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Average consultant fees

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:10:36 +0000

Average consultant rates tend to be, well, typical. If you’re hiring or working as an average consultant rates should be lacklustre – because, well, they’re average! What’s more important is the value provided by the consultant. It’s not so much about the cost of hiring the consultant as it is about the value of the consultant’s solution.

For example, say you hire a graphic design consultant for $200 to come up with a design for a new logo. Another consultant charges $7,500, but includes presentation of three concepts, mock ups of three concepts, a trademark review, exploration of one of those concepts, and three rounds of revisions to the chosen concept, plus unlimited follow up for 30 days, a presentation to help you launch the logo to your organization, and a customized style guide to help you manage your new intellectual property. Sure, the second consultant “costs” more up front, but the value and cost savings from the solution are tremendous.

So, when looking at average consultant rates, ask yourself: is this an average consultant? If you’re hiring a consultant, do you want average results? If you are a consultant, do you provide average results? Look at the value of the solution, not the dollar amount.

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Work out your hourly rate

admin — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:09:21 +0000

Work out your hourly rate considering all the important factors and it could mean the difference between just scraping by versus making a sizable income.

In order to work out your hourly rate you have to consider more than the going rate. Really, you should be thinking about your overall fee structure and the way you want to charge for your expertise. Rather than try to work out your hourly rate, first consider all the options:

Set fees based on the project;
Set fees based on performance;
Work out your hourly rate and charge by the hour;
Set consulting fees by using real-life data.
Among other options.

Instead of wondering how to work out your hourly rate, consider other methods of charging for your time and expertise. Which method will work best for you? Which method works best for your industry? How do other consultants in your niche bill?

Even if you do work out an hourly rate, be sure you’re considering all the relevant costs that consultants occur.

If it’s time to work out your hourly rate, first consider purchasing my guidebook to make sure you’re covering all the bases: Consulting Fees: A Guide for Independent Consultants. Remember, you’re worth it, and your rates should reflect that.

Kid health insurance plans

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:07:41 +0000

Kid health insurance plans – if you’ve got kids, you may wonder about what sort of health insurance plan you should be looking at. If you’re in the process of evaluating plans that provide health coverage for your children, consider the following:

Does your own plan (as a parent) cover your kids?
Can your kids use COBRA (in the US) to extend your plan when they turn 18 or graduate college?
Can you buy a short term plan to cover, for example, time when your kids are unemployed or in college?
Do your children qualify for State Children’s Health Insurance Program (US) or Medicaid?
Does your government provide health insurance?

Take a look at all factors in the plan, not just the monthly or annual fee. What’s the copay? Is there a deductible? Does the plan cover everything you need? Is it indemnity, managed care or consumer health driven?

What have you learned as you’ve looked at health insurance plans for children?

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Average IT consulting rates – tips and tricks

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:45:17 +0000

Average IT consulting rates may be part of doing your due diligence. If you’re looking for average IT consulting rates, you have to first identify your goals in seeking it.

Rates if you’re an IT consultant

Identifying average IT consulting rates if you’re a consultant can help you find out what others in your field charge. But it’s not particularly useful for setting your own consulting fees. Really, all you’re finding out is the average. And averages don’t tell much. You need to figure out what’s behind the fees – competitive enviroment, market situations, price elasticity, marketing efforts, experience and so on. If you just look at the average, you’re not getting a clear idea of what rates go with what consultants either. Be sure to take a broader and deeper view, so that you know whether you’re talking about computer consulting fees for recent grads doing work on eLance or senior IT consultants doing work for Fortune 500 firms.

Rates if you want to hire an IT consultant

Knowing average IT consulting rates only tells you the average. It doesn’t tell you what you’re getting for your money. In fact, looking at an hourly rate tells you nothing about the final bill or the quality of the work done. It doesn’t tell you what’s included in the services or even whether the consultant shows up when you call. So, if you’re looking to hire an IT consultant, be sure to get proposals from at least three or four consultants — and interview more than that.

Want more detailed information? Check out Consulting Fees: A Guide for Independent Consultants.

