A consultant is holding me hostage! Help!

Dear Aunty B,

My life is being made a misery by an unscrupulous web consultant who is ripping me off. He refuses to be employed as an employee despite repeated offers. Instead he comes and goes and does extra jobs that I don’t want and can’t afford and then charges me for them.

I want to sack him but I am worried he will just walk out and leave a huge job uncompleted.

Also, I live in the country and there are not a lot of people around who can do the job and I worry that the next person won’t be able to pick up where he left off as he says the work is very complicated.

How can I get back control?

And don’t tell me I should write better briefs. The guy in my office doing the briefs is very good.

Wantmylifeback,
Regional Australia

Dear Wantmylfeback,

Are you nuts? Sack him immediately. I have once been held hostage by a consultant. Our problem was that she kept insisting we needed stuff that we didn’t need. In her case it wasn’t to overcharge. It was just that she was not experienced, wanted to help and was learning on the job. But she was nuts, knew nothing about our business and we never hired her in the first place: the guy we hired and who had worked with famous clients dumped her on us. Boy, did we learn from that experience.

As soon as we sacked her, the whole team breathed a huge sigh of relief and never looked back. But it did leave us eternally bewildered: what took us so long?

You have the first thing you need: a guy who can write briefs. Now send out a brief and let someone from the world wide web answer.

Oh, and next time? Remember who is boss. Be sure to lock in the rates. Set an amount and write in the proposals that the consultant is “NOT TO EXCEED XX”.

Check that the guy doing the work has the right experience with the right clients. Try and get someone who has some experience of your industry in the past few years.

And don’t forget to bargain.

Good luck!
Your Aunty B

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