Pricing the tradeoff of being fast, with my eyes open
Fast, detailed estimates can be shopped to a competitor. I kept delivering them anyway.
When Tellus got to where a detailed, well-reasoned estimate took two days and not the usual three weeks, a fresh risk appeared. A client might carry that thinking to someone else and use it to undercut me.
I went on delivering fast estimates and accepted that some clients would use them against me. I did not slow down to defend against that. If a competitor needs three weeks and you hand over detail in two days, the conversation opens on your terms. Clients who would mine a fast estimate and shop it around were never worth protecting a slow process for.
Speed turned into a credibility weapon and won deals the slower competitors never had a shot at. Kanopi now carries the same tradeoff for me, with estimates in minutes, not weeks.
Every edge costs something. My response to the cost of speed was not to go slower. It was to decide that clients who exploit it are not the clients I want. A values call about which relationships deserved protection settled the tradeoff, and I did not try to engineer around it.
Story details
| Type | The honest call |
|---|---|
| Year | 2014 to present |
| Firm telling | on the Common Ground wiki |