Annelies Tjebbes, Founder of Roots & Rivers Consulting and a lifelong Vancity member, shares how unconventional decisions—like challenging the hourly rate and prioritizing rest and recovery—have helped her build a successful business.
I want to bring you into the world we’ve built at Roots & Rivers Consulting to take a look at how business can be done differently. Learn how we challenge conventional business practices and make them work for us.
1. Challenging the hourly rate
I’m trained as an engineer and started my career tracking every 15 minutes of work. Though I loved the company I worked for, this practice was soul-sucking. Many folks say you can’t run a consulting business without hourly rates, but here’s how we make it work.
At Roots & Rivers, we embrace value-based pricing. We believe that everyone’s time and expertise are equally valuable, and we reject the practice of putting a price tag on our time and of tracking and reporting our hours. For us, this means:
- Our clients put a price on what deliverables are worth to them based on how much value they will bring to their organization. This helps them feel energized about what their funds are going towards.
- Everyone works at different speeds. As long as the work gets done, we don’t micromanage how that happens. As a result, our team feels valued and that their boundaries are being respected.
- We use transparency, collective responsibility, and gentle firmness with clients and our team to make sure projects stay on track within scope.
How Vancity supports us.
Vancity’s online business banking, mentorship, and access to financial tools—like a line of credit —have ensured a solid handle on our business model and cash flow.
2. Aligning our business with our values
We know of countless consultants who subsidize their work with non-profits by increasing their rates with for-profit clients. Respectfully, we don’t believe in compromising on our values to make our business model work.
We select our clients based on values alignment and care for their work. We have a specific focus around Health & Wellbeing, Community Vibrancy, Economic Resilience, and Reducing Inequalities— and we center our work around these topics. For us, this means:
- We’re committed to the causes our clients are working towards and work alongside them on their journey to impact.
- Our team feels energized by the work, brings their lived and professional experiences to the table, and builds skills in alignment with their interests.
- We scope our projects realistically to ensure that our team is supported while we bring value to our clients.
How Vancity supports us.
- We’re inspired by the organizations Vancity supports and the community change they are working towards. Vancity’s commitment to change-making motivates us to continue aligning our business decisions with our values.
- We invest a portion of our profits into responsible investments through Vancity.
3. Prioritizing rest and recovery
Many entrepreneurs claim they can’t even take a weekend off of work. By building strong infrastructure and tools and centering individual well–being as a business, our team takes the breaks we need, and we were even able to support my fully offline maternity leave—a rare occurrence for female founders.
At Roots & Rivers, we believe in incorporating wellbeing into our practices and schedules and ensuring that we support each other to take time off for rest and recovery.
- We give all of our employees a comprehensive vacation and benefits package (in addition to a 2-week shutdown over winter holidays).
- We engage with projects through patient urgency; working efficiently but recognizing that change takes time and needs periods of rest and pause.
- We are piloting Rest & Recovery weeks where we pause on client projects so we can recharge and reset as a team.
How Vancity supports us.
- We tapped into the Vancity Member Health Benefits Plan to get us established with our first employee benefits program.
- Access to Vancity enviro™ Visa* Business card for staff and delegated access to online banking means we’ve been able to distribute financial responsibilities among team members.
4. Building and nurturing an ecosystem
Solopreneurship can be more profitable because of lower overhead. It can also be lonelier and lack the vibrancy of collaboration. Our model of a blended ecosystem with core staff and consultants who bring diverse backgrounds and experiences allows us to better serve our clients and learn from and with one another.
We are a group of over 25 teammates who have a deep respect for each other as individuals and professionals. Our ecosystem model allows for a team feel and a richness of collaboration and learning. We are also nimble and adaptable.
- We are transparent with our clients about our model. We highlight how it enables reliability to deliver on their work and allows us to bring subject-matter expertise to the table from a diverse team.
- We invest in professional development for our ecosystem members and support cross-learning and training.
- Our whole ecosystem gathers digitally once a quarter, and physically at our annual retreat and regular potluck dinners.
How Vancity supports us.
- Vancity’s Online Banking allows us to pay our ecosystem members in a timely manner to ensure they can manage their cash flow effectively.
- Through Vancity, we are registered as a Living Wage employer and pride ourselves on supporting the financial security and freedom of our ecosystem members.
Want to work with an organization that aligns its work and business model with its values? Connect with Roots & Rivers (connect@rootsandrivers.ca) to explore how we can support you in achieving your social and community impact.