to valuepricingbootcamp.com to sign up for my free value pricing email course.

Hope to see you there!