Itâ€™s the Economy: Whatâ€™s an Idea Worth?

Illustration by Jasper Rietman

Like a lot of accountants, Jason Blumer never really wanted to be an accountant; he wanted to play guitar in a hair-metal band. But like most guys who want to play guitar in a hair-metal band, Blumer eventually realized that there wasn't much money in touring bars and being paid in beer-smeared $20 bills. So he changed gears and decided to follow his dad into what seemed like one of the more steady businesses around. After college, he bought some suits, joined a midsize firm in South Carolina and processed his clients' payroll and tax returns. He billed them by the hour. He hated every second of it.

Deep thoughts this week:

1. Billing by the hour no longer makes economic sense.

2. But how else will we measure value?

3. In today's economy, you can't be a commodity.

It's the Economy

Adam Davidson translates often confusing and sometimes terrifying economic and financial news.

Blumer, 42, wanted to infuse a bit more rock 'n' roll into his industry. So when he eventually took over his father's small firm, he made his own rules: There would be no time sheets, no dress code and, most radical of all, no billable hours. He was convinced, in fact, that the billable hour was part of a series of mistakes that took all the fun out of his profession. To him, it seemed like a relic of a dying economic age and one that was depriving his industry of billions in profit.

The notion of charging by units of time was popularized in the 1950s, when the American Bar Association was becoming alarmed that the income of lawyers was falling precipitously behind that of doctors (and, worse, dentists). The A.B.A. published an influential pamphlet, "The 1958 Lawyer and His 1938 Dollar," which suggested that the industry should eschew fixed-rate fees and replicate the profitable efficiencies of mass-production manufacturing. Factories sold widgets, the idea went, and so lawyers should sell their services in simple, easy-to-manage units. The A.B.A. suggested a unit of time — the hour — which would allow a well-run firm to oversee its staff's productivity as mechanically as a conveyor belt managed its throughput. This led to generations of junior associates working through the night in hopes of making partner and abusing the next crop. It was adopted by countless other service professionals, including accountants.

During the past few decades, as the economic logic of the United States has changed, global trade and technology have made it all but impossible for any industry to make much profit in mass production of any sort. (Companies like G.E., Nike and Apple learned early on that the real money was in the creative ideas that can transform simple physical products far beyond their generic or commodity value.) Similar forces have ripped through professional services, particularly accounting, a profession that, until recently, was little changed from its 16th-century roots. Software like TurboTax has made the most basic work worth little. Cheaper accountants in India, Ireland, Eastern Europe and Latin America have steadily taken over the more routine types of business, though not quite as voraciously as once predicted.

Just as Apple doesn't want to be in the generic MP3-player business, Blumer didn't want to be just one more guy competing to charge a few hundred dollars an hour to do your taxes. A few years ago, he said, he realized that the billable hour was undercutting his value — it was his profession's commodity, suggesting to clients that he and his colleagues were interchangeable containers of finite, measurable units that could be traded for money. Perhaps the biggest problem, though, was that billing by the hour incentivized long, boring projects rather than those that required specialized, valuable insight that couldn't (and shouldn't) be measured in time. Paradoxically, the billable hour encouraged Blumer and his colleagues to spend more time than necessary on routine work rather than on the more nuanced jobs.

But those complex problems were the ones that Blumer wanted to solve, and he also knew his insights were more valuable than the time it took him to conjure them. So he identified a niche — creative professionals who struggled to manage their finances as their start-ups became mature businesses — and he endeavored to help his clients make (and save) enough money that they would gladly pay a significant fee without asking about the hours it took him to figure out what to do. Blumer has been so successful in his approach that he has become a leading voice among a national band of accountants who call themselves the Cliff Jumpers. Many Cliff Jumpers have abandoned the traditional bill-by-the-hour approach to focus on noncommodity accounting solutions for specific client groups. One focuses on entrepreneurs hoping to sell their new businesses; several work with people who are terrified about starting a small business.