We recently received the invoice from the gynaecologist who delivered our baby.

More accurately, we received the invoice via our health insurance. The insurance company were billed CHF 20,000.

That’s equivalent to roughly $22k, or £17.5k.

The services provided by the gynaecologist to deliver our baby and provide postnatal care for Claudia, required about 30 minutes of work.

It’s understandable if your initial reaction is to think, “that’s a lot of money for half an hours work.”

You might also think doctors are overpaid for the work they do, or that there is too big of a pay disparity between doctors and other medical staff.

You might be right. I also strongly advocate for higher pay for all health workers.

But I view the gynaecologists invoice differently.

In reality, we didn’t hire the doctor to do half an hours work. She was there to ensure that our baby and Claudia were kept safe and healthy. We would have paid anything for that, regardless of how much work or time it required.

She was there for her expertise.

The doctor has endured years of study and made personal sacrifices to master her trade. She has gained hundreds and thousands of hours of experience. Her skillset carries enormous value (for anyone who needs help delivering a baby).

She also has staff, other consultants, a physical office, medical equipment and many other costs that support her business. It would be wrong to view the CHF 20k as personal profit.

She has earned the right to sell the value of her services, and not the time it takes to perform them.

You might be familiar with the fabled story about the ship repair man.

A giant ship suffered an engine failure. The ship owners tried one expert after another to resolve the issue. Nothing worked.

The owners were recommended to consult an elderly gentleman who had been fixing these types of ships all of his life. So they called the man and asked him to take a look.

He arrived with his bag of old tools, and carefully paced around the ships engine. The ship owners were watching him, hoping he could solve their issue.

After a few minutes the man pulled a small hammer from his tool bag, and gently tapped it against the ships engine.

The engine started instantly.

The owners were delighted and invited the man to send an invoice for his repair services.

The man put his tools away and agreed to send an invoice.

A week later, the ship owners were shocked to receive an invoice for $10,000.

“That’s ridiculous”, they thought. “He was only here for a few minutes and did little more than tap the engine with a hammer.”

The owners responded to the man’s invoice and requested that he itemise his expenses.

A week later, the itemised invoice arrived as requested. It read:

Tapping the engine with a hammer:.. $2

Knowing where to tap the engine.:: $9,998

Expertise can take years to accumulate, and seconds to dispense.

Why exhange time for money?

The concept emerged during the industrial revolution.

Factory owners used the time clock as a means of demonstrating fairness. They placed it on the wall for everyone to see. They rang loud bells to announce the beginning and end of a shift. They penalised tardiness.

“A minute is a minute. It’s all fair.”

It didn’t matter what function or expertise you brought to the factory. You were paid for your time.

A workers value was completely stripped away from them. It carried no relevance.

Despite the gigantic advances in technology, and vastly improved workers’ rights, many workplaces have failed to advance their industrial era operations.

• Technology is enabling (or encouraging) organisations to commoditise the value of their employees. Instead of being incentivised to innovate, they receive ‘bonuses‘ for recording their activities.
• The word ‘weekend‘ is a creation of the industrial revolution. Most industries still consider the working week to be Monday to Friday.
• Classrooms across the world display a clock on the wall, and ring a bell to signal when a lesson is over.
• Highly qualified experts with years of vast experience charge their clients by the hour.

None of this is wrong. It’s a choice to continue doing business this way.

Your Value is worth more than you realise.

I recognise it’s not easy to change business models or practices that were established long ago and have existed for decades.

But it is possible.

I’d even suggest it is preferred.

Clients have problems they want solved. They want results. Most customers couldn’t care how long a job takes, or how much you charge them per hour.

They are only interested in the bottom line.

Even if it means they pay more than what they wanted to or expected to. If their problem is solved, and solved to an exceptional standard, they are happy.

Last week, I worked with a photographer to update my website images, and also to capture some family pictures with our young baby.

The photographer is someone I know. She is a neighbour.

I told her what I was looking for and asked her if she could help. She created a bespoke solution. And then she offered me the package at a lower cost than her advertised program.

It’s possible she made the offer because she knows me and wanted to help me.

Here’s the truth…. following the shoot I asked her how her business was doing. She told me it was going well, before launching into a story about how little photographers earn in the UK, and how photographers are paid significantly more in the US.

And the even bigger truth, I was willing to pay her more. My priority was finding an expert who could produce high quality images, quickly and efficiently.

Perhaps I should reserve judgement until I receive the images: but in my experience working with her, backed up by testimonials from existing clients, she’s a brilliant photographer.

Until she believes in her value and stands firmly behind it, she’ll always be trading her time for money.

There is no truth to the belief that photographers are paid more money in the US. Even if the average salary is higher in the US today, it might not be true tomorrow.

Coincidentally, in the 1980’s the Swiss Franc was worth less than 0.5 a USD. Reality is highly changeable.

Time is the only commodity you cannot create more of.

Are you willing to stand powerfully for the expertise you have worked tirelessly to master?