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| [spine*] |
There is this moment of complete shock. A computer technician comes in
and solves a vexing problem in five minutes and then charges for a full hour.
There is something unjust and absurd, even criminal, about the lack of
proportionality between the time spent on the task and the amount you must pay. Yet,
if carefully considered, professionals earn their rates if one considers that
the years of education and experience it requires to efficiently solve a
problem the first time. This assessment impacts not only our reaction when
paying for services but, just as importantly, our conscience as professionals
when demanding such rates. A qualified service provider not only should demand
professional rates but do so with confidence.
It used to bother me that my accountant charged me so much money for
preparing my simple tax return when I know that “all” he did was enter the
numbers of the various factors into a computer program, press calculate, save
the result and send me the bill. However, after considering how long it would
take me identify those factors, find and understand a relevant computer
application and enter the numbers, I realized that the accountant was saving
significant toil and suffering, not to mention further explanations to the IRS.
I was not paying for the hour or so of effort by the accountant but instead for the expertise and experience that allowed him to quickly complete the task. In one specific case, I did find the actual amount of the bill obscene and switch to less expensive
accountant but I am happy with my choice to pay a professional for the service.
To turn the coin over, if you are a professional with several years’
experience, you probably have all the tools and knowledge required to complete
most standard tasks in your field within a minimum time. In practice, the actual work
required is far less relevant than how long it would take the customer or an
untrained employee to complete the same task at the same level. If you are
significantly more efficient or, even better, acting as the client’s “savior” in a given
situation, your rate, even if it reflects work time far higher than actually
invested, saves the customer meaningful time and effort. Thus, you can justify a
respectable rate. So, ideally, service providers should consider the value of
the service received by the customer.
As a legal translator, I provide many standard forms but charge by
certificate, not time. To illustrate, many authorities require proof of
address, generally a utility bill of some kind. With some 20 years’ experience
and a large database, this task is not time-consuming but merely requires great
attention to details, especially numbers. The customer is not paying for my
actual time but instead for my knowledge and skill. As much of my work involves
Hebrew texts, many of my customers could not do this themselves nor consider it
worthwhile to keep an expert on the payroll. So, like the computer technician
in the introduction, they pay for my expertise.
Thus, when considering whether the price of a professional is justified,
consider the years it requires to reach that level of expertise and how much
time/effort it takes an unskilled person to attain a similar result. Likewise,
when setting professional rates, freelancers should also consider the value they are
creating as perceived by the customer. Of
course, the exact rate depends on the context and is far from exact. Still, the
knowledge that a various task requires expertise attained over years should
help provide some backbone to accepting and demanding proper professional
rates.
* Picture captions help the blind fully access the Internet.
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