A couple of days ago, I attended an interesting workshop on Outcome Enablement, hosted by Tim Beattie and his team at Stellafai 🚀
I’ve written quite a bit about my experiences with outcome-based delivery and pricing. But with consulting changing so quickly, I’m increasingly curious about how others are approaching this subject.
For decades, consulting has largely been sold through hourly or daily rates and fixed project fees. I dont believe time-based pricing is going away anytime soon. It still makes sense when project scope is unpredictable. And many buyers are perfectly comfortable with it.
For some, it provides a familiar yardstick to compare consulting fees with the cost of hiring people internally. But AI is challenging some of these assumptions.
When technology allows consultants to complete in two hours what previously took ten, the relationship between time spent and value delivered becomes harder to explain. Thats why I believe consulting firms should experiment with alternative pricing models.
Even if youre convinced hourly billing is the only way to sell your services, its worth testing other approaches. You might discover a competitive advantage. But there’s something more fundamental here than pricing.
My belief is consulting firms need to become much better at defining, communicating, delivering, and measuring outcomes.
👉 What business problem are we solving?
👉 What does success look like?
👉 How will the client measure it?
👉 And how do we demonstrate the value created after the engagement?
Doing excellent work and communicating its business impact are two very different capabilities. Which brings me back to Tim’s workshop.
Many concepts were familiar, but Tim and his team used practical examples that reinforced what I knew and introduced a few new ways of thinking about outcomes.
And the workshop was genuinely fun 💥 Engaging, interactive, and anything but boring. If youre running a consulting firm or working independently, I’d encourage you to connect with Tim Beattie, follow his work, and attend one of Stellafai’s workshops.
Understanding how to create, communicate, and measure outcomes is becoming an increasingly valuable capability.
Even if you plan to keep billing by the hour, I think it’s worth your time.
No pun intended.
