At some point, most service firms decide they need to find another way to charge their clients besides hourly billing. They can do this by defining the beginning, middle and end of a project, or by using some type of retainer/fixed-monthly-fee arrangement. Today we’ll look in detail at ways to charge for production.

Many firms start out by charging for their time because it’s easy to track, it ensures that you make at least some money for the work you do, and few clients will argue with time-based billing (as long as the rate isn’t too high). Hourly billing is ideal in a situation where neither you, nor the client, have a good way to predict what needs to be done to accomplish what they need. But after working this way for a few months (or years) you may discover a few problems with time-based billing…

For most service firm engagements, the beginning is usually the toughest. You have a pretty clear idea of the services you offer and the value the client should receive, but at the beginning it’s a little fuzzy to understand the totality of the client’s situation, their capacity, and how much value they will likely gain from your services.This gap in understanding prevents a lot of service work from being sold. The solution is an assessment.

Pricing is a hot topic among my professional-service clients and prospects. It can be challenging to align the value created by your work with any tangible measure. If you know me you have likely heard that I have a lot of ideas on this issue. I started writing a blog post on it and it turned out to be 3 posts (or maybe 5, we’ll see).

The tactical work that we have been doing has made it possible for us to survive, but it’s not the work that’s going to help us to get healthy again – we need to start thinking some bigger thoughts, and dreaming again.

When I talk to business founders about why they made the leap to working for themselves I often hear them talk about the draw of entrepreneurial freedom. The truth is that being your own boss does bring freedom; but that freedom means different things to different people.

What is lost when we let technology lure us away from moments of “boredom”? What are we giving away and what could we do to get that back?

Orders are starting to come in again, but our skeleton crew is overworked to keep up. Just then a key employee jumps ship! Now we’re in a pickle. What could we do to avoid this dilemma?

There’s a lot of flux in the business world right now, people are changing jobs, customers may be renegotiating deals with suppliers, and the “way we’ve always done it” is pretty much out the window. As a result I’ve been in a lot of negotiations lately, and I’ve seen a few ways that we can make our deals stronger with good negotiation skills.

I’ve been pretty much heads down the last 18 months without much of a break and I’m not seeing the kind of results that I’m used to. It’s frustrating. By Friday I just didn’t want to be here, I didn’t want to make a call or write anything. I shuffled papers on my desk for a while before i realized that it was time to make some changes.