Why do we sell time?
Yesterday I was flying to Toronto from Calgary and was pondering the value of time. As I sat on yet another flight, my mind turned to the business challenges of some of our clients. It is what I and most people in the marketing industry do – we consider the business issues facing our clients and think, sometimes 24/7, about ways to help overcome them in a creative and meaningful manner.
The marketing industry sells ideas and solutions masquerading as time on an invoice. It should instead only sell creative solutions and scrap the concept of selling time.
We deliver ideas that flow from creative and highly intelligent people who are given problems to solve and the time and information necessary to solve them. Our industry has, for too long, held up the creative product as the only tangible output of our thinking. We charge by the “ad” or by the hour instead of for the real business value of the ideas we generate. We defend an hour on an invoice and should instead be charging for the real value of the expertise we put forward. The ideas we create come from people with genuine knowledge and expertise in business and they know how marketing can be a driver of it. I think the reason people don’t value our time is that they don’t appreciate that great marketing actually involves deep expertise. Unlike law or accounting or engineering where you have an exam/credential process to certify that you have the required expertise – anyone can say they are a marketer. And, everyone thinks they know marketing because they have opinions about the marketing that is around them every day.
I recall a lawyer saying to me once that he would only ever bill me for the value of the work he did for me. And, if I ever got a bill that I felt did not reflect the value I believed I had received, that he would happily accept whatever payment I decided was fair.
That takes a guts and conviction that the marketing industry often lacks. Why are we so afraid to say that the expertise and thinking we deliver is of great and important value? Why do we continue to hide behind our ads instead of heralding our smart and creative approach to problem solving. An ad for sure is valuable. But is it a feature or a benefit or working with us?
Nobody likes to pay for time. Everybody will pay for a great business building idea.
This pricing philosophy has, in my opinion, created a commodity world in an industry that is anything but off the shelf. Instead of discussing our smart thinking and business and brand building strategies, we focus on the creative ad that was spawned from them and the time it took to deliver it. Yes, the ad is brilliant. But, what’s more brilliant and totally undervalued is the brains that drove the idea and then was able to put that idea into a creative form that can and does impact the way the world sees and thinks about a variety of issues and products.
When did the world stop valuing other people’s time and the ideas that flow from the time to think? We value widgets and anything produced that we can see, touch and feel. We seem to undervalue however peoples time and thinking in the marketing world.
Technorati Tags: Venture Communications, venture, advertising, value billing, marketing
December 4th, 2007 at 2:26 am
Thank you for this post, and I agree, and love your brilliant thinking. I also believe, we do not pay for, and put enough value on, “not thinking.” Creativity, in my world, comes from three places. One, creative thinking, thinking, thinking and planning, and more thinking. Two, from what I call “trial and trial” … similar to the more common, “trial and error.” And three, my favorite place to find creativity and brilliant ideas, from “not thinking.” How do you charge for not thinking? How do you bill for the amazing and great creative ideas and creative works that come, from not thinking, and from when you least expect an idea or concept to show up.
Thanks for your company, and for your blog.
Brenda Johima
December 5th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
In the past I’ve had my share of differences with creative agencies. Thousand dollar “project management” fees bandied about along with fees for brainstorming sessions and revisions. At the end of the day, I want product ABC and am willing to pay $X. The creative agency should then give me one quote for a final product. That’s it. I don’t care if they charge for time and project management from that point and if they do: I don’t want to know about it.