Selling Value is very interesting

You want to charge for your head, not your hands. Smarts, not labor. Results, not deliverables. Outcomes, not activities.

Jonathan Stark, author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts

We had an opportunity to do the same with one of our oldest client. We took this opportunity and took more responsibility, risk, accountibility, involvement and outcomes

Yesterday was one of my best presentation till date. I don’t know if we will get to do the engagement with the client however I was very happy that client saw the value in our approach. They were in alignment and could see how the project can be controlled with high quality delivery. The intention of moving towards producing outcomes and results was evident in our delivery method. The process was clearly articulated and there was checks and balances in place for improving it in a complete Agile fashion.

We will come to know the outcome of it next week and would be interesting to see the response of our clients. This whole thing came about when I was explaining to my mentor what a waste of time it would be to do consulting work. I personally don’t like it because at hourly rate client doesn’t agree to  pay in the T&M mode. Also the business learning I am doing from the books trading time is not the best way to earn money. We only have 8 productive hours a day to get paid.

My mentor asked an important questions. What would make it worthwhile to do this consulting work? That really made me think. Below was the conclusion of a 2 hour call with my mentor

1. Do it as a 3 months experiment to get good money for business even that means working overtime and making a loss on the consultation
2. Take this as a sales problem and not a technology problem.
3. Focus on value and outcomes rather than efforts
4. Show your expertise on delivering results and reducing risk
5. Pitch your best presentation and see what you hear back

I always like a good challenge that has great upside. I went to work on it and looked at some of my past learning materials. I came across value based pricing. This article begun with one of the advocates of value based selling. I followed few of his videos and his 7 days email course. That really helped me to create the deck and try out our first value based selling.