Consulting Rates for BB and MBB

At the top end individuals/companies are charging $2000 to $3000 a day + expenses.
Adam

Dave,
I have opened and closed this question several times because I really get tired of hearing people discuss how consultants are over paid. It is like anything else you get paid what the market value is. Most of these people really wouldn’t want someone examining their ROI based on their salary. Just remember you need to evaluate this the way you would any other business deal. – Return on Investment (ROI). Your company already has a Payback period threashold it sets for Investments. Get them to understand this is not an expense – as the accountants will classify it. It is an investment in the work force, their future and their bonus. Motorola has some interesting numbers around the ROI they get on their training dollar.
Scare the crap out of your HR department. Runn training with its own P&L. All that esoteric crap you get when they get in the picture would cease and the focus would shift to results – where it should be (not on the number of font sizes in your material – that is a real conversation I had).
First I wouldn’t hire a BB consultant for any other reason than to work a project. It would make more sense to just hire them. If your intention is training with projects you have to understand you are not after a MBB. When we hire MBB’s (as consultants) they have to be able to deliver at a level that is “the MBB to the MBB candidates”. I listened to a VC make a remark one day that MBB’s were a dime a dozen. I don’t agree with that under any circumstance particularly with a long term successful consultant. The Consultant level guys like Ray Everhart and Linus Kelly will leave most MBB’s in the dust. It is a whole different level. They have to be stand alone people because you don’t send them out in teams. The old Texas Ranger thing “One riot, one Ranger.” They don’t go into a place where they have to understand the business or they are a SME’s. They don’t ask for a couple days delay so they can log on somewhere and ask for case studies. They don’t need them. They understand the process. They break their own barriers and they make things happen.
These people will go for a minimum of $2500/day + expenses (Bad economy). In a normal market they go for $3500 – $4000/day + expenses. If you get some one deploying for less than $2k/day they are either unproven, don’t know their market value (in which case this is who you ask for advice?), or they are some existentialist working off some really bad karma. 
There are locations in this world that have a reputation for not paying their bills. It is like some badge of honor to either stiff you or delay payment as long as they can. In these locations I charge $6500/day + expenses (the daily rate and airfare are in advance these days). I sat on a $1,000,000 Account Recievable for about 12 months because of this type of mentality. Then they wonder why the Good consultants won’t work there?
Japan is even more intersting. Typically when you finish a week of training they expect to be billed before you leave – a refreashing experience.
If you want to separate the men from the boys (a cliche – I am not trying to offend any women; the term men and boys is gender neutral in this case) you can find the consultants who will deploy for free. You pay expenses only. In 12 months they take a percentage of the savings. This is where you find out who believes in their product. You will hit some of the consulting companies that will snivel and give you all kinds of excuses about “Business” or “accounting” reasons that it isn’t feasable (typically it will be we have to take some kind of reserve). The bottom line is they don’t believe in their product or their consultants enough to get in the boat with you. If they don’t believe why should you?
The range is $0 – $50,000. We all know who the $50k is and just like anything elsev – it should be put to the ROI test. The market isn’t much different than any other maket. You will get what you pay for.
Good luck.

MN,
Thankyou. I appreciate the compliment.
I’m just having fun. Someone made that suggestion in an earlier question- just have fun. This has been fun since about 83.
Thanks again.

David,
With all due respect, I think Six Sigma focuses on applied statistics, problem solving, and business process improvement and not necessarily statisitics.  Although the proper use of statistical tools is a cornerstone of the Six Sigma methodology, it does not, in and of itself, accurately and completely define what Black Belts and Master Black Belts bring to the table.  Perhaps the comparison you made was not apples to apples…

I thought about this for a while yesterday and decided I needed to respond one more time. In your parlance: Null Hypothesis MBB=Statistician. We are rejecting the null hypothesis in this case.
First. I owned a ski shop once. I skiied withseveral people who had skiied for 20-30 years. It didn’t make them good skiers. If you don’t get the relevance write me back.
Good credentials is subjective. You might want to check and see if you measurement system correlates to your customers. If it does then it might be your customers are different than ours.
You don’t understand the basic assumptions therefor you don’t arrive at the correct conclusions. Maybe, just maybe, this is why the business world is placing a higher dollar value on SS types than the pure statistician.

When I replied to your initial post, I knew my comments would stir some controversy. However, I did not expect the insults and bad manners typical of your last reply.
Please remove me from you “discussion”.

As they same in my home country “If you can’t stand the bouncing, stay off the camel”
Kindest regards,
Apu Muhhamad

Dave,
I will weigh with Mr. Carnell on this one. Let’s compare business results and see who should get paid most.
A good MBB is about results and the market rate for a good one is $2500 – $5000 /day + expenses. I. too, would prefer a piece of the action vs. a daily rate. Compensation there can be an order of magnitude higher.
The real trick is figuring out who the good ones are. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, claiming the title and I know only a few dozen really good ones. I know less than a handful that also claim to be statisticians.

What would be the going rate per day in 08/09?