The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since 1980 and is recognized globally as an expert on both technical and business issues. He has been published over a thousand times, launched four Internet-related startup companies, has written twenty business and technical books and holds both an MBA and MS Ed. He's a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera and Linux Journal and frequently appears in other publications both online and in print. Additionally, Dave maintains four weblogs: The Business Blog at Intuitive.com, Ask Dave Taylor, Dave On Film, and GoFatherhood. Based in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, Dave is an award-winning speaker, sought after conference and workshop participant and frequent guest on radio and podcast programs, as well as active member of his community and busy single father to three children.

Skype Prime: Interesting, but not for real consultants

I'm surprised to read the usually on-target Darren Rowse suggest on his blog that the newly released Windows-only "Skype Prime" would be a good match for entrepreneurial bloggers and business consultants. I couldn't disagree more.

The idea behind Skype Prime is basically the 900 number model: set up a phone number where you can charge callers on a per-minute basis. If I charged $60/hr for consulting, for example, I could automatically have Skype charge $1/minute and give you my number for you to call at any time. Want to chat about the weather or check to see if I'm attending a particular upcoming conference? Sorry, the meter's running, that'll be $3...

Generally, I find Darren one of the best professional bloggers in the biz, but in this instance he's just wrong. First off, unless I was calling paid tech support, I would be strongly offended by any consultant who charged by the minute. Even the local medical practitioners -- heck, even my massage therapist -- doesn't do that.

For a massage, for example, I pay an hourly rate and if it ends up being 65 or 70 minutes, that's fine, it's just part of business. What Skype Prime encourages, however, is the "50 minute hour", as psychologists call it, a set amount of time within which you fit in whatever you're going to cover. When the buzzer rings, time's up, even if you're in the middle of a sentence.

Admittedly, it's not quite that bad, but as someone who spends a fair amount of my time coaching and consulting with clients on the phone, I have long since learned the value of not keeping track of time. Why? Because sometimes we can get to a resolution in far less time than they anticipated, while other times the call goes far longer than we expected, 75-90 minutes when we had thought a 30 minute call wuold be more than sufficient.

If we'd agreed beforehand on a specific duration for the call, I'll stick with that amount rather than the time spent, for the same reason my acupuncturist doesn't bill me for 67 minutes even if I don't manage to get up from the table and out of their office until that amount of time actually passes: it's both common courtesy and general professionalism.

Further, I believe that the "non-business chat" that accompanies any consulting call is critical to the success of the coaching, because it establishes trust and creates a human connection, a bond, between the client and consultant. If the meter's ticking, however, then you'll skip all of that to ensure that every minute counts! This is, at least in my opinion, a high price to pay for what is at best a quasi-efficient call system.

For my own consulting calls I either use a standard phone line and calling card or my VOIP line, and we'll often use a free conference call system so there's a recording that they can access and download after we're done. Clients love to have their calls recorded and if we can do so without any fuss, it's a win:win. I never worry about time and almost all of my coaching is charged on a "per call" basis, without a time limit specified or measured. The result? I'd say 80% of my calls end up being approximately 30 minutes long, without any particular effort on our part to keep it succinct or drag it out.

To be fair, Skype Prime also apparently supports a per-call charge, but since Skype takes a whopping 30% of the transaction (ouch!) as its fee, if I charged $250 per call and a typical call lasted 30 minutes, I'd be pretty hard pressed to accept that Skype was going to hold on to $75 as a fee, a basic per-minute connectivity charge of $2.50. This is ridiculous and even more so for what I consider a rudimentary service, telephone connectivity, and a system that's not particularly good in my opinion anyway (see: Skype still stinks).

What's your take? If you wanted to consult with me on business blogging or corporate strategic issues, would you be offended by my utilizing a per-minute system, or would you find it a cool and interesting new use of a popular technology?

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