http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz...059_763239.htm

Not if this is in the correct section. But I thought it might make interesting talk.

Do you agree or not?

Have a great weekend!

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CAC

Thanks for posting! I found this article VERY interesting and agree with much of what was said.

In particular, at least for my own business/situation, I know that I've been moving AWAY from hourly billing when possible and trying to wrap a price on each project or request. Thisis hard to do in many cases and doesn't always work, but it really is true what's mentioned in the article about how you can make more in business regardless of whether you can solve the client's problem in an hour or a day, by putting a figure on the value of the SOLUTION rather than how long it takes to create that solution.

I do think there's still a place for hourly billing in many situations I come across as a virtual assistant and consultant - but I prefer to set a quoted price whenever possible.

Great article

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Tess, how do you give a quote for a project if it's something you haven't done before? I find every project even if it's the same type they all seem different.

As an example yesterday I went to a clients office, he is a member of Send Out Cards and wanted me to send birthday cards for him. When I arrived he couldn't tell me if he had a list of clients he said all he had was in his files and pointed me to his file cabinets. He said I could get the addresses and birthdays out of the files. Entering the contact information and birthdays was not as easy as it sounds because in each file I had to search for the information. Each one had different forms along with a ton of other information. The client thought this would take me about an hour and I was there 2 1/2 hours yesterday and go back next week to finish. I could never have estimated how long this would take or come up with a price. In a situation like I just explained how would you calculate a project price?
Thanks,
Renae

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Renae McGregor Virtual Assistant
http://www.renaemcgregor.com

An interesting read, thanks for sharing. The points made on 'lack of self esteem' is something I'm sure a lot of people can relate to?

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Telephone Answering virtual assistant
alldaypa.com

Hi Renae,

I wanted to address your question...which often comes up here on the site and was explored in a book I reviewed here entitled, 'The Wealthy Freelancer'. I highly recommend you pick up a copy as it is a great resource.

If you do not know how long a particular task is going to take you can do a few things:

Do a test run and time yourself. So in your SOC situation, you might have given yourself a half hour to process the work and then decide based on volume you were able to achieve, decide upon a packaged rate to offer the client. So if you need to make $XX per hour, and you processed 50 SOC, decide upon your packaged rate on that calculation.

Another option is to offer a packaged rate, $XXX to finish the project in a specified period of time and then if the project goes over that amount of time then charge your hourly rate.

You would need to explain to the client that there are 'unknowns' in this performing this task. Sometimes services are not so 'cut and dry'.

I would suggest, if you do not already...take a deposit for at least 50% of the projected fee in the event the client does not pay you for the additional time you spend working on this task. I would also suggest, that you haven't already, do include your payment terms in the signed contract so that it is clearly understood what you have decided to do.

In the future, should you offer this service, you will know what to charge as a package having done this before.

Good Luck! Let us know how you do.

Janine

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WRITE FAB RFP PROPOSALS & land THE VA job. WinningRFP unveils soon! SignUp www.WinningRFP.com

A great read for someone like myself who is newish in the field.

Thanks for sharing!

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Dares Office Solutions
Melanie Dares - Owner-Operator

The article is interesting and thought provoking, and there is some very good advice in it.

But I think he´s lost touch with reality a little. He can aim for big companies. Things like, 100,000$ is what they pay for someone to spray the plants, is of course not realistic.

So, good advice, but would be nice if it were a bit more down to earth for us VAs - though I sincerely hope that many of us can aim that high.

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Hilde
www.vbbassociates.com

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing. It is easy to find hundreds (possibly thousands) of articles regarding "how to get rich" but one that approaches it from the aspect of failure really opened my eyes to a few potential pitfalls. Thanks again for the link.

thanks for sharing the article Jamie and thanks for your advice Janine!! very helpful!!

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Yolanda Allen