General Consultant Discussion

Here's a good pricing question for those of you interested in these types of fixed pricing issues: BACKGROUND Customer on Sage 100 Advanced v4.3 asks for a price to move server and workstations from one failing server to a new server. No upgrade just a physical move. There are also some enhancements and FRX that needs moving. Three options: Normal - $2,700 Night - $3,700 Weekend - $4,700 I considered in the pricing that this is one of those high security type customers where you must interact with (and work around) IT so you're not likely to just get an RDP and be left alone (in other words it could take 3x as long as if you were left alone to do the work). FACTS: Proposal submitted June 2013 No response other than ""we received it thanks"" Customer calls today (9/10/13) - server crashed. Need to move data from one server to another urgently. What's your price?

More questions - did the crash take their data with it and is there corruption - probably an unknown. Do they have a good backup (might not be of any use but would be good to know). I think you need two prices. One for installing the software and a second for any data corruption they may have.

Data corruption / restore is not included (beyond your minimal attempt of rebuild keys, etc)

6K

The question isn't when you will do the work (you can't interrupt their access if they don't have access), it is when can they gain access again. On Sep 10, 2013 9:21 AM, ""Wayne Schulz - 90 Minds Consulting Group"" < share@socialcast.com> wrote:

I would start somewhere around $7,500 and possibly move up based upon timing (assume right away so you will have reschedule a good customer for a one-time shot), the availability of the data, timing of the backup, do they have the replacement server ready, workstation deployment, FRx rebuild, ext.. The justification based upon the criticality, timing, increased risk seems pretty straight forward.

Note for the next quote - Provide a Server down quote to grab their attention.. Since your highest quote is 4,700, then consider a 50% ""air bag deployment"" premium. 7 - 7.5K should seem reasonable to a stupid client..................

Do you consider this to be a good customer? If so, then your pricing objective is different from a so-so customer. We try to bake into our levels an advance scheduling time frame, so the higher-level options have shorter lead times. Accelerated scheduling not available for Basic option, only for your Night-weekend. (Rationale is that rushed work has the the ""cost"" to you as Night scheduling.) In your case here, maybe something like $1k adder for next-day, 750 for 2nd day, $500 for 3-5 days. So tomorrow would be $4700, Thurs $4450, Fri $4200, weekend: $4700.

This was an existing customer. They pay $3,300 per year for ongoing support (no these type of server moves aren't part of support - and yes virtually all good customers are fine with that). I left for lunch leaning toward being a ""nice guy"" and charging $2,700. I came back in the door from lunch and decided upon $4,700 Offer accepted and got most of it setup today (they had a backup and only 5 workstations to configure). Any data recovery would be extra. The question I always ask myself is - could the money have been more? Yes. But I also think there's a fine line between excessive and fair. I try to weight each of these situations so that they're fair to both the customer and to me. The pricing would have been different (higher) for a non-existing customer who just called out of the blue. In return the customer got me to drop what I was doing for the day (today) and to be on standby and finish up tomorrow (had to reschedule a small on-site upgrade).

Not know the relationship and the price elasticity, that is reasoning that I would be able to live with.

Good client support is all about relationships. Good relationships are able to stretch without major damage. I have several clients that I would take a bullet for. But then I have others that are difficult NOT to point a gun (or crossbow) at..............

@WayneSchulz - I like your comment ""there's a fine line between excessive and fair"". When a server crashes, the customer is basically screwed, and will pay just about anything to get up and running quickly. You deserve a premium for emergency service, however, being greedy is not a good long-term business strategy.

For those doing the math at home - I'm guessing this will be about a 5 hour total job. All remote. If they call for some additional fine tuning (paperless not working, etc) I'll roll it all into this project which is what I consider to be part of the fixed pricing vs hourly. If I had to go onsite I probably would have priced it closer to $7,500

All's well that ends well. They dodged a bullet. You were there for them. Life is good!

Hope is not a strategy. Greed is not a good strategy. On Sep 11, 2013 9:48 AM, ""Jeff Schwenk - 90 Minds Consulting Group"" < share@socialcast.com> wrote:

Unfortunately, hope and greed are strategies for too many people.

Wayne was smart enough to figure out a decent answer based largely on a ""feel"" for the situation. The customer's response also reinforces the fact that often the value of what we offer is valued more by the customer than we think. I've been struggling with pricing projects for at least 3 years. I'm good, but not great at it. It still takes me too long. Part of the struggle is trying to get inside the customer's head; the customer, my ""audience"", is nearly always the Controller/CFO - not IT. My point to getting in their head is to try to empathize with their view of what a reasonable expectation of price/value would be. Nobody develops ""a feel"" for a situation without repetition of similar ones, and then reflection on them. I know that Wayne has lots of both. To help those who are just starting, I offer up two thoughts to explain why Wayne's solution worked. 1. His ""ask"" matched the most premium price that the customer had seen. The customer has been working with Wayne and his fixed price approach for some time, so he knew he would get a fixed price. He was probably expecting an extra fee due to a quasi-expired quote and the unexpected rush. I wouldn't be surprised if he expected those ""penalties"" on top of the previously-quoted, weekend fee. So offering the $4700 meant that the customer might have been relieved that premium wasn't higher than he'd already seen. Hence, no push back, and Wayne maintains his image with the customer as an excellent vendor who is also fair in pricing, even when the chips are down. 2. Wayne didn't offer explicit choices, which make it possible for the customer to buy SOMETHING. But I always fear offering just one price because if the customer says ""I can't"", then I must decide either to simply walk (take it or leave it) or negotiate. I never cut a price without getting something from the customer. Never. Often seeing what we can cut from the proposal is tough. But here, I suspect Wayne would have traded a lower price acceptable to customer in return to doing the work later. Essentially that is offering my graded approach without offering all the options at once. It's a good thing to keep in one's hip pocket in situations like this.