4 ms·

Amen about the lead qualification. I just had this happen today: I spent a few hours on an email for a potential client whose project sounds like 3-6 man-months

Amen about the lead qualification. I just had this happen today: I spent a few hours on an email for a potential client whose project sounds like 3-6 man-months of work. Now, does he really have that kind of dough laying around (ie: angel funding), or will I never here from the client again because he was hoping to get it done for $200? (Or worse: profit sharing / equity arrangements. Equity doesn't pay my rent.)

famousactress 15y ago
This is interesting to me. Budget isn't something the conversation leads with?
- rbranson 15y ago
  Money should be talked about in the first 30 minutes of discussion about any client project. Rates, budgets, ability of client to pay, etc.
- rpwilcox 15y ago
  I've been thinking about revising my tactics some, to try to get a potential client to spill what kind of budget they have to work with before I even start thinking about anything else. It certainly helps sometimes in picking out project infrastructure ("I have to do this cheaply, so let's get inventive")
  - kls 15y ago
    If they don't give me a budget I give them an hourly rate until I know what budget they are working with. That said, I prefer to work on an hourly arrangement if at all possible.
    - rpwilcox 15y ago
      I think starting with an hourly rate is uninformative. For example, if a client's budget is low I might grab a RAD tool to get the job done (while letting the client know that this decision might hinder flexibility in the future.). "You want a database on the web, that you can customize yourself, for $600? Great, let's grab a copy of FileMaker Pro, or sign up for Quickbase.com and get going" Yes, those solutions may limit potential of the app down the line, but they might actually be the right fit. I'm another hourly-rate-all-the-way guy, but if I can extract the budget out of the client, then I can decide (essentially), "Given the client's other requirements, will a RAD/off-the-shelf/OSS-package-with-a-custom-theme work for this project... or do I just politely tell the potential client to get bent?"
      - kls 15y ago
        In my experience an hourly rate usually either a) extracts the budget number that they have or b) gets the response of OK lets just do it hourly or c) I get show to the door. In situation A it is usually because they see my hourly rate a pricy and so they give up their max budget, as a negotiating tool. In which case I tailor the solution to that budget. In situation B they generally have a budget in which they don't see my cost as even making a dent in. Finally in C generally we would have never had a meeting of the minds in the first place. I don't compete on price, there was a point where I had the price shoppers filtered out of my sales pipeline, but as we are bringing on new clients again, we do end up in situation C from time to time.
tptacek 15y ago
How big a problem is that variant of qualification, really? Why don't you just approach these things as if there's no real business there? I may be jaded about this because so many of our bids are competitive, and even a simple bid takes a couple hours to put together. We win most of them, but you get used to sinking time into deals that don't pan out and build it into the process.
- rpwilcox 15y ago
  I have a policy in which I don't estimate jobs where my gut says will take more than 40 hours worth of work. Beyond that it's Agile style iteration work. I think this has two advantages: I don't put that much time into "no real business here" leads, or (if there is business there), there's no way I know the whole scope of a large project in one conversation.
  - superkinz 15y ago
    That's interesting. So when you say that it's more than 40 hours (at least $X cost), do you still give a high end range or just say "we'll see how it goes?"
    - rpwilcox 15y ago
      I'm not sure a high end range makes sense without sitting down with the client and spending time on creating an Agile product backlog. (With a product backlog then we can start getting a vague scope). I've actually revised my standard "potential lead" email based on some of the conversations in this thread. I now make it explicit that (a) I can help put together an Agile product backlog, for those larger project, and (b) make my hourly rate for this project manager/product owner work very explicit (to filter out those that don't actually have money)
- drewcrawford 15y ago
  > How big a problem is that variant of qualification, really? I think there's a little bit of culture shock going on here between our particular contracting fields. If you're doing enterprise-ish security contracting, you're not going to get an unemployed person in your lead pile by accident. I get three e-mails from unemployed people a week. I get 20+ leads a month from questionably-funded "startups". The number of revenue sharing posts per day on Craigslist is competitive with the number of police stations in the metropolitan area. etc. Just to have a 30-minute conversation to determine if somebody is funded or not simply does not scale to the number of interested parties. Even reading all the e-mails and throwing them away is a massive time sink. Let alone estimating anything, thinking about the feasibility of anything, etc.

