About 5 years ago one of my clients asked me if I could assist them with the computer setup at their office. I told them it wasn't my area of expertise but ended up agreeing to help them interview and select a vendor to assist them with their contact management/CRM project. This was not a large setup - we are talking 3 PC's for the three salespeople. After many phone interviews I discovered that the industry rate for PC consulting and setup of any type in our area was a minimum of $125.00 per hour. Even a tech support call asking "how do I print a calendar report" was billed at $125.00 per hour. And many of the firms wouldn't even touch the project unless a minimum of $5000.00 + was involved. Remember, we were not talking fortune 500 stuff here, just setting up a few PC's with a contact management program. And I can tell you that these rates are nothing compared to what I have been quoted on "serious" software installations.

Anyhow, this experience helped me to put the rates in our industry into perspective. And while it may just be professional pride, I like to think that what we do on average is more complicated than installing Act on a network.

This message was edited by QQQ on 09/11/02 16:52.21.