Ditching Hourly

In 2017, Joel Miller came on Ditching Hourly episode 33 to talk about his recent switch to value pricing. Nine years later, Joel and his identical twin brother Alan still run The Sky Floor as a two-person shop. They do all the client work themselves, their average client has been with them for eight years, and they haven't hit a famine cycle in a long time, so they're not hungry for leads. Best of all, Joel has gone from working 80-hour weeks and making “a hilariously tiny fraction” of what he makes now to working normal hours and turning off his notifications at night and on weekends.
00:00 - Meet Joel Miller
00:46 - The Sky Floor Then and Now
02:00 - The Why Conversation in Practice
06:12 - Building Client Lifetime Value
08:50 - The Client Who Came Back
10:48 - Value-Based Monthly Retainers
12:26 - Scaling Without Headcount
16:03 - Indirect Word of Mouth
18:08 - What Keeps Clients for a Decade
25:25 - Spotting Hidden Opportunities
29:01 - Think Like a Business Owner
37:22 - Curiosity and the Entrepreneurial Spirit
41:53 - People Over Profits
44:51 - Never Stop Asking Why
48:36 - Where to Find Joel
Joel Miller is the co-owner of The Sky Floor, a digital problem-solving agency he runs with his identical twin brother Alan. They started the company about 18 years ago as a web design shop in the Chicago area and now handle everything from websites and LMS systems to Google Ads and CRM replacements. Joel and Alan do all the client work themselves and have built long-term relationships averaging eight years per client. Joel appeared on Ditching Hourly episode 33 in 2017 to discuss his early experiments with value pricing. Try his free Capacity Tax tool to see whether a client is blocking your next growth move.

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Sales Conversations That Don’t Feel Sleazy — live Oct 20 at noon ET
Learn how to structure sales conversations so the buyer tells you what the outcome is worth without feeling sleazy or trying to manipulate them.
The live 90-minute Zoom workshop is $450 and includes the recording, transcript, summary notes, and a practical worksheet.
Learn more and register » https://jonathanstark.com/sgs

Software entrepreneur, author, and investor Rob Walling joined me on Ditching Hourly to explain why faster software development does not remove the need to validate a software product idea before building it.

We talked about the future of SaaS in the age of AI, the 2-20-200 validation framework, customer conversations, finding ideas, turning client work into a product, starting marketing early, choosing an ideal customer profile, competitive research, and the advantages of vertical vs orthogonal vs horizontal product positioning.
00:00 - Meet Rob Walling
01:28 - Idea to Traction
02:45 - Who Builds SaaS Now?
05:18 - SaaS in the Age of AI
09:23 - Validate Before You Build
16:29 - Better Customer Conversations
17:47 - Finding and Choosing Ideas
20:46 - Turning Client Work into SaaS
26:24 - Market from Day One
28:53 - Find and Refine Your ICP
32:09 - Competitive Research and Positioning
35:48 - The DNA of a Great SaaS Business
38:26 - Vertical, Horizontal, and Orthogonal SaaS
Rob Walling is a software entrepreneur, author, and investor. He hosts Startups for the Rest of Us, a podcast he said has run for 16 years, and co-founded TinySeed, where he invests in SaaS bootstrappers. He started Drip in 2012 and sold it in 2016. Idea to Traction is his sixth book and revisits the early stages of software entrepreneurship. Learn more and pre-order the book at Idea to Traction.

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Sales Conversations That Don’t Feel Sleazy — live Oct 20 at noon ET
Learn how to structure sales conversations so the buyer tells you what the outcome is worth without feeling sleazy or trying to manipulate them.
The live 90-minute Zoom workshop is $450 and includes the recording, transcript, summary notes, and a practical worksheet.
Learn more and register » https://jonathanstark.com/sgs

Experience designer and BRC Imagination Arts founder Bob Rogers joined me on Ditching Hourly to explain how to create experiences that change behavior instead of merely entertaining. His new book, Deep Story, is a practical guide to doing exactly that.

