[Q&A] Should I Refuse to Track My Hours?

00:01.77
Preston Lee
All right today’s question comes from jacque Jacquaniese so that’s a very long first name Jacquaniese can we call you Jackie is that like so American and entitled of us we’re gonna Jackie. Jackie says the client asked me to put hours on my work to justify my work but I don’t work on hourly rates. So how do I kindly inform potential clients upfront that I work on a project based flat rates I don’t want to be rude. But I’m also not going to put an hourly rate on my work to end up cheated.

00:37.36
Clay Mosley
Tough.

00:37.82
Preston Lee
That’s her question so we will be right back after this quick message from our sponsors I can tell from the deep inhale that Clay has a lot to say so we will be back in just a couple of minutes hang tight. All right clay. The question is my client wants me to put hours on my what on my invoice I guess or on my proposal maybe like they want me to Mark out how many hours I’m going to use or have used on the project but I work on flat rates. What do I do.

01:12.79
Clay Mosley
Um, ah this is so this is such like a ah ah moment right? Um, all right? So I ran into this situation before and.

01:19.50
Preston Lee
Ah, yeah.

01:27.21
Clay Mosley
Here’s what I did I’m not saying it’s like the most ethical thing but it worked out. Ah ah, ah.

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01:35.31
Preston Lee
Ah I feel like last short we were also like ah you could just lie a little that was me just like this is this is the ah the unethical series of shorts is what we’re working on right now. Yeah.

01:45.27
Clay Mosley
Yeah, yeah, so alright, so my initial reaction to this client that I had was same thing I was like I don’t I don’t work on hourly rates. Um I work on the project I work on the result, right? like. The work scope is this that I will complete this and that’s what you’re gonna get and that your your client is like you’re getting a deliverable right? Um, doesn’t matter how many hours I work I could work 1 hour on I can work thousand hours on it who cares like they they’re paying for the Deliverable. Um.

02:05.20
Preston Lee
Um, yeah.

02:15.37
Preston Lee
Yep.

02:22.65
Preston Lee
Yep, No, but that’s that’s your reasoning. Yeah.

02:23.63
Clay Mosley
I mean I didn’t say that part to them. But I said yeah yeah, so um, so I sent that email and they’re like well we would still like an hourly breakdown so I was just you know so I’m not saying this is the best thing to do But what I did was I just put the same damn number every single time.

02:34.58
Preston Lee
Ah.

02:42.59
Clay Mosley
I just put 4 hours every time.

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02:45.31
Preston Lee
So like you send an invoice like every week or something and you just put 4 hours and and what did they say they they were fine.

02:49.46
Clay Mosley
4 yeah. Well they they did after like 2 or 3 times they’re like is it 4 hours every time like yep, it wasn’t it wasn’t sometimes it was one sometimes it was 10 you know, but I’m not going to track that shit like I’m not gonna waste my time tracking that.

03:10.17
Preston Lee
Ah, yeah.

03:13.20
Preston Lee
Right? yeah.

03:15.30
Clay Mosley
You know, but so it’s like sometimes sometimes you just have clients where they just want to be satisfied with a little tiny little bitty thing and it took it didn’t take that much time for me to just put the number 4 you know I kind of picked a number that I would it would average out.

03:32.30
Preston Lee
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you weren’t billing them for hours. You weren’t working. Yeah yeah.

03:33.97
Clay Mosley
To be. You know? That’s my best guesstimate. But yeah, it was a project. It was a project base and so I was just like okay let me put down the average instead of using a time tracker and like I’m not going to deal with that like so.

03:50.39
Preston Lee
Ah.

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03:51.88
Clay Mosley
That’s what I did I don’t know if that’s the best solution but it worked.

03:54.31
Preston Lee
Ah I um I mean I like I like that I yeah, there’s definitely I would if you want to err on the side of being a little more honest about it which clearly clay and I do not want to err on the side of being a little more honest today. But um, but if you want to air on the side of being a little more honest, you could say like i’m.

04:08.33
Clay Mosley
Ah.

04:14.27
Preston Lee
You know I don’t track my hours on ah on a weekly basis or whatever are I don’t track my hours at all. but um but I can put down. You know, an average of what I think it might have been you know, kind of like that’s kind of like what you did basically right? you could you could just give them a heads up that it’s going to be like.

04:28.24
Clay Mosley
The.

04:33.21
Preston Lee
And educated guest average and and I think really really sell it like really sell the project based thing and say like um I’ll put the average but just so you know sometimes I might put that it’s going to be 4 hours and it’s really going to be 10 and I’m not going to bill you extra for that. Um I’m just.

04:49.10
Clay Mosley
Rather.

04:51.65
Preston Lee
Just really interested in bringing you the best result and I don’t really care how long it takes and I don’t I think deep down you don’t care either. You just want the best result too and so let’s just focus on getting the best result if you need it on an invoice for accounting or whatever I’m happy to put you know an average amount every week. How does that sound and I think I don’t know most clients. Most competent clients aren’t going to nitpick that but you know they came back to you after you pushed back and said no, we’d really like it and and so maybe you just have to deal with that I I remember um I had a client early early on who who wanted hourly and I I wanted to work project based and they wanted hourly.

05:20.14
Clay Mosley
Ah.

05:31.20
Preston Lee
And then what happened was I ended up working I gave in which was my first mistake super early on like maybe first 10 clients of my career. Um, and then I build them hourly and there was like this there was like this problem that I had trouble solving I was a fairly new freelancer. It took me a long time to solve this problem. Probably a more experienced freelancer. It would have taken them an hour to solve it. It took me like 8 hours to solve it right? and I build them for it and then they got angry because they were like this should have been a quick solve and I’m like well yeah I I tried to bill you on the project but you wanted me to bill you hourly and it end up being this whole big mess I just think there’s a lot of merit I’ve i’ve.

05:53.33
Clay Mosley
Are.

06:08.19
Preston Lee
Preached this on the show so much of just like the downside of hourly. There’s just like so much more negative I think than upside for everyone involved not just for the freelancer. So I think you got to have those kind of conversations and frankly, it’s your business right? it.

06:13.69
Clay Mosley
Ah.

06:18.20
Clay Mosley
Yeah.

06:26.62
Preston Lee
Now this comes with the grain of salt that we always say which is like it depends on where you’re at with your business. How bad you need the client. How bad you need the money but at some point you ought to just be able to say oh we just don’t do that. We don’t We don’t send hours. We don’t track hours and so we can’t send them to you done period and if they want to.

06:37.27
Clay Mosley
Um, the.

06:44.12
Preston Lee
Go find someone else then let them go find someone else who will do that because it’s your business. It’s not theirs ho soapbox I’m I’m off anything else. Do you think for? ah for Jacques Jacque juan years I’m probably saying that. So.

06:49.70
Clay Mosley
Ah, and I agree.

06:55.37
Clay Mosley
Ah, yeah.

07:01.98
Preston Lee
So wrong. Okay, well.

07:03.55
Clay Mosley
Um, no I think that’s it. So whether it’s it depends on whether what what side of the how much so the what side of ethical. Do you want to have. Ah.

07:16.16
Preston Lee
That’s right, yeah ethical questions man that’s that’s challenge for us clearly. But hopefully that’s been helpful listeners and Jackie. Ah.

07:19.28
Clay Mosley
Yeah.

07:30.73
Preston Lee
Clay Mosley from gettrify.com thank you man and I’ve been Preston Lee from millow.co we will chat with you guys next time see ya.

07:35.34
Clay Mosley
See ya.