famousactress 15y ago

This is interesting to me. Budget isn't something the conversation leads with?

rbranson 15y ago
Money should be talked about in the first 30 minutes of discussion about any client project. Rates, budgets, ability of client to pay, etc.
rpwilcox 15y ago
I've been thinking about revising my tactics some, to try to get a potential client to spill what kind of budget they have to work with before I even start thinking about anything else. It certainly helps sometimes in picking out project infrastructure ("I have to do this cheaply, so let's get inventive")
- kls 15y ago
  If they don't give me a budget I give them an hourly rate until I know what budget they are working with. That said, I prefer to work on an hourly arrangement if at all possible.
  - rpwilcox 15y ago
    I think starting with an hourly rate is uninformative. For example, if a client's budget is low I might grab a RAD tool to get the job done (while letting the client know that this decision might hinder flexibility in the future.). "You want a database on the web, that you can customize yourself, for $600? Great, let's grab a copy of FileMaker Pro, or sign up for Quickbase.com and get going" Yes, those solutions may limit potential of the app down the line, but they might actually be the right fit. I'm another hourly-rate-all-the-way guy, but if I can extract the budget out of the client, then I can decide (essentially), "Given the client's other requirements, will a RAD/off-the-shelf/OSS-package-with-a-custom-theme work for this project... or do I just politely tell the potential client to get bent?"
    - kls 15y ago
      In my experience an hourly rate usually either a) extracts the budget number that they have or b) gets the response of OK lets just do it hourly or c) I get show to the door. In situation A it is usually because they see my hourly rate a pricy and so they give up their max budget, as a negotiating tool. In which case I tailor the solution to that budget. In situation B they generally have a budget in which they don't see my cost as even making a dent in. Finally in C generally we would have never had a meeting of the minds in the first place. I don't compete on price, there was a point where I had the price shoppers filtered out of my sales pipeline, but as we are bringing on new clients again, we do end up in situation C from time to time.

tptacek 15y ago

How big a problem is that variant of qualification, really? Why don't you just approach these things as if there's no real business there? I may be jaded about this because so many of our bids are competitive, and even a simple bid takes a couple hours to put together. We win most of them, but you get used to sinking time into deals that don't pan out and build it into the process.

rpwilcox 15y ago
I have a policy in which I don't estimate jobs where my gut says will take more than 40 hours worth of work. Beyond that it's Agile style iteration work. I think this has two advantages: I don't put that much time into "no real business here" leads, or (if there is business there), there's no way I know the whole scope of a large project in one conversation.
- superkinz 15y ago
  That's interesting. So when you say that it's more than 40 hours (at least $X cost), do you still give a high end range or just say "we'll see how it goes?"
  - rpwilcox 15y ago
    I'm not sure a high end range makes sense without sitting down with the client and spending time on creating an Agile product backlog. (With a product backlog then we can start getting a vague scope). I've actually revised my standard "potential lead" email based on some of the conversations in this thread. I now make it explicit that (a) I can help put together an Agile product backlog, for those larger project, and (b) make my hourly rate for this project manager/product owner work very explicit (to filter out those that don't actually have money)
drewcrawford 15y ago
> How big a problem is that variant of qualification, really? I think there's a little bit of culture shock going on here between our particular contracting fields. If you're doing enterprise-ish security contracting, you're not going to get an unemployed person in your lead pile by accident. I get three e-mails from unemployed people a week. I get 20+ leads a month from questionably-funded "startups". The number of revenue sharing posts per day on Craigslist is competitive with the number of police stations in the metropolitan area. etc. Just to have a 30-minute conversation to determine if somebody is funded or not simply does not scale to the number of interested parties. Even reading all the e-mails and throwing them away is a massive time sink. Let alone estimating anything, thinking about the feasibility of anything, etc.