Moving Beyond the Timesheet
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Ron Baker has helped reshape the accounting and consulting world by challenging one of its longest-standing norms: billable hours. As a bestselling author and founder of the VeraSage Institute, he’s spent years encouraging firms to focus instead on client outcomes, long-term relationships, and making an impact. Ron believes customers shouldn’t be viewed as passive buyers, but as partners. On an episode of Difference Talks, I spoke with him about shifting from traditional service models to guiding customers through personal transformations.
Early in his career as a CPA, Ron realized that tracking hours on a timesheet did little to capture the value his firm delivered. If anything, it encouraged short-term, surface-level thinking. That realization led to his belief that professional service firms were ignoring their greatest strength: their ability to help clients change for the better. From that point on, Ron stopped asking, “How many hours am I logging?” and started asking, “What transformation am I helping my customer achieve?”
That shift led Ron to embrace value pricing, a model in which fees are based on the perceived worth of a product or service delivered to a customer, rather than the time it takes to produce or provide it. It was a bold step. The firms he advised worried about risk, loss of control, and walking away from a long-standing industry tradition. And clients were concerned there might be hidden costs. But Ron pushed ahead, convinced that trusting relationships and shared accountability would always be more valuable than logging every minute spent.
Ron’s approach aligns closely with that of another guest I spoke with on Difference Talks, Jonathan Stark, a consultant, author, and the host of the Ditching Hourly podcast. He also believes in value-based pricing and shifting from a focus on employee utilization and billable hours to customer outcomes and satisfaction. In his view, the real measure of success is whether your team is delivering results and experiences that keep customers coming back. Jonathan emphasizes that revenue doesn’t come from the hours spent on a project but from the value delivered to the customer. It’s a mindset shift from treating services as a commodity to building a premium offering that delivers the desired impact.
Value-based pricing is a more lucrative proposition in nearly every industry. It allows your company, whether it manufactures rail cars, is a healthcare network, or provides technological services, to differentiate itself and prove (and benefit from) its real value. The alternative is to focus merely on the time it takes to complete something, relegating your offerings to mere commodities and playing a pricing game where the lowest price wins, and customer loyalty is nonexistent. Selling based on value and the transformation you can help customers achieve is not only more profitable in the long run, but it’s also more inspiring for everyone involved, including your team.
Difference-Maker #1: View customers as transformation partners; ask what outcomes they truly want and build your offerings to meet their expectations.
That means going beyond traditional time and material pricing to understand the deeper business goals your customers are trying to achieve. Focusing on the impact you make rather than the hours you spend builds trust, differentiation, and loyal relationships.
Difference-Maker #2: Resist turning your products or services into commodities by selling on price alone.
When price is your main offering, there’s nothing to keep customers from going to a cheaper competitor down the road. Sell on the value you deliver and your company’s unique strengths, and you’ll build stronger customer loyalty and give employees more pride in what they do.
Business isn’t about logging more hours on a project; it’s about unlocking more value and meaning for everyone. When companies transform customers, they don’t just earn revenue—they build legacies. Both Ron and Jonathan have written multiple business books on value-based pricing and other timely topics. I encourage you to check them out.
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