What a great Free-Rider Friday! This show moved fast and we covered a lot of ground.
Here are Ron’s topics from the show:
“The two tribes of working life,” Bartleby, The Economist, February 2, 2019
“College Student: My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us,” FEE, Alyssa Ahlgren, Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Shout out to my Dad, from BBC News, March 29, 2019, “Mobile barbering: ‘It’s like Uber, but for haircuts’, by Dougal Shaw.
Retirement communities are perfect for self-driving cars, “It takes a village,” The Economist, February 23, 2019.
Who is the Bill Gates of the accounting profession? “Henry W. Bloch, Tax-Preparation Pioneer (and Pitchman), Is Dead at 96,” by Robert D. Hershey Jr., April 23, 2019.
Harley Davidson is having trouble selling to younger people, “Rough ride,” The Economist, February 2, 2019.
…and here are Ed’s topics:
Interesting fact: By net worth, there are 10x more millionaires than there are minimum wage earners in the United States.
We did a show on occupational licensure, Episode #225, and it turns out Kim Kardashian agrees with us. From FEE, April 16, 2019, “Kim Kardashian Is Right: Lawyers Shouldn't Have to Attend Law School,” by Hans Bader.
“Arizona becomes the first state to recognize all out-of-state occupational licenses, Cronkite News, April 10, 2019, by Lurissa Carbaja.
“Is American Airlines too Reckless,” Steve Landsburg, April 2, 2019, The Big Questions.
“Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax,” ProPublica, by Justin Elliott, April 9, 2019.
“Why Americans Don’t Cheat on Their Taxes,” Rene Chun, April 2019, The Atlantic.
We had a listener question addressed during the show as well:
We received a great question from Mark Stiving, Ph.D., Chief Pricing Educator, Impact Pricing LLC, and author of Impact Pricing: Your Blueprint for Driving Profits, and host of the Impact Pricing Podcast.
Mark will be our guest on the June 14th, 2019 episode of The Soul of Enterprise.
Here’s his question:
Your TSOE episode on the death of the timesheet was very thought provoking. I’m 99% with you on the idea of killing hourly billing, and could be with you on killing timesheets except I don’t know how to answer one question. How does a company determine Willingness to Accept (WTA)?
In every negotiation, the buyer has a Willingness to Pay (WTP) and the seller has a WTA. This is easiest to understand in products. If a seller has an ongoing business and can buy a product for $100, their WTA is almost certainly some number above $100. Usually they have a margin floor, say 20%, so their WTA would be $120. If the buyer’s WTP is $300, there will likely be a transaction, hopefully at a price significantly higher than $120. However, if the buyer’s WTP is less than $120, no transaction will occur.
In accounting or similar service type businesses, how do you know your WTA? It seems you need an estimate of time, (even though you would pay that accountant’s salary even if you didn’t land that job). If you need to estimate time, wouldn’t having timesheets to track actual vs estimated in after action reviews be helpful? As you point out, they are probably not accurate, but is there a better way? I’m looking forward to your answer. Feel free to answer on the air if you’d like, perhaps on free rider Friday?
Cheers,
Mark