General Consultant Discussion

It's almost year end time. And this year there seems to be no shortage of odd requests to reserve time during the holidays for some un-scheduled and un-quoted potential project(s) end users have been anticipating the past two years.... I'm not sure on what planet these end users are able to schedule other consultants/vendors/providers to be ""on call"" for an undefined project during the busiest time of the year. In some cases these ""on call"" daydreams are not even for projects where you are expected to be the primary consultant. In other cases these requests may be for projects they've tried (and failed) to complete themselves. Due to the plethora of third party add-ons and doo-dads these end users often want you ""on call"" should some unexpected problem crop up during their third party solution go-live (aka - ""would you be the unpaid complaint department just in case we have problems""). Como Se What? To me this is like calling American Airlines and saying you're thinking of flying over Christmas but you don't want a reservation, don't know how many seats you'll need , where you are going -- or want to buy a ticket today --- but you'd like to know if there will be seats available during the peak travel month.

Let me put aside any thoughts of vacation so I can be on call in the odd chance you want me to assist with a project that may or may not happen

And another. Honestly I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.... (this email is from an end user who can never make the time for the upgrade, IT too busy, etc). I guess I'm supposed to clear the deck , issue some projected free time - and not book any work during that period of schedule time off --- all in the hope that this customer will contact me (99% shot that it will be 1 day before the upgrade proposed date). And it should also be weekend/after hours if deemed needed by IT. Did I mention these folks cancelled 2x already. Sadly I'm seeing more of this type of behavior - not less. The worst is when you deal directly with IT and not finance. I'm seriously tempted to give this pricing: ** Excludes holidays Upgrade scheduled over weekend -- with 1 to 3 days advance payment to secure date - $ 25,000 Upgrade scheduled over weekend -- with 5 to 10 days advance payment to secure date - $ 8,000 Upgrade schedule during business hours - with 15 to 30 days advance payment to secure date - $ 2,500

I must say you keep us entertained @WayneSchulz .

Wayne, you have 60 days to rearrange your December weekends...

I don't think your price options are crazy if you don't care whether they use you. (I wouldn't care.) It's possible that it's outrageous enough to bounce the problem up to somebody who is actually thinking clearly.

Jerry's right. Of course, if this strategy were implemented, we would miss out on these stories but I would rather see the response to the new pricing options. I suspect @WayneSchulz would too.