I wish I had a better system but mine is also a penciled in table inside my work notebook!

Hi Robin!

There are few different ways you could approach this.

One way would be on a retainer. “Thought partnership during the emergent phase of the project costs $xxxK”, which is based mostly on the value you’ll bring, regardless of the hours you put in (we’re disconnecting time and worth).

Another option could certainly be hourly. I’ve done this before. But with a very specific and limited scope before we check back in and define the rest of the scope and the cost. The moment you get yourself into tasks that are fast and easy for you to do because you have the skill level and experience to be incredibly efficient, you should be in flat fee pricing.

Lots of good questions in here Lisa. First of all, flat fee does not mean work for hire. Flat fee just means this is the cost. You can have both flat fee and preserve your intellectual property.

You truly get to make up how you want this to look. So one possibility for pricing would be a flat fee that covers development of the course and then a royalty on every sale. Or royalties start after the first 100 sales. You get to say whatever you want! They get to negotiate back.

As for IP you can state something in the contract about how you retain your IP but you license your IP to them for perpetual use, which gives you both the latitude to do what you set out to do.

Let’s leave it in case anyone else has the same question 🙂

I love so many things about this.

In May, I’ll connect anyone who wants into Fellow Founders groups of 4-5 so you an affinity circle moving forward. But it never hurts to get an accountability buddy too. And just generally, you’re a really good person and a delight to know.

This is so great, Johanna! Take comfort in working for the big dogs. They’re funding your time to develop tools to help the Global South. And providing you with some credibility. A course is a great idea! I think it’ll just be a matter of getting in front of that audience to market to them.

Hi friends,

It seems like this would be a good question for someone to submit to Office Hours. But let me see if I can provide some perspective here for now.

One part of why you want to “productize” something like consulting is so that you aren’t stretching yourself in a million directions for any client and any whim they have. Focusing on a few things you do well is (1) much better for your sanity and (2) way easier to market. You have to get comfortable telling a prospective client “That’s not in my wheelhouse.”

One example product ladder for an evaluator could be:
Free guide (one-time interaction)
Free newsletter (ongoing interaction)
Evaluability assessment (are you even ready for an evaluation?)
Evaluation capacity-building workshop (less expensive than an evaluation)
Full-blown evaluation

Within the full-blown evaluation, of course you’ll customize what you do on a case-by-case basis.

But if a prospective client calls and asks for you to just do the analysis on data they collected, would you say yes? I wouldn’t. (I wouldn’t analyze data I didn’t collect – you *know* there will have been collection problems.) It would cheapen your work, require just as much admin as bigger projects, lower your quality, and communicate that you can be piecemealed.

Does this help at all?

Everyone’s product ladder will look different but I recommend ultimately striving to not have too many rungs. And it’s ok if some rungs at this stage are aspirational.