Re: Contracting...

[Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET>]

Of course, a lot depends on what the agency does. We place contract writers
on projects, but we also market them, manage them, meet regularly with the
clients about issues, provide hardware and software when needed, train the
contractors on new technologies, and so on. Under those conditions, we need
more than 7-15% to pay us back. Contractors are often very happy with this
arrangement even if they have to chop their own rates a bit to us, because
for the term of the contract their own expenses plummet. And we often get
into industries and companies where they couldn't hope to work on their own
because of the marketing time and expense to get there.

Now, agencies that merely place people don't provide these services, so at
7% or so they're probably just recouping some small profit on their
marketing efforts. And your friend should probably have talked with the
agency about the agency's "cut" first  if that was an issue for him. I'm
somewhat surprised that the agency didn't have a non-compete with the
contractor that kept him from going direct. Of course the client can get the
writer for less, but the actual expense of marketing to the client and then
digging up a writer has already been done on somebody else's tab. Clients
hire agencies because they don't want to find, filter, and place people for
themselves.

At 03:44 PM 11/21/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Re Melissa's comments.
>Things in the UK are pretty much the same.  General accepted agency "cut"
>is 7-15% though they are always out to get as much as they can.
>
>Someone I used to work with told me about when he first went contracting.
>Not great money but his first contracting job.  One of the people at the
>company where he was placed "accidently" left the agreement where he could
>see it!  THe agency were taking over 50%.  He was not very pleased but got
>no joy form the agency when he confronted them -so he left!  Got taken on
>direct by the company as they really liked his work and since then he's
>been purely freelance finding his own work.  His principle is that if the
>going rate is ?20/hour (0r whatever) he can afford to undercut that by up
>to 15% and still get as much as if he'd gone through an agency and, of
>course, the employer is happy as it costs him less.


Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
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