Posted By Darran Jessett
I am thinking of setting up a consultancy in the new year and want to charge out at a competitive rate, but not undercut other consultants. could anyone give me ideas of the fees consultants charge for daily rates, risk assessments,training days etc.

Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Darran

As I said to another who asked the same question recently, while you need to have an eye on the 'going rate', you should put together a business plan to get to your required rate.

You should consider your required profit and add your overheads (office expenses, insurances, etc.) then divide by the number of days you can reasonably expect to work in a year (aim for 100 days) to get your daily rate.

Paul

Posted By GeoffB4
Overheads also include professional fees, courses, transport, travel & accommodation, communications, computers/IT, lecture equipment, accountant, advertising and so on and so on.

For 100 days then £500 a day would give £50,000. Not much left when you take all the expenses into account.

The recognised number of paying working days is about 200. It's what I work on and after 12 years of consultancy I have some experience of how it all works. (sorry Paul, but we obviously have different experiences)

Note that we have a fixed rate and don't worry about undercutting or quoting over anybody. Set your worth and stick to it - devalue yourself and in the end you lose.

I prepared a business plan which has been commended for its quality and awarded a prize. Not one single aspect was realised as forecast. After the first year we surpassed then all but in completely different ways to those envisaged. I'm saying here, that no matter how good your business plan, in my experience, it may not bear any similarity with reality.

The downside (at the time) was that our turnover in the first year was about £6k. I'd thought our market was limited to small companies but in reality we gained in the second year, two major retainer service projects, both with UK nationwide companies.

The reason I'm telling you this is that it will be hard to start with (and I took on a part time H&S post for a short time at the beginning) but persevere and you'll get there.

Posted By GeoffB4
Spot on and as I said, set your own value, whether it be £100, £200, £1000 or whatever.

What you should try not to do is be beaten down on price by a potential client because first of all it gives an indication of the type of company you would be working for and secondly and more important, it devalues you and your work.