Conrad Agramont's WebLog

Moved to: http://agramont.net/

Online Consulting

We recently announced a new program named, "Online Consulting."  The program is geared to help customers that want to design, develop, and deploy a Microsoft Solution on their own, but would like to have an Expert available to help them with certain issues.

So let's take the scenario of a Service Provider that has an Engineering and Development staff.  That Service Provider wants to use their existing staff to deploy the "Microsoft Solution for Hosted Exchange 2003."  Mostly likely, the Service Providers staff is not familiar with the various components and architecture of the Solution.  Even though they have read all of the solution documentation and followed the deployment steps provided with the solution, they will still have questions throughout their deployment.  This is a great situation where "Online Consulting" could help.  Now if a developer at the Service Provider has a question, they can send that question to their private email alias (that is then routed and tracked by eQuest Engineers and Developers) and get a response with an answer or even a code sample.  Email is the main method of communication, but we could also schedule Conference Calls and use tools like Microsoft Live Meeting to have an interactive discussion.

Think of it this way.  You pay up front for a block of time and now you have an expert resource there whenever you need it.

Although we've recently made this program public and available to all customers, we have been running the program for a few months now with various customers in the United States and in Europe.

For more information:

Posted: Jan 06 2005, 11:14 PM by Conrad | with 6 comment(s)

Comments

Mark A. Richman said:

Why are you charging for time, and not RESULTS? Paying for a block of time does not guarantee the customer anything. A per-incident fee is much more reasonable.

Here is my manifesto "Why I Never Bill by the Hour":

http://www.markrichman.com/consulting.html

# January 7, 2005 8:48 AM

Conrad Agramont said:

That's certainly an interesting approach and business model. It's true that paying for a block of time doesn't guarentee the customer anything, but you're not buying for a block of time from a warm body. You're buying time to get answers from a team of experts in the Service Provider field focusing on Microsoft Technology.

BTW, I've read some of your work. Great Stuff!
# January 7, 2005 10:07 AM

Mark A. Richman said:

Thanks for the complement, Conrad.

The school of thought behind my position is that of value-based fees. Rather than charging a client for time (regardless of your expertise), you charge them a factor of their future benefit.

You may have noticed many vendors no longer advertise prices. They have likely moved to a value pricing model. Why charge $100/hr for 400 hours of work if the client will benefit $10,000,000 from it? You can just as easily charge $100,000 for the same work, with a flat fee (given the rationale I published on my site). Then, you've just made yourself an extra $60,000, the client has a cap on their investment, and you both walk away happier - all without the pretense of "billable hours."

The real trick here is determining the client's future benefit on which to base your fee. I defer to Alan Weiss, Ph.D. for a better explanation of the value pricing methodology.

https://ssl.cgicafe.com/clients/summitconsulting.com/books.html#book2

He's a genius.

- Mark

P.S. I had a visit from Paul Edlund here a couple of weeks ago. I recently left NTT/Verio for Affinity Internet.

P.P.S. Does Steve Winter still overuse the word "monetize?"

# January 7, 2005 1:55 PM

Steve Winter said:

Hi Mark!

It has been a while since we last met. If you have seen me this year I think my new favorite word is "SuperSize" :)

In all seriousness. I agree with many of your thoughts and we offer multiple products that are more value based as opposed to exact hour for hour or T&M entry.
We have found real positive reaction from customers on when we offer one or the other.

Perhaps we will get the chance to discuss in person or online.

Congraulations on being at Affinity. It sounds like from Paul exciting things are happening.

Keep in touch

Steve
# January 7, 2005 8:55 PM

Mark A. Richman said:

Thanks Steve!
# January 7, 2005 9:05 PM

Themestoclis said:

Nice...

# June 12, 2007 2:18 AM
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