I am in the final stages of planning. I plan on doing alot of networking coming up in the new year. What do I say is someone asks how long would it take to do x ?

Well, one way would be to offer to complete the project for free, maybe for a local nonprofit organization, and record your time. Or you could complete the project for your own business and record your time (as an example, if you offer article writing as a service, you could write an article for yourself and keep an eye on how long it takes you). Or you could make an educated guess at the amount of time it would take you and go from there. For instance, I severely undercut myself on my first editing project (I quoted two hours but put five hours into it), but I just charged the client for two hours and chocked it up to a learning experience.

Another idea is to quote a range of time, saying that "project x will take between 2-5 hours and will fall into the price range of $xx to $xx." That way, they have an idea of what they're getting into, and you give yourself a little leeway.

Good luck!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Thanks for the infomation. i called a non profit today as a matter of fact to offer some of my services.

I'd also recommend overestimating. That way if you come in under the estimate the client is pleased and if it takes a bit longer, you're covered. I always tell clients who ask for estimates is that it will take X-X number of hours, but the invoice will be based on the actual time it takes to complete the project. Clients tend not to ask for estimates after I've worked with them a couple of times.

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Julia

What a great idea, Julia!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Yep...that'll do it. I'm in the same situation where I am preparing the first quote for a client. He seems pretty easy-going. I'm excited!

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Michelle Hill-Smith
www.OnTaskAssistants.com

Thanks for the information. I am just beginning my business and it's a great idea to give them an over estimate for time.

Hey, All - this is such useful information! I have often wondered the same thing - thanks for sharing.

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N Kelly

I always quote a range, with the lower end being my educated guess plus a bit and the higher end being what I think is worst case possible.

The more you do it the more the get a feel for it - if it's something reasonably repetitive like data entry you could ask for a sample to try out. If you get the work then you've got an accurate idea of how long it will take (and you've probably ironed out a few issues).

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Sara Parr - Above Parr PA Services

The important thing to remember is that sometimes the projects aren't what they seem to be so try hard to get all the details from the client initially and reiterate back for clarity.

I once received a proposal for a project that was for gathering names and addresses of doctors. The proposal also indicated that she wanted a mail merge and printed letters. Well, that was fine. I quoted x amount of time. As the project evolved, the client needed the letters printed on her own stationary and there wasn't enough time to Fed Ex the paper to me so I had to send the file back to her electronically for her to print from her office. It took more time to make sure all the info was there and that she received the file to print on her own, plus include instructions for her to print and line up the heading on her stationary. Then the envelope file had to be done. So what I thought, (and the client thought) was a simple mail merge, print and mail project turned into something else as time progressed.

There was no problem with the increase in time as I kept the client informed along the way but it is not always so cut and dry. Things change and therefore estimated time can change. Keeping the client on top of the situation seems to thwart any problems with that, though.

So do overestimate to cover things that might be unexpected.

It's like getting braces...the orthodontist says you'll have them on for 2 years but really you need them only for 18 months. Then if there is a delay for whatever reason the added time over 18 months doesn't matter and then if you get them off under 2 years, the orthodontist looks pretty good to the smiling patient!

Janine

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