Hourly Rate vs. Project Rate: Which Is Most Fair for Both Sides? (Episode 109)

Everyone advises to bill by the project (not by the hour) when you run a consulting business. In the 4 years that I've been doing it, I've found that the opposite is true. But it requires a few important principles to make sure that the exchange of value works - for both sides.
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It’s Not About What You Get But What You Give

Everything in business is an exchange of value, whether you are pricing a product or pricing services. If both sides feel like they’re getting a good value, then the transaction works. That’s a good exchange of value.

If your business is a service business, conventional wisdom says to use project rate rather than hourly rate. My opinion: Project rate is not good for the client.

There are a few reasons why hourly rates work for me AND for my clients:

I work fast. If this were not the case, it would never be worth it for the client. You can’t rush organic growth, but you sure can accelerate through the things that support it.
I round down. Content strategy teaches you that generosity is always the best policy, no matter what business you’re in. So I always round down in the client’s favor.
I am flexible. Traditional retainer agreements are not great for the client, and I don’t ever want my clients to feel like they’re “wasting” hours or rushed to use them.

Listen to Episode 109 (here or in your favorite pod player) hear a more detailed explanation of the pros and cons of hourly rate, and how to engineer an exchange of value that works for both sides.

Show Notes

Once I broke free of the corporate environment, I found that taking the unconventional path led to a lot more success. Content strategy has taught me how to embrace the counterintuitive, and that’s what this 16-part series is about.
I’ll focus on one particular episode in the series that goes against the conventional “wisdom” of zero-sum, hard-nosed business tactics: Business Isn’t “Just Business” We Can All Be Nice to One Another. It has worked for me in my business, and I hope it can for yours, too.
If you want to work with me directly, please contact me for a free initial assessment (to see if I’m a good match for you): https://controlmousemedia.com/contact.
For writers and other artists: I have an online course to teach you the elements of content strategy in a structured way. It’s modeled after the course that I teach at Emerson College. Listeners of this podcast get a discount by using this link: https://controlmousemedia.com/mwm.

Published October 2, 2017 by Michael Boezi.

The post Hourly Rate vs. Project Rate: Which Is Most Fair for Both Sides? appeared first on Control Mouse Media, LLC.