Why hourly billing limits your growth and freedom

How to grow from hourly billing to a scalable business

You went into business for freedom. The freedom to chart your own course, harness your potential and passion differently and make an impact that really counts. But if you still work according to the traditional hourly-billing model, does that freedom feel so free?

I see hourly billing as disguised payroll. Because in fact, you are still selling your time and not your real, profound value. So for many ambitious entrepreneurs and consultants, the hourly billing system is still a golden cage. It seems to offer security, but at the same time limits your growth, impact and freedom on a personal, business and financial level. After all, you are trading precious time and energy for money, creating an invisible ceiling above your income and potential.

It's time to position yourself as an entrepreneur in your own business and transform into a scalable business and revenue model that gives you the freedom and profitability you deserve. This is the essence of Scale to Freedom

The hidden costs of hourly billing.

At first glance, the hourly billing model seems simple and fair. You provide your expertise in your time and for that you are paid by the hour. But beneath the surface lie three crucial drawbacks that sabotage your growth and limit your business growth:

Your income is directly limited by your time: There are simply 24 hours in a day, and you can only bill a limited number of them. Even if you increase your rate, there is a ceiling. Do you want to earn more? Then you have to increase your hourly rate which you don't do or once a year. Or you're going to put in more hours, at the expense of your energy, personal life and strategic focus. A scalable business decouples your income from your hours, increasing your potential limitless and unlimited.
No buffer in case of setbacks: Illness, an unexpected family event or simply the need for an extra vacation? In the hourly-bill model, not working immediately means no income. This creates constant pressure and makes you vulnerable. The exact opposite of the freedom you strive for. A scalable model builds a buffer and provides a continuum of your income even if you are not working directly for a while.
Your efficiency is being punished: This is perhaps the most ironic pitfall. Because the better and faster you become at your job, the fewer hours you need to complete a task. This means that despite your growing expertise, you make fewer hours and therefore bill less. Contradictory, right? Hourly billing rewards inertia and punishes your innovation and efficiency, undermining your motivation and ability to innovate. Don't leave value on the table. Your expertise is worth more than the time you spend on it.

Conclusion: The hourly bill is an outdated model from the industrial age that no longer fits the ambitions of you as a modern, strategic entrepreneur. So to grow profitably and realize true freedom and impact, a fundamental shift is needed. A shift that starts with redefining your value proposition and revenue model.

4 Business models for scalability and integral growth

Fortunately, there are powerful alternatives that allow you to scale your business, increase your income and create more freedom at the same time. These are four proven business models that I successfully apply to my top clients: ambitious women who are ready to raise their standards and transform their businesses:

Package your expertise: Package your expertise into standardized offerings with a fixed price. Think 'Strategy Sprint Package' or the 'Lead Essentials‘.
– Why it works: You bill based on the value you deliver, not the time you spend on it. Plus, you can sell the same package to multiple clients, increasing your efficiency exponentially.
– Example: A top client ( was consultant, now strategic growth expert) changed her hourly-billing model to a value-driven offering in packages. She went from working 5 to 4 days and her revenue went up 180%. As a result, during our collaboration, she more than recouped her investment.
Create a digital product: Develop an online course, e-book, templates or toolkit that you create once and can sell indefinitely. Note that this is never 100% passive as people make it appear. Don't be fooled by that. It is more passive, but I always recommend not starting with digital, but can add later as part of your value ladder to scale up.
– Why it works: After the initial investment of time and resources, it generates passive income. It is the ultimate way to monetize your knowledge without having to put in constant time.
– Example: I offer an online Masterclass: 'From Dream to Reality' for €75. With 10 sales per month, this generates €750 with no additional direct hours.
Build a membership model: Offer ongoing value through a subscription model, such as a monthly community, an exclusive content library or a Q&A platform.
– Why it works: You create predictable, recurring revenue (recurring revenue) and build a loyal community. Note: this does require good management and commitment from you or a community manager. Because here you also have to take into account the inflow and outflow of customers (retention).
– Example: An innovative business strategist runs an 'Freedom Collective Community' with an annual subscription fixed fee and then €149 per month, with an online Academy, a communication platform (community), bi-weekly live Q&A sessions, exclusive new master classes and content. With 100 members, that's €14,900 per month (and that's still not including the annual fee per participant).
Leverage via team or automation: Outsource operational tasks to a team (virtual assistants, freelancers) or automate them with software and Artificial Intelligence and other tools.
– Why it works: You can save time, energy and money because you can spend your time again on the things and people that really matter and make the most impact and revenue. You can take on more top clients and complete more projects without putting in more hours yourself. You can focus fully on your core expertise, your time/energy and strategic growth.
– Example: I use automation tools for scheduling (Google, Notion) and communication (Zoom, Circleback, ChatGPT, NotebookLM, Claude, Grok, Manus, OpusClip (PS. Want to know more about Strategic Use of AI in Business, send me a message)), and outsources administrative/technical tasks to my VA and technical VA, giving me back my time with the same personal commitment.