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Best request for award nomination ever

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 18:13:19 +0000

This week, I received this email from Kerri Carlson. It was one of the most hilarious, moving and accurate portrayals of being a parent entrepreneur ever! Having written Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur for Moms, I just had to laugh out loud and agree with what Kerri shares in this email. (Reprinted with permission.) For what it’s worth, Kerri, a championship gymnast and her sister, Lynn, a former Olympic runner, are co-owners of the Every Woman in the World Conference series.

I am writing to let you know that I am in the running to win The SavvyMom Mom Entrepreneur of The Year contest…..did you: vote for me? It could mean I could win $22K in prizes, including $5000 cash or else I would NOT be up in the middle of the night sending this e-mail…my mom is going to wring my neck….

Bear in my pool.

But since I am up (because I just fed baby John – now almost 3 months old) and cannot go back to sleep, I thought I would give you a glimpse at what it means to be a mom entrepreneur. My mind is racing because I don’t know when else I will have a chance to send this e-mail since my toddlers are going to be up at 6am and I will be up to my eyeballs in boxes because we are moving this weekend. My mom and dad are here to help me with the kids and my priorities this week (other than potty-training my two-year old and packing and cleaning) have been buying a bunch of bumGenius cloth diapers off of Craig’s List and emptying and re-filling our 4ft. deep plastic pool that a bear took a bath in! I got the pool for $20 at a garage sale last summer (it is worth about $150) and it nicely complements the 3D Sharkbite slip-n-slide and two wading pools in our backyard that Uncle Ryan got for Max and Anna. You can imagine my surprise at seeing the head of the bear (his body was submerged) when I was (by myself) trying to haul the kids into the car at 7pm last Friday to take supper to daddy Scott who was still working.

So….other than having to get the rental house that we are in ready today for a showing (the house is for sale) and then getting locked out of the house upon our return, and of course getting the schedule and workshop leaders and details for every WOMAN – Victoria: A Day of Activity (October 2) sorted out – I managed to sit down while nursing the baby to watch my two naked kids enjoy water fun in the backyard, and well….I cannot thank you enough for voting for me if you already have or voting for me if you still can. I feel like I have already won the contest based on incredible comments that people have left…..

Anyway, PLEASE DO vote for me! You can use multiple e-mail addresses. And thank you for understanding that your vote has/would mean a huge deal to the every WOMAN business and concept that my sister, Lynn (single mother of 4 kids) and I co-founded to inspire through physical activity. We love what we do and we would love to do more to help people of all shapes and sizes get off the couch and get active!

Thank you again,

Kerri Carlson

Don’t you think she deserves a nomination?

When you should subcontract?

admin — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:55:21 +0000

Dear Consultant Journal:

I’ve been running my consulting business for a few years now. I have established a network and I get a lot of leads. And sometimes I’m working on project teams where I know that, if I was in the lead, I could be managing some of the vendors. How do you know when you should start subcontracting?

- A.L.

Dear A.L.:

Ultimately, it’s up to you and the amount of measured risk you’re willing to take. But learning to subcontract can be very rewarding. For example, the founder of this site, Andrea Coutu, grew her freelance writing business into a strategic management consulting firm, which means she doesn’t have to be there 24/7 to be making money. The great thing about involving other people is that you don’t have to do EVERYTHING yourself, you don’t have to know everything and you don’t have to be be working on that project to be making money from it. It’s unfortunate that many freelancers and consultants feel compelled to do all the work themselves and then end up working MORE than they ever wanted to. If you start subcontracting, you might find that "risk" gives you more control!

Check out seven signs that tell it’s time to start subcontracting.

Personal inventory – taking stock of yourself

admin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:09:50 +0000

Personal inventory taking a.k.a. taking stock of your unique attributes can help you determine your future in self employment. Your personal inventory can help you figure out how your skills, experiences, strengths, weaknesses, goals and interests all fit together. By getting a better sense of your personal inventory, you can figure out who you are and what you have to offer – and just how self employment might fit into that.

Personal inventory can launch your dreams

Many people dream of self employment, but freeze up when it comes to actually doing something about it. That’s understandable. Not every dream needs to be explored. But taking the time to figure out what your dreams are and how who you are fits into those dreams can help you uncover your potential. And a personal inventory can help you explore who you are in depth.

