Too many self-employed people charge on the basis of how hard they work as if the client will know or care.
No one wants to buy your sweat, they want the result you promised. In other words, “sell the hole, not the drill”, as Theodore Levitt said.
Selling by counting hours punishes efficiency and is therefore a conflict of interest. The longer the work takes, the better for you. The same goes for charging on the basis of output, where the more items you produce, the more you get paid. That incentivizes overproduction, as the output counts even if it’s not useful to the client.
No one is happy to pay for more therapy sessions, dentist appointments, or hours spent listening to a speech than they have to. When hiring experts, it’s not the amount of work that counts, it’s the results.
Also, the hourly logic was designed for people who turn screws or wash cars, meant to turn them into predictable “cogs” with repetitive, easily interchangeable roles where the value they produce stays constant.
Assessing value means taking note of the perceived value created but from the client’s perspective. If that work took you 10 minutes, that’s fair. You invested a lot of time into the topic in the last 10 years, there should be no need for you to hustle over this client’s case to create value.
A good measurement of value is one that both negotiators can understand and agree upon. Period.