Tip #283: A Fee Negotiation Cautionary Tale

I hope that no current or potential clients are reading this, because I have an embarrassing admission to make: I haven't raised my fees in many years, and I often agree to accept less than my daily rate. A hard-nosed negotiator I definitely am not!

There are consultants I know who post their rates and stand by them. They never negotiate. I wish I had their self-confidence and business savvy!

Since I don't, the following real-life sad fee negotiation story is meant as a cautionary tale:

Many years ago, I helped a college conduct some very sensitive strategic planning. The faculty had to decide what programs to cut because of lack of funds. This meant that they had to essentially decide which among them would lose their jobs.

We used my "building consensus on sticky issues' approach to establish decision-making criteria acceptable to all concerned. They identified all of the possible options and then applied the decision-making criteria to identify their key options. However, all of this took the entire day.

There was still work to be done and final decisions to be made. Although the group had all of the decision-making tools they needed to make those decisions, they were uncomfortable with the idea of continuing without an objective and disinterested facilitator. They asked me if I would be willing to facilitate an additional session. Of course, I agreed to do it.

I facilitated the second session and then submitted my invoice for both consulting days.

While I was conducting a training program for another client, the dean called me to question why I was charging for the second day. I was very surprised by his message and called him right back during the next ten-minute break. I asked him why it would be reasonable to expect that I would conduct the second session for free. He was adamant that my agreement to facilitate that session included no mention of additional payment. Although that was a true statement of the facts, I countered that it should have been clear that I would expect to be paid for the second day.

In the interest of maintaining a positive relationship with the college, I ultimately offered to accept 1/2 of my daily rate for the second day. He insisted that I was culpable but, in the interest of "fairness," the college would pay 1/4 of my daily rate for the second day. Pressured by the need to get back to my training session, I gave in.

That was many years ago and I still get angry when I think about it. I was offended by his manipulation of the situation, but I was much more angry with myself. My reluctance to make it clear that I would charge the same rate for the second day made it possible for him to take advantage of me.

What I learned from this experience is to be upfront about my fee and bring it up myself if the client doesn't ask about it. And I do!

Enough said about this topic! Next week, we'll look at handy tips to prepare for workshops in hotels.

Tip #282: Training is a Business

Training is a real business, but frequently trainers, particularly independent practitioners, forget that being in business DOES mean getting paid!

The video, The Vendor/Client Relationship In Real-World Situations' illustrates what trainers face with some clients who want to negotiate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

I think it's wonderfully if painfully accurate! If this strikes a chord with you and you have a story to tell, please write in with it and we'll print it in the next Tip.

Next week, we will look at some pretty sad real-life training fee negotiations!

Before we get to this week's Tip, Beth Eberhardt, Interim Coordinator, Maricopa Community Colleges, needs your assistance. She trains employees how to be more effective when they communicate using email and voice mail- and would like to incorporate activities into her program:

I am currently revising a Communicating with Voicemail and Email workshop. This is the one that you gave me the suggestion to do the shared responsibility dominoes exercise. I did it previously and it went well but the evaluations state that they would have like more activities. "My dilemma is that I work for a community college system and we have 10 colleges, all with their own email systems (Zimbra, Outlook, SeaMonkey) therefore it is difficult to teach any technology in relation to the content. Some wanted to have recordings of voicemails that they all could critique which is a possibility. One additional activity that I have them do is write a personal voicemail greeting and share with a partner. "

Do you have any other advice for activities when teaching soft skills in relation to technology? Thanks in advance, Beth

This week, we look at a real-life training fee negotiation!

Tip #281: Improving Energy Education

Many people may not realize that I have more than 12 years of experience designing specialized energy educational programs and training the trainers who provide energy education on a local, regional and national level. So, before I get on my soapbox, let me offer the credentials that support my opinion on the problems with energy education.

In collaboration with technical experts, I designed the curriculum, created the trainer manuals, and trained the trainers for the highly acclaimed National Compressed Air Challenge, the Wisconsin Energy Star Homes Program, and Focus on Energy. These programs include: Compressed Air Challenge Fundamentals and Compressed Air Challenge Advanced Training, Ventilation Basics, Drainage Basics, Practical Energy Management, Integrating High Performance, and the eight-day Wisconsin Energy Star Homes Training Consultant training.

