Training Permies to Make More Money
Training permies is an obvious opportunity for contractors to make more money.
Contractors seldom take advantages of all the opportunities to make more money from their clients. One of the ways they can do this is by selling training and mentoring services to their client.
Often contractors are hired because they have a lot of experience in the skills that a company’s permanent workers don’t have much of. They are brought in for their expertise.
They know more than the permanent workers, especially where there is a new skill. This skill can be in a language, a tool, a methodology or in some technical expertise.
Few contractors take the step of thinking “Well if I have knowledge that others in the company don’t have as much of, then I can make more money than I currently do by training permies”?
They usually watch as onlookers as companies send their permanent workers out for training. Companies can pay anything between £10,000 and £30,000 for a week to 2 week’s training for 8-12 people.
What About You?
Could you do training permies cheaper?
Damn right you could – and probably better too.
You would have the advantage of being able to mentor those on the course after they have finished it too.
Mentoring and Traning Permies
In fact, why not put together a training and mentoring package for training permies and then mentoring them afterwards?
You have a price advantage on outside training companies and the mentoring means that you have added value.
The course might last one or two weeks to be followed by work using the skill on a real project lasting about 4-6 weeks. It could be a simple area of a real project that you choose, and better still if it is the project that those gaining the skills are going to be working on.
Competitive Advantage when Training Permies
You would have competitive advantage on a training company because you would be giving companies more, i.e.:-
1) The training course
2) Mentoring on a trial project
3) Mentoring on the real project
As well as giving your client company more than a training company could do, you could do it far cheaper than they could too.
There may be a licensing fee to pay for doing the course or there may not.
Whether there was or not you could still do it more cheaply and give them more too.
If it all goes well you might find yourself training and mentoring all the companies employees who will be using the skill on multiple projects.
Don’t Take Opportunities
Of course, most contractors don’t take any opportunities like these as many of them see themselves as temporary employees rather than as small businessmen and women.
They often cite the clause in their contract which states that they can’t approach the client for more work while at the company and for a period afterwards.
There’s no need to worry about that. Agencies put that in to cover themselves.
Good Scheme for Training Permies
I’ve spoken to quite a few of them, and all of them have said that if a contractor came up with a good scheme which would benefit the contractor, the agency and the company, then they would be happy to go along with it. Training permies would fit into that.
Indeed, you could potentially partner with your agency to provide training at other places where they have contractors and which use the same skills. You’d have the advantage of the agencies selling your servcies to their clients.
None Came up With Ideas
When I was a CIO at a company we usually had around 20 IT contractors at any one time.
If any of them had come up individually, or as a group, with a proposal which stacked up, I would have looked at it favourably if it benefited the department the company (and myself).
In the three years I was there none of them ever did.
It’s a shame as the opportunities are there – if contractors would just reach out their hands and grab them. Training Permies is one of them.
Why not find out what sort of training is done at your client’s company and how much it costs and then come with a Training and Mentoring package for training permies?
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The problem is most agency contracts are 9-5 Monday to Friday for a few months. So contractors won’t get paid any more if they spend that time training the permies than doing anything else.
The only benefit to the contractor in that situation is if this training leads to a more likely extension. But would a week or so of training do that?
It’s work outside the terms of the contract so the contractor can ask for an increase and quote a weekly rate for doing the course. Remember that the course has to be put together and that takes time. It would be a good saving for the company. The agency would be happy too – as long as they got their cut. So, the agency and teh contractor would make more money that week and the client company would save a lot of money. The company would also have a mentor onsite which they don’t usually have after a training course.