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The most creative activity in many agencies is filling out time sheets.

For eighteen years, we have never done one. Here’s why:

1) We don’t want to reinforce the silly idea that what we sell is time. We sell results.

We take that seriously and stick to it. Our compensation agreements align with it as well, accepting risk and reward for creating marketplace results.

2) We don’t want the moral or legal hazard of a practice that is almost universally abused. A process that at best is a waste of the very time it purports to record and at worst is a fraud. Sometimes accountants are creative people, but creative people are rarely accountants.

3) We want to spend all of our time and energy on the stuff we’re good at, the things that return the most value for our client’s dollar. We always strive to deliver much more value than we capture in revenue. And our agreements, often with lower fees and bonus for market success, bear this out.

4) No one benefits from a culture of nickel and diming over time. Not clients, who will feel hesitant to use the team to the fullest extent for fear of additional changes. Not agency people, who come to value their contribution in billable hours rather than in winning work. We never charge more for “going over” hours. Because we don’t measure hours, we measure value.