The subject line, adapted from Hamlet, asks the question, when do we charge and when do we give away time?
It is usually pretty clear when we should charge for our work, but when do we do it for free, out of the goodness of our hearts, or, when do we donate as a business strategy? When?
Here are some examples of when we, in our consulting practice, give away time.
>>We almost always donate time for an initial call with a potential client. These calls may last an hour or more and we may also have a look at some materials that the potential client sends. These investments of time almost always pay off in new, paid work. Sometimes we charge for that initial time, post hoc, if the client agrees, particularly if the content of the communications is very substantive and useful after the work officially begins. There are other reasons for donating time at the beginning. In years of consulting I have never quickly or directly answered a potential client’s opening question of “what are your rates and how long will it take?” I prefer to engage the client in a more human and personally satisfying introduction, and I do take a real interest in hearing about their situation. The human being on the other end of the phone appreciates an open ear and heart.
>>A graduate student calls up in desperation. They are statistically drowning and there is no help from their home university. We usually donate time to hear the story and assess what the student is up against. Our main contribution is to tell them, broadly, what they need to do to get from here to there. We may take them on at a reduced rate. If they have no resources and we have no time, we try to refer them to free university consulting services or tell them how to convince their degree advisor to help them get statistical help.
>>Nice guy, no money. There are just some people who we really like, and we like their project, so we donate the time.
>>Proposal development. If a current or potential client has a terrific idea for a proposal, and if the project looks promising, we donate time to work on the proposal. We make a very firm verbal agreement that there will be no “bait and switch” to a new statistician if funding occurs.
>>One situation where we definitely do not donate time is when a potential client asks us to choose between co-authorship for work on a planned peer-reviewed article or a consulting fee. When you choose, you lose, because there is no reason not to receive both. The potential client making this request would typically be a salaried scientist, and that salaried scientist is not going to ask their employer to give them LWOP (leave without pay) while they work on the research and article. Why are they asking us to make a sacrifice that they are not willing to make? Secondly, if we choose the fee option and sacrifice the co-authorship, it would be a serious ethical error. Real co-authorship is a fact, not an opinion. It is an ethical error to omit a genuine author from a published scientific article.
Those are some thoughts on when to donate time (and an example of when not to donate). Does anyone else have other examples or comments?
Best wishes,
Nayak
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Nayak Polissar
Principal Statistician
The Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistics
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