Time spent and value creation are not the same
Our primary objective is to consistently create the highest possible value for our customers. For us, time spent is not directly equivalent to value created—quite the opposite. Creating value, for us, is about doing what it takes to ensure our customers succeed.
No matter how many hours it takes.
“The value for us in Solid Media is not created by having five specialists sit in a meeting about or with the client, where we charge the client for a total of 5 hours of work. Our pricing model incentivizes us to be as efficient as possible in our work.”
Working with a time retainer, invoicing requirements, and measuring efficiency based on hours spent on the client is neither a good nor a motivating objective for our specialists and advisors.
What motivates us is the flexibility and autonomy to do whatever it takes for you as a client to succeed. Whether that means we spend 1 hour or 12 hours on a task doesn’t really matter, as long as we know it will create value and deliver results for you.
Efficient reporting frees up more time for value creation
By not working by the hour, we also have no interest in holding lengthy reporting meetings where you, as the client, could have received the information you need in half the time. Instead, we focus on creating efficient ways to report, so we can use the remaining time to work on what actually delivers results for you.
Our pricing model motivates us to create real value. And we are not held back by the stopwatch when results fall short.
This applies whether you are our smallest or our largest client. Our specialists and advisors put in the effort required for you to achieve the results you want. We find that this is a best practice that has led to many long-term and loyal client relationships with strong results.
Enough time for thorough research and analysis
In our day-to-day operations, we often encounter technical challenges that we need to solve and therefore investigate in more depth. It is also not uncommon that we have to carry out more extensive competitor analyses and keyword analyses.
To be able to write effective SEO and ad copy, we need to conduct solid research upfront. If, for example, we are going to write about gas leaks on oil rigs, it will neither deliver strong results nor high value if we skip thorough preparation – especially when you as the client have run out of hours.
So what is the common denominator here? These are tasks that take time, but that we have to prioritize because they are important. And we have the flexibility to do that – without it costing you anything extra as a client.
“We don’t want to end up in a situation where we have to tell the customer – No, we can’t help you with that, because you’ve used up your hours.”
In other words, our pricing model not only provides a foundation for predictability, but also for flexibility. Two aspects of our delivery that we see as highly valuable for our customers.
The consequences of working by the hour with SEO and Ads
Our experience is that, in the work we do with the services we deliver, hourly-based work is more limiting than it is useful.
Let us give you some examples.
If we had worked on an hourly basis and come up with a great idea towards the end of the month, we would have had to ask you as the client for more hours or postpone it. Or the other way around, if we had hours left to use, we would have had an incentive to gather five people in a meeting just to use up the hours.
The time spent is not necessarily results-based. Instead, it is rooted in a desire to deliver the goods, which in this case are the hours. We therefore find that the hours are assigned a value that is misleading. Not across all types of services, but especially in work with SEO and Ads.
For example, we could spend the next four months writing 5,000 articles without basing them on what people are actually searching for and want information about. The problem is that if we don’t create content that is in demand and will achieve strong rankings in the search results, you will end up with neither good results nor a return on your investment.
The same applies to Ads. We could spend a lot of time testing things that have no real foundation for being tested, or setting up campaigns where there is no commercial interest. But that’s not how strong results are created.
We can do a lot without it contributing to value creation. A good piece of work does not necessarily mean it is worth the investment for the client.
A slightly different pricing model
We have therefore chosen a slightly different pricing model than many other digital agencies. A model that does not focus on time spent, but rather on value created.
The work involved in SEO and Ads is both extensive and complex. We therefore cannot state that xx number of hours of work will give the customer xx result. The truth is that we can spend many hours on both SEO and advertising without it delivering concrete value to you as a customer.
So what does that actually mean?
To create value and strong results, we find it more effective to set clear, monthly production goals.
The specific production targets relevant for each individual client are established during the sales process, where we focus on identifying the client’s actual needs. We carefully assess the starting point and competitive landscape before developing a strategy that will both solve challenges and create a foundation for growth.
Our delivery is then tailored and customized to you by translating your needs into concrete parameters.
We find that this gives us greater freedom to do a thorough job for our clients. And for you as a client, we believe it provides predictability and confidence that we will deliver what we are supposed to, regardless of how long it has taken us.
Hourly rates are tangible, but do not necessarily create more value
Hourly rates are tangible and therefore easy to relate to when you are buying a service. The hourly rate is what gets discussed, not the value. Because that’s what we are used to.
If we, as your supplier, show you a timesheet stating that we have spent 20 hours on the work, you are satisfied. Because you, like many others, perceive hours spent as more credible.
And it is precisely this lack of tangibility that makes it difficult not to sell by the hour.
That’s why we work to quantify what we deliver, such as the number of pieces of content, the number of meetings, and the number of hours of consulting you receive each month.
So how does it work in practice?
“If an opportunity arises in the moment, we can allocate budget to it, because our work doesn’t have a natural stopping point. We don’t run out of hours.”
Within SEO content production, for example, the contract will specify the number of texts we will produce per month, with an agreed word count. In practice, this means that you as the client, for instance, get 5 new pages and 2 optimized pages, instead of 10 hours of content production.
After all, it’s the number of pages and the number of words that impact organic visibility, not the number of hours we work. The number of hours we work does not create value in itself.
In our advertising work, there is a correlation between how much ad spend the client has and how much work we do. This is because we need to invest more time and effort to manage 40,000 in ad spend than 20,000.
By basing our revenue on the size of the customer’s budget, this effectively means that the larger the customer’s budget is, the more time we allocate to working with that customer.
But overall, when working with advertising we also do not impose limits on hours worked. If we see an opportunity for substantial future return by investing more hours in the work today, we seize that opportunity – without needing to ask the client for additional hours.
We leave no stone unturned, and if we do not achieve the results we expect, there is no limit to how far we will go to get there. In other words, we do whatever it takes to crack the code right then and there.
We invest today to make our work easier and deliver better results for the customer in the future.
Freedom, value and predictability
Let’s put it this way.
Within the services we deliver – SEO, Ads and advisory – it works best for us not to bill by the hour. Quite simply because it gives us the best possible incentives to deliver and spend time on what actually matters.
For you as a client, this means that what is stated in the contract is also the total amount you pay for our services.
We don’t charge extra to have 5 specialists in a meeting, make an additional phone call, or visit you for a product demonstration. We can be flexible and reprioritize based on your needs, within the framework of our agreement with you. This gives both you and us freedom, value, and predictability.
That’s why we’ve chosen not to deliver on an hourly basis.
Do you have any questions? Read more about our services here, or contact us for a no-obligation conversation!
