Let's talk about money

One of the problems with being British is that we don't talk well about money. It's all very embarrassing. In some sort of cultural throwback, most British people think that talking about money means that you are engaging in trade.

Sadly this makes operating as a consultant somewhat difficult since we need to talk about money at the beginning of the relationship - and that rarely is either easy or goes well. Let me give you an example.

My usual daily rate is £1,250 per day. There - I've said it. These days, I rarely charge out on a daily rate, preferring to offer fixed price work based on explicit deliverables - but I'll calculate my fixed price on that basis. I know consultant who charge much less than that and had coffee the other day with someone who charges over double that. In the end we all charge what we're comfortable with - and in my defensive British way, I will say that I do quite a bit or either heavily discounted or pro bono work!

I met with a new client to talk through a project which sounded quite interesting. The client mentioned 30 days' work, which was a rather strange (and far too high) estimate. He managed to find a number of ways of trying to ask me how much the project would costs without actually managing it ("what sort of resources will we need at our end" and "....so we'll have to see if it fits into the budget" were two I enjoyed). I was obviously feeling mischievous so I let him dangle - waited until he actually asked outright. Interestingly his first question was "How much do you charge a day?" - blurted out as if he didn't want to soil his mouth with the words. So I told him - and then started to talk about a fixed price for the work. He interrupted me with: "Over £1,200 EVERY DAY?" (he shouted). "That's over £300,000 a year!".

Now I'm quite used to this thinking and patiently explained that I didn't work every day and so it wasn't necessarily a good comparison and that I provided good value by offering external insight, international credibility and a good deal of experience. He couldn't get by the number, however.

So I asked him how much he wanted to spend. It seemed like a sensible question to me - but he wouldn't tell me! Isn't that odd. I tried to explain that it might just be easier if he would give me a figure - which I might reject - rather than me trying to guess it.

In the end the meeting ended in a very unsatisfactory way with the client feeling that I was unreasonably expensive and me thinking that the client had been rather silly.

This reluctance to talk about money - or to value people - is, I think, be a very British characteristic. I have French clients with whom I have many difficulties, but with whom I can have an adult conversation about pricing. Interestingly some of the easiest clients are those in Professional Services and Lawyers in particular. They understand valuing time and thought and have little difficulty in understanding that a 20 minute telephone call costs one hour's money because of preparation and write-up.

It's not the value of my time that I hold dear - it's that my time is valued.

SC