The Shift from Effort to Impact
What Changes When Results Lead the Conversation
There’s a quiet lie baked into how a lot of smart people still run their businesses: that time is the fairest unit of value. It feels objective, clean, and defensible. You show up, you log hours, you send an invoice. Easy peasy. Everyone nods, and you’re off. And yet, if you look closely, hourly billing doesn’t just fail to reward excellence—it actively discourages it. The faster you get, the worse the model treats you. The more experienced you become, the more pressure there is to slow down, pad estimates, or quietly resent the system you’re participating in.
If 2026 is going to be the best year for your business, this is a good place to draw a line. Not because hourly billing is “bad” in the abstract, but because it’s increasingly misaligned with how value is actually created. Speed is no longer a liability. Expertise is no longer rare. AI is empowering us all to do more with less, and more quickly. So while AI didn’t break hourly billing per sé, it made the cracks in the model impossible to ignore. When outcomes matter more than effort, selling time becomes a strange hill to keep defending, doesn’t it?
The alternative isn’t some fuzzy, feel-good notion of “charging what you’re worth.” It’s much more practical than that. It starts with shifting the center of the conversation away from scope, deliverables, and hours—and toward motive. Why this project exists at all. Why now? And why you? Most people skip these questions because they’re uncomfortable. They feel risky. But avoiding them doesn’t reduce risk; it just pushes it downstream into bloated proposals, awkward negotiations, and projects that somehow feel underpriced before they even begin.
What I’ve learned—sometimes the hard way—is that the real leverage in a sales conversation has very little to do with persuasion. It has everything to do with clarity. When a client can articulate, in their own words, what success actually means to them, pricing and scoping come easier. So does deciding whether the work should even happen. You stop guessing, negotiating against yourself, and trying to prove your value, and instead let it surface naturally from the problem they’re trying to solve.
This mindset also changes how you show up. You’re no longer auditioning. You’re evaluating fit. You’re willing to ask questions that might disqualify you, because disqualification is cheaper than resentment. Paradoxically, that confidence tends to do the opposite of what people fear—it attracts serious buyers. The ones who aren’t looking for the cheapest option, but the safest one. The ones who understand that paying more up front is often an insurance policy against getting it wrong.
That’s why this conversation feels especially relevant at the start of a new year. Not as a resolution, but as a reset. Fewer hours. Fewer proposals written on speculation. Fewer projects that look fine on paper and quietly drain you over time. More intention. More precision. More businesses built around outcomes instead of activity.
Few people have thought more clearly—or more rigorously—about this shift than this week’s guest, and Eggs! The Podcast alum, Jonathan Stark. A former software developer turned consultant, coach, and author, Jonathan has spent years challenging the assumptions baked into how professional services are sold. His work doesn’t just critique hourly billing; it offers a practical alternative rooted in economics, psychology, and respect for both sides of the table.
Hourly billing is nuts
Jonathan Stark is a consultant, coach, author, and longtime advocate for value-based pricing. Before becoming one of the most recognizable voices challenging hourly billing, he spent years as a software developer and executive, working inside the very system he would later dismantle. That firsthand experience—seeing how time-based pricing rewarded slower work and junior talent—sparked a career-long focus on aligning incentives with outcomes.
Since going independent in the mid-2000s, Jonathan has worked with consultants, agencies, and solo practitioners across industries, helping them move away from hourly billing toward fixed and value-based pricing models. He’s the author of Hourly Billing Is Nuts, Pigeonhole Yourself, and Learn Your Lines—books that blend economic reasoning with practical guidance on positioning, sales conversations, and authority-building. His work is especially known for its clarity and lack of fluff: fewer platitudes, more mechanics.
Jonathan also hosts The Business of Authority podcast, where he explores how professionals become recognized experts—not just by being good at their craft, but by earning trust at the level where real business decisions are made. Across his writing, teaching, and coaching, the throughline is consistent: pricing is not a math problem, it’s a conversation problem—and the quality of that conversation determines everything that follows.
Stop selling time, sell outcomes instead
This conversation with Jonathan Stark touches a nerve for a reason: it exposes how many service businesses are still pricing effort instead of impact—and how costly that mistake becomes over time.
“Hourly billing incentivizes you to hire slower, less experienced people. That’s crazy.”
Actionable insight:
If your pricing model rewards inefficiency, it will eventually shape your team, your culture, and your work quality. Pricing is not neutral—it trains behavior. Make sure it’s training the right one.
