I consult for a lot of different clients, from executive home offices to companies with international offices and more than 5000 computers and servers in the enterprise. I’ve got a lot of experience. I like to say that being a consultant is like working in “dog years.” If you have a job at a company, all the experience you ever get is inside that one organization. You learn the politics and the pecking order in about three months. After that, you are NOT getting any new experience. You’re simply living out your years at that company, accumulating years of repeated experience.
Said another way, the typical IT employee with 15 years experience has 1 year of experience repeated 15 times.
For the consultant, it’s the other way: for every calendar year of experience, or time working as a consultant, you gain 6 to 7 “years” of real experiences.
It’s simple to understand when you think about it. As a consultant, I don’t have ONE boss, I have hundreds. I don’t know one set of office politics, I know dozens. I haven’t seen a few mistakes by one management team - I’ve seen thousands of mistakes by hundreds of management teams.
So it goes for most consultants or contractors. That’s why we get paid more than employees. We fix the problems before they start. When you, as a business owner, start thinking about a process - I’m already helping you strategize to avoid the mistakes you don’t even know you’ve made yet!
The other reason consultants are expensive is because of the pain factor. You, as a business owner, think that you have to do things your way. After all, it’s your business. Forget the fact that I do - and always will - know more about technology than you, you will create some mandate that hinders my ability to do what you hired me to do. You’ll have some policy, some rule, some hoop I have to jump because “that’s the way we do things here.”
Mind you, you had to hire me to solve a problem that you can’t, so let’s think twice about the way you do things, hmm?
So, because of that inane rule - the veritable flaming hoop, if you will - I charge extra. You want to do it your way? Fine, that’ll be extra, please. Sure, you’ll never see that extra fee as a line item on the invoice, but believe you me, it’s in there. That I promise.
But back to the original post - the “dog years” of the consultant. Next time you think about hiring a computer guy, think about his work history. Three, maybe four previous jobs? You like that? You think he’s a good worker and a good tech guy because he’s stable? His work history shows he can hold a job?
Trust me, the guy is REALLY good at maintaining status quo. That’s it.
Technology moves at a break-neck pace. What is practiced today will be obsolete tomorrow. A guy working a job in a cube can’t keep up. Period.
Consultants see more work environments, more problems, more mistakes, more challenges, and the SOLVE THOSE PROBLEMS at a pace that no computer employee can match. Consultants with 5 years of experience (calendar years) are 30 year veterans of the trade. They’re executive-level thinkers and you should treat them as such.
Don’t think someone in their 30s is worthy of that kind of respect? Then again, you’re afraid of computers, aren’t you? You’re an old dog - and you can’t stand new tricks.
This is why the punks that started Google are driving the new economy.
Get real.
