Those of you who read this column with any frequency know I often cite my husband's experiences as a small-business owner to talk through issues I believe might apply to you, the solution provider.
Over the past several months, I've overheard him explaining to potential clients that while he's happy to give them estimates of what it will take to beautify their kitchen, bathroom, whatever, they'll need to pay for his time. If he gets the job, however, that charge will be deducted from the total bill.
To me, this sounds like a logical policy. After all, isn't his time worth money? At the same time, he's rewarding those people willing to turn to him for the work. It probably doesn't surprise you that he gets a lot of pushback, but he is holding firm.
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"The experiences of SBI.Razorfish are testament to this. You may remember this company as one of the darling e-business integrators circa 2000. It may surprise you to hear, however, that SBI.Razorfish was deeply involved in Cisco Systems' business-process makeover and recently did work for a division of GE. As one of its projects for the latter, SBI.Razorfish has deployed an application that lets purchasing agents at GE's customers compare materials on a gated extranet. SBI.Razorfish Executive Vice President Bob Lord said the easy part was architecting the actual links. The hard part was figuring out upfront which information the purchasing agents should be able to access during Web searches, as well as the form in which it should be displayed, he said."
If you've been in the habit of letting your team provide this sort of architecture assessment for free, it's time to rethink that policy. That way even if your would-be customer opts to pass on the project or go elsewhere for the work, your team is compensated for its most precious asset, knowledge.
Are you assessing for your assessment skills? HEATHER CLANCY, Editor at CRN, appreciates your comments at hclancy@cmp.com.
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