Tip: The most successful entrepreneurs often combine several of these models. Choose the model that best fits your expertise, your ideal top client and your personal preference. This is customization and exactly what I help you with within my Scale to Freedom.

Your life. Your business. Your freedom.

You decide. You lead. You grow.

Integral.

7 Steps to raise your prices: Earn what you're worth.

I see many entrepreneurs who dare not raise their prices, partly also for fear of losing clients. And then continue year after year at the same hourly rate, despite their own growth in value and loss of time and energy. So they leave a lot of value on the table.

Charging more for your services is not just about putting a higher price tag on what you already offer. It's about understanding your value and standing for it. Strategically positioning yourself as the expert the strategic leader and creating a value-driven offering for those top clients who say "Yes!" to it.

How to confidently raise your prices and get paid what you are really worth:

Ownership of your value: If you don't see your value and take ownership of it, no one else will. Many talented coaches and consultants I work with come from impressive backgrounds. And yet, when they make the transition to entrepreneurship, they struggle to claim their value. They charge modest hourly rates, charging too little for their services, missing out on thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Euros annually.

Your price reflects the transformation you deliver, not the hours you work.

If your services can solve a high-value problem, then you are worth those value-driven fees. But first, you have to believe in it.
Position yourself as the authority: If you want to work with top clients, work with value-driven offerings, you need to elevate your positioning. Clients will gladly pay top dollar to work with someone they see as the expert in their field. Ask yourself: Is your message clear and compelling? Are you consistently sharing your expertise in a way that resonates with your ideal top clients? Does your brand exude trust, credibility and authority? Positioning is attracting top customers and repelling the rest. When you establish yourself as an expert, share and deliver your value, clients will be convinced of your value and not question it. They will see the value of working with you and be prepared to buy before they even start a conversation. By the way, if you want to learn more about building and positioning your brand as an authority, my Strategic Positioning Sprint perfect for this.
Stop Time Selling. Sales results: High-value customers don't just care about how much time you spend with them. They care about the results you deliver. Here's the key: Shift the focus from "time for money" to the transformation you provide. Can you help them cut their personal workload in half without impacting profitability? Triple their growth over the next year? Secure a dream C-suite level role, increasing their income by 25%? Create your own model, your method, a clear step-by-step system for how you're going to get them there. When you focus on results and the you have solution, you shift the conversation to value. And when customers see the value, trust and are convinced of you, they are willing to pay for it.
Create a value-driven offering: If you're going to ask for more, your offer must feel like the solution for your top customer. The offer that solves a big, urgent problem for your ideal top customer. It's tailored to their needs, designed to deliver a specific result, includes a system that delivers results and has the right level of support to get them there. High-value clients want a premium experience. Not more time, but added value over time. That means a seamless onboarding process, clear communication throughout the partnership, and systems and support to ensure they get results. It's about quality, not quantity.
Address the right top customers: Not everyone is your ideal client, and that's okay. When you raise your rates, you naturally filter out the clients who are not a good fit for you. This is why your positioning, proposition and message are so important. The whole thing should resonate with your top clients and speak directly to their challenges, goals and desires. When you attract the right customers, the conversation shifts from "How much does it cost?" to "How soon can we get started?
Strengthen your sales calls: Selling high-value services requires a different approach than selling, say, a 3-month group program. Your potential clients must have the confidence that you are the right person to solve their problem. Sales then are not about pressure or manipulation. They are about having an honest, transparent conversation with someone who is ready to invest in themselves or their business.
Tame your Gremlins. One of the biggest barriers to asking for more is fear. Fear of losing clients, fear of hearing "no," fear of stepping into your full value. If you believe clients won't pay higher rates, they won't. If you believe you are worth it, the right clients will sense that and pay without hesitation. Remember, every successful coach or consultant you admire once felt the same fear. The difference is that they decided to stop letting it hold them back. This is a core part of my Life, Leadership & Legacy program.

