Prepaid consulting is throwing money out the window!

May 19, 2009 - Reprinted from Technology Bloggers

What is prepaid consulting and who came up with the idea? I suspect it was someone who needed money quickly and promised the client that they would give them what they needed whenever they needed it.

Do you prepay a mechanic in the event your car might break down? I am not sure where the idea started but one thing holds true for me - every time I had to prepay something, I was the one wondering why I let myself get ripped off. Once the money is in their pocket, they could care less about your problems. Here's a real-world example. I prepaid a maintenance contract on my home to have termite treatment every year. Every year, I saw termites. I would call and they would schedule someone to come out. On the day they were supposed to come out, they would then call and try to reschedule until they had more stops to make in the area. Is that support? What am I paying for?

Information Technology is exactly the same. The majority of consulting firms want a contract or prepayment for support. It is something they call a maintenace contract. I recently spoke with Jason Hall, President of Stuart Hall Technologies. I asked him about his thoughts on this process.

Hall indicates that his company is very different from the typical consulting firms. "We do not use contracts for the simple fact that clients will always call us as long as we are doing great work", says Hall. "Why be locked in to a contract? In my opinion, it is the consultant's way of forcing you to use them for a period of time, and typically, the client is unhappy during this period but can't do anything because they already paid for the service." Hall also indicated that prepaying for support in his opinion is a form of scam. "Realistically, who is able to keep track of how long a consultant was on-site or how many hours you have left? In reality, you should simply be billed for the work performed that day. That is manageable", says Hall.