We talked about defining the change before choosing tools, looking past requested deliverables, finding the emotional connection between a brand and its audience, starting with the heart, and turning information into action.
00:00 - Meet Bob Rogers and Deep Story
01:57 - Lessons from Disneyland's Magic Shop
03:57 - It's All About Them
07:36 - The Audience Is the Instrument
10:27 - Failing Into the Right Career
12:24 - Define the Change Before the Tools
16:51 - Look Past the Requested Deliverable
20:11 - Hire the Team, Not the Idea
22:41 - Use Phases and Set Enduring Goals
24:53 - Find the Shared Emotional Trigger
27:55 - A Brand Is What the Audience Says It Is
32:09 - SCAD's Kitchen Table Story
35:35 - Start with the Heart, Then Focus
38:32 - Information Is Not Transformation
42:35 - Books and Where to Find Bob
Bob Rogers is the founder of BRC Imagination Arts, where he has spent decades creating visitor experiences for corporations and museums. He began his career demonstrating magic at Disneyland and later developed concepts for films at Walt Disney Imagineering. His new book, Deep Story, presents a practical approach to building experiences that make an emotional connection and prompt action. Learn more at BRC Imagination Arts.

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Sales Conversations That Don’t Feel Sleazy — live Oct 20 at noon ET
Learn how to structure sales conversations so the buyer tells you what the outcome is worth without feeling sleazy or trying to manipulate them.
The live 90-minute Zoom workshop is $450 and includes the recording, transcript, summary notes, and a practical worksheet.
Learn more and register » https://jonathanstark.com/sgs

NetSuite data migration consultant Paul Giese joined me on Ditching Hourly to share how triple specialization helped him build a highly referable, fixed-price consulting business.

Paul explains how his accounting background, NetSuite expertise, and data-migration focus combine into a defensible niche, plus how specialization supports referrals, delegation, and value-based fixed fees.
00:00 - Introduction
00:20 - Paul's Background and Business
01:01 - From Accounting to Entrepreneurship
03:21 - Finding the NetSuite Migration Niche
06:02 - The Benefits of Specialization
12:07 - Becoming Easy to Refer
16:00 - The Three-Part Expertise Moat
20:48 - The Opportunity for Specialized Firms
24:10 - Moving from Hourly to Fixed Fees
29:08 - The Freedom of Fixed Pricing
31:08 - Building Trust and Reducing Risk
36:08 - Contractors, Delegation, and Quality
40:13 - Pricing by Value Instead of Volume
42:56 - Testing the Ceiling on Price
47:36 - Lessons and Closing Thoughts
Guest Bio
Paul Giese is the founder of Optimal Data Consulting, a firm specializing in data migration services for companies implementing NetSuite. With an accounting background from Baylor University and experience in Big Four public accounting, Paul has helped more than 100 clients migrate their data. Connect with Paul on LinkedIn or on his website.

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Sales Conversations That Don’t Feel Sleazy — live Oct 20 at noon ET
Learn how to structure sales conversations so the buyer tells you what the outcome is worth without feeling sleazy or trying to manipulate them.
The live 90-minute Zoom workshop is $450 and includes the recording, transcript, summary notes, and a practical worksheet.
Learn more and register » https://jonathanstark.com/sgs

Growth consultant and author of The Damn Rules, Nick Richtsmeier joined me on Ditching Hourly to talk about why internet-based inbound marketing systems have stopped working, aren't coming back, and what might work instead.
00:27 Nick's Background and Work
01:10 Why the Internet Is Toast
03:09 What Distribution Means Now
04:36 Inbound as Attention Arbitrage
07:56 The Attention Economy Is a Casino
13:37 Five Major Disruptions
22:36 Trust and Attachment as Scarcity
25:34 Friction as a Load-Bearing System
30:10 Restoring Trust Through Human Contact
35:01 Selling When People Are Scrolling
39:19 Notice Meetings and Relationship Networks
41:47 Why Friction Polishes Ideas
50:37 The Damn Rules and Closing Thoughts
Nick's bio:
Nick Richtsmeier is the creator of Trust-Made Growth® and the author of The Damn Rules: How Vulnerability, Inefficiency, and Love Liberate Leaders from the Trustbroken Economy, a strategist and cultural navigator helping founder-led, relationship-driven firms build durable businesses in the age of AI extraction and from the wreckage of the trustbroken economy.
Nick's links:
Personal » https://nickrichtsmeier.com
Book » https://nickrichtsmeier.com
Newsletter » https://damnrulesbook.com
LinkedIn » https://linkedin.com/in/nickrichtsmeier
Podcast » “Damns Given with Nick Richtsmeier” available on all major platforms

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Sales Conversations That Don’t Feel Sleazy — live Oct 20 at noon ET
Learn how to structure sales conversations so the buyer tells you what the outcome is worth without feeling sleazy or trying to manipulate them.
The live 90-minute Zoom workshop is $450 and includes the recording, transcript, summary notes, and a practical worksheet.
Learn more and register » https://jonathanstark.com/sgs