3 ms·

>You can’t compare spot rates like that to a sustained income. Fair enough. Although my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I was legitimately shocked at tha

by rl3 4y ago

>You can’t compare spot rates like that to a sustained income. Fair enough. Although my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I was legitimately shocked at that rate. Personally, I view a week to be an extremely short-duration contract. A "spot rate" is presumably much shorter still (there's very little information for the term in the context of software development). I suppose the curiosity I have is: what's the rate falloff typically like? For example, an individual is able to earn a $3,000/hr spot rate. What's their rate likely to be for a week? A month? >A huge part of high-end consulting is doing administrative, marketing, and sales work that’s unpaid. May I ask why it's unpaid and not covered by the contract?

jdlshore 4y ago
It’s administrative/sales/etc work for the consulting business, not for the client. There’s something fishy about the $3,000/hr rate, though, because the high-end consultants I know—and I suppose I count myself among them—don’t charge hourly. Many charge a daily rate, and the higher end ones charge a monthly retainer. I personally do fixed-price work with the occasional monthly retainer. (This is excluding consultant mills like McKinsey, which are a separate breed.) I’m not going to share details, but with some mental gymnastics, I suppose I could find a circumstance where I earned thousands in an hour. But that isn’t reflected in my yearly revenue figures, because it excludes the time in spending on marketing, figuratively waiting for the phone to ring, and other non-revenue-generating activities.
- rl3 4y ago
  >It’s administrative/sales/etc work for the consulting business, not for the client. Ah, right. Apologies, my head was still in short-term, executive-level emergency staff augmentation land when I asked that. >There’s something fishy about the $3,000/hr rate, though, because the high-end consultants I know—and I suppose I count myself among them—don’t charge hourly. Many charge a daily rate, and the higher end ones charge a monthly retainer. ... Yeah, that was my understanding as well—that hourly is less desired and not very common on the higher end. Thanks for the reply.

by rl3 4y ago

jdlshore 4y ago

It’s administrative/sales/etc work for the consulting business, not for the client. There’s something fishy about the $3,000/hr rate, though, because the high-end consultants I know—and I suppose I count myself among them—don’t charge hourly. Many charge a daily rate, and the higher end ones charge a monthly retainer. I personally do fixed-price work with the occasional monthly retainer. (This is excluding consultant mills like McKinsey, which are a separate breed.) I’m not going to share details, but with some mental gymnastics, I suppose I could find a circumstance where I earned thousands in an hour. But that isn’t reflected in my yearly revenue figures, because it excludes the time in spending on marketing, figuratively waiting for the phone to ring, and other non-revenue-generating activities.

rl3 4y ago
>It’s administrative/sales/etc work for the consulting business, not for the client. Ah, right. Apologies, my head was still in short-term, executive-level emergency staff augmentation land when I asked that. >There’s something fishy about the $3,000/hr rate, though, because the high-end consultants I know—and I suppose I count myself among them—don’t charge hourly. Many charge a daily rate, and the higher end ones charge a monthly retainer. ... Yeah, that was my understanding as well—that hourly is less desired and not very common on the higher end. Thanks for the reply.