Let’s Talk About Trading Time For Money With Hourly Billing

Businesses have been charging based on time for decades, but does that make it the right billing choice for you and your home-based business?

People reach out to me through my website contact form pretty often. Sometimes it’s spammy sales pitches, sometimes it’s to ask if I’m hiring employees (newsflash: I’m not), often it’s to ask for coaching help and sometimes it’s to ask questions about my online tech services. This week I received a question about the online tech pricing structure I publish on my website. With the exception of my Project Package, they pointed out that my packages are structured by how many days per month a client might need my services and asked how many hours per day that might be.

The thing is, I don’t have a set number of hours each day. Some days I’m working as early as 7:00 AM, others it’s 8:30AM. Some days I might come home from my water fitness class in the late afternoon and work another hour or so on an ongoing project and on others, I may be done working for the day by noon time. 

Are you wondering how in the world I maintained a successful business that way? I know it may seem odd but let me share my secret. 

My clients pay for my expertise and experience, not the hours I work on their projects.

They pay to have someone available who knows how to work with online technology to get them their desired results. They see the value in working with someone who doesn’t need hand-holding to get the jobs done.  And not once have they complained or questioned the fact that I don’t keep track of ‘hours’. They know that when they send over a project, not only am I going to get it done in a timely manner, but it’s going to be done right.  My clients are happy and I’m not limiting my income to a finite number of hours in a day.  It doesn't matter to them that some of their projects might only take me a few minutes. Their concern is that the projects are done and done right.

The fact is, when you bill for hours, you are restricting the amount of money you can make.  There will never be more hours in a day. And although you can raise your hourly rate, you’ll never be able to charge what you can when you begin offering your services as a product, rather than trading money for hours.

How do you offer your services as a product?

While it may seem confusing at first, it’s not all that hard. You create service packages. For me, I created packages that provide for clients to choose how many days per month they believe they will need my services. And although I do offer one package based on hours, it’s more of a ‘taster’ package for people who want to try out online tech services. I also made the package cover just a small number of hours, knowing that I wouldn’t end up doing a ton of work for lower pay.

Of course, this all ties into basing your pricing structure on value rather than time. We’ve talked about that here in the newsletter before, and I have a workbook as well as a coaching program on it as well.

As my coaching business grows, I'm limiting my online tech services more and more, but I never could have built a successful business to the extent I have if I'd continued to trade hours for money. Growth came when I finally realized how much my experience and expertise were worth. If you're struggling to grow your business, it just may be that you are limiting yourself by billing for time. Leave that old concept behind and start charging for your expertise and experience instead.

Setting your pricing structure is only one of the many things that Home Business Jumpstart coaching can give you new ideas about when building your home business. If you're struggling and feel lost and alone, HBJ coaching can give you the tools and support you need to create success. Reach out today!

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