One of the first questions people will ask is “How much do you charge per hour?” or “How much do you charge per day?”

Is this the right question?

How can you compare hourly rates? Does an hourly rate have any meaning?

Should you pay someone $10 per hour or $10,000 per hour?

When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.

Oprah Winfrey

We are considering charging $20 per hour for my team members

What do you think?

$10 is below the minimum wage in some places. Is $20 fairer?

How many hours?

Oh yes, you should know that it takes about 57,600 hours to develop this expertise. (In “Outliers“, Malcolm Gladwell mentioned 10,000 hours, but IP strategy is definitely a longer path to mastery.)

So, 57,600 hours at $20 is $1,152,000 per team member.

That sounds reasonable.

Should we round it up or down?

Other factors

Some people started the journey and dropped out along the way. Should there be a multiplier to take that into account?

Others were not lucky enough to get the exposure that I had. They never got to negotiate with Steve Jobs. They never negotiated licensing deals in China. They have never managed billions of dollars in transaction value.

So, how much should you pay per hour?

Or maybe you can do it yourself

Alternatively, you can “save” that much money by developing this expertise yourself.

• But will you have the patience to wait 30 years?
• And what if you do not get the same relevant exposure?

Maybe it is just cheaper, faster and less risky to get some help now.

Then you can focus on what you already do best – looking after your business, your products and your customers.

What are you paying for?

Because when you get help, you are not paying for the hours our team members will devote to you. You are paying for the years YOU will save, the hazards that you will sidestep and the acceleration that you can achieve.

About the author:

Raymond Hegarty is an IP strategist, author and speaker. He is an IP coach to CEOs and CFOs of high-growth technology and life science companies.

He is the author of three bestselling books on IP strategy and has spoken to tens of thousands of people on topics of innovation and intellectual property. IAM Magazine has recognised him as one of the world’s top 300 IP strategists every year for the last 10 years.

He is the CEO of IntaVal, a leading global IP strategy consultancy.