“I only have limited budget and I know you cannot offer me a dedicated Developer for that amount for one full year” said the IT Director from a reputed Community College in Oregon. This happened in a Sales meeting that happened over the web. I did not want to make an assumption or jump to any conclusion and I asked her, what exactly do you have as the budget?
Her response was, “$47,000 only. Do you think you could offer me a person who could fill in the shoes of one of our Programmers who left us mid-way?” It really was next to impossible to offer what she wanted at that price. However, I did not give up on her as the idea was to make it a win-win for both of us. I could not afford to let go of a name that I could have benefited my Organization immensely and at the same time the amount would not have done justice to my consultant’s efforts.
Then came the first suggestion from my side which was “why don’t you take some support hours which you could utilize as and when the need arose?” That made her a little agitated and she said “you don’t seem to be understanding. I do not have a person in my team who could take care of the customization and development work on a daily basis and this is not something which could be schedule in a routine fashion. I need someone everyday working on our needs. ” I offered to accept the payment in the next fiscal year to which the answer was again a no.