Time and Materials doesn’t get you 5x

A few years back, a client called me in crisis.

They had a TV ad campaign scheduled to go out the following week, but their big idea had just been canned. Suddenly, they had no ad and just seven days to fix it.

They had a new idea. They needed our help to get it delivered. Fast.

I remember saying, “Sure we can help. Get your cheque book out.”

We told them the price would be £150,000.

It wasn’t a scientifically constructed number. Just a figure we felt fairly reflected the value we were about to deliver.

And in the back of my mind, I remember thinking, 'someone probably got paid a lot to mess this up.'

They agreed to the price. We delivered. Everyone was happy.

This was after I’d learned the Win Without Pitching way of selling.

If that same project had landed a couple of years earlier, we would’ve charged time and materials. And the price would’ve been somewhere around £30,000.

The value of that job wasn’t in the hours. It was in getting it done. In the relief it gave the client. In the trust they placed in us to take control and deliver.

When there’s urgency, it makes the flaws in time and materials impossible to ignore. You shouldn’t be penalised for how long something takes. Especially when the speed and clarity you bring is the very thing creating value.

And that principle holds true even when there’s no crisis. Time and materials almost never makes sense.

Sometimes it just takes a story like this to help shine a light.