“Cost is the least you’d accept. Value is the most the client would pay. Price lives somewhere in between.”
Actionable insight:
Most people price from the wrong end. If you start with your costs, you’re almost guaranteed to undercharge. Start with what success is worth to the client, then work backward.
“If you don’t bring objections up in the sales call, they’ll bring them up later—without you in the room.”
Actionable insight:
Proposals don’t fail because they’re unclear; they fail because unspoken doubts linger. Surface the hard questions early, while you still have context and credibility.
“Why would you hire someone expensive like me?”
Actionable insight:
This question feels dangerous because it’s honest. It forces the client to articulate trust, urgency, and risk—in their own words. Those answers become the backbone of the proposal.
“I want to talk about their numbers, not my numbers.”
Actionable insight:
Anchoring pricing discussions in your rates invites negotiation. Anchoring them in the client’s financial reality reframes the decision entirely—from cost control to return.
“Scope comes last. Value comes first.”
Actionable insight:
When scope leads, it boxes you into time and tasks. When value leads, scope becomes a flexible tool—not a trap. This shift alone can change how every project feels.
“If you only give one option, they decide whether to hire you. If you give three, they decide how.”
Actionable insight:
Optionality isn’t a sales trick—it’s a decision aid. Three clear paths redirect energy away from price-shopping and toward choosing the right level of engagement.
“Your real deliverable isn’t code or design. It’s customer satisfaction.”
Actionable insight:
Outputs don’t keep businesses alive—results do. When you understand how the client measures success, you stop guessing and start aiming.
“Don’t guarantee something the client doesn’t actually care about.”
Actionable insight:
Guarantees work best when they reduce the real fear in the room. A refund might not matter—but reliability, continuity, or quality almost always does.
What Not to Hand Off
There’s nothing radical about the ideas in this conversation. They’re not trends. They’re corrections. A return to the simple notion that businesses exist to create value—and that pricing should reflect that reality. Hourly billing didn’t fail because people misused it; it failed because it was never designed for expertise, speed, or trust. And as tools continue to compress time and effort, that mismatch will only become more visible.
What Jonathan offers isn’t a script or a shortcut. It’s a way of thinking more clearly about how work is sold, scoped, and valued. One honest conversation up front can prevent months of friction later. One well-placed question can do more than a perfectly designed proposal. And one deliberate shift—from selling hours to selling outcomes—can quietly change the trajectory of a business over the course of a year.
As 2026 gets underway, this feels like the right moment to revisit not just what you’re working on, but how you’re framing the work itself. The conversations you choose to have—and the ones you avoid—tend to determine everything that follows.
Happy New Year. Let’s make this a great one, together.
Thanks for reading,
—Ryan
If you’re ready for life to feel more intentional, more aligned, and more within your control, this guide gives you the structure to make that shift real. Your next version starts with a single decision. Get the field guide
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Catch Jonathan Starks’s interview in its entirety on Eggs! The Podcast.
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Reading list
If you're looking to go deeper on the themes from this week's newsletter, here are a few books that pair well with the conversation and offer a broader perspective:
Hourly Billing Is Nuts — Jonathan Stark
The foundation of Jonathan’s work. Clear, direct, and practical, this book lays out why selling time breaks incentives—and what to do instead. It’s less theory, more operating system.Value-Based Fees — Alan Weiss
A classic for a reason. Weiss reframes pricing as a business decision, not an arithmetic one. If you’ve ever felt uneasy asking for money—even when you know the work matters—this book resets the frame.Win Without Pitching Manifesto — Blair Enns
Not a pricing book in the narrow sense, but essential reading for anyone selling expertise. Enns sharpens the idea that authority, confidence, and restraint often close more deals than persuasion.Pigeonhole Yourself — Jonathan Stark
If pricing is downstream from positioning, this is where to start. A practical argument for narrowing focus—not to limit opportunity, but to earn trust faster and more predictably.
More to explore
Jonathan Stark - https://jonathanstark.com/
LinkedIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanstark/
Work with me
Ryan Roghaar - Fractional CMO/Creative Director/Art Director: https://rogha.ar/portfolio
RŌG Health - A commercial readiness and strategy firm for medtech companies, helping CEOs identify what’s blocking growth and make clear, de-risked decisions around commercialization, partnerships, and fundraising. https://roghealth.com
Eggs! The Podcast: https://www.eggscast.com
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