Sell Results, Not Time

Can you imagine if your surgeon was billing you by the hour? How good would we feel about those contrasting incentives? The longer the surgery, the more the surgeon makes. We might pay a lesser skilled surgeon more than an innovative surgeon who has perfected a less invasive and highly successful surgery.  

What about paying our hairdresser by the hour? I’m really sensitive about my haircut and I’m not sure I want to be hiring the hairdresser with the lowest hourly rate. An hourly paid hairdresser has the incentive to take more time cutting — possibly cutting too much — and styling my hair with a low-volume blow dryer. CeCe is not going to this hairdresser, for sure! Ha! 

These examples might be extreme, but they quickly point out how selling time brings conflicting incentives that generally do not provide better outcomes and might actually encourage lesser results. 

When we sell our time, we are giving away our ability to be more innovative, creative and highly productive professionals. When we sell our time, we are giving away the worth that our results and outcomes can produce for our clients. When we sell our time, we are charging our clients for our mistakes and our learning curve. When we sell our time, we teach our team members that innovation is second to time incurred. When we sell our time, we focus on processes and lose focus on what would be more impactful and valuable.

When we sell results and deliverables and stand behind them with a 100% guarantee, our clients, our team members, and our firms benefit. 

Just think about that for your next surgery or haircut!