you get what you measure.
by jody padar
radical pricing – by the radical cpa
when you measure time on timesheets, you are measuring a scarce commodity. there are only so many billable hours in a week.
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by measuring billable hours, you’re living in a world of scarcity. this is bound to affect your firm, both internally and externally.
the internal impact of timesheet culture on staffers includes:
- timesheets create a big brother culture. staff are not trusted to manage their work without someone peering over their shoulder and tracking their productivity. not a great feeling.
- clients’ best interests get lost in the shuffle. staff feels pressure to complete the work in the expected number of hours. this may result in cut-off client conversations and the loss of the client’s best interests in many other ways. when time is the most valuable data point being measured, clients’ needs take a back seat. staffers are more concerned with what’s recorded on their timesheets than what clients need. this is not an ideal way to retain our most valuable asset, clients.
- life becomes a pressure cooker. pressure builds as your team becomes preoccupied with getting work done within a strict time frame based on historical data. employees are being measured against old, probably inaccurate timesheets while client needs are overlooked. you are effectively crushing your staff under the pressure of completing work in an unrealistic time frame.
there are also negative external impacts on the firm:
- clients don’t call. no one wants to run up the clock. calls cost money. your business model is actually pushing clients away.
- opportunities are lost. if clients aren’t calling, you’re not having proactive conversations about a client’s concerns. you are losing opportunities to sell them services to address those concerns.
the lack of communication also leads to a lack of insight into a client’s business. if a client avoids the cost of a call, you won’t be able to advise them about negative tax impacts resulting from things they do before the year-end. you won’t even know what they did. as a result, you missed an opportunity to proactively engage the client in a tax advisory and planning role.
a lack of communication prevents the opportunity to have diagnostic conversations that lead to upselling and value-added advisory services. this is because clients are worried about costs and don’t get in touch.
when your clients can freely call without running up their bills, you can build better rapport with them. you can create space to listen to their concerns and provide them the tools and services they want.
conversations are where value identification happens. when you listen to your client discuss tax concerns, you can suggest tax advisory services. your client will feel heard while you’ve identified value-laden opportunities for which you can scope and bill.
many partners argue they consider time one of many evaluative factors. however, when they use time to measure their team’s value, their team members understandably prioritize it over more important things.
when the job is built around time, your employees will measure their productivity and self-worth according to the markings on a timesheet. once the timesheet is in the mix, they’ll either lie on their timesheets or book time elsewhere, and the cycle will continue.
however, if you shift your mindset to meeting a client’s business needs as they grow, the value of your services and products will grow immensely.
overcome the scarcity complex and embrace a client-centric, value-driven model.