Two important points I learned was: 1) charge by the week, and 2) charge by the value you will be providing, rather than how much your time is worth.
Charging by the week allows you to not have to keep track of what's billable and what's not (e.g., you chatted with the customer on the phone for 34 minutes).
Charging by the value you provide avoids the conversation of "Hey, you're charging $200 per hour... that's more than I make. And that's like almost $400K per year! Can we get your rate down to like, $90?"
Instead, the conversation becomes, "We want to get at least $40K of value out of talking to you, but have only budgeted $10K for this exercise. How much value can you provide us over how many weeks?"
Charging by the week allows you to not have to keep track of what's billable and what's not (e.g., you chatted with the customer on the phone for 34 minutes).
Charging by the value you provide avoids the conversation of "Hey, you're charging $200 per hour... that's more than I make. And that's like almost $400K per year! Can we get your rate down to like, $90?"
Instead, the conversation becomes, "We want to get at least $40K of value out of talking to you, but have only budgeted $10K for this exercise. How much value can you provide us over how many weeks?"
That was definitely an interesting writeup!