whats the going rate to have a consultant come in and help start up a business? a friend of mine asked me but I just don’t have the time… he showed me a hourly rate form one consultant and it was outrageous to say the least. I’m just looking for a fair price so he doesn’t get taken to the bank.
I’ve done some consulting over the years…prices & needs vary…so there isn’t a ‘one price fits all’…I’ve gotten $350-$500/day, plus expenses…but goals & expectations must be spelled out in advance…even $1,000/day is not unheard of, as someone is buying an education & experience all at once…
Consulting rates will vary to some extent but in general they run either side of $1,000.00 per day plus expenses. Anyone asking $10,000.00 to $20,000.00 right up front as a package deal should be highly scrutinized and anyone asking for a piece of the store profits for any length of time should be handed their walking papers. The total cost as expected will depend upon how much assistance is actually needed.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
I suggest you contact Dave Ostrander a well respected pizza operations consultant.
George Mills
I “second” Georges recommendation for contacting Big Dave/Dave Ostrander <www.bigdaveostrander.com> or 1-888-BIG-DAVE.
Dave is second to none in my books as an operations consultant with a tremendous depth of knowledge about pizza in general.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Thanks guys! Those are 2 #s i will be forwarding over to him. although i have a feeling they are outside his price range!
Can you be more specific in the type of assistance he is looking for?
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
I’m not 100% but I know he’s gonna need help from the bottom up…setting up the kitchen, menu development, ordering, staffing, basically running the whole kitchen; its a strange situation that I said I wouldn’t talk to much about. basically, pizza/food is gonna be 1 of 3 arms of the biz and prob will end up being the smallest. on top of it, he has no interest in learning the biz in depth…after giving it some more thought I’m gonna steer him more towards hiring a GM who will run the show for him.
I agree, considering that he has no interest in learning the business looking for a good general manager would be cheaper and more efficient in the long run.
If he needs any help with the dough formulation, dough management procedure or baking let me know and I can help him/the G.M. through low cost electronic consulting, do it all the time.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
He needs to consider the value of what he will be learning as well as the savings achieved by implementing suggestions and avoiding mistakes. The last one I did in pizza was a three day project away from home (but in Colorado so expenses were not more than several hundred) plus a few hours before and after reviewing numbers and writing a report. In total it cost the client a bit over $4,000 for which I received a very nice thank you at the time and a followup letter a year later stating that the money spent had saved them several times what they paid in just the first year.
I have done a fair amount of this in the last 18 years. Most of my work has been on valuation and preparing for sale and/or creating and using information systems in business than operations. I charge $100 per hour if I am at home and $1,000 per day plus expenses away from home. Those rates have not changed in 10 years when I bumped from $800 per day to $1000. I am doing one right now in an unrelated industry and did two other projects earlier this year and just yesterday I was contacted about another to start in the Fall. Typically, these projects end up around $2,000 - $3,000 but I have taken projects that billed up to $20,000 (National brand in outdoor business).
All education is expensive.
We are food service facility designers specializing in pizza shops.
we have done the equipment layout and supplied the equipment for thousands of pizza shops nationwide.
Would like to work with you on this project.
George Mills