.... and 40 years' experience.
The story goes, Pablo Picasso was dining at a restaurant and doodled on a napkin. Another patron walked up and said "I'll give you $50 for that." Picasso says, "The price is $4,000, ma'am." "But it only took you 5 minutes!" "Yes," he replies. "5 minutes and 40 years of experience."
It doesn't matter if this is a true story or not. It perfectly aligns with what I have told many of my favorite (and incredibly proficient) subcontracting abstractors. Don't undersell your work, especially on these horrendous commercial searches. It may take you only 4 hours. You may have work on it already that you did years ago. That doesn't matter. You throw some inexperienced and/or lazy person in there, it could take them weeks -- and STILL not be complete and thorough. You should be paid for your experience, not your time.
And blowing my own horn, a good vendor manager will charge correctly AND pay correctly. There is nothing ethical about charging a client $1,000 for a search and paying the abstractor $250. Just my 2 cents. Vendor Managers need to be fair and balanced with BOTH sides of the fence. Integrity pays off in the end.
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