Shortly after the end of WWII, the big clock in the tower atop the town hall in a small Swiss village stopped working. The townspeople were beside themselves with distress. After all, this clock had been the centerpiece of village life for over 250 years. To have it stop was like having the town itself come to a stop.
Fixing it was no easy task. The clock was so old and so uniquely engineered that no one knew how to repair it. The town council looked far and wide for someone to help them.
Finally, after weeks of searching, an elderly gentleman from a distant town appeared. He said that he could help. The mayor and the town council led him to the clock tower and followed him up the stairs. They gathered around the base of the clockworks expectantly.
The old clockmaker adjusted his glasses, hitched up his pants, and began his inspection. After several minutes, he returned to his tool kit and took out a wooden mallet. He walked over to the clock, ran his left hand along the side of the wooden frame for a few moments, found the spot he was looking for, and struck it with the mallet in his right hand.
The clock started again! The townspeople were overjoyed. Everything was right with the world once more.
The clockmaker walked over to his tool kit, returned the wooden mallet to its place within, and took out a piece of paper. He wrote a few words and presented it to the Mayor.
The Mayor asked, “What’s this?” The gentleman replied, “It’s my bill.” And the Mayor read it.
“This is outrageous! 5000 francs for 5 minutes work and a single mallet strike?” cried the Mayor.
The clockmaker calmly replied, “Please, Mr. Mayor, read the itemization.”
The Mayor smoothed out the paper he had just crumpled and read the following:
Services Rendered:
Striking Clock with Mallet – 100 francs
Knowing Where to Strike – 4900 francs
And thus endeth the parable of the Clockmaker.
I learned this story many years ago. It taught me that outcome, not effort, is what matters. People pay us for our knowledge and our ability to achieve results. Not for our time. Even if we are paid “hourly.”
We may spend 100 hours actually building an inbound marketing program. But it’s our 1000s of hours, our years, of experience that allow us to spend just 100 hours creating an inbound marketing program that will work. And outcome, not hours, is how c-suite executives, consultants, agencies, and many others should rightly be compensated.
While people may appreciate effort, it’s results that count.