Value-Based Fees: How to Charge—and Get—What You're Worth: A Guide for Consultants, Second Edition

Interlude: The Case of the Fee Feng Shui

I was sitting at a conference table on a June day with the president and top team of a $200 million manufacturing operation. My proposal had been discussed in my absence and accepted. Now the decision was when to begin.

The summer was the company's busiest season, and the president thought it prudent to wait until the fall when things slowed so there would be the least disruption to the operation. In the summer, there were part-time workers, overtime, rushed orders, and so forth. I thought he was right, in that I didn't want to start the project amid chaos.

However, I also knew that he wasn't about to make the deposit until we actually began and that too many bad things can happen in four months. Then the vice president of human resources, of all things, seated directly across the table from the president, said, "You're right, but it's a shame we can't start now in that the eventual changes are supposed to help us operate better in busy times and slow." The rest of the team studied their fingernails.

I saw the president make a "What can you do?" gesture and begin to gather his papers when I said, "Why not have the best of both worlds?" Everyone turned to me expectantly.

"I can start observing now," I hastily improvised, "so that I can appreciate the nature of your busy season but stay out of the way except to debrief at times with you folks. Then, in the fall, I can incorporate all I observed firsthand into the change efforts, and we won't ...