Re: Establishing Rates - Protect Yourself

[KAREN_OTTO -at- HP-SPOKANE-OM2 -dot- OM -dot- HP -dot- COM]

You should also understand where employers are coming from when they ask you to
quote by the project.
We were novices in working with contractors. Then our first one came and
offered his services. We were in need, and started out on an hourly basis. We
knew he was experienced, so we did a couple of projects.
The problem we encountered was that he did more than asked. We'd give him a
markup and ask him to do those, but he'd come back with a lot of other things
done as well, and had the hours logged to prove it.
He was not doing what we'd asked - he was doing more. We didn't have the budget
for that. He also didn't seem to understand that we had plenty more work for
him to do, and that the unrequested changes he was making were unnecessary
within the bounds of the project.
Now, we're nice guys, and told him that he shouldn't be doing these things, but
the pattern didn't change. So we started having him quote by the project
instead of paying an hourly rate. It's worked out much better for us, and he's
still as busy as he wants to be.
Our principles now are:
- contract out clearly limited projects like markups
- pay by the project, not the hour

regards,
karen otto
karen_otto -at- hp -dot- com


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