[Lula-biz] Re: [Lula] OT: Consulting Rate

[Christopher Smith]

Note this is redirected to lula-biz.

On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 08:49, Joe Doehler wrote:
> At 10:09 PM 7/21/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>  >...
>  >  I'm wondering what kind of
>  >consulting rates are people out their charging? I was thinking $70/hour .
>  >...
> 
> I would advise you not to have a flat rate. I think the best answer is that 
> your rate must be based on the value of your service, as perceived by your 
> customer. This will allow you to have a number of different consulting jobs 
> with completely different rates.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd agree with this advice. If you are new at
consulting, you'll likely have a hard time doing a good job estimating
this kind of thing correctly. The problem with fixed price consulting is
that if you get the number wrong you end up holding the short end of the
stick (or you end up with a pissed off customer).

If you are doing a job that you've done several times before, and feel
confident about how much effort is involved, then going fixed price is
great.

Typically though, with consulting, I find that it's hard to be in that
situation, if for no other reason than the client doesn't really have a
firm enough grip on what they need. This makes it tough to gage how much
work will be involved. This is particularly true for short term
engagements, which typically have a problem description similar to "just
fix it". ;-) With longer term engagements, you may have a more detailed
description, but typically the work is far more complex, so things get
out of hand rapidly.

> In general, you can charge higher rates when the required expertise is very 
> narrow, or when the job requires an unusual blend of expertise (i.e. 
> requires more than one average employee;) in your case, for example, you 
> could charge more than average if the job you have in mind requires 
> expertise in both Access and networking.

Arguably though, they could go with 2 consultants (assuming the Access
work is not directly related to the networking work), each specialized
in one area, and both with a fairly limited skill set (read: they'd be
very cheap). Sure there are advantages to using one consultant, but you
are limited in terms of how much of a premium you charge.

> The usual stories apply as well: you can charge more if you have written 
> published articles, have given public speeches, have a proven track record 
> and/or a good list of references.
> 
> A good entry level book is "Consulting for Dummies" (no joking...)

Excellent advise. The other advice I usually have for consultants just
starting out is to join some kind of a consulting company. Big
consulting companies will help your resume, small ones will (ironically)
help you learn the ropes better. Either way the experience is very
helpful. Both of them will help you to establish yourself, and will help
you to stay consistently employed until you are more established.

-- 
Christopher Smith <x at xman.org>
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