Personal inventory can help with overcoming obstacles

Moreover, by taking the time to work through your dreams and interests, you may discover solutions to problems you thought were unsolvable. For example, some people worry about letting go of their day jobs, so, for them, starting a side business may be the best option. Others worry about carrying all the weight on their own shoulders, so they seek out business partners, joint venture partners and mentors. Still others get nervous about income fluctuation, so they build up solid emergency funds.

A personal inventory can help you get a strong sense of who you are, so you can build an action plan to achieve your dreams. And that confidence will serve you in good stead, whatever path you pursue.

If you’d like to work through a personal inventory, consider our Discover Your Inner Consultant or, for parents, Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur (for Moms).

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What to charge for consulting – 5 starting points

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 07:54:32 +0000

Knowing what to charge for consulting can be tricky if you haven’t got a plan. But, with a little research and planning, you’ll be able to work out what to charge for consuting fees — and say it with confidence. Our Consulting Fee Guide goes into detail, but the following articles can help you get a sense of how to maximize your rate.

Consider:

working through calculations aimed at setting consulting fee rates
writing a business plan
honing your selling skills
determine whether could you be making more doing something else
looking at subcontracting work

For more information, search this site, visit the archives or check out Consulting Fees: A

Guide for Independent Consultants.

Debt snowball method

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:29:02 +0000

Debt snowball method — have you heard of it? The debt snowball method is a simple debt management strategy that combines psychological motivation with an effective debt reduction strategy.

Debts can feel overwhelming, especially when you have multiple creditors each seeking their minimum payments. But the debt snowball method may help you feel in control of your finances.

In a nutshell, the debt snowball method works as follows:

Make all of your required minimum payments on all of your loans every month;
List all of your loans from lowest amount owing to highest amount owing;
Funnel all extra and available income to the loan on which you owe the least amount of money (Loan A). Continue doing so until Loan A is paid off.
Once Loan A (your smallest loan) has been paid off, choose the next smallest loan (Loan B) and funnel all available income into that debt. But there’s one more key step…
Remember the minimum payment that you used to pay into Loan A, but you don’t have to pay it anymore because Loan A has been eliminated? Well, set aside that minimum payment amount, but commit that payment every single month to Loan B instead.
Continue until all debts have been eliminated.

The appeal of the debt snowball method is that, by choosing to pay off your smallest debts first, you see results, which motivate you to stay with your debt elimination strategy.

The debt snowball method isn’t necessarily the wisest debt reduction strategy. In fact, I generally recommend paying off loans with the highest interest rate first. However, many people choose the debt snowball method for loans that have similar interest rates.

You may want to supplement your debt reduction strategy with a second job, consulting, financial restrictions or other measures that will help you make significant inroads in your debt load.

The debt snowball method is an often-recommended strategy because of its simplicity and its efficacy. Consider all the options and then choose the debt management strategy that works best for you.

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Building credit for your small business

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:41:16 +0000

Building credit for your small business is important because you never know when you’ll want access to more funds, be it for expansion or to help out in a pinch. And what better time to think about building credit for your small business than now, because credit is easier to build when you’re riding the wave of success.

Building credit for your small business is similar to building personal credit; however there are a few key distinctions:

Clear distinction between business and personal

Even if you run your business as a sole-proprietorship, be sure to clearly distinguish your business and personal finances. You’ll want to demonstrate a clear paper trail of your business’s financial transactions, including all income and expenditures. This may include opening a business bank account and even a business credit card.

Business credit card

Most credit cards charge exorbitant interest rates so avoid using them to carry debts. However, business credit cards that are used frequently and paid off to zero every month can be a great way to start building business credit for your small business. Get a business credit card today and start building your credit rating.

Apply for a line of credit

Ideally, apply for a line of credit before you start your business. Remember, having access to a new business line of credit doesn’t mean you have to use it. So consider building credit for your small business now because it’s better to be prepared than to have to scramble in the event of an emergency.

Overcoming bad personal credit

Building business credit is not a substitute for a personal history of bad credit. Business creditors will take your personal credit into account, so continue improving your personal credit while building your business credit. In fact, consulting can be a flexible way to get out of debt.

Building credit for your small business

Building credit for your small business is similar to building personal credit. Show a clear history of timely payments on products like lines of credit and credit cards, and you’ll be on your way to building credit for your small business.

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