“CONSULTANTS
-- HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU GET PAID FOR YOUR WORK”
IEEE Consultants Network Meeting --
Wednesday, 6:30 PM, October 22, 2008
At Foley-Hoag, 1000 Winter Street, Suite 4000, Waltham, MA
By Nathan O. Sokal, President Design Automation, Inc.
Tel. +1 (781) 862-8998; Fax +1 (781) 862-3769
Robert A. Adelson, Esq., Partner, Engel & Schultz LLP
Tel: (617) 951-9980; Fax: (617) 951-0048
Corporate restructuring and layoffs of engineers have been swelling the ranks of consultants. Though probably prepared technically, many new consultants are not experienced in the business aspects of consulting. This makes them easy prey for the small minority of clients who try to get work for nothing or avoid paying for services once rendered.
In your consulting practice, you must accomplish three main tasks:
• get the business
• do the work
• bill your client
• get paid.
Many lectures, courses, and books are available to help you with the first two tasks; rarely are the third and fourth tasks discussed. If you fail to get paid for your work, you are worse-off than if you had failed to get the business, because you have spent your valuable time doing the work, with no compensation.
About 95% of clients are honest, but the few dishonest ones cause enormous trouble. Such problems are more likely to occur during hard economic times, when more clients might be tempted to save money by engaging in unethical behavior.
This lecture tells you how to increase the chances of being paid for your work. It will include tips in the following areas:
• ways to early detect problem clients so little time is wasted
• innovative billing approaches to enhance payment from
cash-poor clients or those in economic difficulty
• protection methods to improve collection opportunit
• enforcement strategies to collect when trouble strikes.
This special presentation
features an IEEE Fellow engineer with 57 years of engineering experience, of which
42 years were as an independent consultant, and a
Nathan Sokal was elected a Fellow of the IEEE, for contributions to the
technology of high-efficiency power conversion and RF power amplification. He received the IEEE 2007 Microwave Pioneer Award “in recognition of a major, lasting, contribution … for development of the Class-E RF power amplifier.”
In 1965, Mr. Sokal founded Design Automation, Inc., a consulting company doing electronics design review, product design, and solving "unsolvable" problems, for equipment-manufacturing clients. Much of that work has been on high-efficiency switching-mode RF power amplifiers at frequencies up to 2.5 GHz, and in switching-mode dc-dc power conversion.
Mr. Sokal
holds eight patents in power electronics, and is the author or co-author of two
books and more than a hundred technical papers, mostly in high-efficiency
generation of RF power and dc power. During 1950-1965 he held engineering
and supervisory positions for design, manufacture, and applications-engineering
of analog and digital equipment. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees
in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Robert Adelson, Esq. has
been a corporate and tax attorney since 1977, and is a partner in the
6-attorney
Mr.
Adelson’s clients are early-stage technology-based companies, consultants,
senior executives and key employees, and family businesses. His main practice areas
are: Business formation, finance and capitalization; Commercial contracts,
licensing and strategic alliance agreements; Executive employment, stock and
options, and severance; Trademarks and intellectual property protection;
Partnership, joint ventures, mergers, and acquisitions.
Mr.
Adelson is a frequent lecturer for entrepreneur and professional groups, and
has written numerous published articles, including articles in the Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech, and numerous other
business journals. He is Vice-Chairman
of the IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs Network and an Advisory Board member of the
128 Innovation Capital Group. He received his B.A. summa cum laude from
PLEASE NOTE:
No charge for Consultants Network members; or non-members. The meeting is free and open to the public. Casual dress.
The
Consultants Network meeting starts at 6:30 PM.
The meeting location is at Foley Hoag LLP,
http://www.foleyhoag.com/TheFirm/Offices/Emerging%20Enterprise%20Center%20at%20Foley%20Hoag.aspx
Check
the Consultants Network website for details and last minute information of our
upcoming lectures series for 2008-2009
http://www.boston-consult.com/calendar.php
For more information, e-mail cn.boston@ieee.org
or chairman@boston-consult.com; or contact the chairman Tom Vaughan at
781-344-0087. The Consultants Network website is at www.boston-consult.org.