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Anonymous #1
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Consulting Fees
#28324303 - 05/18/23 03:05 AM (8 months, 7 days ago) |
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So I've been on my grind for a good minute. Been growing cubes as my primary obsession for 7 years now. I'd say maybe 3-4 years total of what would amount to working a job with serious overtime. I also have an advanced degree in the sciences, and considerable experience in both farm and lab settings.
You gotta get out there and market yourself if you want to succeed in this world. There have been times over the past several years where that was also essential to me in order to make rent. So I know a few people. Got some fungal social networking going on.
Some folks who I personally just met, but are dear old friends of a dear old friend, have a pretty successful mycology-related enterprise (all ebidle and medicinal species). Thing is, despite their admirable hustle, decent grow space, and high end equipment, they're basically amateurs when it comes to growing. Which they've openly admitted.
So they've got some expansion onto a new property on the horizon, and all sorts of plans to scale up. They also just want to step up their game and learn better technique. So they asked me to think about what I would charge to do consulting for them, to help them sort things out. What my time would be worth. And they were quick to add to that statement, the time it took to learn all this shit.
I'm just not really sure what to think, how to go about it. I'm coming from a retail sales angle on my current obsession, and a working-class, x dollars an hour background more generally. Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated!
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Anonymous #2
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Here is what I would do...
Find a job that does this and see how much it pays/charges. If it charges match it, if it pays triple your pay.
They are paying for your experience and knowledge, not just your time. They will take your experience and knowledge and use it to make money.
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Anonymous #3
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Not nearly enough details. I would need a lot of specific details to work up a quote.
Basically;
You should probably take a large upfront payment with additional payments made regularly over a certain period of time that ensures you get fair compensation while you are able to ensure your continued availability to work with them to fix problems and implement solutions to bring their production up to desired levels.
Check back here if you need more help with specifics.
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Anonymous #1
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Great ideas here, thank you!
Yeah, let me mull over how much more detail I'd feel comfortable revealing here. I'm missing some myself at this point, even how much compensation to pursue for securing those details is a bit of a head-scratcher for me. But the idea of and up-front fee plus graduated payments makes a lot of sense.
I'm not necessarily asking for dollar amounts here, regional markets and other factors naturally vary. But both suggestions are very helpful already.
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Anonymous #4
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You have experience growing medicinal and gourmets? If that's their business model, you could help with the aseptic technique portion of it, but I'd imagine that they would be better served getting advice from someone that runs a large gourmet operation. How to get the different varieties to fruit at the same time so that they could minimize harvesting, how to scale a large steam pasteurized, how to monitor the environmental conditions in a grow warehouse. Not trying to be a prick, but most cube growers, even good ones that run 100 tubs a month dont have to worry about that kind of thing and is outside their area of expertise.
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Anonymous #1
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No, I don't, and that's a valid point.
However, it's a multi-faceted enterprise, and not just a commercial mushroom farm focused singularly on expansion. They're not asking for someone to write up a production plan for them, more like someone to bounce ideas off of and help flesh out some of their schemes.
Walking through their facility, I already saw some pretty basic things I could help them sort out. And honestly, the culturing work is probably their biggest weakness.
Also, while it's true that in the mycological world I'm just another dirtbag cube grower, I also have an advanced degree and extensive experience in agriculture, land management, and lab work.
I've pretty much always figured that part of any consulting I would do might include letting them know where the boundaries of my knowledge lie, and helping refer them to more qualified people when necessary.
I guess all of this is one of the wrinkles in the equation that's throwing me off. If I were coming in with a more straightforward background, and a more plug-and-play approach to helping someone build out a commercial mushroom farm, then I imagine I'd already know what sort of compensation I was looking for. Under these circumstances, I want to help and believe that I can. I also don't mind investing a bit of extra time figuring this stuff out, as a learning experience. I don't want to blow smoke and rip them off, but I don't want to undervalue myself out of a sense of insecurity. I'm definitely more likely to lean towards the latter. I've had a lot of valuable work experience in my life, but never managed to make the sums that others do. I honestly don't even know what a fair hourly rate for a basic job would look like for me today, being so accustomed to massive underpayment.
Edited by Anonymous (06/13/23 05:54 AM)
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Anonymous #4
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That's a really thoughtful response. I'm in the same boat really. Science background, did a lot of ag work, severly underpaid. Sounds like you have a really good idea of how to help them. I don't know what that type of consulting is worth. 100$ an hour? I can say that if you feel confident in how to help them, then it will end up saving them money in the short and long term. I saw some guy on YouTube that helped people get the gourmet mushroom businesses going. Seemed like a really cool and knowledgeable human being. Like others have said, I would see how much someone like that would charge, probably around 100$ an hour plus 4k for the first week, then see how much the course costs, see what he would charge for a consulting fee, then have the business pay you for taking the course and navigating the information you recieve and applying it to their situation. That way you have another expert to confer with and it is saving them time and money because you're figuring all the shit out for them. I don't know anything about this kind of thing, but I hope some of these ideas will bounce things in the right direction.
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