I saw a post the other day from a small business owner who was annoyed about the cost of getting a website created.
“Why should I pay thousands of dollars for something I know is pretty simple to do? Can't I pay someone an hourly rate to do this for me? I know it doesn't take long to do.”
I understand his point, and it is easy to set up a simple website. If you want to do it on the cheap, sign up for an account at SiteGround, click the Install WordPress button, pick a beautiful theme like Thrive Themes, and you'll be off and running with a website that looks pretty darn good out of the box.
But then again, if he wanted to do it himself, had the time, and knew how to do it, he'd have already gone down that route.
What I almost replied to the guy is, “Sure, I'll take on your project. I've been wanting to brush up on my web design skills anyway, and would love to be paid hourly to do so.” But I was a good boy and held my tongue.
Pay for Results, Not Time
Unless you are paying hourly, who cares if it only takes someone an hour instead of thirty hours if they produce the results you want? I'd rather pay someone well to get it done right in a short period than waste my time going back and forth with an inexperienced individual.
There is time involved in getting a highly customized website up and running, though, which is where you would want a designer or developer. What you're paying for is the knowledge behind knowing which buttons to click, where to stick some snippets of code, and what looks good and converts well, not their time.
Give People an Incentive to Get Things Done Quickly & Well
Like many service companies, web development companies have a catch-22. Their most experienced people do the best job, take very little time to get things done, yet are the highest-paid. If you're billing customers by the hour and weren't very ethical, you'd be better off putting your least experienced, lowest-paid people on those jobs and let them take their time while putting your most experienced people on fixed-rate projects.
The good developers crank out a well-done website quickly using tools they've created or collected, collect their hefty fee, and move on to the next project. The business owner will probably pay about the same or less with a faster turn around time and better results by purchasing a package deal than he would by hiring a newbie by the hour.
Stop Buying or Selling Time to Succeed as a Business Owner
When you purchase a workbook from my store, that doesn't take any more of my time than I already put into creating it. You're not paying for my time; you're paying for the value you'll get out of completing those exercises.
Look for things like that which you can do in your business. You'll probably want something a little more substantial than a workbook, but find something that works, and sell it over and over again like SiteGround and Thrive Themes do for websites. Sure, you may have to tweak it a little for each client, but if you're recreating the wheel every time, you'll have a hard time scaling your business.
You don't ask how many hours it takes your cell phone company to provide your service. You might do a little comparison shopping, but you're not paying for the number of hours it takes AT&T to set up a new account, you're paying for the convenience of having a phone. That's how they generated $171 Billion in revenue in 2018 and should end close to $181 Billion in 2019.
Stop worrying so much about how much per hour you're paying or charging people. Start focusing on the value you are providing or getting.
