One fellow reader asked me to write a “lesson learned” story about value based pricing.
A small nonprofit was looking for help with their automation. Things like
- A record was supposed to be updated when another field changed, but wasn’t
- Related records had to be manually tagged as the most recent
- The last time a contact completed a course was manually calculated
So we agreed on a rough scope, which included the problems above and a few other minor issues. I submitted a fixed price proposal, and got to work.
Now, the moment I had a deeper look at their data model, and understood exactly how they were using Salesforce, I instantly knew I severely underestimated the work needed. If only the automations were updated, as per the agreement, it would have been like putting lipstick on a pig. A significant portion of their data model needed to be updated.
After informing them of the situation and getting their agreement, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.
Yes, it took 3x to 4x more work, but no matter how long it took, the client was never upset with the extra hours. Quite the opposite actually. They felt bad I needed to do so much. The end results was above and beyond what they expected, and they were delighted.
The takeaway
One of the many benefits of value based pricing is it respects the client relationship. No matter how much time things take, the client doesn’t pay more.
However, the lesson learned was to take a little more time to understand their Salesforce instance before submitting the proposal.