[TriLUG] How to get consulting work...

Chris Hedemark chris at yonderway.com
Sat Mar 16 20:46:55 EST 2002


On Sat, 2002-03-16 at 01:05, Jon Carnes wrote:
> I hope this helps some folks.  I'm interested to hear others adventures in 
> consulting as well.

Thanks for your post on that topic, Jon.  As you know I've recently
gotten back into consulting, and for the most part I've found it
rewarding.

There is a gotcha that you already know about that I wanted to share
with the list for anyone who is going to try consulting.  TERMS OF
SERVICE.

I always try to state up front what my expectations are (when I will be
paid, how often, what the client will provide, etc.) and what I intend
to deliver.  One of the most important aspects is to make sure your
client understands that you are either working on a time & materials
basis, or on a deliverables basis (pick one).  I had a client recently
that agreed to a job that I had estimated out at a few hours of work. 
Right up front I told the client that this would be an hourly
arrangement, and that I would be prepaid for my work (I always do this
for smaller jobs, as this totally eliminates the hassle of
collections).  I had estimated that under normal conditions the work
would take about three hours.  Any unused hours would go into a bucket
for future support work, or would be refunded to her.  If I was going to
go over the prepaid amount I would stop and discuss with her and ask for
more money for the extended period.

The client agreed to this without asking any questions.  I was prepaid
for my three hours and went to work.

I ended up finding a lot of problems in her system.  Apparently she
hired someone before me to do the same work, and he wasn't successful. 
He didn't do any cleanup and it was a mess in there.  Also her ISP had
really messed up her DNS tables.  I stopped and advised my client that
this was going to take more time, at least two or three hours.  She paid
me for two more hours and I continued.

Here is where I made my mistake.  Learn from this.  Out of the kindness
of my heart I kept going.  The job took about 9 hours total to get
done.  But it worked and it worked well.  The other problems were fixed.

Two days later the client emails me and asks for her custom
documentation.  I said no problem, just put some more prepaid hours in
the bucket and I'd get to work.  This is when things fell apart.  She
seemed to be under the impression that I was working on a deliverables
basis, and the estimate was a QUOTE.  She started talking lawsuits and
such.  Luckily I archived EVERYTHING, and my Paypal request for payment
was pretty explicit about the terms of our arrangement.   It clearly
spelled out that my terms were a time & materials basis, and that more
work would require more paid time.  Unfortunately I think she got so hot
headed when she was still under the assumption that I was working for
her under a deliverables basis, that she was too embarrassed to ever
speak to me again after she realized she had agreed to working with me
on an hourly basis.

This has only been a problem with one person.  If I were to work with
this person again I would have done two things differently:

#1) I realized she was not a technical person and had little to no
experience dealing with IT consultants.  I probably should have taken a
wee bit more time to make sure she understood what "time & materials"
means.

#2) I should have stopped when the prepaid hours ran out.

Most of the time folks accept my terms immediately.  Sometimes
negotiating rates can be nerve racking if you're not comfortable
haggling.  What I did to make it easy for myself is decide up front what
my rate is, and stick to it.  I charge a different rate for on site work
than I do for working from home, with a significant difference between
the two.  I have one client that prefers me to work primarily on-site
but the rest of the time I work from home.

Working from home can really broaden the size of your potential market. 
Instead of just marketing my services to folks in North Carolina, I can
do work literally all over the world.  I recently turned down some
on-site work in PA because it was a one time deal and working on site
for three days wouldn't justify the significant hassles involved with
filing for income tax in multiple states.  But I do work for that client
from home and will only pay NC income tax on that money.

-- 
***********************************************************
| Rev. Chris Hedemark, DD
| Hillsborough, NC
| http://yonderway.com
| GPG Public Key - http://yonderway.com/chris/hedemark.gpg
***********************************************************




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