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Negotiation

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    Negotiation

    It occurs to me that I'm extremely good at my job, but, in common with many other contractors, I'm pretty poor at negotiation.

    What would be fairly good would be someone who, for a fee, or a percentage, would negotiate for us. It's supposed to be the agency, but seeing as we often don't know the clients rate, they're usually somewhat less transparent than, say, 20 lightyears thickness of lead.

    The only difficulty is - how would we know that they'd got a better rate for us?

    otoh, we often find out the agents mark up during the course of our negotiations, so perhaps that would be time?
    Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

    #2
    I am presently looking at hiring somebody to help me out with that side of things. Not the whole negotiation, but just to provide some backup. Bigger companies can get away with saying "xxx isn't our policy" or "I'll have to check with my boss" and I'd like to be able to do that too.

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      #3
      Any of the real Project Managers that lurk on CUK should be able to help you. A noticable part of proper PM work is managing the commercial concerns of the client or supplier.

      The real question would be who would help you to negotiate the rate with your negotiator? I for one wouldn't be cheap

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        #4
        That is the avenue I'm exploring. The difficult bit is getting one of them to work ideally PAYE for a few ad-hoc hours every 3 months.

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          #5
          Originally posted by thunderlizard View Post
          That is the avenue I'm exploring. The difficult bit is getting one of them to work ideally PAYE for a few ad-hoc hours every 3 months.
          I could do that for you although I wouldn't do it on a PAYE basis unless there was an overriding benefit. Why not use a normal B2B consultancy relationship with a simple invoice?

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by thunderlizard View Post
            Bigger companies can get away with saying "xxx isn't our policy" or "I'll have to check with my boss" and I'd like to be able to do that too.
            It's not "getting away" - it's running their business their way. Which is what more of us contractors need to start doing. Agencies would have to spice themselves up a bit if more people started to do things the proper way rather than accepting sloppy seconds.

            Obviously, this doesnt apply to those of us on this forum eh? We're all clued in to doing it the right way

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by NotAllThere View Post
              It occurs to me that I'm extremely good at my job, but, in common with many other contractors, I'm pretty poor at negotiation.

              What would be fairly good would be someone who, for a fee, or a percentage, would negotiate for us. It's supposed to be the agency, but seeing as we often don't know the clients rate, they're usually somewhat less transparent than, say, 20 lightyears thickness of lead.

              The only difficulty is - how would we know that they'd got a better rate for us?

              otoh, we often find out the agents mark up during the course of our negotiations, so perhaps that would be time?
              It's not supposed to be the agency who negotiate for us, in the current business model. Never imagine that they are your agents. They are the clients' agents, and you are the punter (that's the polite word). That's why they are not transparent: it's none of your business.

              Of course you could get an agent, showbiz-style, who finds you contracts and takes 10%. But if the people he finds contracts from are agencies, not clients, then you just have 2 agents in the chain, rather than 1.

              What is needed there is to persuade clients to deal without agents. Or you accept that your client is the agent, and the end client is not whom you deal with. In that case, get an agent of your own, who will beat down the clients' agents enough to earn his fee. But indeed, how to know?

              I take the point that there is negotiation to be done, and most of us are bad at that: that's why few agents are contractors, and vice versa: success in our respective fields demands completely different personality types. When it comes to computers, our type can do it; but when it comes to negotiation, agent types thrash us. On top of which, they know the market better than we do, because they keep testing it. So maybe having your own agent would pay for itself. It reminds me of Dave Crosby, talking of when Crosby Stills & Nash got together. He said that they realised that they'd then be playing in the big leagues, and the big leagues in music are a shark pool. So, he said, we thought we'd better have our own shark. (Enter aggressive and successful impresario David Geffen).

              Maybe we do need our own sharks.

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by TykeMerc View Post
                Any of the real Project Managers that lurk on CUK should be able to help you. A noticable part of proper PM work is managing the commercial concerns of the client or supplier.

                The real question would be who would help you to negotiate the rate with your negotiator? I for one wouldn't be cheap
                I'm not cheap either, but I'm worth it. Would you be? Worth it = save more than you cost.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by NotAllThere View Post
                  It occurs to me that I'm extremely good at my job, but, in common with many other contractors, I'm pretty poor at negotiation.

                  What would be fairly good would be someone who, for a fee, or a percentage, would negotiate for us. It's supposed to be the agency, but seeing as we often don't know the clients rate, they're usually somewhat less transparent than, say, 20 lightyears thickness of lead.

                  The only difficulty is - how would we know that they'd got a better rate for us?

                  otoh, we often find out the agents mark up during the course of our negotiations, so perhaps that would be time?
                  the problem with negotiating with an agency like this is that they have the upper hand.
                  They know what the client is willing to pay
                  They will probably have another contractor in reserve in case things don't work out with you
                  They can afford to say no

                  I've said it before... efforts should be made into going direct, agencys used only as a backup incase no direct work can be found.
                  Personally I would rather take a lower paying direct contract over an agency role (within reason of course) just to help cut the middlemen out of the picture.
                  Coffee's for closers

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by TheVoice View Post
                    It's not "getting away" - it's running their business their way. Which is what more of us contractors need to start doing.
                    well, maybe I was oversarcastic in saying "get away with". But "company policy" just means "somebody in the company decided to do it this way". And when EDS says "this is our policy", it somehow feels more immutable than when I say it on behalf of my company. When I say "this is our company policy", half the time the client says "oh come off it, that just means it's what you decided and you could just as easily un-decide it": but the same client buckles in the face of other suppliers' "policy".

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