Asking more for your services is not just about working harder or offering more things. It's about understanding your value, having a credible solution, creating a results-oriented and value-driven offering and confidently positioning yourself as the expert, the one, the only, the incomparable expert your clients need. And the one and only, the only one who can do that, that's you.

Your transformation to a scalable business

Ready to take the leap and transform your business? Here's the concrete action plan to take your business from hourly billing to scalable success:

Analyze your current model and identify your top customer and offerings:

Map out how many hours you work, what you bill, and where your income ceiling is.
Identify which of your current services are the most valuable to your clients, give you the most energy, and cost the least time/energy. Focus on those top clients and services.
Action: Make a list of tasks you can productize, automate or outsource. This is the first step toward creating more time and energy.

Redefine your value proposition (sell results, not your hours):

Stop thinking in hours and start thinking in results. What is the real transformation you are creating for your clients? (E.g., increased visibility/reach, increased revenue, time savings, focus, peace, clarity).
Create an offering based on this value, such as a fixed package or a digital product.
Action: Formulate a pitch for your new offering, focusing on the transformation you deliver. This is the basis of your high-value positioning.

Test and optimize small:

Don't start big, but test your new model on a small scale first. The "Start before you are ready principle. Offer your new package as a pilot to a few existing, trusted customers and ask for feedback.
Optimize, improve and enrich your processes (with templates, checklists, tools) to make execution as efficient as possible.
Action: Launch a pilot of your new offering within two weeks and gather feedback.

Scale with strategic marketing and systems:

Once your model is proven, invest in marketing to promote your new offering (think LinkedIn, webinars, targeted ads). Be visible and present wherever your customers are so that your message reaches your ideal top customer.
Set up systems to automate your workflow (e.g., CRM, booking software, email marketing) so that your growth is sustainable and you don't get bogged down in operational tasks again.
Action: Plan a marketing campaign (e.g., a series of LinkedIn posts or a mini-webinar) to launch your new offering and implement one automation tool.

Your freedom awaits. You determine your own path to success.

Letting go of the hourly bill and continuing to grow and scale with your new business and revenue model. It requires a mindset shift, courage to innovate and a willingness to invest in new processes, systems that work for and a team to work with you.

Want a personal strategic sparring partner to make this transformation faster and more effective? Then book a strategy session with me now via https://gerdihulsink.com/nl/orientatiegesprek/. This is the perfect start to analyze your specific situation and create a customized plan.

I look forward to working with you to pave the way to maximum freedom and profit.

With confidence in your success,

Gerdi

Your freedom and success. My mission.

PS. I work with women who no longer settle for mediocrity. Women who want to raise their standards in their lives, leadership and business. Women who are ready to choose more: more freedom, more profit, more meaning.

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