General Consultant Discussion

I would be interested to hear how you might respond to this type of inquiry. I think this is somewhat typical (perhaps 20%) of the Internet leads I've seen. Note: The info below is not from an existing client, it's someone who I have never met/advised/done work for before, didn't sell the original deal.

From: Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 02:59 PM To: wayne@s-consult.com <wayne@s-consult.com> Subject: Upgrading MAS90 v3.71 Hello Wayne - My apologies for making this first contact by email but you seem to be the king of social media! You are doing a good job with your marketing and that's how I got your name. I am a part-time IT consultant here at the company. We are an architectural woodworking firm that does custom woodworking projects. This means that the focus of our use for MAS90 is job costing and payroll. We have a MAS90 5-user license with Sage. We are currently on v3.71. We have been a client of another consultant for a number of years now since they absorbed a firm we had used for support. We don't require much support but now we'd like to talk about upgrading to MAS90 v4.4 (or higher) from v3.71. Our goal is to upgrade MAS90 to v4.40 without going backwards before we move forward. We hope the upgrade to v4.40 will provide the opportunity to improve our utilization of the system in a second phase of implementation. In a second phase we'd like to have MAS90 provide point-in-time job costing. We would like to consider this as we start 2012 so that if our Chart of Accounts needs revision we can make adjustments during the upgrade. Also, we are aware of 3rd party Sale Tax software that integrates with MAS90. Most of our Report Master reports that need conversion (see below) have to do with reporting necessary to file sales tax. How do you feel about this software? Could it do what we are getting from MAS90 Report Master? As far as the upgrade goes, We can do the following: Install v4.40 on the server and workstations - (Windows 2008 & Windows XP - SP3) Run the Parallel Migration Process & the necessary utilities Do the necessary cleanup and adjustments to prepare for the data migration Run the migration of the live data to v4.40 - the goal is to be live with v4.40 by January 1 We will need Schultz Consulting to: Provide support for data found to not be ready to upgrade Review our current Chart of Accounts and suggest changes that should be made to the GL in order to eventually better utilize job costing Convert Report Master Reports (v3.71) to Crystal Reports (v4.40), if necessary. Provide training on v4.40 Support the process of migrating the live data to v4.40 With the exception of the training I would not expect that it would be necessary for Schultz Consulting to be on site. We would hope that the process of working together on the upgrade would lead to an ongoing support relationship for the occasional issue that requires assistance. Our current support with our consulting firm is on a T&M basis. I am only at the company on Fridays but I can be reached M-Th at xxxxxxx Would you like to give me a call today or on Monday to speak about this further? If there is further documentation you require I would be glad to provide it.

To summarize: - We prefer to do most things ourselves - we may call occasionally - we will not pay in advance with an annual contract . - And oh yeah, I am tough to reach, but I assume you will jump whenever I call. Sounds like you hit the motherlode.

I thought you had a boilerplate for this.

I need a second opinion from time to time since Mike's reaction is largely the same one I had. I have created a boilerplate - but always wonder if I'm too harsh - yet have little or no incentive to provide a free initial consultation for someone who in my experience is highly unlikely to buy from me. And I cannot come to any type of price without doing a fair amount of consulting work.

Hard to be held accountable for the installation if you don't control the work. This could quickly turn in to a cluster F#@$%!

Dear part time IT consultant, thanks for your inquiry. We have found over the years that our best and happiest clients rely on us to be their primary resource for MAS 90 expertise. Since this does not appear to be your business model we do not believe our organizations would be a good fit. We wish you luck in finding someone willing to work with you.