Clients Don’t Buy Time

Clients don’t buy our time – they buy the results that our time generates. Clients don’t care how long things take – they care about a solution to their problems at a reasonable cost.

Therefore, why do we bother tracking time so carefully? Would we not be better off tracking the tasks and the due dates required to solve their problems? 

To successfully complete any project, we must deliver on time, on budget, and with a solution to the problem, no matter what the problem is. Therefore, we should be tracking what is most important to the customer – the delivery of a solution by a specific date at an agreed-upon cost. 

As accountants or consultants, the number one reason we lose clients is because we don’t treat them right or we ignore them. So let’s treat them right and listen to what they really want, which is results. Let’s stop solely tracking time and start focusing on project tasks, due dates, and delivering those results.

Ron Baker has an excellent article with more information on timesheets called “Trashing the Timesheet”