How do you bill for time spent Researching and Project Management?
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I've been approached by a company that has a knock down list of 5 software packages they're looking at to purchase. They have realized this is not something they want to undertake alone. How would you guys bill to research the software offerings, create some data for them to look at, make recommendations on the IT side etc.
How do you bill for research?
How do you bill for Project Management?
How do you propose said opportunities?
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@hubtechagain said:
How do you bill for research?
How do you bill for Project Management?
No reason to consider them special items. Research and PM is part of every project. If you bill by the hour, the hours for these are the same as hours for anything else. If you were internal IT, these things would be being done by the same people, at the same rates as any other work that they do each day. There is no reason to consider them special, exceptions or anything else.
So just track hours. Work is work. Bill it like anything else.
You can do complex things like try to hide this work and pad billing elsewhere - but this causes a misalignment of work, trains a customer to have unreasonable expectations and makes the work that you actually do / documented deliverables be different from the vale that you provide. By doing this, you are just begging to do all the research and PM for free and have someone come in later, undercut you by not trying to hide some of the work and get the billable work after you've done the hard parts for free.
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i've burned myself in the past for not billing for this. left huge "chunks of change" on the table.
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so how would you propose this to a client. Will research said things for $xxx/hr ? instead of trying to flat fee it?
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@hubtechagain said:
i've burned myself in the past for not billing for this. left huge "chunks of change" on the table.
It's a really common mistake with MSPs and other IT service providers. There is this feeling with IT pros that anyone providing IT is supposed to magically have all knowledge and experience before hand. It's totally bizarre and obviously impossible. But often MSPs think that they can't bill for critical work. No other field is like this, I have no idea where this feeling comes from. My guess is that it has to do with so many technical service companies being run by technical people instead of business people. Not only does lacking good business oversight cause potential issues from a "lack of experience", but IT pros specifically are often the worst people at business acumen and understanding. So it exacerbates an already difficult problem.
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@hubtechagain said:
so how would you propose this to a client. Will research said things for $xxx/hr ? instead of trying to flat fee it?
It would depend on the engagement. Normally it wouldn't be a line item, research is part of all billable hours. Just increase the number of hours of billable, technical work to account for the research portion. This is easier for many reasons but possibly most importantly because it trains the customers that research is part of IT work and they should never expect research to be free, stated or unnecessary.
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A line i liked in our meeting from their owner was "if we decide to work with you, this is the last time you will be in our building for free." i thought that was cool to hear.
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Does your ticket system not have a work log to keep track of it.
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I just invoice using fresh books. So no.
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@hubtechagain We bill for research, it is not a different rate. The client is paying for our skills. Correctly researching and analyzing technology choices is part our of skills. Depending on the exact scenario, I have billed part to ourselves and part to the client but that is rare.
We also do not have any fixed hours of billing per month to a client. Everything is billed hourly to all clients.
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Pure research for something the client wants, That I understand billing them for completely. But often a client is expecting you to have knowledge of what they want you to do when it comes to a specific task, Installing a SAN for example.
When a doctor is learning, the patient is billed for both the student's time and the teacher's, only one.
The apprentice system is what we really seem to be missing these days.
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@Dashrender said:
Pure research for something the client wants, That I understand billing them for completely. But often a client is expecting you to have knowledge of what they want you to do when it comes to a specific task, Installing a SAN for example.
That's just a bad expectation. Don't give in to it. Don't allow them to set unreasonable expectations. Clients will do all kinds of crazy things at your expensive if they let you.
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@Dashrender said:
The apprentice system is what we really seem to be missing these days.
We are missing that, it is true, but that doesn't solve this kind of problem.
IT is a "research nearly every situation" job. Research is part of doing IT. There is no "learn up front then do" like in many fields. And no "annual refresher." IT isn't like that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The apprentice system is what we really seem to be missing these days.
We are missing that, it is true, but that doesn't solve this kind of problem.
IT is a "research nearly every situation" job. Research is part of doing IT. There is no "learn up front then do" like in many fields. And no "annual refresher." IT isn't like that.
I have to keep remembering the difference between 'bench work' and 'IT work'. That said, I still can't imagine hiring a consultant at $250+/hr to learn how to build a SAN - I fully expect them to already know. Could they run into problems, SURE! will I have to pay for the troubleshooting of that problem, again sure/yes and I'm completely OK with that. But when I'm paying that kind of scratch I don't expect the person to be sending hours and hours learning how to do the setup.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The apprentice system is what we really seem to be missing these days.
We are missing that, it is true, but that doesn't solve this kind of problem.
IT is a "research nearly every situation" job. Research is part of doing IT. There is no "learn up front then do" like in many fields. And no "annual refresher." IT isn't like that.
I have to keep remembering the difference between 'bench work' and 'IT work'. That said, I still can't imagine hiring a consultant at $250+/hr to learn how to build a SAN - I fully expect them to already know. Could they run into problems, SURE! will I have to pay for the troubleshooting of that problem, again sure/yes and I'm completely OK with that. But when I'm paying that kind of scratch I don't expect the person to be sending hours and hours learning how to do the setup.
Why not? If they put the "upfront" time into research and developing a plan chances are they won't have as much troubleshooting and problems for you to deal with... in addition they will probably be able to more quickly assist you in the future with that SAN (or really anything) in the even that something goes poorly.
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@Dashrender said:
I have to keep remembering the difference between 'bench work' and 'IT work'. That said, I still can't imagine hiring a consultant at $250+/hr to learn how to build a SAN - I fully expect them to already know.
Really? Do you feel that since you are paid right now to do "IT" that any and every task that comes up at work is your responsibility to already know and there is nothing that you should already know - including unique situations that no one but you has ever or might ever encounter? If so, why? And even moreso, how?
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@Dashrender said:
But when I'm paying that kind of scratch I don't expect the person to be sending hours and hours learning how to do the setup.
Define "that kind of scratch?" Problem is, people always define that as "whatever they are paying." Best Buy says "for $12/hour, I expect these people to know everything that there is about desktops!!" But we all know that even seven figure people don't "know everything about desktops" and have to not only research specific situations but also have to continuously research new patches, products, techniques, threats, versions, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
But when I'm paying that kind of scratch I don't expect the person to be sending hours and hours learning how to do the setup.
how do you expect them to know how to do it then? Where does the knowledge for your scenario come from?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I have to keep remembering the difference between 'bench work' and 'IT work'. That said, I still can't imagine hiring a consultant at $250+/hr to learn how to build a SAN - I fully expect them to already know.
Really? Do you feel that since you are paid right now to do "IT" that any and every task that comes up at work is your responsibility to already know and there is nothing that you should already know - including unique situations that no one but you has ever or might ever encounter? If so, why? And even moreso, how?
No, because I'm a full time employee. But when you hire a consultant, you're hiring knowledge and probably experience. The unique situations are the exception (I really dislike using that word in this situation because I feel that you're going to come along and tell me that every job is unique, there for an exception).
When I'm talking about learning I'm talking about someone who does not understand the basics of how to setup a Cisco Switch being sent as a consultant to setup said switch. Not a situation where someone has been hired to install a switch and wasn't told there are three VLANs they have to connect to once they arrive.
