Billing in a Modern Age
Everything is getting faster. Once upon a time, this was true of things that just moved on wheels. But these days, it seems that everything in all walks of life is getting faster.
The rain even seems to fall faster, if you believe the weatherman. That may be stretching it, but certainly, money goes out faster. But at the same time as going out faster, it also seems as if money is disappearing quicker in more directions. Everything and everyone seems to want me to set up an account with them, so that eventually, at some point, they can take a little bit of cash, by card, of course.
So, what’s my point? As we pay smaller amounts to a wider number of entities, be it parking apps, train companies, or website providers of one thing or another. In a world of competition, this is all right and good and to be welcomed.
But it goes the other way as well. Companies, organisations, and people need to adapt as well. To meet this growing range of pressures on expenses, we all still have to make a living. We need an income to meet this.
Speeding up Income Streams
To return, for a moment, to the concept of ‘everything speeding up’. Change is happening; buyers don’t have as much loyalty to brands, they are more price savvy, then couple this with the constant upgrades, new versions, latest models, newest types and so on. It gets complicated.
What we’re finding is that things are moving so fast that they are starting to blend. At what point does it become Ok to answer a client’s query with a ChatGPT answer?
We can now build a website in minutes, but does that devalue our work/price/effort concept? We’re finding what used to take 3 hours now takes 30 minutes. In fact, worse, it can sometimes take longer to set up an Instagram Post than it does to write the landing page on a website.
It’s all about Information
We’ve all heard it before; it’s all about data and information. The better organised, the better adapted we should be, the more agile we can be. Let’s take AI, for example. If I want my products to be listed as AI recommendations, then the data on my products has to be spot on. These days, that means a lot more than a few images, title, description and price. We need everything.
Right down to the Barcode – Barcodes can be checked against 3rd party databases, so they are an ideal candidate for AI.
You can see where I am going with this. Data. Get your data organised and you can prepare for the next stage of whatever is coming.
Back to Billing
I digress a little, back to Billing… the issue now is how, how do we price into our services something innocuous, that may only take 10 minutes to complete. As everything gets faster, how do we bill faster?
Here at NCompass, we’re feeling our way forward. This truly is a brave new world, we’ve ousted 7 prime ministers in 10 years, no one and nothing is hanging around, unless we work out ways to bring in that elusive Income we’re going to struggle.
I will finish with a note for our clients. We’re here for you for whatever you need. We promise to bill fairly and according to the ‘work’ we do, rather than the ‘spiel’ we might spout. We do have a ‘minimum’ fee, but this for actionable steps. rather than the chit chat that is required before deciding the best way forward.
It’s fair, but also considered.