| Topic Name: |
Doing the Independent thing... |
| Message Name: |
Hourly billing rates |
| Date Posted: |
07/12/2003 |
| In Reply To: |
Determine how much you want to make first. Then figure in all of your costs. A good rule of thumb is to take what you want to make say $100,000 for example and divide by 1000. This figure will take into account the possible uncertainty of being independant (you will make your $100,000 in 6 months) and roughly cover your costs.
There is a great book about becoming independant, selling your services, writing contracts and proposals, setting your rates, collecting from clients, and some other useful tidbits. It is "The Computer Consultant's Guide - Second Edition" by Janet Ruhl. Janet also has a website realrates.com. I think you woudl find this book and website very helpful.
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| Message: |
I would do value-billing. I would find out the value I bring to the table, annualise it, and charge a fraction of that amount.
In my experiences, even the most aggressive hourly rates fall way behind even the shyest value-billing fee structure. And IT client of mine picked up $13,000 for a four-hour project. On hourly rates, she would have made less than 10% of that.
I think consulting is about delivering tremendous client value for a fair investment in as little time and with as little physical work as humanly possible. But that is only me in a world in which so many so-called
"consultants" are basically outsourced labourers.
Cheers
Bald Dog (direct: bald.dog@di-squad.com)
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