Strategies for Good Trades, Partners, and Billable Work
Posted by Ivan Storck | Filed under Uncategorized
I am a consultant and I usually bill my services hourly. Some clients seem to be confused about what type of work is billable, and what the line between “partnership” and billable work is. Also, I’ve been getting a lot of requests for trades (bartering) lately, so I’d like to clarify what makes a good trade and what makes a poor one.
My understanding is that billable (service for a fee) work happens when someone tells you to do something, or asks you advice about something, that benefits them (the person asking). Partnership happens when work is decided on together, perhaps performed in collaboration, and benefits both parties. It’s easy to cross the line, even in a short conversation. I’ve had experiences where I was instructing a client on a very technical procedure, which is obviously billable, and then an idea for a new project comes along. And I hate to waste the opportunity to explore while I have them on the phone. To derail creative thoughts seems counterproductive, especially the “creative” industry. How far off topic do you get before you stop the clock?
Sometimes people say “partnership” when they really mean something more like a trade (usually asking about getting work for free). Quid pro quo – I do something for you, and you do something for me. Trades are great, but there is a limited amount of trades one can do without affecting cash-flow, because there is a limited amount of time available. If I spend my available hours working on work that’s a trade, my cash flow will suffer. So I generally only am able to do one trade at a time, for my most urgent needs. The best trades seem to be equal work, measured hourly. For example trading web design work for copywriting, which are similarly priced skills that are complimentary. The hardest to quantify trades are for what I usually hear as “exposure”, perhaps a link on a website somewhere (frequently a website without any significantly measured audience) Other trades that have value are based on exchanges of equal value: if a hosting customer brings in five new accounts, I give them a free account, because based on our margins, they just brought in enough new customers to value giving away a free account. Problems happen when partners have mis-matched valuations of what each is bringing to the table. An example would be a site with low traffic and pagerank giving a link to a site with more traffic and pagerank. Usually, a link is just worth a link back, especially if it is from an interior page. A home page link, or a link on every page of your site is a different might be worth a little more.
There are certain things that I do just for “whuffie” – usually I have prior relationship, like a personal friendship, where I know that the time spent will be reciprocated, or that because of the friendship, I don’t care if it gets reciprocated or not. It’s hard to scale that to “internet friends”, unless the task times involved are very small.
What lines have you drawn in your consulting business? How do you guide your conversations with clients? What makes a social exchange successful? While we’d all love (and strive) to work in a world filled with whuffie (link to tara), we also all have bills to pay and food to put on the table. I’d love to hear about significant and sustained successes with partnering strategy, bartering, and keeping up a good amount of billable hours.
Tags: business, consulting, partners, trades
