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$1K for 4 Hours
written by Steven Bristol on May 4th, 2009
We know someone who charges $1000 for a four hour review of your website. He’ll look, take screen grabs and have a conversation about your site, giving feedback and recommendations.
Here are my questions for you:
- Is $1000 worth 4 hours to you?
- Who would be your first choice to review your site?
15 Responses to “$1K for 4 Hours”
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Why can’t I be that guy? Morals, I guess.
I’d pay $1,000 for 4 hours of Steve Jobs to review my site. I’d pay $1,000 for 4 hours of Barack Obama to review my site. I’d pay $1,000 for 4 hours of Jewel to review my site (what a hottie!)
I guess there are just a lot of people I’d pay $1,000 for a conversation with.
Sean
I will spend 4 hours for free reviewing someone’s marketing with anyone who is a legitimate potential client or is in a position to refer me. And I close over 90% of my prospects who take the four free hours. The guy/gal you are referring to probably hasn’t really thought about the net aggregate value of their clients.
If anyone wants to take Ted up on his offer, contact me and I’ll put you in touch with him.
I can say that I think he’s great!
If it helps me increase my revenue by $1000, it’s worth it for me. A good example would be an online marketing guru optimizing my landing page.
1. Agree with Cody – if the review provided $1,000 worth of value then it would be money well spent.
For example, an eCommerce site which puts through around $100,000 a month in sales. If you could spend $1000 and get a list of changes which then boost sales up to $100,100 a month then such a review would still be reasonably priced.
2. My clients would be the people I would most like to review my site. With the caveat that they would give a true assessment of what would provide a better experience for them and convince them to pick up the phone…
@Karl: Why do you consider it immoral to charge high rates for professional services? Conversely, is it more moral to undercharge?
Right, but you guys are missing the point: How do you know it’s worth $1000? How do you know there will be a return on that investment?
1. $250 an hour. Sounds pretty standard for an expert consultant.
If paying $1000 results in my business making more than $1000 than it is worth it.
2. Dunno, I don’t have a website.
You never know if something is really worth it. I guess the real response is how much are you willing to spend in solution to your problem? Or how much are you willing to spend to find a better experience for your site clients? For me I would do it in a heart beat with the right recommendation from a respected source. But I can count on one hand the people I would consider respected sources.
@Steven – I’d need a few good case studies and client testimonials with approximate ROI stats at a minimum.
Maybe references I could call, depending on whether or not $1,000 would be a significant part of the site’s marketing budget.
Having heard of the consultant before considering doing business with them would be a big boost (published books, media profile, etc).
A guarantee of satisfaction would be a motivator too – I’ve only ever asked for money back once (an SEO firm which created worthless landing pages which led to maybe 3 hits over 6 months), but just being offered the option would make me feel confident about the seller.
Guess what it boils down to is reputation and credibility.
@Steven- my point exactly, how do you know for sure that the advice you receive for your $1k will net you at least $1k. You don’t, unless you have prior experience with that person.
@gareth- you are using the exact same justification for inflated sense of self-worth that traders, investment bankers, and ceo’s use. “hey, I made you $100m, I should get 10% of that.” They are relying on the very tenuous assumption that because of that specific persons direction, a certain revenue was achieved. That might fly in the accounting world, but in the scientific world those facts would rarely support their conclusions. Don’t get me started ;)
We can make these assumptions all day long about someone’s ability and advice. But on the face of the original post, there were none of those assumptions.
Just for comparison, my good friend is a Cardiologist. He is actually saving peoples lives. He made about $250k last year (near retirement). He is paid $200 per hour. How many lives did that consultant save for $250/hour? Just saying that these kinds of conversations should be placed into a larger perspective.
A rate of $250 per hour for legal consulting, even in the small market I live in (Birmingham, AL) is mid-range. So, if you need assistance from a lawyer, they would normally do a quick “get to know you” meeting to see if the needs and the services match up, but after that, $250 (usually $300-$350) per hour is the rate.
If someone was an expert designer and was consulting with me on how to improve my product, get over a design hump, find some major flaw, etc., then it may be worth it to get the problem solved.
Obviously, most of us do the best we can, but at some point, it may behoove us to turn to someone who, while expensive, can tackle an issue for us.
@Karl: Your answer doesn’t explain why it should be considered immoral to charge high fees for consulting.
You /can/ quantitatively prove improvements in many areas. Allen’s post today is showing how he improved signups to lessaccounting’s service by exactly 2%. If he has data on the average spend of each signup he can make a reasonable estimation of the dollar value of that improvement.
With regards to “hey, I made you $100m, I should get 10% of that.” – why should that not be true? Why is the bank/business owner/client entitled to reap vast rewards while the person who actually did the work should settle for living expenses?
We could also have an interesting argument about whether a cardiologist’s profits are less moral than a consultants, due to a patient having no choice about paying a cardiologist if they want to stay alive.
At least with consulting, we can be reasonably sure the buyer’s choice is entirely free of mortal duress ;)
Just discovered Less. Really like your work and your approach to the work.
I fall into the $1000 is worth it if it helps the client achieve more than $1000 worth of value. That might be increased revenue or lower costs, but it also might result in more qualitative measures such as knowing how to move forward. There is definitely value in helping a client achieve a more informed decision.
The key is to work with the client to determine what a successful outcome looks like and how they would know it was achieved (measured). Of course, you don’t charge the client for this pre-sales work.
I have a feeling that measure of success for the $1000 for 4 hours of work is “the passage of time.” If that’s the case, it’s not worth $0.01
@Steven Knowing whether it’s worth a $1000 or not is obviously going to be based on other factors besides price. Skill, experience, past results, potential payoff. Same kind of judgement call you have to make with any purchase.