Why does billing by the hour stop working, and what do you charge instead?

Weiss says he answers, "I don't have one. What's your next question?" If the prospect asks what his fee basis is, he says he provides dramatic return on investment for them with equitable compensation for himself, then offers a proposal with options showing at least a 10 to 1 return. The point is to stay at the level of results instead of arguing about dollars per hour.

It is Weiss's term for the agreement you reach with a buyer before any proposal exists. It has three parts: the objectives to be obtained, which are client outcomes rather than deliverables, the metrics that tell you both that progress is happening, and the value of meeting those objectives. Once you have all three, the proposal is just a summation of what you already agreed to, and Weiss says that is why his hit rate runs around 85%.

Start by monetizing the objective: what is it worth to the client if this actually works. Weiss says his Fortune 500 career was built on showing a 10 to 1 return, so a million dollar outcome supported a fee around $100,000, and nobody argues with a 10 to 1 return. He allows for some non-monetized value, like the client working fewer hours or feeling safer, but says you have to monetize most of it.

Weiss says flatly that if you work by the hour, you are a commodity, and he points to lawyers billing in six-minute increments as the model taken to its end. He also calls it antithetical to the client relationship, because the longer you take the more you get paid, while the client wants a rapid resolution. Your incentive and theirs point in opposite directions.

Weiss says no, because once you give a discount of any kind you set a precedent that comes back to haunt you. He tells the story of a man who had gone three years getting a discount or a gift on every purchase and asked for ten free books, and Weiss told him his streak had just been broken. He also does not give refunds, other than for something like not showing up or being sick, because he guarantees the quality of the work.

One: money up front. Weiss takes 10% off if he has the full fee at the start, so a $100,000 project becomes $90,000 paid immediately. He notes that in many nonprofits, some government agencies, and even some private companies, procurement rules require the buyer to accept a discount that is offered. He would rather hold the money for the duration of the project than collect installments.

Up front, or at least not at the end. Weiss says you should never be paid on completion because you have lost all your leverage by then. Nick adds that completion is a subjective word, and clients will keep adding scope to redefine it. Weiss's line is that a synonym for completion is infinity.

Ask two preventive questions early: does this come out of your budget, and if we shook hands right now, could we go forward. Weiss points out that an oral agreement is legal, so someone overstating their authority tends to pull their hand back. If the contact says their boss will rubber stamp it, he invokes ethics and the buyer's fiduciary position, and notes that if the project goes wrong it is the contact who takes the hit, not the consultant.

Weiss does not think so, and he says AI is not going to take over the world because AI is created by humans. What he does expect to disappear is the McKinsey staffing model of thousands of people billed out by the hour. He sees the advantage shifting to process consultants who can get in and out fast, since decision-making, conflict resolution, and problem-solving work the same way in aerospace as in insurance.

Weiss's complaint is that people use it as a damn encyclopedia when they should use it to map out strategies. His example is golf: not asking which club to use for a 250-yard shot, but asking the model to look at the course history and your past performance and build a strategy for playing it. He also uses it to produce book illustrations in about 90 seconds that would have taken him far longer to source or build by hand.

Weiss is emphatic about staying solo and subcontracting instead. He never rented an office, and notes that over the years his two kids' private school tuition came to $450,000, roughly what office space, insurance, and staff would have cost him over the same period. His other argument is structural: people who can bring in their own business do not need to work for you, and people who cannot become an employment agency you have to keep feeding.

Weiss says bureaucracy is the triumph of means over ends, and he attacks it in three moves. Find out who owns the thing, ask that owner for the absolute minimum people and expertise in the room since you can always add but it is hard to subtract, and then hurry them along. When somebody raises a blocker, he puts it on a critical issues list rather than stopping the meeting, assigns an owner to each item, and has everyone back within 24 hours.