There’s a growing trend in the Salesforce ecosystem to shift away from hourly billing. It’s a trend that is more commonly found on other platforms and industries, so it’s about damn time it came to Salesforce.
When you’re starting your Salesforce career, it’s normal to only hear about hourly rates. Nearly all Salesforce partners and agencies work by the hour, and then charge a margin on top of their employees.
As an employee of one of these agencies, you’re asked to constantly track and maximize your billable time. And just like lawyers, you’re constantly stressed about when a block of time is billable or not. Sometimes you’re asked to “eat” time. That means not charging the end client for your work, even though eating time tastes terrible.
The problem with hourly billing deepens when you’re a freelancer or solo practitioner. For example, taking a vacation feels like you’re doubly losing: you pay for you and your family to actually go on the vacation, and you also lose dozens of hours in potential income. I know some freelancers who haven’t taken a vacation in years because of this philosophy.
The good news is there is a way to stop this madness. Multiple ways, in fact. So over the next several emails I’ll dive deeper into some options available to you as a Salesforce consultant.
FYI, my main sources for this email series are Jonathan Stark (author of the book “Hourly Billing is Nuts“) and Chris Do (checkout his recent YouTube series called “Business Clinic (5 Core Essentials)“).
The takeaway
As your Salesforce career grows, along with your experience and expertise, you slowly realize there’s something wrong with billing by the hour.