Comments on: Business Consulting Etiquette

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:05:34 +0000

Wanted to add an article I posted a while ago about finding a great consultant. Hopefully it helps set expectations on both sides of the fence http://www.vsellis.com/guidance/finding-a-great…

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:48:20 +0000

Aaron – GREAT article with clear examples. I recently left a management consulting position to move into independent consulting doing largely WordPress work and I would simply like to reinforce how important it is to set expectations early. It's come back to bite me every single time I didn't. In particular, I had a client with a retail site (haven't started yet) who thinks that sales will skyrocket when we redo the site (like 90% of the people who visit will buy) and anyone who has delt with e-commerce knows how unrealistic that is. If I didn't reset those expectations early on they would have blamed me for it not being successful. My point is, clients typically don't have expertise in these things and it is incumbent upon us to provide them with guidance.And set your price/rate out front, a lot of [new] consultants shy away from that but it is the easiest way to weed out people who aren't serious or can't afford you. Like you, I also don't charge for the initial call but I keep it short. Everyone does a little “free” work, the question is how much. Keep up the good work!

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:32:12 +0000

Great link, Keith!

By: Keith Casey

Keith Casey — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:27:09 +0000

When I read this one, I was reminded of my own “Art of the Introduction” – http://caseysoftware.com/blog/the-art-of-the-in… – where you have a very limited window of someone's time/attention to give them something of interest/value. If you don't, people tend to get annoyed and/or write you off pretty quickly. Not good for any business. ;)