What is Block-Time?

A block-time agreement is where an IT company sells their clients blocks of contracted time up-front, and then decreases that block of time every time they do work on the clients IT infrastructure.

Mavericks sell block-time as needed. Sold in block of 10 Hours.

Why move to Block-Time?

A Block-time agreement allows Mavericks to undertake work for you that you might normally hesitate engaging in. For instance, clients rarely see the benefit in backing up data – it’s a chore to them and one they don’t perceive the value in (until it’s too late and they’ve lost data!) – and if a clients backup failed then they are going to hesitate paying you to resolve the issue. But with a block-time agreement, experience shows me that clients are typically more open to you resolving these types of issues as they don’t feel they are paying anything more.

This sounds a little bit like Managed Services, doesn’t it – and indeed it is. While some IT business are content selling block-time and never moving to a flat-fee Managed Service agreement with their clients, others use block-time as a stepping stone to educate their clients as to why a flat-fee agreement would be better for them.