But it’s not obvious to me that most users WANT retainer-style services. For one thing, the benefit seems to occur more in well-attended “let’s get on the same page” meetings (commonly on the phone) than in 1-on-1 conversations. At least, it would if I did I better job of explaining how people should do the self-assessment to understand their own issues …

For example, a conversation that happens to occur during a planned briefing, or the occasional brief inquiry, is never “on the meter”. In contrast, a scheduled two hour engagement for the purpose of discussing go-to-market is covered by the retainer. If it exceeds the allotted time slightly we don’t care. There’s no running meter.

Over the years our clients have expressed how easy it is to engage us. We’re always open to the adoption of a better model, but we haven’t found one yet.

Regarding services for users, I see nothing wrong with a “rent me for X hours” approach. Their projects tend to be significantly more involved than a typical vendor engagement and not as well-defined. Frankly, given our limited bandwidth, we avoid the poorly-defined or potentially lengthy (month plus) open-ended end user projects.

I am indeed looking to simplify. The problem is that I like to be both simple AND unmetered, and there’s a certain conflict between the two.

If your minimum project size is 2 service units and the price per unit is $5k, you can simplify your offering by providing a base retainer package for $10k. After all, that’s what you’re telling them.

The time can be applied toward X, Y and Z. Additional units are available for $5k each. Though it is unclear exactly how many hours of your time are included in an individual unit.

This is virtually identical to the way we’ve been doing business since we started in 2002. We offer $4k “4 hour blocks of time” that can be applied toward any type of project, and a $6K starter package. Large companies buy several blocks in advance in anticipation of doing business throughout the year (similar to having a subscription/retainer), while smaller companies and those who prefer to do business on a project-by-project basis purchase blocks of time on an as-needed basis. If a project increases in scope, they engage us for additional blocks of time.

Clean, simple, easy to understand and it has served us well for nearly a decade.