I have been contemplating the idea of actually charging for ideas, and not just charging for implementing the ideas. Yes, they are two different things.
For as long as I can remember, my company has been creating business models with our clients from day one. It doesn't matter the type of business, the sector or if it is an old business or a new one. Many, not all, but many, of our clients use us as a think tank for ideas on how to improve their business or develop new products or messages or brands or backend processes for their business.
Our practice for billing for those ideas has been... Okay, we came up with an idea - you like it, now we will charge you for implementing that idea on a software level. But we never really charged for producing the idea, itself, as an idea that goes to market. Tons of companies do it, they are called Marketing Companies, Branding Companies, and so on. Some charge hundreds of thousands for coming up with a brand concept, logo and so on. We, we just charge for the actual dirty work, in terms of putting it together but not for helping conceive the brand or idea.
Why am I blogging this now? Well, yesterday, I brought in four of my RBers into a kick off meeting with a new client. We came out of the meeting designing a whole new marketing pitch, concept and a brand new domain with tons of awesome ideas on how to promote the site and business. Maybe, in a few months, when we launch the new brand, Ill let you know what it was - and reference back to this post. But for now, I can't talk about the specifics of the business.
As we came out of the meeting, we thought to ourselves - once again... Hmm, we just helped them put together an awesome branding strategy. Yes, we are going to implement the whole strategy in a technical sense - by coding it up for them. But, in terms of payment for creating the new brand - we get nothing. This happens all the time and I never feel upset or cheated. I feel happy for them and for us - we just built a long term relationship in one sit down meeting with this client. But, on the other hand, maybe we should charge for it.
In the next few months - it might be something we actually stick a price tag on. But, one thing is for sure, our current message on our rustybrick.com site, really doesn't show that we can and do provide ideas as a service. So maybe we will launch our new site with some content focused on that as a service as well - if we ever launch it.
Blogging My Life...
About a year ago, I wrote about being Slapped With Electric Bill For Past Four Years.
This is the April 30th, issue of a daily post that will contain links to commentary of the posts over at the 
are my new RSS reader stats and the redish bars 
are 
