The other day, I spoke with an engineer I respect. He and I were talking about a number of issues, but one still resonates with me: Are we, as businesspeople, truly ready to pay for value instead of time?

We talked about it in the aspect of a computer engineer’s time to perform tasks and the value of those tasks. For example, if an engineer tells me that its going to take five hours to set up five desktop computers, I believe him. So what is the value of this time?

Let’s look at it another way. About six years ago, I got a call from someone who had a problem. A former disgruntled employee decided to keep the accounting system password from the owner when there was a disagreement about the future of the employee’s career. I got the call to help them and I did.

I recovered the password to the accounting system in less than five minutes. Not to toot my horn, but I had knowledge the client (owner) did not. What’s that worth? A multi-million dollar company needed the information immediately.

Being the nice guy that I am, I only charged $250.00. ;^)

The question I cannot get out of my head is: are people ready to pay for value?

This value could be perceived value or true value. The former is more valuable at the time of executing a contract for the work or products. The former is all that’s really important until someone comes along and disputes the value of the service or product. (But that’s another post…)

Let’s say that my lawn service calls and says, “This week, when you have guests arriving to stay with you, our service fee has gone up to double its normal rate.”
Would I pay their new fee? Would I continue to use them if they maintain this sort of “price from value” method?

What if a restaurant decided to charge more on special days – like Mother’s Day – than on other days? (Some do, by the way.)

This sort of pricing is very different than pricing mobile phones higher for those who are heavier users. The heavier user already pays more in the airtime fee – not the phone.

I believe that the examples I’ve given are ones which may not work in today’s society. Why? Because the general marketplace already does this work for us. Some things are commoditized and some are value-based.
The difference in how one prices products or services is based on many factors. Two of the main factors are knowledge and timeliness. The reason I could charge more than $5 for the assistance I gave to the owner of the manufacturing company is because I had information he did not and no one he knew or could contact had the information in the timeframe he was willing to accept.

Another way to look at this is: he wanted something so much that money was not the most important factor. I think about this when I see these millionaires paying, well, millions, for military jet rides.

Would you pay for value? Do you pay for value now?