January 05, 2026
The End of the "Billable Hour": Why We Sell Assets, Not Time.
The traditional consulting model is fundamentally broken. It relies on a perverse incentive: the longer the problem takes to solve, the more the consultant gets paid.
The "Soft Consulting" Trap
Organizations hire firms to address complexity. These firms deploy generalists who run workshops, conduct interviews, and produce a PowerPoint deck summarizing what the client already knew. Then they leave.
The "Hard Consultancy" Alternative
At AJS Strategic, we practice Hard Consultancy. We do not bill for "effort"; we bill for "assets." An asset is a durable capability—a Python script, a forensic audit algorithm, or a mapped workflow—that functions long after we have left the building.
When you buy an asset, you are buying the solution, not the time it took to build it.