Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Shock & Awe in Professional Billing 4-16-25
Wed, 16 Apr 2025
In this episode, Scott Becker shares a lesson from recent experiences with service providers – always ask for an estimate before starting a project.
Chapter 1: Who is Scott Becker and what is the focus of this podcast episode?
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Today's discussion is shock and awe in professional billing. So this ties into a concept that we talk about often and has been, again, come to light as have dealt with some professional services firms.
Chapter 2: Why is asking for an estimate before starting a project important?
some other projects and so forth, where somebody, and I won't mention names, forgot to get an estimate first of what they're going to charge. And so one of my core thoughts in life is, and it takes a lot of discipline to do this because we're all supposed to want to ask the hard questions.
Chapter 3: What lessons did Scott learn from recent billing experiences?
And so sometimes I screw up on this as well, but the most recent screw ups were some of my closest colleagues in life and they weren't screw ups. I say that jokingly, but you can't start a project without asking for an estimate. And it's in getting a sense of what it's going to cost and what they're going to do and trying to control a little bit what they're going to do.
Chapter 4: How often do professional billing issues arise without an estimate?
So what happens is periodically, I would say 90% of the time, if you don't ask for an estimate, it works out fine. Most people are good, good professionals. They're not trying to screw you. They're not trying to run up the bill. They're not trying to take advantage. It's that 10% that leave a lasting impression. Most recently, working with some law firm on something.
Not that long ago, working on a painter with something. It could be in any place in life. But the core concept is... you get that shock and awe in their bills. Like, wow, who's got the guts to bill like that? That's really impressive, but I hate you. And then second is the advice that comes out of this is don't ever start a project without asking for an estimate first. That's the real concept.
Again, thank you for listening to the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We'll be back with you with a couple more episodes today. We hope you enjoy this and God bless you all for listening. Thank you very, very much.
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