Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Sat Nov 6 13:30:22 CDT 2010
That is a tough one not knowing how honourable and fair minded these new clients are. If I was you I would do a bit a research; anyone you know whose had worked there, any of your fellow contractors have had dealings with this company or anything on the internet... after that you will just have to play it by ear. Asking for free 8 hours sounds awfully presumptuous on their part. Any strange code I usually quote it per module. If you loss on one chunk, big deal but you can always make up on subsequent modules and by that time you would have a fairly good idea what you would be facing. Jim -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Mark Simms Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2010 11:14 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: [AccessD] New engagement; trying to avoid the "tip of the iceberg" consulting trap I'm going in to see a new client (via agency) on Monday. The deal is supposedly this: I interview with them for an hour; assess the project scope and duration. If they like what they hear, then I'm hired. Anyone seasoned in consulting can immediately see the "trap" that's being set. I want to avoid it by only giving them a rough estimate AFTER spending 8 hours with the current code base. I've seen way too much fuggly VBA code to be duped into giving a blind estimate. I'm also afraid they'll only be showing me the "tip of the iceberg". Only question remains: if my estimate at the end of the day is rejected, what do I charge for the 8 hours that they will consider wasted ? Half rate ? Full rate ? In my mind, this is like an initial legal consult...and lawyers usually give you 1 hour for half rate. -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com