Points of Interest

00:01 – 01:04 – Framing the PM/AM Pricing Question: Marcel welcomes listeners, introduces Carson Pierce, and frames the central question agencies face around whether and how to charge for account and project management time.
01:04 – 02:14 – Why This Issue Persists: Carson explains why underpricing project and account management work continues to surface across agencies despite increased industry maturity.
02:14 – 03:28 – The Myth That Clients Won’t Pay: Carson challenges the belief that clients resist paying for PM and AM work and reframes these roles as valuable parts of delivery.
03:30 – 04:32 – Why PM and AM Time Is Hard to Track: Carson outlines how fragmented tasks, short work intervals, and multi-client meetings make accurate time tracking impractical.
04:33 – 06:20 – Pricing Model Confusion as the Root Cause: Marcel connects PM/AM underpricing to weak separation between price, scope, and cost, especially in time-based billing models.
06:21 – 07:25 – The ABR Distortion Effect: Carson explains how excluding PM time inflates average billable rate and hides true delivery economics.
07:25 – 08:24 – Two Ways to Price PM and AM Work: Marcel introduces the two viable approaches—pricing PM/AM directly in scope or absorbing the cost through margin targets.
08:24 – 09:50 – When Client Pushback Actually Appears: Carson explains why most clients accept reasonable PM allocations and why resistance typically signals excessive or poorly designed PM effort.
09:51 – 14:02 – Why Time-Tracking Fixes Often Fail: Carson reviews common PM tracking approaches and explains why they frequently add overhead without producing actionable insight.
14:03 – 19:59 – Building PM Costs Into Margin Targets: Marcel explains how agencies can model PM and AM costs directly or indirectly based on tracking feasibility and role structure.
20:00 – 29:00 – Structuring Account and Project Management Roles: Marcel and Carson discuss when to separate AM and PM roles, referencing Brett Harned’s perspective and tying structure to work complexity.
29:01 – 36:13 – Sales Allocation, Overhead Clarity, and Wrap-Up: The episode concludes with guidance on allocating AM time to sales only when explicit, avoiding circumstantial overhead, and reinforcing intentional PM pricing.

Show Notes

Brett Harned - Agency consultant and advocate for separating account and project management roles.
Related Episode: Casey Brown on pricing increases and margin correction.

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PM/AM Time in Pricing, With Carson Pierce

The Agency Profit Podcast