Consulting Services
As I mentioned in my last post, keep this in mind as you read this post: When it comes to “support,” Microsoft charges $59 per incident, Apple charges $49. I think it’s fair and reasonable to charge $45/hr for Civil 3D support, a quick lesson, or sound advice.
As I mentioned in my last post, I think prices for training, support, and consulting services ought to be more reasonable in tough economic times, and I think $45/hr for a combination of web based/phone based/e-mail based services is fair. So fair in fact, that it’s become a strong part of my business. Allow me to jump on a soap box and explain – I’m not being vindictive or self-absorbed, I’m just being real.
It started with an e-mail from Doug Krause, the owner of KSE Engineering, LLC in Portland, OR. Like myself, Doug recently started a business. What was interesting to me was this: The majority of Doug’s time with Civil 3D is spent in site development as it relates to Wind Turbine Technology. Chances are you’ve seen a wind farm, but the time and effort it takes to find a site, study wind patterns, migratory bird flight patterns (can’t build a turbine in the flight path of a migratory bird), and a host of regulations, makes embracing this technology somewhat prohibitive. So the problem with developing sites for wind turbines is really twofold: 1. Developing a site takes an incredible amount of time on the front-end. 2. Payment on a project typically won’t be made until a turbine is operational – the work that goes into development is essentially free until electricity is being generated. Together, this means GIS data must be accumulated and studied quickly, and the design development of a site has to remain dynamic until a turbine is built.
Civil 3D – there isn’t a product in the world that can shine like Civil 3D at integrating GIS data into the Land Surveying and Civil Engineering industries. You find a site, you layout a plan for a turbine. Study various types of data from various sources, and make a change – and it’s a dynamic process until a turbine is physically built. See where I’m going with this?
Doug was working on a site, knew of some of the capabilities of Civil 3D, but needed an immediate lesson as he tried to cut down his site design costs on a pending project. In my experience, that’s when having a dedicated consultant truly counts. Like many designers, Doug didn’t know what he didn’t know, he didn’t have time to read a Civil 3D tutorial or take a class, he wanted to make a phone call and get immediate results from someone that would be there to help in the future. He really didn’t need technical support, he really didn’t need training; I couldn’t categorize what he needed and bill accordingly – he just needed help and he needed it on his time, not mine.
We’ve been moving into an era for several years where knowledge is almost a commodity. As I see it, the technology consultants of today are the carpenters, plumbers, and electricians of yesterday. You don’t routinely take plumbing classes, you just count on the plumbing you have functioning normally. When something goes wrong, you call a plumber, you wait a few hours, and you’re billed about $135/hr. The same can be said for software and technology. In most cases, you understand software like Word or Excel about well enough to do your job. If something goes wrong or you need advice, you ought to be able to call in an expert. And in my simple mind, to bill you more than $50 or $60 for an hour of time simply because you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time is about ridiculous. Again, Microsoft charges $59 per “incident,” Apple charges $49. I think it’s fair and reasonable to charge $45/hr for Civil 3D support, a quick lesson, or sound advice.
When I started this business I made my first sale to a friend – “tech support.” He bought 10 hours of my time for $300. My thought process in coming up with a figure was this: If I help him for an hour every week for a year, that’s about $1500/year – and that’s easy for him to roll into an annual budget, it’s about the price of a legal plat of survey. Our time is focused around a specific issue or two, and I effectively leave him alone knowing he’ll call me when the pipes get clogged. After all, his business is Land Surveying, not software studies. Unfortunately, the market has trained technology users that immediate help from a live person comes at an outrageous rate, and happens on their time – not yours. Think about it: Let’s say you have one license of software, and you pay $1500 for the upgrade every year. You’ll probably get billed for tech support, but the smart consultant will give you the support at no extra charge. The problem is, they can’t sustain a staff dedicated to simply supporting you, and they know it. They can’t afford the overhead and they can’t afford the stress on their employees. I’m not being vindictive here, I’m being real. When technical support is offered free of charge to those making software purchases, the responsibility for fulfilling the support requirements generally fall on the new, the less experienced, and the less expensive. Studies have shown 40% of the employees in tech support leave for new jobs every year. If support is offered as a free convenience, well, you’ll get what you pay for.
I sold Doug an hour of my time, and we spent 2 hours on the phone and in a GoToMeeting. He returned to the web-site and purchased another hour to settle up (and then purchased another hour – 3 hours total). In my simple mind, it ought to be that easy. Some of the time was training, some was setup, some was technical support, and I could have cared less – it was help where he needed it the most and that’s what mattered to me. If I didn’t make time, if I whined that he needed training and not tech support, and if every consultant treated their clients like that, we’d all run the risk of lowering the rate of software adoption. And if no one adopts the software, we’re all out of work.
Need to talk for an hour? I’ll charge you $45 – much less expensive than a plumber. After our last conversation, this is what Doug said: “Thanks for the web conference. That was the best use of 3 hours in a long time.” He got the help he needed, I got a new client. I didn’t try to sell him anything, I just wanted to help and was thankful to have the opportunity. Along the way I think we both learned something, and I’ll be available when he needs help in the future. In fact, we can both use the knowledge we gained to help other clients.
You can’t sustain a business by roping people into using your services and then charging them outrageous prices for knowledge that will have no lasting effect. That’s the thinking that got us into this economic mess in the first place, and as a result, more and more software consultants are falling by the wayside because they either got greedy, or they hung their services on someone else’s coat-tails for too long. They jumped on the “I can capitalize because clients have no choice but to use me” train, and while that train may have been running for 20 years, in the end, they still missed the boat.