According to Marge Anderson, Associate Director of the Energy Center of Wisconsin, my curriculum design and master training skills helped the Energy Center of Wisconsin win the 1998 and 2002 Awards of Excellence in Education from the American Institute of Architects, as well as the 2000 Exemplar Award from the International Association of Continuing Education and Training.

The fact that the National Compressed Air Challenge is one of the highest rated training programs for the U.S. Department of Energy has also been attributed to my curriculum design and train-the trainer expertise.

For years, I have designed and delivered the two-day Technical Trainers Toolbox for Focus on Energy. I worked with Productive Energy Solutions to design the Fan System Assessment Training and the Fan System Qualified Specialist training programs for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Over the past two years, I worked with Southern California Edison to provide train-the-trainer programs and to audit and recommend revisions to their key training programs to incorporate adult learning principles to ensure a quality learning experience for their customers.

More recently, I have worked with Productive Energy Solutions to design an Energy Awareness Program for Arcelor Mittal, Steel: An Energy-Intensive Business for Purdue University, and Pump System Energy Efficiency and Fan System Energy Efficiency programs for Portland General Electric.

In the past month, I designed and delivered a two-day program on Training Analysis and Design for Midwest ISO (the folks who manage the electric grid!) in Minneapolis and Presentation and Facilitation Techniques for Pump Systems Matter in Chicago.

However, until a representative of Midwest ISO contacted me and pointed it out, I did not realize that I have a niche in technical energy training design.

As a result, I feel that I have a responsibility and an obligation to make the following observations:

Most technical training programs about energy-efficient practices are based on an ineffective and outdated training paradigm. They waste valuable time and resources promoting the lecturer's expertise rather than developing the participants' capability.

What happens when technical energy experts get in front of their audience?

Do the participants:

(a) learn a lot and leave confident in their own competence?
(b) enjoy the stories and consider it good entertainment?
(c) leave in awe of the expert's knowledge and skill?

The answer is probably not (a).

Unless technical energy experts understand and incorporate adult learning principles sufficiently to set their participants up for successful learning, the training simply wastes everyone's precious time and limited funds. Given the importance of energy conservation, how can we justify that?

Customers and consumers need specific technical skills to effectively implement energy-efficient practices. Don't we want them to get those skills and leave the training programs confident that they can capably use those skills?

Unfortunately, despite many years of research into how the brain works and how people learn, most technical training only uses lecture. So, what's wrong with lecture?

It depends on what the desired outcome is.

If the desired outcome is an awareness of and exposure to new knowledge, lecture will achieve that goal. However, why not simply post this information on a website and save everyone the time and expense of attending a workshop?

For any agency committed to promoting energy-efficient practices, the desired outcome is either new skills or a change in attitude or behavior. In these cases, different instructional methods other than lecture will be necessary.

The energy industry needs well-designed training programs that will accomplish their ultimate intent: to motivate and empower consumers to make energy-efficient changes.

There are also sound business reasons to change the design and delivery of energy training programs.

First, most energy programs are designed without an educational component, so they are destined to fail. Instead of gaining consumer buy-in so that they are motivated to make energy-conscious decisions, the energy industry offers rebates or incentives. When the rebates or incentives go away, the energy-conscious decisions stop. True energy-conscious behavioral change requires energy training programs that incorporate learning activities that generate participant buy-in.

Second, reliance on an expert lecturer hampers the ability of energy training organizations to effectively respond to the increased interest in energy efficiency. It makes better business sense to offer training that is no longer dependent on the expert's limited time and availability. Energy training programs should be designed with content drawn from the expert's expertise and learning activities that build consumer buy-in and expertise. This way, the same training can be delivered by a number of skilled trainers, which will enable energy training organizations to achieve much deeper penetration into the market.

I will get off of my soapbox now, but I warn you that I am on a mission!

I am writing my very first book to help energy-training organizations know how and why to redesign their training so that learning and real energy-conscious behavioral change will occur.

I would appreciate any suggestions you are willing to provide regarding:

what to title this book so that it draws the energy industry's attention;

compelling reasons why energy-training organizations might want to buy this book;

what content to include;

the best way to structure the book so it will be most useful; and

how to effectively reach this audience.

(If it's not too pretentious to say), the planet and I both thank you!

Next week, we will begin a discussion about ridiculous training fee negotiations.