Vanessa Bosman, Group Managing Director at Just Design, says paying for your agency’s time could cost you in results. If success is measured in business results, then why do agencies still bill in hours?
This topic is far from new and has been debated for years now, yet agencies have failed to implement meaningful change when it comes to how they bill their clients.
I truly believe we have become the architects of our own demise. Relying on a time-based remuneration model not only reduces our skills base, diminishes our expertise, and devalues our products and services, it also damages the agency-client relationship.
Instead of working together to create solutions that drive brand growth, clients get involved in an unhealthy tug of war with their agencies, who relentlessly try to maximise time spent on a project, whilst they try to shorten deadlines to save costs. No one wins in this scenario which is why we have taken a different approach. Instead of justifying costs by number of hours, we do so by demonstrating measurable results for our designs during the creative process. Once launched, we can then verify the final product’s in-market performance for our clients. We invoice based on outcome, irrespective of the number of reverts or the hours captured in timesheets.
Agencies Must Evolve Or Technology Will Do It For Them
The death of the agency won’t be caused by the rapid advancement of AI but rather by agencies and their dogmatic loyalty to time-based remuneration. This is a bold statement to make, but one that underscores the urgency for agencies to adapt and adopt. AI has merely accelerated this trajectory by performing the more time-consuming tasks, such as image searching and top-line research, almost instantaneously. For many agencies, this could have a detrimental impact on their revenue, but ultimately, it is their willingness to embrace new and innovative approaches that will determine their success and survival.
Packaging That’s Proven To Sell
Of course, an efficacy-based cost model can only work if you achieve the results each time. With subjectivity embedded in most design decisions, the results can be out of your control. Our new process, however, eliminates client-agency bias by letting the consumer drive the design direction. We use a rapid-consumer-testing app to engage with consumers at any stage in the design process and validate/optimise our designs accordingly. Feedback is ready within hours/days, along with consolidated figures that are predictive of in-market performance, long before the product has even launched.
Our client’s success is our success (for us, it’s about design that sells. If our clients win, we win.) Shifting to performance or outcomes-based billing turns the agency-client relationship from supplier to partner again, as we are both invested in the product’s success. The creative team has the freedom to devote their time to innovative solutions and problem-solving without being bound by the number of hours costed for, whilst client service no longer needs to spend the bulk of their time on the tedious admin tasks relating to time tracking.
The Future?
While we cannot declare an absolute time of death on time-based billing, we do hope that our shift to an efficacy and results-based approach will help steer us, and the rest of the industry, in a direction that lets us reclaim the value perception that we once had, instead of being measured by hands of a clock.
JUST DESIGN
www.justdesign.co.za
