[Hidden-tech] Billable hours question

[Edbride-PR]

Some clarification is probably in order, agreed.

In my PR work, a project is usually a few days' work, less than a week, and
I try to avoid that, in favor of a strategy, a relationship. This translates
to a minimum 6-month retainer...which is not always possible. When it's not,
for example with a new-product press release and no followup editorial
outreach, the client and I both do our best to agree on a project price,
rather than time+materials.

Hope this helps,
Ed

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeanne Yocum" <jeanne at yourghostwriter.com>
To: "Hidden Tech" <Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net>;
<Ed at edbride-pr.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 12:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Billable hours question


> Hi,
>
> Re: response below, two things come up:
> 1.  When you say you don't know anyone who goes down to increments less
than
> an hour, are you talking about situations where you are essentially doing
> project work and you have an estimated project budget that  you're working
> against?  If that's what you're talking about, then I agree....I would
never
> give someone a budget for say, 3.5 hours...the hours would always be
rounded
> off to a full hour.
>
> However, if I only took 2.5 hours to do a job that had a budget estimate
of
> 3 hours, I would not charge them for three hours; I would charge them for
> 2.5 hours unless we had agreed in advance that it was a flat rate project.
>
> 2.  In my earlier message, I didn't mean to convey that  I itemize each
bit
> of work down to the .1 hour on an invoice narrative.  That's definitely
not
> the case.   I have clients who don't even get summaries.  If I'm billing
> someone thousands of dollars, I give them a bulleted summary.  If I'm
> billing someone 200 bucks, they're more likely to get an invoice that says
> "For public relations worked performed in February 2006" with the total
> hours listed.  I've been self-employed since 1989 and until last month
I've
> never had any client ask for a breakdown of hours spent per project.  Of
> course, this client is the president of an investment banking firm; these
> guys are really into  numbers.  Fortunately, he wasn't questioning the
> total; he just wanted an analysis of which projects took how much time.
>