Peter Lantos

Peter Lantos, Ph.D., P.E., spent some 25 years in industry. He held research positions at Du Pont and Celanese, and senior management positions at Sun Chemical, Rhodia and Arco Chemical. The last 25 years he has headed a small consultancy whose clients have included Fortune 500 as well as smaller and off-shore corporations, such as Amoco, Shell Chemical, Ticona, PPG and others.

Key takeaways:

Quote a project price, derived by calculating the amount of time needed, plus 10%.  Helps manage client expectations on overall cost.

Exception:  when working as an expert witness or when unable to determine time needed.

Provide a reduced rate for smaller clients, who are more price sensitive.

Mary Payne

Mary Payne has over 25 years experience preparing proposals and estimates for consulting projects for a broad range of health care providers locally and nationally. She brings pricing experience from the perspective of a large international consulting firm (KPMG), a regionally-based consulting firm, and as owner of her own consulting firm for the last eight years, specializing in business and strategic planning for health care providers.

Key takeaways:

Addresses pricing for a competitive bid.

Pricing starts with your annual plan. What revenue and return do you expect? What are your costs?

Margin and profitability is more important than your billing rate. You do that by managing your costs all the way the project.

Clients use price to simplify their decision. A strong value proposition can support a higher price.

Gary Samartino

Gary Samartino is President of InfoVentions, Inc., which develops technical communication and training materials for a wide variety of industries. He has been responsible for estimating, setting, and tracking project costs and pricing for 25 years.

Key takeaways:

All my bids are project bids. We track the hours for all our projects so I can use the findings for our next bid.

My key metric is hours/page, and I can then determine my cost/page and give clients an overall project bid that meets by profit margin.

Rick Schilling

Rick Schilling established his staffing firm in 1992 after a 19-year career in commercial banking and 4 years in the construction equipment leasing industry. Clients use his cadre of experienced professionals to complete specialized projects and to fill interim and full time staff vacancies in middle management and senior positions.

Key takeaways:

Pick the number you want to make, and then think about whether you have the value to your client to make that rate.

You have 2000 hours in a year. Half of that should be spent on marketing yourself. That gives you 1000 hours in a year. To make $200,000 a year, you need to bill at a rate of $200 an hour.

Dave Vahlsing

Dave Vahlsing, founder of Hydrocarbon Engineering Associates and currently manager of the Becht Engineering Company Philadelphia office, also supports the needs and interests of consultants as an active member of the Chemical Consultants Network (CCN). He continues to search for and match Becht staff engineering consultants with energy and chemical industry client needs, both locally and world wide.

Dave shares his decades of experience and wisdom on pricing success for engineers, chemists, and technical consultants.

Key takeaways:

If you have a customer who pays you promptly, treat them right.

Work to get an up-front deposit or a retainer.

We charge full rate for travel, as it takes you away from your work.

We charge for developing a scope of work.