29 February 2008 · common sense, consulting, economics, meetings, parking, parsimony

I went to a meeting the other day with one of my clients and two third-party developers. We were meeting at the developers' offices, in a town I'm not familiar with, so when I arrived I looked for the closest parking garage and parked there.

Arriving at the offices, the opening smalltalk included parking. Both my client's representative and the two developers had parked in two-hour free parking areas, and when I said I'd used the parking garage eyebrows were raised and one person asked me "how much does that cost?". I replied "I don't know, I didn't even think to look".

The meeting lasted four hours, so half way through the other three participants in the meeting had to take ten minutes or so out to juggle their cars and avoid tickets. On my return to the parking garage I discovered that the charge equated to approximately three minutes' billable income, which I was happy to write off. Assuming the other three participants are similarly expensive their decision may have saved them personally a dollar or two, but it probably cost the client over a hundred bucks in lost time.

Yet I'm the one who's regarded as stupid for paying to park so I can happily take as long as I need to meet without interruption. I'd like to think my clients pay me the rates they do so, among other things, they don't have to pay me to go out and move my car in the middle of meetings. A couple of dollars out of my pocket is well worth it if the client gets (and perceives) better value for money as a result.